In an intimate theatre a few blocks from Times Square, 2009 Hillcrest High graduate Ash Patlan stepped onto stage in the world premiere of “Mi Abuela, Queen of Nightmares.”

After the Sept. 8 opening night, Patlan reflected upon the importance of her own heritage and the significance that the show was coinciding with National Hispanic Heritage Month.

“This was really important for me,” she said. “It was the first time in my whole life where I was cast in a show of my own ethnicity. The gravity of it sat with me. It was very poignant and special to me.”

Written by Salvadoran-American playwright Christine Stoddard, “Mi Abuela, Queen of Nightmares” is directed by Mexican director Fiamma Piacentini. It is playing at The Tank theatre in New York City.

Patlan portrayed the roles of Salvadoran Ancestor, Jaguar, Owl, and Cactus in the story where a young Salvadoran-American woman navigates trauma and family mythology through magic and folklore as she comes of age in Phoenix. The play explores mother-daughter relationships, mixed race identity, being the child of an immigrant, growing up without a father, and using fantasy as a coping mechanism.

“It’s a story about a young girl who is trying to find out more about the story of her grandmother, like who this woman was and why is this woman so important in my life? Why is her mom so hung up on the memory of this woman?” Patlan said. “It’s a coming-of-age tale for this young girl who is really trying to find out why things have turned out in her life and why she has the relationship that she does with her mother. It’s very much trying to find where you belong and why things happen in our lives.”

Using the “mysticism of cactuses, jaguars and owls to tell the stories of her abuela,” Patlan helped “bring out these stories of her childhood, the stories her mother would tell her about her grandmother.”

Much of the Patlan’s part is communicated through actions.

“Most of my part is movement-based and it’s just so beautiful. This play has not only a way of telling a beautiful story through spoken word, but also through movement that are bringing this to life for her,” she said.

Patlan also plays an ancestor.

“There’s a lot of cleansing that happens, so we can tell this story and rid it of bad spirits. We’re tying it back to that Salvadorian essence of tying the whole story to that culture and that’s the beauty of it,” she said.

Patlan was born in California to Mexican immigrants and in ways, can relate to the character, Maya.

“I come from two different cultures. I was born in this culture, but my parents are from that culture so it’s trying to find your own place. Where do I fit in? This was the first time where I got to be part of what I actually am. It’s very beautiful,” she said.

It’s also a long time coming since she attended Union Middle and Hillcrest High.

“I got into theater by accident. At Hillcrest, I enrolled in a jewelry class, but I didn’t want to pay the class fee. So, I thought, ‘I’ll just do something easier. I’ll do theater instead,’” she said. “Part of our first assignment that Josh (Long, Hillcrest theatre director) gave us was to see the school musical and write a report on it. I had never seen a musical before that day. It was ‘West Side Story,’ and it was just so beautiful. I was taken aback. I wondered, ‘How can these people on this stage make me feel like I’m part of their story and their world’ when I was just there watching it. I was fascinated by that feeling and how theater can impact people that deeply. I wanted to be part of that.”

That’s when Patlan’s love for theater began, but her journey wasn’t easy. She had auditioned to be part of the school’s production company for her junior year, but she was cut.

“I was completely distraught when I did not make it. I let myself cry for one day and the next day, it was, ‘No more crying. I’m going to get to work.’ Every day I set aside 30 minutes to practice my song, I did my monologues and I did everything that I could. At the audition, I laid it on the line and I made the productions company—just to find out a couple weeks later, just before my 17th birthday—that I was sick,” she said.

Patlan’s diagnosis of leukemia was the summer before her senior year.

“The first thing that came to mind was, ‘Oh no, they’re going to kick me out of productions company. I’m not going to be able to make rehearsals.’ But that wasn’t the case. Productions company became a lifeline for me. It gave me something to work toward. It kept me going. I thought it was more important to focus on creating something than how I was feeling in that moment,” she said.

Her treatments were “aggressive. I did three years of chemo to eradicate it. It can hide in your bone marrow; it can hide in your spinal fluid. I’d have to take off a week for school to be checked in the hospital to have chemo through IV. I wasn’t allowed to leave until the chemo left my system.”

It was during one of those hospital stays when Patlan got a call back for a part in a Shakespeare play.

“I got an email saying the call back was for the next day and I was supposed to be there for three or four days. So, I called in the doctor and asked, ‘Is it possible that I could somehow get it out of my system tonight?’ He looks at me in the eye and says, ‘That’s impossible.’ And I’m thinking, ‘Want to bet?’” she said. “That night, my poor mom, she was working a double shift and was dead tired so she could barely walk, comes in my room. I told her that I have call backs the next day and I just downed a whole gallon of water, so we have to walk to get the chemo out of my system. So, with my IV stand, we waddled through the hospital hallways trying to get it out of my system.”

Patlan left the hospital the next morning to make the call back and was cast in the show. 

“I loved theater so much. It’s a beautiful art form that connects our human experiences, which everybody can relate to in some way. I had it in my heart that I wanted to be part of this—and nothing, not even my own body, was going to stop me,” she said.

Patlan also was cast in the “Seussical, the Musical.”

“I fully took advantage that I had a wig because I was losing my hair. I did fun Cindy Loo-style hairstyles with my wig,” she said.

Patlan went on to apprentice for both Pioneer Theatre Company and Actors Theatre. She is a graduate from the University of Utah’s Actor Training Program, and she also earned a second Bachelor’s degree in psychology. She was part of the regional premiere of PMT’s “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime.”

She also apprenticed with the Actors Theatre in Louisville and performed in “The Wilting,” “Halfway,” “Fifth-Third Bank’s A Christmas Carol,” “And We’re Live,” and “Mayflower.” 

“That year was definitely a struggling year. It got to the point where at times, I had to choose between shampoo and food,” Patlan said. “Now, I’m thankful for those experiences because you see what kind of person you are and what you can handle in your life. I could see the importance of my work and the beauty of it. I really don’t think you can see it in any other way other than when you’re at your most humble.”

That gave her the opportunity to write her own shows and be part of the Humana Festival of New American Plays. She was part of “We’ve Come to Believe” in the 43rd festival.

Patlan moved to New York City right before the COVID pandemic hit.

“It’s been a while since I’ve done a show because of the pandemic, but when I saw this show’s advertisement on playbill.com, I decided to go for it. It was my first in-person audition in three years. I went to the audition and was told, ‘I want you to be a cactus,’ I just held myself very firmly and started moving like molasses. I’m extremely lucky to have landed the first audition back into the swing of things,” she said about her first show in the Big Apple. “I had some jitters opening night, but they melted away once I stepped on stage. I felt the gravity of being a Latina in this play and realizing this dream I’ve had since I was a sick 16 year old, getting to do what I love, performing on stage in New York.” λ