SPANGLISH SH!T
Brujita, the new Puerto Rican student at Suburban High, cooks enchanting meals with her magical Spanish. In the cafeteria, classmates make fun of her “smelly” packed lunches while gobbling down hot lunch hamburgers. When the burger flipping Lunch Lady offers Brujita a recipe for instant assimilation, Brujita must decide if brewing up popularity is worth losing what boils over.
The Writers
SAMORA LA PERDIDA is a Princess Grace Award winner, YoungArts Fellow, and the inaugural recipient of Baryshnikov Arts Center’s Artist Labs residency. Her TEDxTalk, Do Latines Need to Speak Spanish?, features music from her musical, Spanglish Sh!t, which can also be heard on Playbill’s Songwriter Series. Spanglish Sh!t has been developed with support from Berkeley Rep, NYSCA, The Watermill Center, BAC, and is produced by En Garde Arts. In September 2026, Spanglish Sh!t will be performed at Joe’s Pub and The David Rockefeller Creative Arts Center at Pocantico. Samora has starred in Quiara Alegría Hudes’ My Broken Language, Tina Landau’s A Transparent Musical, David Mendizábal’s Notes on Killing, and Tina Romero’s Queens of the Dead.
JOSIAH HANDELMAN is a composer, music producer, pianist, and recording artist from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A recent graduate of Carnegie Mellon University with a BFA in music composition, Josiah frequently showcases his diverse musical background, incorporating various percussive elements as well as his roots in jazz, r&b, neo-soul, and gospel music. He was most recently one of the co-composers and arrangers for the Urban Impact Foundation production of Samson: The Wrestling Musical. Josiah frequently collaborates as a music producer and songwriter with many Hip-Hop and R&B artists, including executive producing Kid Wolf’s latest full-length orchestral hip-hop album “Magic Trick Rap Show”. He has also independently released three full-length music projects under his artist name “J Baby Smooth”, including his third album “Juice” in 2023.
MOBÉY LOLA IRIZARRY (they/them) is a Two Spirit cultural worker in Salsa, Afro-Puerto Rican Bomba, poetry, and transdisciplinary performance. Based in Brooklyn, they hail from the Puerto Rican diaspora in Hartford, CT, and are a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation. They make within the lineages of decolonial uprisings, collections of tiny mirrors at queer clubs, and the precolonial languages of the drum and the braid. They are a Letras Boricuas ‘26 fellow. Lola is the creative director and conguere for Las Mariquitas, Salsa’s young queer future. Lola is quoted in Rolling Stone saying “I want to abolish patriarchy in Salsa… this is a duty to our lineage.”
MATTHEW ZWIEBEL is a Brooklyn-based composer, music director, and pianist. He is a graduate of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theater Writing workshop and is an alumnus of Carnegie Mellon’s music composition program (BFA). Matt can be found working with Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS on their annual Red Bucket Follies and Broadway Backwards productions; and at various regional theaters throughout the country. Recently, he was AMD for Ogunquit Playhouse’s White Christmas and the music assistant for the West End revival of Avenue Q!
