A 2023 YBCA 100 Honoree, Ely Sonny Orquiza (he | him) is renowned for his unwavering belief in the remarkable power of equity and representation in storytelling to bridge the divide and differences amongst us. As a multidisciplinary Queer Filipino artistic director, stage director, dramaturg, and arts educator and advocate based in the unceded territory of the Ramaytush Ohlone People, colonially known as San Francisco Bay Area, Orquiza utilizes theater and the performing arts to deeply explore the role of the Asian diaspora, Asian American experience, ancestral ghosts, and the complex politics of Queer/ness for the American stage. He passionately champions new works by Black, Indigenous, and Artists of Color, delves into previously untold folklore, and ardently advocates for undiscovered works that prominently feature the narratives of People from the Global Majority.
Orquiza is one of the three co-Founders and co-Artistic Directors of The Chikahan Company. He is the Director of Education and Community at Magic Theatre, where he has reinvigorated and redesigned the entire program with an eye towards centering historically marginalized communities in the Bay Area. He is a faculty member at the American Conservatory Theater’s Young Conservatory and Education & Community Programs and a teaching artist with StageBridge: A Senior Theatre Company among others. He served as an Artist-in-Residence at the Ruth Asawa School of The Arts through the San Francisco Unified School District teaching voice and character, movement, and acting in 2022-2023. He brings a combination of socially engaging arts education practice, commitment to diversity and representation, and limitless as well as bold imagination for the theatre on and off stage.
As a teaching artist he has facilitated the creation of new and developing works: Urban Elements: Stories from the Tenderloin (2018) and VYDC Family: Our Hopes, Our Dreams, Past and Future (2019), Faces of the Tenderloin (2020) and Still Here (2023). Urban Elements is a collection of monologues written by formerly incarcerated people now living in SRO units in the Tenderloin and VYDC Family is a series of stories about home, displacement, identity and belonging devised by Vietnamese and Yemeni youth refugees. Faces of the Tenderloin is a community-based performance rooted in the heart of the Tenderloin neighborhood which premiered for Magic Theatre in partnership with Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation. His most recent work Still Here tells the story of how San Francisco, in the face of adversity and unprecedented devastation, a generation found the fortitude to not only survive but to thrive in spite of overwhelming odds featuring the first-generation survivors of HIV/AIDS.
In the summer of 2019, Orquiza was in partnership with Dutch theatre company Studio 52nd of Amsterdam, Netherlands devising theatre with local youth immigrant and refugee artists investigating institutional trauma, identity and belonging, and border politics in a production called ‘Otherwise’. At the same time — and in continuation of his residency with Magic Theater — he facilitated the development of new works with the South East Asian Development Center (previously called the Vietnamese Youth Development Center) shaping a response to tech dystopia and gentrification in the Tenderloin using the tools of theatre.
While an undergraduate at the University of California Berkeley, Orquiza founded the Projector Room Ensemble (“PRE” or previously conceived as The Projector Room Play Readings Ensemble, hiatus). PRE is an experimental theatre initiative committed to the exposure of new and diverse voices onstage, all formative in his artistic and creative praxis. The company produced an in-house staged reading of Trade by Mark O’Halloran, which had its U.S. American Premiere in the Spring of 2019 produced by the longest-running queer theatre in the world, Theatre Rhinoceros. His commitment to further nurturing the next generation of theatre makers led him to collaborate with the undergraduate group, ARC Repertory Theatre, at his alma mater to establish its first global podcast initiative as an alternative to their preemptively cancelled show due to the COVID-19 pandemic called the United States of Asia.
His world premier directing project of ‘DRIVEN’ by Boni B. Alvarez with Theatre Rhinoceros was acclaimed by The Daily Californian as “a testament to the powerful sincerity of queer and diverse theater, and one can only hope that the rest of the Bay Area theater scene can rise to that level.” He uses a combination of sociopolitical virtues and identity conscious casting in his artistic visions, radical movement and choreography, and provocation. He believes in the power of theatre to start a revolution.
Some of his directing credits include a world premier of Bummer and Lazarus: A Dog Musical by Rob Broadhurst at FOGG Playhouse creatively produced by Roman Coppola, “Just As It Is Today” by Tom Bruett for Best of PlayGround 23, The Penis Play by Robynne M. Graffam for the Academy of Arts School of Acting, Bound 4 Heaven by Drew Stephens and Emmanuel Romero in the production of Queer As F*ck for the National Queer Arts Festival at Bindlestiff Studio, and a musical parody Predator Block Tango by Lauren MacKenzie and Stacie Sells (runner-up in ShortLived Finals 2018), among others.
When away from all the theatrics of the stage, Ely can be found learning — and whining about —new boardgames at board game cafés, lounging at home or cooking up in the kitchen trying to recreate the authentic tropical taste of his homeland by memory. He spends a good chunk of his time visiting local museums and art galleries, reading, traveling, developing himself and dreaming.
Orquiza has been in various work at the Academy of Art University School of Acting, African-American Shakespeare Company, American Conservatory Theater, ARC Repertory Theatre, Bindlestiff Studio, Cal Performances, California Shakespeare Theater, Campo Santo, Crowded Fire Theatre, Custom Made Theatre Co., East West Players (Los Angeles), FOGG Theatre, Gritty City Repertory Company, The Kennedy Center (Washington, D.C.), Leviathan Lab (New York, NY), Magic Theatre, New Conservatory Theatre Center, PianoFight, PlayGround, Playwright’s Foundation, Playwright’s Center of San Francisco, San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Company, San Francisco Shakespeare Festival, San Francisco Opera, Studio 52nd (Amsterdam, NL) and Theatre Rhinoceros.
He is a Company Member of PlayGround in San Francisco
He is a Board Member of Theatre Rhinoceros in San Francisco
He is an Affiliate Artist and an Immigrant Artist Mentor for the New York Foundations for the Arts
He hold a Bachelor’s Degree in Theater and Performance Studies from the University of California, Berkeley
As an undergraduate scholar, Orquiza was a recipient of the distinguished Fiat Lux Scholarship (previously known as Cal Opportunity Scholarship Award) and Research Scholar Fellowship.
Ely Sonny Orquiza is the originator of the Living Document of BIPOC Experiences in the Bay Area Theatre
Ely Sonny Orquiza was named as one of 2023 YBCA 100 Honoree, celebrating artists, activists, and leaders who are committed to building regenerative and equitable communities. These fierce innovators work steadfastly through art and activism to provoke, inspire, ground, heal, and bring us together when we need it most. Click here, to learn more.
