Roberta Colindrez is a

Mexican-American Mexican Americans ( es, mexicano-estadounidenses, , or ) are Americans of full or partial Mexican heritage. In 2019, Mexican Americans comprised 11.3% of the US population and 61.5% of all Hispanic and Latino Americans. In 2019, 71% of Mexic ...

actor and writer known for originating the role of Joan in the musical ''

Fun Home ''Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic'' is a 2006 graphic memoir by the American cartoonist Alison Bechdel, author of the comic strip '' Dykes to Watch Out For''. It chronicles the author's childhood and youth in rural Pennsylvania, United States, ...

.'' Colindrez is also known for roles in the TV shows ''

I Love Dick ''I Love Dick'' is a novel by American artist and author Chris Kraus. Published by Semiotext(e) in 1997, ''I Love Dick'' merges fiction and memoir formats to explore the writer's psycho-sexual obsession with the eponymous "Dick", a media theori ...

,'' '' Vida, and'' Amazon Prime's ''

A League of Their Own ''A League of Their Own'' is a 1992 American sports comedy-drama film directed by Penny Marshall that tells a fictionalized account of the real-life All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL). The film stars Tom Hanks, Geena Da ...

''.

Early life

Born in

Mexico Mexico ( Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guate ...

with

Argentinian Argentines (mistakenly translated Argentineans in the past; in Spanish ( masculine) or ( feminine)) are people identified with the country of Argentina. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Argentines, ...

and Honduran heritage, Colindrez grew up in

Houston Houston (; ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in Texas, the Southern United States#Major cities, most populous city in the Southern United States, the List of United States cities by population, fourth-most pop ...

and Austin in

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

. She first realized she wanted to become an actor at age 12, when she and her brother took a theater class together. She moved to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

when starting out as a professional actor.

Career

Colindrez made her

off-Broadway An off-Broadway theatre is any professional theatre venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, inclusive. These theatres are smaller than Broadway theatres, but larger than off-off-Broadway theatres, which seat fewer th ...

debut in 2006, starring in ''

Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind ''Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind: 30 Plays in 60 Minutes'' (Too Much Light or TML) was the longest running show in the history of theater in Chicago and was the only open-run Off-Off-Broadway show in New York. The show was originally perfor ...

''. She appeared in several short films and regional theatre productions after that, and in 2011 she wrote and starred in the film ''Otis Under Sky''. In 2013, she began playing Joan, a "confident young lesbian", in the musical ''

'' off-Broadway. The show closed in early 2014, and after a cameo in the

Academy Award The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment in ...

-winning film '' Birdman'', ''Fun Home'' opened on Broadway in 2015, where it won 5

Tony Awards The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Broadway Theatre, more commonly known as the Tony Award, recognizes excellence in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ce ...

and was nominated for 7 more. Colindrez has also made guest appearances on several television series and her performance on ''

'' as a butch artist was described as a " breakout" in an interview with '' Vanity Fair'';

showrunner A showrunner (or colloquially a helmer) is the top-level executive producer of a television series production who has creative and management authority through combining the responsibilities of employer and, in comedy or dramas, typically also the ...

Joey Soloway Joey Soloway (previously Jill Soloway; born September 26, 1965) is an American television creator, showrunner, director and writer. Soloway is known for creating, writing, executive producing and directing the Amazon original series '' Transparent ...

described Colindrez's performance as "masterful", portraying "a queer cowboy masculinity". In 2019, Colindrez joined the cast of Latino TV drama '' Vida'' as a

series regular In fiction, a character (or speaker, in poetry) is a person or other being in a narrative (such as a novel, play, radio or television series, music, film, or video game). The character may be entirely fictional or based on a real-life person, ...

from the second season. She also does

voice acting Voice acting is the art of performing voice-overs to present a character or provide information to an audience. Performers are called voice actors/actresses, voice artists, dubbing artists, voice talent, voice-over artists, or voice-over talen ...

work, most notably in the podcast ''

Alice Isn't Dead ''Alice Isn't Dead'' is a podcast presented as a series of audio diaries by a truck driver in her search across America for the wife she had long assumed was dead (the eponymous Alice). In the course of her search, she encounters not-quite-huma ...

''. In 2020, Colindrez joined the cast of

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon (company), an American multinational technolog ...

's comedy pilot ''

.'' Colindrez also writes for the stage, preferring "dark, heavy, comedic nuance".

Personal life

Colindrez identifies as queer and

butch Butch may refer to: People * Butch (nickname), a list of people * Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch, an Old West outlaw gang *Barbara Butch, French lesbian DJ and activist * Butch Miller (wrestler) (born 1944), ring name of New Zealand professional wr ...

and nearly passed on '' Vida'' because she was worried about being

typecast In film, television, and theatre, typecasting is the process by which a particular actor becomes strongly identified with a specific character, one or more particular roles, or characters having the same traits or coming from the same social or ...

. Prior to ''Vida'', she had faced difficulty establishing her acting career because of her

sexuality Human sexuality is the way people experience and express themselves sexually. This involves biological, psychological, physical, erotic, emotional, social, or spiritual feelings and behaviors. Because it is a broad term, which has varied wi ...

and

gender nonconformity Gender variance or gender nonconformity is behavior or gender expression by an individual that does not match masculine or feminine gender norms. A gender-nonconforming person may be variant in their gender identity, being transgender or non-b ...

and has spoken about Hollywood being "a place where people who are queer will only be seen as queers". She accepted the role after

Tanya Saracho Tanya Selene Saracho is a Mexican-American actress, playwright, dramaturge and screenwriter. With a background in theater before writing for television, she co-founded in 2000 and was its co-artistic director for ten years. She also co-founded ...

persuaded her that the character would not be a stereotype. Colindrez became close friends with

Bobbi Salvör Menuez Bobbi Salvör Menuez (born 1993) is an American actor and model & founder of the Luck You artist collective in New York City. Menuez appeared in such films as '' Something in the Air'', '' The Breakup Girl'' and ''White Girl White Girl may refer ...

on the set of ''I Love Dick'', which she found helpful when filming a

sex scene Sex in film, the presentation of aspects of sexuality in film, specially human sexuality, has been controversial since the development of the medium. Films which display or suggest sexual behavior have been criticized by religious groups or ha ...

with Menuez. Menuez gave Colindrez a

stick and poke tattoo A tattoo is a form of body modification made by inserting tattoo ink, dyes, and/or pigments, either indelible or temporary, into the dermis layer of the skin to form a design. Tattoo artists create these designs using several tattooing ...

as a memento of their friendship.

Credits

Film

Television

Theatre

* ''Water'', NPR Playhouse * '' The Complete and Condensed Stage Directions of Eugene O'Neill: Vol. 2'' * ''

'', off-Broadway, 2006 * ''Song for the Disappeared'', Sundance Theatre Lab * ''

'', Joan, off-Broadway, Sep. 30, 2013 – Jan. 12, 2014 * ''Mala Hierba'', Maritza,

Second Stage Theatre Second Stage Theater is a theater company founded in 1979 by Robyn Goodman and Carole Rothman and located in Manhattan, New York City. It produces both new plays and revivals of contemporary American plays by new playwrights and established wri ...

, 2014 * ''

'', Joan, Broadway, Apr. 19, 2015 – September, 2016 * ''

Hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depi ...

'', Rosencrantz, off-Broadway, 2017

Podcasts

* ''

'', 6 episodes, 2016–2017 * ''It Makes a Sound'', Pam Orland, 1 episode, 2018

References

External links

* * *
archive
{{DEFAULTSORT:Colindrez, Roberta Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Place of birth missing (living people) American stage actresses American musical theatre actresses American television actresses American people of Argentine descent American people of Honduran descent Mexican stage actresses Mexican musical theatre actresses Mexican television actresses Mexican people of Argentine descent Mexican people of Honduran descent 21st-century American actresses 21st-century American dramatists and playwrights 21st-century American women writers 21st-century Mexican actresses 21st-century Mexican women writers Queer women Queer actresses LGBT actors from Mexico LGBT writers from Mexico American LGBT writers LGBT Hispanic and Latino American people Hispanic and Latino American actresses Hispanic and Latino American dramatists and playwrights