Poster by Jamiyla Lowe for the 2025 Mami Tour
Mami
Mami is a solo performance that challenges the conventions of what we assume about essential and migrant workers. It’s about the people who clean our bathrooms, who maintain public hygiene, whose acts of service gives us the freedom to go about our lives, day in and day out.
Drawing inspiration from Victoria Santa Cruz’s spoken word poem, Me gritaron negra, this semi-autobiographical theatrical experience delves into the intergenerational curses between mothers and daughters. Performed primarily in English, this intimate piece explores lineage, healing, and the lived experience of a Black female identity.
Development History
The first draft of Mami was written under Factory Theatre’s 2017/2018 training enhancement program, The Foundry led by Nina Lee Aquino. The workshop reading was directed by Himanshu Sitlani and performed by Ngabo Nabea, April Leung and athena kaitlin trihn.
While attending the National Theatre School of Canada, from 2018 to 2021, discoveries were made during a solo performance class directed by Rose Plotek with dramaturgical support from Ann-Marie MacDonald.
Further advancements were unearthed while participating in a micro-residency with Buddies in Bad Times Theatre’s 2024 Emerging Creators Unit, conducted by Stephen Jackman-Torkoff.
Moreover, developments persisted through the 2024/2025 IATI Theater’s international Play Development Program, Cimientos hosted by Guillermo Severiche.
Production History
Mami was first produced for the 2024 Rhubarb Festival, as a work-in-progress, at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre on February 8th with the following cast and crew:
Playwright/Performer - isi bhakhomen
Director - desirée livingstone
Dramaturg - Kalale Dalton-Lutale
Sound Designer - Alejandra Nuñez
Assistant Sound Designer - Mathew Robert-Nuñez
Festival Lighting Designer - Steph Raposo
Cultural Consultant - Maritza Uculmana-Falcón
Another, one-night only, work-in-progress, presentation was performed as part of the 2024 Emerging Creators Unit showcase at the Buddies in Bad Times Theatre’s Queer Pride Festival on June 4th with the following cast and creative team:
Playwright/Performer - isi bhakhomen
Director - desirée livingstone
Dramaturg - Kalale Dalton-Lutale
Sound Designer - Alejandra Nuñez
Assistant Sound Designer - Mathew Robert-Nuñez
Choreographer - Jocelyn Bermudez
Festival Lighting Designer - Darren Shaen
Mentor - Stephen Jackman-Torkoff
Outside Eyes - Sebastian Urmom & Heddy Graterol
Cultural Consultant - Maritza Uculmana-Falcón
A full staged reading of the play, directed by Sandie Luna, was performed on June 22, 2025 at IATI Theater’s Cimientos Festival in New York City.
Playwright - isi bhakhomen
Director - Sandie Luna
Performers - Yohanna Florentino (Janitor), Angela Reynoso (Stage Directions/Voices), Erica “Kika” Parra (Cajón Player)
In the fall of 2025, Mami will go on a mini, two-stop tour. The performances will begin at Aluna Theatre’s Caminos Festival on October 2nd, inside Factory Theatre’s Mainstage. Then, the second performance will be on November 9th, at the STAND (Strength Through Art Network Diversity) Festival in North Vancouver inside the Presentation House Theatre.
The cast and creative team:
Playwright/Performer/Producer - isi bhakhomen
Director - desirée livingstone
Stage Manager (Toronto) - Jessica Zepeda
Stage Manager (Vancouver) - Shila Amin
Dramaturg - Kalale Dalton-Lutale
Sound Designer - Alejandra Nuñez
Choreographer - Jocelyn Bermudez
Lighting Designer - Darren Shaen
Projection Designer - Samay Arcentales Cajas
Cultural Consultant - Maritza Uculmana-Falcón
Poster Designer - Jamiyla Lowe
Support & Recognition
The Elliott Hayes Playwright Development Fund, Stratford Festival, 2022
Recommender Grants from Aluna Theatre and Factory Theatre, OAC
3rd Place, New Play Contest, Toronto Fringe, 2025
Theatre Projects Grant, OAC, 2025
Portrait of my mother painted by Sloan Oliver-Mitchell
Poster for Cimientos Festival Reading
Creative team for the Cimientos Reading in NYC
Photos by Henry Chan, Rhubarb Festival, 2024
Photos by Henry Chan, Queer Pride Festival, 2025
Photography by Teo Do Rio Oliveira, taken at CAMINOS 2025
Testimonials
“Mami holds space for the complexity, tenderness, and generational weight that exist between mothers and children, without asking us to simplify or sanitize them. It offers an intimate, unfiltered perspective that is rarely seen, while placing the Afro-Latine, immigrant experience at its center.
The specificity of isi bhakhomen’s writing is what makes Mami so resonant. Fiercely personal and undeniably political, it lets us see, hear, and feel lives that theater too often leaves at the margins. Rooted in place, culture, and lived memory, the piece stays with you long after you’ve experienced it.” — Sandie Luna
“isi bhakhomen is a fiercely blossoming independent artist whose mami moves beyond self-reflection into deep artistic wading. i am impressed that they’re beginning to make such an imprint on the scene with this moving story and (almost surprisingly) riveting performance. isi’s work is theatre of the now and for the future. hit me now, hit me again, and again….” — ahdri zhina mandiela
“Stunning, urgent, and deeply moving!” — Dr. Signy Lynch
“I first saw the beginnings of Mami some years back and immediately I knew that Isi was an artist to watch. Their presence, poetic text and raw energy on stage takes you into a world that is often in the shadows. In the afterhours while we sleep, others clean those places that we will return to after the day breaks. Isi’s work introduced me to Victoria Santa Cruz and the power of a community of Afro artivists in the Americas.” — Beatriz Pizano
“isi bhakhomen is a force to be reckoned with both as a performer and as a writer. Her one-person show Mami is a tender, funny, heart-stirring love letter to mothers and children, their love, resilience and resourcefulness.” — Paula Wing