Playwright Pedro Flores on Creating ‘JUAN JOSE AND THE DEATHLY VATOS’
BY PEDRO FLORES
Pedro Flores has created roles in AFTERSHOCK, the Free Elementary School Tour of ALLI AND #3, and FULL COLOR at Plan-B Theatre. He last appeared at Great Salt Lake Fringe Festival in WITH YOU, which won Outstanding Ensemble in 2022. As a playwright, JUAN JOSE AND THE DEATHLY VATOS is his first produced play.
I originally came up with the idea for JUAN JOSE AND THE DEATHLY VATOS after I had just BOMBED an audition for a comedy show. I was venting about the experience to one of my best friends and realized I had a different monologue that would have worked better and could not believe I forgot to use it. It was a very funny monologue from Rick Najera's Latinologues called "East L.A. Baywatch" in which a chola plays a lifeguard at the community pool.
It was a combination of ideas that motivated me to say, "You know what? Fuck it! I'll write my own monologue and it'll be the funniest shit anyone has ever heard."
I began toying with an old idea/critique of J.K. Rowling's world of wizards. You see, I'm not a huge Harry Potter fan and one of the first things that I found hilariously ridiculous about this fantasy world was a particular Asian witch by the name of Cho Chang.
When I first saw the movies (I never read the books) as an adult, I believe I had to pause and ask, "Is her name really Cho Chang?" to which my girlfriend at the time answered, "Yes." To which I replied, "So the only Asian witch's name is Cho Chang??? I bet if J.K. Rowling wrote a Mexican wizard his name would have been Juan Jose!"
So I began to write myself a monologue based on these ideas. I only intended it to be a page long. Two pages max. But one turned into two and two into four and suddenly I found myself writing an entire play about a 'what-if" world of Harry Potter from the perspective of a Latino.
Juan Jose is an amalgamation of myself as a kid, my critiques of Harry Potter as an adult, and boosting my culture and background, combining them to create a ridiculous (yet hilarious) narrative.
This blog post also appears in the July 2025 issue of QSaltLake.
TICKET INFO
JUAN JOSE AND THE DEATHLY VATOS - written, directed, and performed by Pedro Flores, receives its world premiere July 24-August 3, 2025 as part of the Great Salt Lake Fringe Festival. Please click here for details and tickets.
Ya'll, this show is definitely FFF (Full-Fledged Fringe).