Don’t be fooled by the name. The new web series “Albuqueerque” is full of North Texas talent.
Each episode of the bite-sized live-action comedy clocks in at under two minutes.
The series was written, directed and produced by Hector Cantú. He’s a former board member of Cara Mia Theatre in Dallas and the co-creator of “Baldo,” one of the few nationally syndicated comics about a Latino family.
The idea for the web series came when Cantú and his wife were vacationing with Dallas author and playwright Mark Berry and his husband. The couples would talk over dinner and wine after daytime excursions around San Miguel de Allende.
“What if we did a show about a gay man who moves in with his Latino macho dad? And we laughed about it and the scenarios started spilling out so fast,” Hector Cantú said. “And then we kind of went on and said, 'OK, well, what do we do now?'”
Cantú previously worked with Univision on a TV show based on “Baldo,” and in the era of streaming and online series, he decided he could produce the show himself.
“The way I see it is a tiny little sitcom. You have two or three or four or five lines, and that's it. You move on to the next scene. And it struck me that the comic strip and the web series, especially a mini comedy, would operate in the same way. So when I started writing, that's how I approached it … like a TV show crossed with a comic strip,” Cantú said.
He enlisted the Emmy-nominated founding member of Austin’s Latino Comedy Project, Adrian Villegas, to play the working-class dad Joe Acosta, and Peter DiCesare to play his son Blake. Dallas audiences might recognize Cesare from his work with the Uptown Players.
Villegas and Kit Lively, cartoonist and managing editor of Weekly Humorist, contributed writing.
Other cast members include Stephen Brodie, an actor, writer and director known for his work on “Fear the Walking Dead,” and “Reservation Dogs;” Robin Liesenfelt, who has worked with Pegasus Theatre, Richardson Theatre Centre and the Dallas 48 Hour Film Project; Kristi Ramos Toler, who audiences might recognize from productions at Hip Pocket Theatre and Artes de la Rosa; and Maya Longoria, making her web series debut.
The first three episodes of the web series will be screened Saturday at Texas Latino Comic Con followed by a Q&A session with some of the cast. The series will launch on YouTube in mid-September.
Details: Screening and Q&A session take place at noon on Saturday, Aug. 1 at Texas Latino Comic Con at the Latino Cultural Center, 2600 Live Oak St., Dallas. Free.
Got a tip? Email Marcheta Fornoff at mfornoff@kera.org.
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