Ortega

In “Am I Roxie?,” a world premiere one-woman-show at the Geffen Playhouse, Roxana Ortega, a working actress and alum of the Groundlings Theatre’s Sunday Company, revisits the period in her life when she was the caregiver for her mother, whose memory was unraveling.

When Ortega’s father died of a sudden heart attack outside the post office, she was unprepared for the consequences. He had been protecting the family from her mother’s decline.

An immigrant from Peru who had relinquished her dreams of acting to raise a family, Carmen had a special bond with Ortega. When little Roxana was growing up in Fullerton, her mother would improvise operas while fixing breakfast. Together, they dreamed theatrical dreams.

Carmen has many sisters — “Picture the Housewives of Beverly Hills, but in Canoga Park” — but none were able to take her in. Ortega’s siblings, married with children, were similarly unable.

Not having kids of her own deprived Ortega of the one excuse her family would have recognized. Yet she still wanted to have kids, though not before she found the right husband and made some headway in a career marked by small triumphs, such as booking commercials and webisodes. Was she really going to put her life on hold for a few years?

Finding a painful compromise, she decides to move her mother to an assisted-living facility near her in L.A. Taking this step requires her to go to war with her “inner Latina critic,” who reminds her of the code of her blood: “We take care of our own.” She adds an expletive to the end of this pronouncement, but no emphasis is needed for a daughter who has already indicted herself for selfishness, the one unpardonable sin for a Latina.

“Am I Roxie?,” performed by Ortega with unflagging ebullience in an athletic-wear jumpsuit designed for comfort rather than style, brings to the exhausting, guilt-inducing grind of eldercare her own cultural spin. The subject is relatable, as lifespans have extended while health insurance only seems to contract. Ortega is an agreeable guide through the thicket of problems, such as choosing between senior facilities that resemble “sad Marriotts” or “sad La Quinta Inns.”

The show is more of a personal essay composed for the stage than a deeply imagined performance work. Ortega’s approach is friendly and wryly conversational. She’s bearing witness to a human dilemma our culture would prefer to keep under wraps, but Ortega might just as easily be doing an audio essay or podcast. The one character who comes vividly to life is her own.

There’s a rich tradition of performance artists bringing difficult personal stories to public light. “Am I Roxie?” seems disconnected from the work of Lisa Kron, Deb Margolin and Marga Gomez. Soloists who can populate the stage with uncurtailed ambition.

Thematically, “Am I Roxie?” is structured around the “Circle of Life” song from “The Lion King.” Ortega knows this reference is corny, but it’s also inescapably apt. The person who gave her life now needs her help as she nears the end.

Roxana Ortega in “Am I Roxie?” at Geffen Playhouse.

(Jeff Lorch)

Birth and death weigh heavy on Ortega’s mind, as she ponders her own lifespan, the diminishing window for motherhood and the confused and sometimes angry helplessness of Carmen, who comes to believe that her daughter is her sister. Eventually, Carmen will wonder if she herself is Roxie, an existential dilemma that Ortega refuses to understand as a mere symptom of Alzheimer’s disease.

She’s reluctant at the start to name her mother’s condition. How can she reduce a loved one to a medical diagnosis? Even at Carmen’s most exasperating, she could still surprise Ortega with a simple, poignant question: “How are you doing in your life, Roxie?”

Ortega begins to understand that, though her mother has been transformed, she can still connect with her if she accepts her as she is. By speaking to her mother in the nonsense language she falls into and by playing games of pretend as if they were back in her childhood home, Ortega reaches her mother, if only for fleeting moments.

The production, directed by Bernardo Cubría, seems to have adopted a medical oath of first doing no harm. A set piece is every now and again mechanically (and somewhat quizzically) moved in or out, and there are projections offering illustrations of Fullerton and Ortega’s mental health adventure scaling the peak of Mt. Kilimanjaro.

But “Am I Roxie?” doesn’t depend on scenic frills. Ortega is the show — not just her story but her rapport with the theatergoers, with whom she confides as if to old friends. She shares her fears that she might have occasionally failed her mother, but this confession is just another example of her generous humanity.

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How does one care for their aging parent without losing sight of their own identity?

The first thing Roxana Ortega will say is: “We have to not abandon ourselves.”

The L.A.-born Latina actress outlines the deeply emotional process of caring for an aging parent in her first play, “Am I Roxie?,” which premieres Sept. 11 and kicks off the Geffen Playhouse’s 2025-26 season.

The production will remain through Oct. 5 at the Gil Cates Theater and is directed by Bernardo Cubría, (“Crabs in a Bucket” and “The Play You Want”).

Ortega’s one-woman show was inspired by her mother, Carmen, whose memory is in decline due to Alzheimer’s disease. Bounded by her commitment to being the perfect Latina daughter, Ortega illustrates how she stepped up to provide caregiving duties, while trying to sustain her acting career — even if it was just a Jimmy Dean breakfast sandwich commercial.

“This show to me is about how to not abandon ourselves in a time of such great darkness,” says Ortega through a video call.

Onstage, Ortega masterfully transforms her solo act into an ensemble performance, through her many quirky accents and mannerisms alone; her characters range from her three Peruvian tías to an imaginary cholo critic and a perky, silicone-bloated nurse.

Capturing a broad emotional spectrum, from joy to grief, it is clear that Ortega — a former troupe member of the Groundlings Sunday Company — showcases a lifetime of skills on the Westwood stage.

“Everything just merged as I was trying to write about what was happening,” says Ortega. “I was also leaving sketch comedy [group] the Groundlings, so I was finding my own voice. All those things merged to birth this, a perfect combination of so many desires and dreams I’ve had.”

With over 80 acting credits to her name, the multi-hyphenate artist is best known for voicing the melodramatic Frida Casagrande from Nickelodeon’s Emmy-winning show “The Casagrandes,” an animated sitcom about a family living in the fictional Great Lakes City. Other notable credits include Netflix’s “Grand-Daddy Day Care” and “Santa Clarita Diet,” Warner Bros.‘ “Miss Congeniality 2” as well as the popular Fox series “New Girl.”

Audiences should buckle up — preferably with tissues at the ready — for a roller coaster of emotions, as they witness Ortega relinquish control over an unchangeable fate, while holding compassion for her mother and herself in “Am I Roxie?”

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Your one-woman show, “Am I Roxie?,” explores your personal journey as a caretaker for your aging parent, but it also focuses on your artistic aspirations. Can you walk me through your decision to make this the subject of your next project?

I’ve always wanted to turn my personal material into art; most artists do feel that way. I had been doing it for quite a while in sketch comedy, [by] taking characters like my tías, who I find to be so hysterical, and trying to put them into things. So I knew somewhere in the back of my brain — or in the middle — that I wanted to do a show about my family. I watched Ruben Santiago-Hudson’s “Lackawanna Blues,” so I always wanted to do that.

This play approaches heavy topics with humor. How did you strike that balance?

I think that’s just the way my brain works. I think a lot of comedians are this way; we’re always looking for laughs and maybe that’s how we survive ’cause we are very sensitive people — I’m very sensitive and very intense, so laughter is that levity.

Through the development process, we did have some discussions about certain moments. Do we want people to laugh when I’m in the chaise longue texting, “Is [my mom] still alive?” We had more “Shark Tank” sounds running through that and then changed it.

Caregiving is obviously a huge endeavor for Latinos — Latina women, more specifically. How do you make sense of the idea of care now?

I [think of] abandonment. There’s something so primal when somebody is aging and you can tell, “This person was in charge of me; they’re so vulnerable; now they need me. Oh my god, I can’t abandon them, right?” You feel like, “I don’t want to be abandoned, so I don’t want to abandon them.” It really shocked me how strong that urge was and I think we also have to not abandon ourselves. We absolutely cannot.

If you go into the caregiving world, they talk about care like: “Here’s your pills, here’s the food and we have some music coming in.” Maybe if you’re lucky, there’s bingo — but my mom wouldn’t play bingo! Are you f— kidding me? Care should be individualized. It should address the spirit.

Guilt creeps up in this play disguised as your inner Latina critic every time you do something that feels selfish in light of your mom’s situation. What relationship do you have with your inner critic now?

I definitely feel like I’ve gone through a journey from fear to love with the task of caregiving and even in relation to myself; I learned to love myself more, which is part of caring for yourself.

In this process of putting [my story] out there, of just being so gentle with myself and saying, “No matter what happens, no matter how it’s received, I’m not going to put my identity on the line.” There will be no beating myself up. There will be no, “Now you’re terrible because this, this, this …” It’s always a practice. Life is too short for us to feel bad.

There’s no benefit to suffering, and most of our suffering we do to ourselves through that critic by giving it power. And in our culture, sometimes it’s glorified.

You’re an overachiever, a Berkeley grad and former Groundlings member. But in “Am I Roxie?,” you balance the urgency of achieving your goals with the grief of losing a parent who is still alive. How did it feel to not give up on your dreams?

I felt like a terrible daughter. It’s hard. There’s a point in the show when I leave my mom and she says, “Don’t leave me here,” and I leave her and go to an audition. That’s a hard moment and I can tell that the audience is like, “How could you do that?” It feels vulnerable to show that I did that. But then, how does a mother leave their child at kindergarten? How can you find the balance where you are nurturing yourself and nurturing somebody else?

It was hard. I would beat myself up a lot and cry about feeling so terrible. And then go the next day to absolve myself. The more [my mom] found other relationships with a caregiver, the more I felt like, “Okay, she’s safe.”

Motherhood is also at the core of your story — not just with your mother, but as you explore your own fertility journey. How did your concept of motherhood change after caring for your mother?

What I didn’t explicitly say in the play is that I am a mother. I mothered my mother. Now, not everyone who is a mother by having a baby is necessarily a “mothering mother.” Something that this disease taught me is what these words really mean. What is it to be a sister? What is it to be a mother? What I learned in caring for my mom is that I am a mother, because I was able to nurture on such a deep level. Even when all the signs showed that she’s not there anymore. A mother knows her baby. She was my baby at the end.

After our fertility journey, 10 years of trying, me birthing this piece of art was me mothering my creativity into existence.

 You don’t mention Alzheimer’s by name until that very end. Why?

Part of it was accepting the journey and being able to say the diagnosis. Sometimes there’s an avoidance around Alzheimer’s. Nobody wants to say the word or talk about the disease ’cause it’s sad. So I wanted to make it a moment when I actually said it so that we can see the weight of it. Hopefully viewers will leave the theater being able to speak about it and to know it in an intimate way. Naming it is so important, so we can take the sting and discomfort off.

There are tender moments onstage where you let out tears. What is it like to relive those real-life moments on stage every night?

It is so difficult, more difficult than I thought it would be. My mom is onstage with me when I walk out there. I take her hand and I put her in that little opera chair next to me and we are together. Saying goodbye to her every night is hard.

OO-La-la! Spooky Jenna Ortega ruffles more than some feathers in a frilly dress in Paris. 

The US star wore the brown frock for the French premiere of the second series of Netflix hit Wednesday, directed by Tim Burton. 

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The show, based on the daughter from The Addams Family, will return next week after the original run became a ratings hit following its release in 2022. 

On the reception to the first series, Jenna, 22, said: “I’m still very appreciative and grateful.

“We didn’t know that anyone was going to watch the show. 

“You do these things and you don’t know what’s to come, so it was very overwhelming.” 

A former child star, Jenna was catapulted into the A list when Wednesday – viewed 252 million times and counting – launched in 2022.

And by her own refreshingly candid admission, that rapid rise to the top was overwhelming.

“To be quite frank, after the show and trying to figure everything out, I was an unhappy person,” she told Harper’s Bazaar in May.

“After the pressure, the attention – as somebody who’s quite introverted, that was so intense and so scary.”

The eight-month shoot in Romania had been challenging, with Jenna revealing: “I was alone. Never had any hot water. The boilers in two of my apartments were broken, so I always took cold showers.”

At least she’ll be getting a warm welcome from Wednesday fans as the show returns to their screens.

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Sandinista commander Bayardo Arce arrested amid corruption probe and political shake-up in Nicaragua.

Nicaraguan authorities have arrested Bayardo Arce, a senior Sandinista figure and longtime economic adviser to President Daniel Ortega, amid an escalating internal purge within the country’s ruling elite.

According to Nicaraguan media, Arce, 76, was detained early Thursday morning following a raid by dozens of police officers on his home in Managua. He had been under house arrest since Sunday, reports said.

The Attorney General’s Office, controlled by the Ortega government, announced Wednesday it had launched a corruption probe against Arce, accusing him of “illegal transactions and negotiations” related to properties and businesses allegedly tied to state interests. Prosecutors claim Arce refused to cooperate or present documentation when questioned.

His aide, Ricardo Bonilla, was arrested a day earlier for allegedly refusing to “render accounts”, officials added.

The Nicaraguan news outlet Confidencial reported that Arce’s detention is part of a broader purge being directed by Vice President Rosario Murillo, Ortega’s wife and co-ruler, with the president’s full support. Sources close to the exiled opposition believe Murillo is consolidating power in preparation for succession, as Ortega’s health visibly deteriorates.

In recent public appearances, Ortega, now 79, has appeared frail and unsteady. He is reported to suffer from lupus and kidney failure, raising speculation about who may eventually replace him.

Arce is the third prominent Sandinista veteran to be placed under house arrest this year. Henry Ruiz, another historic commander, was confined in March. Humberto Ortega, the president’s brother and a former army chief, was under similar restrictions before his death in September 2024.

Arce and Daniel Ortega were close comrades during the 1979 Sandinista revolution that toppled United States-backed dictator Anastasio Somoza. After decades in and out of power, Ortega returned to the presidency in 2007 and has remained in office through successive elections that many have criticised as undemocratic.

The arrests have sent a chilling message across Nicaragua’s political landscape, particularly among veteran revolutionaries who once stood alongside Ortega and are now facing marginalisation or detention.

Former “Love Island USA” contestant Cierra Ortega has spoken out after her abrupt departure from the villa on Sunday following the resurfacing of posts containing a racial slur.

Ortega, who left just one week from the finale of the hit Peacock show’s seventh season, addressed the incident on Wednesday.

“Now that I’ve been back in the U.S. for about 48 hours and I’ve had the chance to process,” she said in a video posted on Instagram, “I now feel like I’m at a space where I can speak about this without being highly emotional because I am not the victim in this situation.”

“Love Island” commentator Iain Stirling broke the news during Sunday’s episode, stating that the 25-year-old Angeleno had left the show to deal with a “personal issue” that arose. Though it was not explicitly stated why Ortega had left, she had recently faced backlash over social media posts that resurfaced containing a racial slur against Asian people.

She used the slur in 2020 on TikTok and in 2023 on Instagram to describe her own appearance.

Ortega initially remained silent on the issue, with her parents taking to addressing the controversy themselves. In a statement Sunday on Ortega’s Instagram story, they said the backlash had resulted in “one of the most painful weeks of our lives.”

“We’ve seen the posts, the headlines, the hurt and the hate,” they wrote, adding that their daughter had been subject to threats and “cruel messages.”

“It’s uncalled for. And no one deserves that kind of hate, no matter what mistake they’ve made,” they continued.

Ortega chose to address the situation via an “accountability video” in addition to a written statement.

“While I was in the villa, there were some posts that resurfaced from my past where I was very naively using an incredibly offensive and derogatory term. And before I get into the details, I want to first start by addressing not just anyone that I have hurt or deeply offended, but most importantly, the entire Asian community. I am deeply, truly, honestly, so sorry,” she said.

“I had no ill intention when I was using it, but that’s absolutely no excuse because intent doesn’t excuse ignorance … this is not an apology video. This is an accountability video.”

She continued by insisting that the “lesson was learned” and, in an additional post made to her Instagram story, said c she was “genuinely ashamed” of her actions.

“Once again, to the Asian community, I am deeply sorry for my thoughtless mistake and the harm it caused,” she added.

Just a month prior to Ortega’s departure, another contestant faced a similar debacle. Yulissa Escobar left the villa by the season’s second episode due to her use of racial slurs against Black people during a podcast conversation

In response, Escobar also took to Instagram on June 6 to make an apology: “I want to apologize for using a word I had no right in using. … The truth is, I didn’t know better then, but I do now.”

This season of “Love Island USA” has lost yet another contestant after their past use of a racial slur resurfaced online: Cierra Ortega left the villa and will not return.

“Love Island USA” narrator Iain Stirling announced during the Sunday episode that Ortega, 25, had departed the hit dating competition series to deal with “a personal situation.” Though he did not provide additional details about her exit, Ortega recently landed in hot water for her repeated use of a slur for Chinese people — and often Asian people in general — after social media posts resurfaced online.

In an Instagram story from 2023 that made the rounds on Reddit and X, Ortega used the slur as she explained her Botox procedures, writing, “I love getting a mini brow lift to open up my eyes and get that snatched look.”

Another post that raised flags among critics was a 2020 TikTok video where Ortega uses a version of the slur to describe her smile in an Instagram caption. “Love Island USA” streamer Peacock and parent company NBCUniversal did not comment to The Times about the terms of Ortega’s exit, but the reality star’s parents spoke out online about “one of the most painful weeks of our lives.”

In a lengthy statement shared to Ortega’s Instagram story Sunday evening, her parents wrote, “We’ve seen the posts, the headlines, the hurt and the hate.” While acknowledging the outcry and upset around the resurfaced posts, Ortega’s parents alleged that their daughter has also been subject to online hate including threats and “cruel messages.” Ortega’s family, friends and supporters have been caught in the crossfire, they wrote: “it’s heartbreaking.”

The statement added: “It’s uncalled for. And no one deserves that kind of hate, no matter what mistake they’ve made.”

The missive also confirmed that “Cierra is not in the villa” and had yet to “process any of this or speak for herself.” Confident that Ortega will “face this with honesty, growth and grace,” her parents wrote that the reality TV personality will take accountability on her own terms.

Ortega left “Love Island” a month after contestant Yulissa Escobar faced similar backlash. Escobar was out by the season’s second episode amid social media outcry over her use of a slur for Black people. Video posted on Reddit and TMZ showed Escobar using the slur during a podcast conversation. Escobar apologized for using the slur, writing in a statement that she “used it ignorantly, not fully understanding the weight, history, or pain behind it.”

Until Ortega breaks her silence on the controversy, her parents said they have a request for supporters and critics alike: “We’re simply asking for compassion. For patience. For basic human decency.”

The “Love Island USA” Season 7 finale will air Sunday on Peacock.

The lure for music stars to cinematize their success will never grow old, and the movies — in need of high-wattage attractions as ever — always seem ready to oblige. The latest to enter that terrain is Abel Tesfaye, the artist known as the Weeknd, whose chart-toppers over the last decade-plus have painted, in club colors and through his haunted falsetto, a hedonist performer’s ups and downs.

It’s one thing to croon about the aftertaste of youthful excess to a dirty, mesmerizing dance beat, however, and another to draw the subject out to a compelling feature length, which the turgid psychodrama “Hurry Up Tomorrow,” starring Tesfaye and directed by Trey Edward Shults, mostly fails to do. But not for lack of trying from the visually vibey “Waves” filmmaker, who wrote the movie with Tesfaye and Reza Fahim, and from co-stars Jenna Ortega and Barry Keoghan, roped into playing along in the superstar’s sandbox of tour-nightmare solipsism.

The title also belongs to the latest hit album of Tesfaye’s, released this year, which the singer-songwriter has hinted in the press to be a redemptive mic drop of sorts for his mysterious sex-and-drugs-fueled Weeknd persona. Whether you call the film a promotional tie-in or companion piece — it was filmed two years ago, before all the album’s tracks were recorded — it’s still little more than a long-form music video vanity project, straining for importance, fumbling at resonance.

A tight frame on Tesfaye’s boyish, anxious-looking face, his angry girlfriend’s breakup voice message (“I used to think you were a good person!”), and superficial pumping up from his manager (a bro-mode Keoghan), let us know all is not right backstage for this musician on the first night of a big tour. Elsewhere, a distraught young woman (Ortega) drenches a house’s interior with gasoline and sets it on fire, then drives to a gas station to refill her canister.

These tortured souls meet the night his coked-up, busted-heart malaise triggers a walk-off midperformance, and she’s there backstage to lock eyes with him and ask if he’s OK. (He’s not!) From there it’s an escapist date of air hockey, carnival rides and, once they settle in a fancy hotel room, the sharing of a sensitive new song.

In the cold light of day, though, when her vulnerabilities bump up against his reset untouchability — Ortega gets a great line, “You don’t look worried, you look scared” — this impulsive star/fan connection takes a violent turn. Anyone familiar with the HBO series “The Idol” that Tesfaye co-created will soon sense an unwelcome reprise of that short-lived showbiz yarn’s retrograde misogyny.

The germ of an edgy fantasia about an isolated pop icon’s ego death is swimming somewhere in the DNA of “Hurry Up Tomorrow,” but it’s been flattened into a superficial, tear-stained pity party. Shults and cinematographer Chayse Irvin are gifted image makers, but they seem hamstrung applying their bag of style tricks — different aspect ratios, multiple film stocks, 360 shots and roving takes — to so shallow and prideful an exercise. There’s always something to look at but little that illuminates.

As for Tesfaye, he’s not uninteresting as a screen presence, but it’s an embryonic magnetism, in need of material richer than a bunch of close-ups that culminate in a howl of a ballad. In the flimsy narrative’s pseudo-biographical contours — notably the real-life voice loss he experienced onstage a few years ago — parallels to what Prince sought to achieve with the real-life-drawn “Purple Rain” are understandable. But that film was a cannier bid for next-level success, offsetting its three-act corniness with emotional stakes that led to a crescendo of its genius headliner’s performance prowess.

“Hurry Up Tomorrow” is thinner and sloppier. It won’t slam the door on Tesfaye’s movie ambitions, but as a bid to conquer the big screen, it’s an off-putting, see-what-sticks wallow that treats the power of cinema like a midconcert costume change.