When writer Gloria Calderón Kellett attends the opening night of her play at the Old Globe Theatre Saturday, it will be a step in a long journey that has brought her back home.
That journey started with theater classes in Balboa Park just a short walk from the Old Globe and with graduation from a high school just a few miles away.
Now, it’s taken her back to the Old Globe where the theater will host the San Diego premiere of her comedy One of the Good Ones in front of her family and friends.
Playwright Gloria Calderón Kellett. Photo courtesy of Old Globe Theatre)“It’s really an incredible journey to be sitting here and it all worked out,” she said, in an interview the week before opening night.
Kellett is no stranger to bright lights.
She was an executive producer, co-creator and writer of the hit Netflix sitcom “One Day at a Time,” a re-imagining of the popular 1970s television show.
In addition to being a playwright, her credits include writing and producing other shows – “Devious Maids,” “Rules of Engagement” and “How I Met Your Mother.”
Kellett’s success started in San Diego. A daughter of Cuban immigrants, she was born in Portland, Oregon. Her parents moved the family to San Diego because it reminded them of Cuba.
She lived here in her teen years, graduating from University of San Diego High School, now known as Cathedral Catholic High School. Her interest in writing and the theater had started early as she played with her Barbie dolls. But it flourished in San Diego when she joined the San Diego Junior Theatre, which runs youth theater classes and camps in Balboa Park.
Kellett credits her parents for supporting her and letting her speak her mind at a young age.
Family is at the heart of One of the Good Ones, about what happens when the “perfect” Latina daughter brings her new boyfriend home to meet her parents and he’s not exactly what they were expecting. It reveals generational differences and colliding cultural assumptions, but Kellett explores those themes with laughs.
“Doing so with humor kind of sweetens it,” she said. “It really makes the medicine go down.”
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She insists that while some of her personality is imbued in the daughter in the play, the character is an amalgam of people and generations. And while the play focuses on one Latino family, Kellett said the play is ultimately about all families.
“Being a daughter, being a parent, those are all universal themes,” she said.
Still, she added that “It’s very important for me to show a Latino family of means. We never get to see that in the theater.”
Kellett has been a fierce advocate for efforts to diversify Hollywood and spoke about it at San Diego Comic-Con last year.
She acknowledges that efforts to open up popular entertainment to Latinos have been hampered by contractions in the industry and the current backlash on diversity and inclusion.
“This is just a huge setback but I’m more resolute than ever to continue the fight because I know how important this is,” she said.
Meanwhile, Kellett’s focus will remain on her keyboard. Although she’s done acting and stand-up comedy, her passion remains writing.
“I can wake up and write,” she said. “A blank page doesn’t frighten me. You get to fill it every day.”
Or, in her case, one day at a time.
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