Isaac Gomez Wanted To Know More About The Women Who Were Abducted On Their Way To Work In Juarez So He Wrote La Ruta

Some writers write to explain. Others write to entertain, Isaac Gomez, the 27-year-old author of La Ruta, now receiving its world premiere at the Steppenwolf Theatre, writes because he can’t not write; writing is how he finds words for as yet unnamed, unexpressed ideas and feelings.

Gomez has been working on La Ruta sporadically since his senior year of college. “It was my first formal play,” he says. It’s set on the U.S.-Mexico border where he grew up and focuses on the plight of las desaparecidas, the missing women of Juarez who were abducted and murdered on their way to and from work in the maquiladoras, factories set up by foreign, often U.S.-based, companies in Juarez that were notorious for low-wages and poor working conditions.

12/13-1/27/19: Wed-Fri 7:30 PM, Sat-Sun 3 and 7:30 PM, Tue 7:30 PM, no performances Tue 12/18, 12/25, and 1/1, and Wed 12/20, Steppenwolf Theatre, 1650 N. Halsted, 312-335-1650, steppenwolf.org, $30-$72.