In Front of Your Eyes 2026
A Festival of New Performance Presents
Yvonne Martinez’s
Someday Mija, You’ll Learn the Difference Between a Whore and a Working Woman
The Marsh Berkeley Cabaret Theater
August 29 at 5:30 pm & August 30 at 1:00 pm
Written and Performed by Yvonne Martinez
Opener: Irma Herrera
Ticket Information
Tickets: $15 – $35 General Seating | $50 & $100 Reserved Seating
60 minutes | No Intermission
(Please do not bring infants to the show)
Online ticket sales close 2 hours before each performance.
Additional tickets may be available for purchase at the door.
Show Description
This piece celebrates unsung women of color labor activists, beginning with Yvonne’s sex worker grandmother who, with her sisters mugged scabs in 1950’s Utah. Yvonne became a labor organizer/labor negotiator. The show tells stories of resistance by actual Bay Area Labor Activists who led local labor campaigns. Scabmuggers were turn of the century immigrant women who patrolled picket lines in early textile strikes to if necessary “persuade” and assist others to honor picket lines. True now in this era of labor foment as it was 100 years ago, these women have a tale to tell.
“A must-read (listen) to learn more about this titan.” Shonda Rhimes’ Shondaland.
Artist Biography
Yvonne Martinez, Writer and Performer
Yvonne Martinez’s memoir in essays, Someday Mija, You’ll Learn the Difference Between a Whore and a Working Woman was endorsed by Shondaland “A must-read to learn more about this titan.”and covers her childhood in Salt Lake City/South Central LA/Boyle Heights and her work as a labor organizer in California and the Pacific Northwest. Her new book, now a play Scabmuggers, is based on her experience as a National Fellow of the Harvard Trade Union Program in 1994. Publisher’s Weekly said of Scabmuggers: “Charged and incisive… Martinez’s story touches on ever-pressing topics: union history, politics, the lines between justice and morality, how solidarity breaks down and how it also shows up in unexpected forms.”—BookLife Reviews. Yvonne lives in Berkeley, CA and has a Master’s Degree in Labor Studies from UMASS, Amherst. She has previously performed this piece as a Marsh Rising Show at The Marsh.
Opener
Irma Herrera
Irma Herrera is a writer, solo performer, and former civil rights lawyer. Her play, Why Would I Mispronounce My Own Name? which had a five-month run at The Marsh (SF and Berkeley) explores what it means to be American by weaving personal stories, humor, and historical events. The ICEmen Cometh (in development) examines how EVERYONE’s rights are at risk, not just immigrants who are the targets of the cruel and brutal actions of the Trump Regime. An excerpt of Class Migrant de Aqui y de Allá (also in development) was featured as a short in the IFOYE Festival in 2024.
Piece Description – The ICEmen Cometh (an excerpt)
Your rights are next. This one-woman show exposes how the Trump REgime’s war on immigrants is a war on all of us — as ICE terrorizes our communities, no one is safe.
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