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Cumbia de mi Corazón
Los Angeles, 2010: (de izquierda a derecha, empezando por la primera fila): Eliezer Ortiz, Carla Valentine, Katherine Castillo, Fanny Véliz, Daniel Restrepo, Joaquin Jasso. No aparece: Angel Cabeza Sabaté.
LOGLINE: Heriberto, muerto ya cincuenta años, ha rehusado subir a los cielos hasta que le acompañe Maruca, su compañera en vida. Pero cuandoella, de una edad avanzada, atraviesa la cortina mortal, no reconoce a su conyuge. Le va a tocar a él despabilarla, utilizando como medio la música a que bailaban cuando primeramente se conocerion por allá en Barranquil
¡Huepajé!
Pedro Infante y La Suegra Triunfante
Pedro Infante y La Suegra Triunfante is a two-act comedy with music, presented in Spanish with English subtitles. It is the second installment of the trilogy ENTRE DOS MUNDOS, which celebrates various facets of Latin American music and culture. My thanks to the Bilingual Foundation of the Arts of L.A., where it premiered in 2012 under the direction of Denise Blasor. That same year, the production traveled to Whittier College and to the Carpinteria Playhouse. A new production was mounted by El Teatro de las Americas at Oxnard College in 2014-15 under the co-direction of Robert Sanchez and Pat Casiano. READ THE REVIEW of the Oxnard production in "The Ventura Star" at the bottom of this page.
Juan Gonzales as Pedro Infante, Pat Casiano as Doña Pancha. Teatro de las Americas, Oxnard, 2014-15.
LOGLINE: Stuck in the States, dreaming of going home to Mexico—what can a grandmother do? Her family is at wit’s end. Who can help her? Ahí viene Pedro Infante! Here comes Pedro Infante!
Juan Gonzales as Pedro Infante, Pat Casiano as Doña Pancha. Teatro de las Americas, Oxnard, 2014-15.
ARSENIO
Arsenio, formerly entitled Pachanga Celestial, is the third installment in the Spanish-language trilogy ENTRE DOS MUNDOS, celebrating Latin American music and culture. It will have its premiere when the pandemic subsides at ID Studios in the Bronx under the direction of German Jaramillo.
LOGLINE: Dairon, un joven cubano-americano, quiere entrar al Bronx High School of the Arts. Mientras prepara su audición, lo sorprende una energía que lo transporta al más allá, donde se encuentra con el cantante ciego y compositor legendario, Arsenio Rodriguez, fallecido en 1970. A Dairon le falta tener confianza en si mismo, mientras Arsenio necesita un estimulo para salir de su nostalgia y dirigirse hacia la luz. Mediante la música, el uno le ayuda al otro en su jornada.
Arsenio con amigos y familiares. Cuba, 1957.
Hands-On Therapy
Hands-On Therapy is a play in two acts. It premiered at The Secret Rose Theater in North Hollywood, CA,in 2008, produced by C. RaulEspinoza and directed by Eddie Padilla. The action unfolds mainly in English, with brief exchanges in Spanish where appropriate.
Alejandra Flores as Otilia and Shelly Kurtz as Father Godfrey.
LOGLINE: Mike thinks he is doing the right thing when he dismisses Rocio as his counseling client. He has developed amorous feelings for her. Then, presto! Her simmering mother issues burst forth in theflesh. Synchronistically, so doeshis. Mike's mentor, a Jesuit, complicates this mash-up with a passion for both sacred and profane. Doctor, heal thyself. Priest, pray for thyself. Lover, love thyself.
Mike Etzrodt as Mike, and Liz Del Sol as Rocio.
The Doctors Chekhov
The Doctors Chekhov is a two-act play developed at the Antaeus Theater in North Hollywood under the guidance of directors Christopher Hart and Lisa James.
PLOT SUMMARY
New York, 1934. Isaak Altshuller, M.D. speaks to a conference about twounusual cases of "the white death," tuberculosis that he attended back in Russia before the Revolution. One of the patients was a medical colleague, Anton Chekhov, M.D. The other consumptive was himself.
In the play, as happened in life, the two ill physicians become friends and care for one another from 1898 until Chekhov's death in 1904. They also interact in surprising, tender, and sometimes hurtful ways with the two women in Chekhov’s life, his sister Mariya and his eventual wife, Olga Knipper.
Chekhov’s decline in health parallels his ascent to the heights of world literature. Seagull, Vanya, Three Sisters, and Cherry Orchard were all written during this period, and all are mounted by the director Konstantin Sergeievich Stanislavsky at the famed Moscow Art Theater. For Altshuller, contact with the Chekhovs both saves and devastates him. At its core, this is a love story.
The play makes extensive use of primary sources, including letters, diaries, and memoirs.
THE QUEEN AND THE BISHOP
THE QUEEN AND THE BISHOP
A Play in Two Acts,
with Dance and Music
This play was the winner of the 2004 Writing Award handed out by Kumu Kahua Theater in Honolulu. It was presented at Whittier College in a workshop production directed by Linda Dangcil.
PLOT SYNOPSIS
The play opens with Alfred in crisis. The Americans have begun to outnumber the British at St. Andrew’s Anglican Church, and there is talk of replacing “the Redcoat priest” with someone from the States. Alfred is determined to maintain control of the cathedral he built for Honolulu. To be sure, King Kalakaua is a church member, but the person whom Alfred hopes to convert is the influential Princess Lili’uokalani. The Princess refuses Alfred’s overtures. Though she appreciates his support as a royalist, she wishes to remain loyal spiritually to the American Congregationalists who schooled her.
When the King dies, Alfred counsels the new Queen, Lili’uokalani, to forbid old-fashioned disinterment rituals, which advice she follows. American power brokers force a constitution on the Queen that eviscerates her regency. In 1893, the U.S. Marines came ashore. As succeeding American-provoked crises wash over Iolani Palace and St. Andrew’s Cathedral, the friendship between the beleaguered Queen and Bishop deepens into spiritual comradeship. When she is placed under house arrest, he is the only clergyman who dares to visit her. She repays this kindness with a gift that touches the Bishop’s heart, though it does nothing to improve his relations with the rebellious parishioners who are prosecuting him both in the courts and the press.
The Queen and The Bishop is a study of friendship in high places and a meditation on religion vs. spirituality. When conversion occurs, as it does in the second act, the question is posed as to who has converted whom to what. The relationship between these two powerful personalities is finally blessed with the uniquely Hawaiian concept of aloha. This word is often understood as everyday love or affection. However, as interpreted by Queen Lili’uokalani’shanai daughter, Lydia K. Aloho, it speaks of something transcendental as well: “…the razor’s edge…the width of a blade of pili grass…to hear what is not said, to see what cannot be seen, and to know the unknowable.”
Felicidad, Inc.
A two-act play in English, it was developed at the Bilingual Foundation of the Arts of Los Angeles. It was workshopped there first and afterward at both The Old Globe Theater in San Diego and The Ford Anson Theater in L.A.
LOGLINE:
Mexican immigrants Bonifacio and Emma come to L.A. with dreams of professional success, but poor English shunts them into menial jobs. Their dreams are salvaged by the seemingly limitless opportunities available in Totally You, Inc., a multilevel outfit. Soon, they are scaling the heights of free enterprise. However, when their American “up-lines” begin to play hardball, Bonifacio and Emma must decide what to assimilate into their adoptive country and what to leave behind.