UNM Department of Theatre and Dance Presents Lorca Classic
April 23, 2018
Lyrical, earthy and powerful, “The House of Bernarda Alba” is a masterpiece by one of the world’s most influential playwrights, Federico García Lorca, directed by Shepard Sobel in a new translation by Caridad Svich. Presented by The University of New Mexico’s Department of Theatre and Dance for seven performances only, this lyrical, earthy play with a cast of 16 young women, invites – requires – urgent exploration and promises a revelatory experience for both actors and audience.
In a hostile time and place, five sisters struggle to satisfy their hopes and desires. A stifling and perverse moral code tightens its grip on the oppressed. Lorca sets his often funny, often searing, always humane cri de coeur in rural Spain on the eve of its Civil War – indeed, in the time of his writing, and a few months before Francisco Franco’s forces murdered the poet and playwright in 1936. But Lorca writes for our age and all ages, challenging us to defy Bernarda’s closing, insistent, truth-defying command to be blind and to be silent.
The Department of Theatre and Dance will host two very special events during the run of “The House of Bernarda Alba.”
An evening with playwrights Caridad Svich and Migdalia Cruz – Friday, April 27
Following the evening’s performance of “The House of Bernarda Alba,” Professor Gregory Moss will moderate a conversation about Lorca, translation and playwriting in the 21st century between award-winning playwrights Migdalia Cruz and Caridad Svich. The discussion is free with admission to “The House of Bernarda Alba.”
Migdalia Cruz is an award-winning playwright who has written more than fifty plays, operas, screenplays, and musicals. Her work has been produced across the U.S. and abroad. She received commissions from Mabou Mines, The Public Theater, Crossroads Theatre, Steppenwolf Theatre, Latino Chicago Theater Company, Arena Stage and INTAR. Migdalia was awarded the 2013 Helen Merrill Distinguished Playwright Award and is a 1996 recipient of the Kennedy Center’s Fund for New American Plays award for Another Part Of The House. At Classic Stage Company, she was a 1994 PEW/TCG National Artist in Residence. Migdalia was a 1997-98 Sackler Fellow at Connecticut Rep/UConn, a 1991 & 1995 NEA Playwriting Fellow, a 1988 McKnight Fellow, and received her MFA degree from Columbia University. She is an alumna of New Dramatists. She was born and raised in the Bronx.\
Caridad Svich received a 2012 OBIE Award for Lifetime Achievement in the theatre, a 2012 Edgerton Foundation New Play Award and NNPN rolling world premiere for Guapa, and the 2011 American Theatre Critics Association Primus Prize for her play The House of the Spirits, based Isabel Allende’s novel. She has won the National Latino Playwriting Award (sponsored by Arizona Theatre Company) twice, including in the year 2013 for her play Spark. As founder of theatre alliance & press NoPassport (www.nopassport.org) her work has intersected with communities of multiple diversities with works responding to the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the US Gulf region, veterans and their families, survivors of trauma and those committed to artistic expression of precarity, advocacy for US Latin@ writing voices, and engagement with representations of the “fragile shores” in our lives. She is co-organizer and curator of After Orlando theatre action in response to the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting. Her works are published by TCG, Smith & Kraus, Playscripts, Broadway Play Publishing and more. She teaches creative writing and playwriting at Rutgers University-New Brunswick and Primary Stages’ Einhorn School of Performing Arts. She has taught playwriting at Bard, Barnard, Bennington, Denison, Ohio State, ScriptWorks, UCSD, and Yale School of Drama.
“Another Part of the House” – Saturday, April 28
A free staged reading of Migdalia Cruz’s play “Another Part of the House” will be held at 2:00 p.m. in Rodey Theatre. The reading of this adaptation/response to Lorca’s “The House of Bernarda Alba” will be followed by a discussion with the author.
General Performances - April 20 through 29
“The House of Bernarda Alba” runs April 20 through 29 in Rodey Theatre, located in the Center for the Arts on UNM’s main campus. Thursday, Friday and Saturday performances are at 7:30 p.m., Sundays at 2:00 p.m.
Tickets
Ticket prices are typically $15 General admission; $12 UNM Faculty & Seniors; and $10 UNM Staff & all Students. However, through a special collaboration between the LAII and the Department of Theatre and Dance, LAII faculty, students, staff and community members are eligible for a special rate of $8 for the Sunday, April 29th matinee performance. To receive this discount, please use code "LAII" when checking out. Tickets are available at the UNM Ticket Offices located at the UNM Bookstore (Central and Cornell), or The Arena/aka The Pit (University and Avenida Caesar Chavez), or by calling 505-925-5858. Tickets may also be purchased online at www.unmtickets.com. More information is available at theatre.unm.edu or by calling 505-277-4332.
LAII-affiliated faculty interested in bringing classes to a performance are also eligible for $5 ticket rates for groups of 10 or more. For more information, please contact Kathleen Clawson at kclawson@unm.edu.
