Nothing to lose
By Judy Newell July 11, 2008 San Miguel de Allende

Theater
It Had to Be You
Mon–Sat, July 7–12, 8pm
Sun, July 13, 5pm
Teatro Santa Ana
Reloj 50A
100 pesos

Do opposites attract and how can they really fall in love? That’s the premise of the romantic comedy It Had to Be You. It’s the story of a wacky actress who’s a “late bloomer” and searching for two miracles—a man to love and success in her career.

She falls madly in love with a producer she meets at an audition. He’s dumbfounded and fascinated by her madcap behavior as she tries to interest him in the offbeat play she’s been writing.

“When you’ve got nothing to lose,” says the ever optimistic Theda, “It’s easy to ask for everything.”

I play the actress Theda “like wow!” Blau and Jim Newell is the producer Vito Pignoli. Vito’s stuck in his career producing television commercials; his claim to fame is a Hellmann’s commercial of a chicken tap dancing on top of a mayonnaise jar. He’s got a big expense account, fashion models and a high-paying job, but he’s still looking for his ideal woman. Dick Avery co-stars as Freddie, assistant to the producer. 

Murray Kamelhar directed this Actor’s Lab production. The play is a longtime favorite of his, that he performed countless times with his wife, Cleo. 

The semi-autobiographic play was written by Rene Taylor and her “husband and boyfriend of 30 years,” Joe Bologna. They both appeared in the New York stage premier of the play and later they wrote, directed and starred in the motion picture It Had to Be You. 

The playwrights have been nominated for an Academy Award for best screenplay and earned an Emmy Award for television. The couple also collaborated, both on screen and behind the typewriter, on Emmy-nominated television specials. Taylor is perhaps best recognized for playing the role of Fran’s mother in the TV series The Nanny.

Their current project, another semi-autobiographical comedy, If You Ever Leave Me, I’m Going With You, is now on Broadway.

Tickets are on sale in the patio of the Biblioteca, 11am–3pm and at the theater box office 3–7:30pm.

Hot July Nights!
By Keith Wall

Theater
The Inventor’s Daughter
Tue–Fri, July 15–18, 7:30pm 
Teatro Santa Ana
Biblioteca Pública
Reloj 50A
250/150 pesos

Lauren Osornio photographed in the patio of her San Antonio home (by Keith Wall).

Producer/director Jane Casa was a no-show for the first planning meeting for the Jóvenes Adelante’s fundraiser, Hot July Nights! Doing morning exercises in her kitchen, she fell, broke her leg, and was in an ambulance en route to the hospital when the meeting was called to order. Someone remembered she had an early morning dentist’s appointment: maybe that had not gone well?

Committee members rallied around when they learned Jane had suffered something worse than a toothache, and were very concerned about her well-being, of course, but also: what about the show? Jane said, “Well, I’m told I’ll be confined to bed for weeks, but I think I know someone who can direct: Lauren Osornio.” Who?

Lauren is a woman Jane met at a recent Unitarian Universalist service. She had lit a candle to her joy at being here and working on a musical project with Luis and Juan of Mayahuel, who play regularly at Pueblo Viejo. Jane had approached her to say that these were her favorite musicians in San Miguel. They learned both had backgrounds in theater and shared a passion for music and language. They became friends.

Lauren, happily, was both available and delighted to step in and direct Part 1 of the program, a one-act comic melodrama titled The Inventor’s Daughter, even though she knew nothing of it and the play had not been fully cast. She knew of Jóvenes Adelante and was pleased to do something to raise funds for student scholarships. She had just decided to extend her stay here another month, until late July, to complete her musical collaboration with Mayahuel, so the timing was fortuitous.

This article was to have profiled Jane Casa, but she wasn’t excited about a bedside interview and said, “Do it with Lauren. She’s the heroine!”

Lauren turns out to be, not surprisingly, another of San Miguel’s beautiful, vibrant, bilingual, multi-talented women, not yet a full-time resident, but approaching retirement and “in transition.” Her connection with Mexico goes way back. Her first husband Rafael is Mexican, born in Saltillo, now living in Cancún. The couple met in Boston, where he worked as a cook at Casa Mexico, married in San Francisco, but returned to live in Mexico City where Rafael worked as a chef while papers were prepared for his legal US residency. In 1972, when Lauren was pregnant with the couple’s first child Rima, they returned to Boston. Two years later, they opened a restaurant, El Sol Azteca. The popular restaurant just celebrated its 34th anniversary and is managed by none other than Rima, now 36. Lauren’s younger daughter, Lisa, operates a beauty salon right across the street. On the day of this interview, Rima’s son, Alex, 16, was visiting Lauren here with his grandfather from Cancún.

After an amicable divorce in the nineties, Lauren enrolled in Brandeis University to get a BA in theatre arts and an MA in teaching foreign languages, with a specialty in Spanish. Always involved in community and children’s theater, she organized and directs an adult troupe of amateur actors called the Bacchanal Players. The group performs one-act comedies, both classic and locally written, in private homes. She also started teaching Spanish at a private school in Acton, MA, and began teaching classes and tutoring young and adult students on her own.

A trip with her new husband, Boston psychotherapist Ted England, to San Miguel three years ago reconnected Lauren to Mexico. What was to be a brief stop on a trip around the country ended being more than a week’s stay and the couple knew they’d be back. On the third trip, Lauren was here alone, found a house, sent pictures and told Ted she wanted them to buy it, and they did.

Lauren had conceived the idea of a CD of Spanish songs as a teaching tool for children, each a chapter in a unified story. Not knowing who could write the music, she decided to do it herself and she proposed to Mayahuel that they record the songs together, receiving an enthusiastic response. Luckily for Jóvenes Adelante, this is the project that keeps her here to direct the play and which will bring her back until she and Ted can make the move permanent.

The Inventor’s Daughter is cast and in rehearsal. It opens Hot July Nights! for four performances, followed by beer and pretzels during intermission (chili and cornbread opening night), and a stupendous variety show of local talent after break. Jane Casa, by the way, has recovered sufficiently to have taken over coordination of the talent show and will be the evening’s master of ceremonies. 

Ticket proceeds fund university scholarships for Jóvenes Adelante students. Tickets are currently on sale at La Conexión, Casa de Papel and in the Jardín, 11am–1pm. For more information, contact jovenesadelante@gmail.com. 

Keith Wall is a Jóvenes Adelante volunteer and student mentor.

The Playreaders take on Mozart

Playreaders Theater
Amadeus
Wed–Thu, July 16–17, 7pm
St. Paul’s Church
Cardo 6
Donation 20 pesos

For an evening of high musical drama, Playreaders of San Miguel presents Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus. The tour de force drama premiered at the National Theatre in London in 1979 with Paul Scofield as Salieri, Simon Callow as Mozart and Felicity Kendal as Constanze. The New York production opened at the Broadhurst Theater in 1980 and starred Ian McKellen as Salieri, Tim Curry as Mozart and Jane Seymour as Constanze. Both productions were directed by Peter Hall.

Amadeus won the Evening Standard Theatre Award, Theatre Critics Award in London in 1979 and the 1981 Tony Award for “Best Play” in New York. There have been numerous revivals all over the world since then. The 1984 film version, adapted by Shaffer and directed by Milos Forman, won eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

In his short drama Mozart and Salieri, Alexander Pushkin contends that Antonio Salieri, court composer for Emperor Joseph in Vienna, poisoned Mozart. Shaffer, himself an accomplished pianist and former music critic, proposes that envy and jealousy motivated Salieri to destroy Mozart. This idea is, according to historians and musicologists, pure fiction. It does, though, make for great drama! Mozart was, after all, the author of over 600 musical compositions, including symphonies, operas, concerti, string quartets and quintets, sonatas, religious music, dances, divertimenti, serenades and masses. Salieri must have been acutely aware of Mozart’s genius. Mozart died at the tender age of 35 while Salieri survived 75 years.

Shaffer is one of Britain’s premier playwrights. Some of his credits include: Five Finger Exercise, White Liars/Black Comedy, The Royal Hunt of the Sun, Equus, The Private Ear and The Public Eye, The Battle of Shrivings, Yonadab and Lettice and Lovage.

The Playreaders Amadeus cast includes: Rudy Hornish as Salieri, Seth Sharp as Mozart, Clara Dunham as Constanze, Nancy Kandal and Bob Knight as the Venticellis, Dennis Pipes as Emperor Joseph, Chris Davis as Count Orsini-Rosenberg and Frank Simons as Baron Van Swieten. Dic Simandl executes some very difficult sound and light cues, and Fran Rowe Robbins directs.

Doors open at 7pm and the play begins at 7:30pm (or earlier, if the house fills).