Breakfast with Jong, Pinter, Neruda 
February 13, 2009 San Miguel de Allende

Iguana Festival de Artes
Tue, Feb 17, 11am
Salon Independencia
Avenida Independencia 82
50 pesos

Second in the reading series at Iguana Festival de Artes features the poetry of Erica Jong, Harold Pinter and Pablo Neruda. Bagels and coffee will be served at this breakfast reading. Readers are actors featured in the festival. www.theatersanmiguel.com  for festival calendar of events and shows.

Foxfire warms the heart

Playreaders Theater 
Foxfire
Tue–Thu, Feb 17–19, 7:30pm
St. Paul’s Church
Cardo 6
20 pesos

Foxfire is lichen that lives on dead, fallen trees in southern Appalachia and glows in the dark. Foxfire, the tear-provoking play by Susan Cooper and Hume Cronyn, deals with aging parents and their children, their clashes, their choices and their memories.

Set in a family farm on a mountain in northern Georgia, the play was inspired by and incorporates some material from the Foxfire Journals compiled by Eliot Wigginton and his students in Rabun Gap, GA. Jonathan Holtzman wrote the music for the play.

Lois Read and Ben Westbrock appear as the wife and husband played on Broadway by Jessica Tandy and Hume Cronyn in 1982. BJ Abrahamson is their son, Dillard, a country-western performer. John Wharton is a real estate agent trying to buy and develop the homestead, Clara Dunham is a local girl who comes back home to teach school and Frank Simons is a country doctor.

Eli Nadel is the sound and light technician, and Don Connolly directs. Rob McCart provides guitar accompaniment.

The doors open at 7pm, and the show starts at 7:30pm or when the house is full. Seats are on a first-come, first-served basis, so it is a good idea to arrive early. Also, Wednesday and Thursday nights are often sold out by 7pm, whereas Tuesday nights are sometimes only half-full.

Mame our favorite valentine
By Shari Kosson

Theater
Mame
Fri & Sat, Feb 13 & 14, 8pm
Sun, Feb 15, 5pm
Teatro Santa Ana
Biblioteca Pública
Relox 50A
150 pesos

Share Valentine’s day with your loved ones with the joys, thrills, excitement, laughs and tears that “Mame” the Broadway musical brings to the stage.

Based on Patrick Dennis’ 1956 novel, “Mame” tells the story of a middle-aged eccentric woman raising her orphaned 10-year-old nephew. The story takes place in the late ‘20’s to the ‘40’s in New York City. The setting and events of a stock market crash along with the subsequent coming into wealth are just as relevant and heart-warming today as they were back then. 

Judy Marzulli, in the title role, is a veteran of the stage here in San Miguel. Her costar, 11-year-old Max Lazen, recently moved here from New York. His understudy, his 12 year old brother Jacob, is an experienced off-Broadway performer. Liz Stone is musical director, Liliana Gutierrez on piano and Narissa Ferrer directs.

Tickets are reserved seats and can be purchased at the Biblioteca Pública for 150 pesos.

True grit by gals
By Geoff Hargreave

Theater
Glenda Garry Glenda Ross
Tues, Feb 17, Dress Rehearsal 8pm
50 pesos
Wed-Sat, Feb 18-Feb 21, 8pm
100 pesos
Teatro Santa Ana
Biblioteca Publica
Reloj 50A

Glenda Garry Glenda Ross is an adaptation of David Mamet’s famous (or infamous) satire on the real estate industry, which appeared on Broadway in the eighties and was later made into a Hollywood film starring Jack Lemmon and Al Pacino. I asked writer/director Bill Gallacher about the production.

GH: What does the title refer to?

BG: A real-estate development in Florida. I’ve modified the original title slightly in order to recognize the all-female slant.

GH. Mamet set his play in an all-male real estate office. Why have you adapted it to an all-female one?

BG: The original play was grittily grounded in realism, but it did push the envelope of credible human behavior. I think with women the envelope will be stretched even further. Although you would be unlikely ever to find women talking and acting the way Mamet's men do, it is conceivable that given sufficient pressure they might, and because of the playwright's mastery of dialogue, the situations and conflicts remain believable. I see it as a tremendous opportunity for the actors to assume roles they will unlikely ever be asked to perform again. We have a great pool of talented women actors here, and if this does not sound too sexist, that pool I suspect is a lot deeper than the male one.

GH. Why are you putting this play on now?

BG. Mamet’s original, “Glengarry Glen Ross”, is widely regarded as a dramatic tour-de-force and the film adaptation was nominated for numerous Oscars. The play was revived on Broadway in 2005 and enjoys enduring popularity. Why stage it here, now? I think the current economic crisis, particularly as it affects real estate brokers adds a special poignancy and relevancy to the subject matter. I moved the time setting to the near future, where the financial strains of a very bad economy have brought out the absolute worst in people. Regardless of time or place, it is a riveting drama, tightly constructed and masterfully resolved. I've been trying to stage this production for some time and had to cancel last year’s effort because a number of actresses decided late they ‘couldn’t go through with it.’ That was understandable. This time I’ve received a very strong commitment. The talented cast includes Cleo Kamelhar, Crystal Calderoni, Arlene Lawrence, Melissa Hirsch, Kim Powell, and Naomi Lawler.

GH: You’re doing it as a stage reading, I believe?

BG: Yes. The drama is so intense, however, that I don’t think the audience will be unduly bothered by this format.

GH: Glengarry Glen Ross has been criticized for its excessive use of profanity. What modifications did you make in your adaptation?


BG: Not many. The crudeness of the language reflects the crudeness of the behaviour and in a strange way lends a rhythmic cadence to the vitriolic exchanges. I did include the famous Alex Baldwin movie scene, which was not part of the original stage production. 

Learn from New York playwright

Workshop

Writing for the Stage
Stefanie Glick
Fri–Sat, Feb 27–28, 10am–2pm
Sun, Mar 1, 2pm–6pm

Stefanie Glick, who wrote and co-directed the recent sold-out performance of The Death of Reason at Teatro Santa Ana, is facilitating a weekend-long dramatic writing workshop. The interactive workshop is designed to accommodate all levels, from those who simply want to try their hand at writing for the stage to writers already working on a play.

Trained as both a playwright and choreographer, Glick has been making multimedia performances for 20 years. Her original work has debuted at such places as St. Marks Church and Cornelia Street Theatre in New York City. She holds a master’s degree from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and has taught creative writing to seniors, college students and youth in a variety of settings. 

For more information and registration, contact the facilitator at 044 (415) 101-4319 or workshopsma@gmail.com. 





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