I'm back in New York after two weeks in Santiago rehearsing for a remount of my play EL PANFLETO (The Pamphlet) with Coturno Teatro. In March 2020, we premiered the play just before Covid hit. We had two performances and then everything shut down and that was that,. However, in October the Dominican Republic is hosting the XI Internacional Festival de Teatro (FITE) with 35 productions from 18 countries. The festival will include performances in both Santiago and Santo Domingo. And to my surprise, EL PANFLETO was chosen as one of the two representative productions from Santiago.
Of course I'm honored and also really delighted to revisit the play with Coturno Teatro and to have my play in the festival.
We have had to replace several cast members, but we have a core from three years ago and we'll perform in the same theatre, which is the smaller, more intimate space in El Gran Teatro de Cibao. Thankfully, our set was was preserved (because we were hoping to remount the show) and it's apparently in decent shape. So, in essence we have the structure - the set, sound cues, most of the costumes, and the basic staging we developed for that set and that space. I'm making some minor script edits and additions and approaching one of the lead characters in a fresh way, but it's a lot easier with so much already in place and over half the cast returning.
Meanwhile, the actors are continuing to rehearse for the next few weeks while I'm in NY, but I'll return at the end of this month and we'll have 3 weeks before the festival begins. The festival will be from Oct 20 - 30 and our two performances will be Friday and Saturday, Oct 27 and 28.
In other news, I just had several articles published in the Milwaukee Independent, an online news bureau based in Milwaukee. They cover a fair amount of international news and have published a number of articles on the Ukraine War and the editor asked me to write about my experiences in Kyrgyzstan. I ended up with three articles. The first is a general overview of my experience of the country, the second focuses on the country's relationship with Russia and the impact of the Ukraine War, and the third is a selection of some of the posts I wrote while there. There are also a lot of gorgeous pictures, some of which I took but most of which were found and added by the editor. Here are links to those articles:
It was truly an extraordinary half year in Kyrgyzstan. I would love to return and in fact, I'm currently talking with the folks at Ala-Too International University about applying for a 6 week grant to return to Bishkek next spring.
In the meantime, I'm excited to be working on EL PANFLETO.