GALA Hispanic Theatre
presents
La casa de los espíritus
By Caridad Svich
Based on the novel by Isabel Allende
Washington, D.C. – GALA continues its 37th Season with the evocative magical realism of La casa de los espíritus/The House of the Spirits by Caridad Svich. Based on the novel by the award-winning Chilean-American author Isabel Allende, La casa de los espíritus is directed by José Zayas, and runs February 7 to March 10, 2013 at GALA Theatre, 3333 14th Street NW, Washington, DC 20010. Parking is available at a discount in the Giant parking garage on Park Road, NW. Additional parking is available at the Target garage also on Park Road, between 14th and 16th Streets.
“I have been working on this play,” states director Zayas, “since 2009 when I approached Caridad Svich about adapting it for Repertorio Español. Since then I have directed the play in New York City, Chile and at the Denver Center. Each iteration has presented a new set of challenges and reasons for loving the rich tapestry of Isabel Allende’s story so delicately and concisely brought to the stage by Caridad’s lyrical and visceral voice.”
“The politics, the family dynamics, and the complex history of Latin America told through song and magic,” continued Zayas, “is a thrilling and volatile combination that creates a unique and moving spectacle that has moved audiences all over the world. I look forward to presenting this work to a new audience in DC, where reflecting on the choices we make as a nation and weighing the consequences of those choices on the present and on our children takes on such specific resonance.”
This haunting and poetic adaptation of Allende’s acclaimed novel, The House of the Spirits spans four generations of political, social and familial upheaval through the power of remembrance. In this saga of a Latin America family, unforgettable characters weave a luminous tapestry of triumphs and tragedies, love, magic and fate.
La casa de los espíritus is performed in Spanish with English surtitles on Thursdays through Saturdays at 8 pm, and Sundays at 3 pm. The Noche de GALA and Press Opening is Saturday, February 9, 2013 at 8 pm, under the patronage of the Ambassador of Chile to the United States, His Excellency Felipe Bulnes. There will be a reception with the playwright and artists following the performance.
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Special student matinees for La casa de los espíritus are February 8, February 15, February 22 and March 1 at 10:30 am. For more information about the Student Matinee Program, please call 202-234- 7174.
ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT
Caridad Svich received a 2012 OBIE Award for Lifetime Achievement in the theatre, and the 2011 American Theatre Critics Association Primus Prize for her play The House of the Spirits, based on the novel by Isabel Allende. Among her other works are 12 Ophelias, Any Place But Here, Alchemy of Desire/Dead-Man’s Blues, Iphigenia Crash Land Falls on the Neon Shell That Was Once Her Heart (a rave fable), Instructions for Breathing, The Way of Water, and the multi- media collaboration The Booth Variations. This season Repertorio Español in New York premiered her play Love in the Time of Cholera, based on the novel by Gabriel García Marquez; Single Carrot Theatre in Baltimore premiered The Tropic of X; and Borderlands Theater in Arizona premiered GUAPA as part of a rolling premiere, courtesy of the National New Play Network, that continues at the Miracle Theatre in Oregon and Phoenix Theater in Indiana. There will also be regional premieres of In the Time of the Butterflies (based on the novel by Julia Alvarez) at Mixed Blood Theatre in Minneapolis, Fugitive Pieces at Ex-Pats Theatre in Chicago, and The Archaeology of Dreams at University of Nebraska-Omaha. Among her awards are: Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study Fellowship at Harvard University, TCG/Pew Charitable Trusts National Theater Artist Residency at INTAR, and a NEA/TCG Playwriting Residency at the Mark Taper Theatre Forum Latino Theatre Initiative. She is alumna playwright of New Dramatists, founder of NoPassport theatre alliance & press, Drama Editor of Asymptote journal of literary translation, associate editor of Routledge/UK’s Contemporary Theatre Review and contributing editor of TheatreForum. Ms. Svich is also an affiliated artist of the Lark Play Development Center, Woodshed Collective, New Georges, and a Lifetime member of Ensemble Studio Theatre.
ABOUT ISABEL ALLENDE
Chilean author Isabel Allende won worldwide acclaim when The House of the Spirits was published in 1982. She has since written nearly 20 more works, including Of Love and Shadows, Eva Luna, Stories of Eva Luna, The Infinite Plan, Daughter of Fortune, Portrait in Sepia, a trilogy for young readers (City of Beasts, Kingdom of the Golden Dragon, and Forest of Pygmies), Zorro, Ines of My Soul, and Island Beneath the Sea. Books of nonfiction include Aphrodite, a humorous collection of recipes and essays, and three memoirs: My Invented Country, Paula (a bestseller that documents Allende’s daughter’s illness and death, as well as her own life), and The Sum of Our Days. Her latest book, a novel, is Maya’s Notebook (to be published in English in 2013). Allende’s books, all written in her native Spanish, have been translated into more than 30 languages and have sold more than 57 million copies. In 2012, she received the prestigious Hans Christian Andersen Literary Award in Denmark.
A prominent journalist for Chilean television and magazines in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Allende’s life was forever altered when General Augusto Pinochet led a military coup in 1973
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that toppled Chile’s socialist reform government. Salvador Allende—Isabel’s father’s cousin and her godfather– who had been elected Chile’s president in 1970, died in the coup. The Pinochet regime was marked early on by repression and brutality, and Allende became involved with group offering aid to victims of the regime. Ultimately finding it unsafe to remain in Chile, she fled the country in 1975 with her family and lived in exile in Venezuela for the next 13 years.
In 1981 Allende learned that her beloved grandfather, who still lived in Chile, was dying. She began a letter to him, recounting her childhood memories of life in her grandparents’ home. Although her grandfather died before had a chance to read the letter, its contents became the basis for The House of the Spirits. The novel details the lives of two families living in Chile from the 1920s to the country’s military coup in 1973, and has been described as both a family saga and a political testimony.
In addition to her work as a writer, Allende also devotes much of her time to human rights. Following the death of her daughter in 1992, she established a foundation dedicated to the protection and empowerment of women and children worldwide.
ABOUT THE PRODUCTION
Featured in the cast are guest artists from New York Nelson Landrieu, Natalia Miranda-Guzmán, Antonio Vargas, and Monica Stueur. Mr. Landrieu last appeared at GALA in Locos de contento, and Ms. Miranda-Guzman and Mr. Vargas were seen earlier this season in El desdén con el desdén. Ms. Stueur is making her first appearance at GALA, but has been seen at Repertorio Español, the Living Theatre, Blue Heron Theatre, and Puerto Rican Traveling Theater in New York. Appearing in the cast are GALA company members Carlos Castillo, Belén Oyola-Rebaza, and Manolo Santalla, who were seen in El desdén con el desdén. Also appearing are Marian Licha, who was in Ana en el trópico; Anabel Marcano, who appeared in Canto al Perú Negro…celebrating Afro-Peru, and Marycarmen Wila, who was seen in Real Women Have Curves. Making her first appearance at GALA is Nancy Flores.
José Zayas (Director) is co-Founder and Artistic Director of The Immediate Theater Company in New York City. He previously directed The House of the Spirits at Repertorio Español (several ACE and HOLA Awards, including Best Production and Director), Denver Theatre Center (5 Ovation Awards, including Best Direction), and Teatro Mori in Chile. Other New York directing credits include: In the Time of the Butterflies, Madre, el drama padre, Nowhere on the Border, and Letters to a Mother (Repertorio Español); Father of Lies and Vengeance Can Wait (PS122); MilkMilkLemonade” (Astoria Performing Arts Center); Feeder: A Love Story (TerraNOVA Collective); Babes in Toyland (Ice Factory), Ghost Light (59e59); Lies I Wish I’d Told You (Dixon Place); Okay (Ensemble Studio Theatre), The Strangest (HERE); Again and Against (The Lark), The Past Is Not a Foreign Country (Very) Personal Maps of Seattle (SoHo Rep), Strom Thurmond is Not a Racist (Brick Theater),and Devil Land (Summer Play Festival/Cherry Lane Theatre). Regional credits include Crowns (Virginia Stage Company). He was assistant director for Talk Radio directed by Robert Falls; Regrets Only directed by Christopher Ashley; and Come Back Little Sheba directed by Michael Pressman. He was born in Puerto Rico and graduated from Harvard and Carnegie Mellon Universities, and was selected to participate in the 2009-2011 NEA/TCG Career Development Program for Directors.
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Scenic design is by Elizabeth Jenkins McFadden, who designed sets for the El desdén con el desdén at GALA and has designed at Round House Theatre, Theater J and Imagination Stage. Lighting design is by Joseph Walls, who designed El desdén con el desdén, and costumes are by Ivania Stack, who designed for Ana en el trópico. Jane Shaw is the Sound Designer; Alex Koch is Projections Designer; Properties are by Sofia Gawer-Fische; and Ingrid Crepeau is Puppet Designer. Fight choreography is by Monalisa Arias. Company member Cecilia Cackley is Stage Manager. Anna Bate is Production Manager, Andres Luque is Technical Director, and Hugo Medrano is Producer.
ON EXHIBIT IN THE KREEGER ARTWALK
Flow, the exhibition of paintings by Guadalupe Valdes, focuses on the constant ebb and flow of human
existence. She uses the bird as a symbol of man, a being that floats between the sky and earth.
Guadalupe Valdes was born in Santiago, Chile, where she studied art and graduated from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. She also studied art history at the Technical University of Art in Berlin, Germany. She has exhibited in Chile, Germany, Hong Kong and New York.
A reception with the artist will be held on Friday, February 8 from 6 pm to 7:15 pm.
TICKET INFORMATION
Single tickets are $36 on Thursdays and Sundays, and $40 Fridays and Saturdays. Tickets for senior citizens are $26, and tickets for students and military are $20. Additional discounts are available for groups of 10 or more. Tickets for Noche de GALA and Reception are $50 per individual, $90 per couple.
FOR TICKETS Call (800) 494-8497, (202) 234-7174, or visit www.galatheatre.org
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