Metta Theatre of Taos to Premiere UNMANNED

Metta Theatre of Taos presents the premiere production of Unmanned, a new play by Robert Myers

WHAT: Unmanned, a new play by Robert Myers

WHEN: March 18-20, Friday and Saturday at 7:30 pm, Sunday at 2:00pm

WHERE: Teatro Paraguas Studio, 3205 Calle Marie, Santa Fe

TICKETS: $18 general admission, $12 limited income

Reservations: 505-424-1601

Unmanned is a play about two drone pilots who work for a private contractor out of a trailer in the American Southwest. He is an aging former fighter pilot from Alabama who is afraid to fly, and she is a young video game whiz from Cleveland who has never been in a plane.

The play was adapted for radio in 2013 as Drone Pilots and was broadcast on BBC's Radio4. Unmanned was conceived and written during a residency in March 2012 at the Center for International U.S. Studies at the University of Illinois, where it received its first reading.

The performances of Unmanned at Teatro Paraguas in Santa Fe mark the play's world premiere, and will feature actors Jacquelyn Cordova and Bruce McIntosh, both of Metta Theatre in Taos, as well as live music by the celebrated Chicago-based musician Michael Miles (www.MilesMusic.org).

Jacquelyn Cordova ( Airman Lina Asfour) was born in California and raised in Vadito, New Mexico. She has a BA from Columbia College in Advertising/Marketing. She is a member of Metta Young Artists and serves on the board of Metta Theatre.

Her most recent stage appearance was in LILAC MINYAN by Debora Seidman. She was featured in an episode of BETTER CALL SAUL, and trained as an actress in Taos and Los Angeles. She performs as a singer songwriter and is the creator, director producer of CONDESSENCE a series of short films, two of which will be featured in the Taos Shortz film festival next month.

Bruce McIntosh ( Colonel Borden) was trained as an actor in NYC and Los Angeles. He has worked as an actor, director & writer in theatre and film. He is the founder and artistic director of Metta Theatre in Taos, a non profit focusing on theatre training for local at risk youth in area schools and at the Taos County Juvenile Detention Center.

Bruce and Robert Myers met in 1993 in Los Angeles when Bruce was cast in Robert's one-man play FIXIN' TO DIE: A VISIT TO THE MIND OF LEE ATWATER. The two became friends as the play traveled from its original production to South Carolina, Washington, DC and NYC.

Previous presentations of Unmanned include readings at the Humanities Center at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, 2016; Silk Road Rising Theatre in Chicago, with live music by Michael Miles (directed by Sandeep Das), 2014; Metta Theatre, Taos, with Bruce McIntosh, 2013; Blank Theatre, Hollywood (directed by Kirsten Sanderson), 2012; The New Group, New York (directed by Evan Yionoulis, Yale Repertory Theatre), 2012.

Robert Myers (www.robert-myers.com) is the author of over a dozen stage plays, including Atwater: Fixin' to Die (with Bruce McIntosh, directed by George Furth, MCC Theatre, Off-Broadway; Helen Hayes Nomination, "Best Actor," Washington, DC), The Lynching of Leo Frank (Joseph Jefferson Award, "Best New Play," Chicago); Dead of Night: The Execution of Fred Hampton (optioned for film to Forest Whitaker and Showtime), Painting Persia, Mesopotamia, Unmanned, which he adapted as Drone Pilots for BBC's Radio 4, and Twilight Country, a headline event at the 2015 Pittsburgh Humanities Festival with Kathleen Chalfant and Anita Dashielle-Sparks. He also co-translated Baghdadi Bath, by Iraq's best-known director, Jawad Al Assadi, with Nada Saab, produced at LaMama Theatre in New York, and The Dictator, by Lebanese playwright Issam Mahfouz. He received a MacArthur grant with Silk Road Rising Theatre and Nada Saab to co-translate Rituals of Signs and Transformations, by Sa'dallah Wannous, Syria's most celebrated contemporary playwright. In 2013, he produced the English-language world premiere of the play at Babel Theatre in Beirut, directed by Sahar Assaf, and in 2015 he produced the English-language world premiere of The Rape, also by Wannous, in Beirut, which he co-translated with Nada Saab. In 2011, he was the recipient of a Franke fellowship from the Whitney Humanities Center at Yale, which staged his play Mesopotamia, about Gertrude Bell, starring Kathleen Chalfant. He has also received two Fulbright fellowships, a Mellon grant and a New York State Individual Artist's grant and a Joseph Jefferson award for "Best New Play." He received his PhD, with a specialty in Spanish, Portuguese and Hispano-Arabic literature, from Yale University, and he is a Professor of English and Creative Writing and Director of the Center for American Studies at the American University of Beirut.

CONTACT: Argos MacCallum, 505-577-2679, <argos@teatroparaguas.org>

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