Teatro Paraguas Presents BLACK RANGE TRILOGY

Teatro Paraguas will present the premiere production of Santa Fe poet John Macker's Black Range Trilogy, a searing portrait of a struggling New Mexico family on the wrong side of the law, directed by Noah G. Simpson and Argos MacCallum.

The Trilogy opens with Esther and Leon, and the return of Leon (Daric Gutierrez) from another stint in jail for robbery. His wife Esther (Lynette Gonzalez) has a long list of house repairs and requests for their growing brood. In spite of a troubling dream in which she confides her doubts to a much older manifestation of herself about Leon's intentions to reform, she succumbs once again to his bearhugs and charms.

In Coyote Acid, son Luke (Marcos Maez) returns from his own stretch in jail for robbery, following in his dead father's footsteps. It's thirty years later, and an older Esther (Esta Gutierrez) may or may not remember where the loot was buried, or even the names of the flowers she has planted for decades.

The Trilogy concludes with Sierra Oscura, and the burial of Esther in the back yard presided over by Father Garcia (Miles Blitch). Luke's sister Marie (Elsa Lopez) has come up from Las Cruces. The siblings confront each other with the brutal truth of the family's tortured history, and the possibility of redemption though a bitter sacrifice.

John Macker grew up in Colorado and studied journalism at the University of Missouri. He has published eight full-length books of poetry, 2 audio recordings and several broadsides over 30 years. His most recent are Atlas of Wolves, The Blues Drink Your Dreams Away, Selected Poems 1983-2018 (a 2019 Arizona/New Mexico Book Awards finalist), Gorge Songs, and part three of his Badlands trilogy, Disassembled Badlands, published by Turkey Buzzard Press in Colorado in 2014. His book of stories and essays, Desert Threnody, was published in 2020, and contains Coyote Acid, act two of Black Range Trilogy.

Teatro Paraguas presented Coyote Acid in January 2022, with Jennifer Graves as Esther and Peter Chapman as Luke, directed by Argos MacCallum.

Performances are May 26 - June 11, 2023, with shows Thursday, Friday, and Saturday at 7:30 p.m., and Sunday at 2:00 p.m. Tickets are $25 general admission, and $15 limited income, and may be purchased at teatro-paraguas.ticketleap.com/blackrange/

Reservations may be made by calling 505-424-1601 for purchasing tickets at the door.

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