Teatro Paraguas Presents Video Performance of RED BIKE

Among the many events and plays which had to be canceled at Teatro Paraguas due to the pandemic was the annual Paraguas summer fundraiser which was to be held at the Elks Club in Santa Fe in August.

In lieu of the fundraiser and the special performances which were to be included, the Board of Directors opted to produce a video version of a play that has been considered for production for several years: Red Bike, by prize-winning playwright Caridad Svich.

Juliet Salazar, an actor, director, videographer, and a Teatro Paraguas Board member, is directing and producing the video with a unique vision of the play. Originally written as a monologue depicting the vast underbelly of American society in depressed small town and rural settings as seen through the eyes of an eleven year-old, Ms. Salazar has adapted the playwright's suggestion to increase the number of actors. The text has been divided among ten actors, all of whom have been filmed separately in accordance to social distancing guidelines.

According to Ms. Salazar, the script is ideal for these very un-ideal times, with flexible casting and a story that does not necessitate interaction between the actors. More importantly, the story is universal in its approach to the discovery of the world through the eyes of an 11-year-old while also providing commentary pertaining to current social and economical trends. The lyrical text provides an opportunity for us to examine the concept of common, everyday fear, where that fear comes from, and what that fear could do to us. What started as a challenge became an opportunity for our cast to come together in our isolation and tell a story to which everyone can relate.

Once theatre venues can safely open up again after the pandemic, Teatro Paraguas will produce Red Bike as a full stage production.

Caridad Svich (born July 30, 1963) is a playwright, songwriter/lyricist, translator, and editor who was born in the United States of Cuban-Argentine-Spanish-Croatian parents. A member of the New York's New Dramatists, she earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and her Master of Fine Arts at the University of California, San Diego. She has written over forty full-length plays and fifteen translations as well as other short works. Her many awards include the National Latino Playwrights Award (2013) and the OBIE for Lifetime Achievement (2013). She has taught and lectured at innumerable universities and is the founder of theatre alliance & press NoPassport, which addresses ecological and social issues.

In 2013, Teatro Paraguas produced Svich's play In The Time of The Butterflies which focuses on the assassination of the Mirabal sisters who lead the resistance against the Dominican Republic dictator Trujillo in 1963. Teatro Paraguas has presented several staged readings of plays by Svich, including Upon the Fragile Shore, which deals with the Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010.

The ten actors involved in the production are Roxanne Tapia, Alix Hudson, JoJo Sena de Tarnoff, Jenifer Nelson, Paola Martini, Cristina Vigil, Jonathan Harrell, Niko'a Salas, Froggy Fernandez, and Argos MacCallum.

A trailer of the video presentation is available on the Teatro Paraguas website. The link to the video itself will be posted there as well, beginning July 16 for a two-week run ending July 30. There is a suggested donation of $10. For further information, please visit www.teatroparaguas.org or call 505-424-1601.

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