Caborca to Present ZOETROPE; Performances Begin Next Month

Caborca Theatre has announced that it will present ZOETROPE, a bilingual, tragicomic romance written and directed by Javier Antonio González, January 15-25, at the celebrated Pregones Theater in the Bronx (575 Walton Avenue, Bronx, NY 10451) www.caborcatheatre.org. Freshly returned from the triumphant run of ZOETROPE: PART 1 in Los Angeles, this will be the world premiere of the play in its entirety.

By turns cerebral and acerbically funny, ZOETROPE is a sweeping and aesthetically charged experience in the epic theatrical tradition. Peppered with movement and live-feed video, it tells the story of an underdog military postal officer with a dream. Until he dies. Then it tells the story of his ex-wife, her sister, his lover, her friend, his son, the playwright René Marqués, and el Grito de Lares.

Following a leftist Puerto Rican family over four decades between Lares, Puerto Rico, and Harlem, New York, scenes in Puerto Rico are performed in Spanish with English supertitles, and those in New York are performed in English with Spanish supertitles. ZOETROPE is Caborca's seventh original work.

González wrote the play during his membership in The Public Theater Emerging Writers Group based on his own grandparents' correspondence. It is set in Lares, site of the 1868 revolutionary Grito ("cry") against Spain that marked what has been arguably the island's one day of post-colonial independence. ZOETROPE begins in 1951 between the acquisition of US passports and the establishment of the commonwealth, when Puerto Ricans are rapidly adjusting their notions of identity. As ideas mature over subsequent decades, the play treads lightly over a kind of intellectual history of the island. While theatrical explorations of Latino culture and identity often focus on nostalgia or the triumphs and heartbreaks of the immigrant experience, Zoetrope delves with mischievous humor into the parallel and often overlooked colonial dialectics.

Playwright and director Javier Antonio González is the artistic director of Caborca and the author of original plays, adaptations, and screenplays in both English and Spanish. His plays FLORIDITA, my Love; Open up, Hadrian; and Uneventful Deaths for Agathon have been published in print or online by New York Theatre Experience. In addition to the Emerging Writers Group, Javier has been a Van Lier Directing Fellow, an associate artist at Classic Stage Company, and a 2010 NYTheatre.com "Person of the Year". The design team includes Caborca resident designer Jian Jung (set and costumes), whose work has been seen at Long Beach Opera, Juilliard, the Living Theatre, and Classic Stage Company, among others, Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew (lighting and projections), whose work has been seen at BAM Fisher, the Rose Theater at Lincoln Center, HERE Arts Center, St. Ann's Warehouse, and ArtsEmerson, among others, and Elizabeth Rhodes (sound), whose work has been seen frequently at The Public Theater, among others.

The cast features nearly all of Caborca's resident company, including Laura Butler Rivera (Teach, Teacher, Teachest, INTAR), David Skeist (Old-Fashioned Prostitutes, Public Theater), Yaremis Félix (Baile Cangrejero, Pregones + PRTT), Veraalba Santa (Sally Silvers's Bonobo Milkshake, Roulette/American Dance Institute), Tania Molina (Open up, Hadrian, Caborca/Magic Futurebox), Marcos Toledo (Paris Belongs to Us, Dangerous Ground/Brick), Brooke Bell (Paris Belongs to Us, Dangerous Ground/Brick), Pedro Leopoldo Sánchez Tormes (El médico de su honra, Caborca/Repertorio Español), and Timothy French (Mommy in Four Acts, ArtPond).

Stage Management is by Brooke Bell and Erin Maureen Koster.

Tickets to ZOETROPE are available on a pay-what-you-can basis. The suggested ticket price is $15-35. Reservations can be made for any performance by emailing Caborca.Tickets@gmail.com, and admission will be paid in cash at the door.

Performances of ZOETROPE are on Thursdays-Saturdays at 7:30pm and Sundays at 5pm. There is a special performance Monday, 1/19, at 7:30pm. The running time is three hours, which includes one 15-minute intermission.