O ROMEO, MADE IN LANUS and More Set for Milagro's 31st Season

Milagro, the Northwest's premier Latino arts and culture organization, announces its 2014-2015 season featuring an exciting line-up of four stage productions, including two world premieres, a national touring production and the only professional Spanish language theatre production in the region.

Milagro kicks off its 31th season with the sixth annual multidisciplinary festival La Luna Nueva, a celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month bringing to Portland stages live music and dance performances, including the world premieres of Words that Burn created by Los Porteños, and Inkarri, a celebration of Andean legends by Alex Llumiquinga and Luciana Proaño. A complete schedule will be announced later this July for events from September 12-28 2014.

In October, ¡O Romeo! Milagro's celebration of Día de los muertos, a fresh and original bilingual work conceived by Olga Sanchez, is inspired by beloved Shakespearean characters. The magic of Day of the Dead will honor the Bard's life and death in collaboration with Portland's Complete Works Project.

In January, Milagro's touring and education programs bring a confused Latina and her humorous search for her identity and Aztec past in Searching for Aztlán.

In February, Milagro will produce the west coast premiere of one of the most remarkable Argentinian plays of the late 20th century, Made in Lanús. After a decade of exile, an Argentine couple returns to their homeland with very different plans and expectations. This award-winning play explores memory, dreams and the true meaning of home. (The play will be presented in the original Spanish, with easy-to-follow supertitles in English).

And in May, Milagro will wrap up our season with a wildly comical, romp-odyssey of American history, pop-culture and the naturalization process in the tale of American Night: The Ballad of Juan José.

Also on the schedule are a number of special events, including touring productions of El Niño Diego and the premier of Sueños de Fútbol, which will perform at libraries and schools around the Portland metropolitan region; Searching for Aztlán which will travel nationally to universities and community centers; Milagro's annual community Christmas celebration, Posada Milagro; a reading of an early draft adaptation of the award-winning novel by Luis Alberto Urrea: Into the Beautiful North; and the one night bilingual performance Mujeres in celebration of 2015 International Women's Day. El Centro Milagro will continue to host new exhibitions of work by regional Latino visual artists along with a variety of community meetings and events, including the Small- and Mid-sized Arts Coalition, Los Porteños Latino Writers Group, Opciones y Educación, the Latino Artists eXchange and many others.

Milagro is also delighted to welcome our colleagues and friends of the Jewish Theatre Collaborative as resident artists of El Centro Milagro for a second year, sharing the passion for producing theatre that celebrates culturally specific stories with broader audience in a way that has artistic integrity and is dramatically compelling.

Performances begin at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays, 8:00 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, and 2:00 p.m. Sundays at the Milagro Theatre (525 S.E. Stark St., Portland). Various season ticket packages are available, ranging from $66 - $110. Individual ticket prices are $16-$28, which include a variety of discounts for students, seniors, veterans and groups of 15 or more; previews on first Thursday of the run; as well as advance cash purchases. Subscriptions, single tickets and group reservations are available by calling 503-236-7253. For more information, visit www.milagro.org.

Milagro's 2014-2015 season includes:

DÍA DE MUERTOS: ¡O Romeo!
World Premiere
A Latino Look at Shakespeare's Dead Heroes
An original, bilingual celebration of the Day of the Dead, created by Olga Sanchez
October 17 - November 9, 2014
This year Portland's longest-running celebration of the Day of the Dead will revive Shakespeare himself for a reunion with some of his most beloved characters. Inspired by stories of the New World, Shakespeare encounters the emerging traditions of Día de muertos. In the land of the dead all is possible, all boundaries are crossed and there are no barriers of languages or nationalities as Shakespeare's dead discover with comedy and philosophy the Latino within them!

SEARCHING FOR AZTLÁN
A Journey to the Past and Present of Chicano Pride
World Premiere
Milagro's touring and educations bilingual national touring production, written & directed by Lakin Valdez
January 8 - 17, 2013
A humorous journey in search of lost identity and culture. Follow Dolores, our Latina heroine, in her exploration of Chicano history from the time of the Aztecs, through the present movement of los MEChistAs and into the future of her Latinidad and her own identity. Through comedy and physical theatre, Lakin Valdez of El Teatro Campesino, will write and direct the new work created from authentic stories of Chicano lideres

MADE IN LANÚS
Should we stay or should we go?
By Nelly Fernandez Tiscornia
Directed by Nelda Reyes
February 5 - 28, 2015
Presented in Spanish with English supertitles
Mabel and Osvaldo were exiled from their native land, threatened by the ruling military dictatorship of Argentina. After 10 years of living in New York, they return home for a wedding, to a democracy, and to visit their dearest friends. Reunited in Lanús, Buenos Aires, with Yoli and El Negro (Mabel's brother) who barely make ends meet,. the two couples find themselves wondering "should we stay or should we go"?

AMERICAN NIGHT: The Ballad of Juan José
A Wild Odyssey through American history
By Richard Montoya
Directed by Elizabeth Huffman
April 30 - May 23, 2015
As Juan José feverishly studies for his citizenship exam, his obsession to pass takes him on a fantastical odyssey through U.S. history guided by a handful of unsung citizens who made courageous choices in some of the country's toughest times. American Night: The Ballad of Juan José is a provocative, irreverent, and hilarious mix of past and present, stereotype and truth.

ABOUT MILAGRO: Milagro has been dedicated to bringing the vibrancy of Latino theatre to the Northwest community and beyond for more than 30 seasons. In addition to its national tours, Milagro provides a home for Spanish and Latino arts and culture at El Centro Milagro, where it enriches the local community with a variety of community outreach projects and educational programs designed to share the diversity of Latino culture. For more information about the Milagro, visit www.milagro.org or call 503-236-7253.

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