Posts Tagged Gustavo Boada

         

Rehearsal for The Palabras Project

Recently I was in the audience watching the post-show discussion of Calendar Girls when Charity Jones, who plays Chris, the mastermind behind the nude calendar idea, spoke up about the need to support smaller production companies that do great work as well.  With that in mind, Park Square Theatre introduces to you Other Tiger Production’s The Palabras Project on its Andy Boss Thrust Stage from July 8 to 17.

“Palabras” itself means “words” in Spanish; and it is specifically the words of Federico Garcia Lorca’s play, Blood Wedding, that is the inspiration for The Palabras Project.  Yet the project itself features an amalgamation of various art forms, including theatre, music, dance, and puppetry, which suggest a reliance on further words — namely, “collaboration,” “passion” and “trust” — to make it possible for Other Tiger Productions to create the grand spectacle that we shall see, hear, and feel.

We use words every day to impart seeds of ideas, plant them to grow, then lovingly tend them.  But the process itself requires a measure of letting go, which is exactly what Other Tiger founders Jessica Huang and Ricardo Vazquez did for The Palabras Project.  According to Vazquez, each artist read Blood Wedding then explored and created around what spoke to them in the play.  Collaborators Susana di Palma, Maria Isa, Armando Gutierrez G., Gustavo Boada and Dario Tangelson were given artistic freedom to tackle their medium of expertise then repeatedly came together as a group to form the overall production.

In rehearsals, the artists kept constant touch with words, sharing those from movie lines, lyrics, poetry, etc. that inspired them, always circling back to their connection to the script itself.  Vazquez described their creative process:  “Every idea should be tried, even though most ideas may not work.  We tear down, try again, build up again to be better.”  All the while, the source of inspiration — the words of Lorca — remained the constant touchstone.

So I am not surprised that, as part of the show’s run, two free readings of Blood Wedding are also scheduled:  one in Spanish on Thursday, July 7, 7:30 pm; another in English on Thursday, July 14, 7:30 pm. The readings will be done by bilingual talents from the Twin Cities Latino community.

 

(Also refer to the June 28 blog, “Spanish Immersion: The Palabras Project Comes to Park Square,” and look forward to the upcoming blog, “Chasing the Tiger,” to learn more about Other Tiger Productions.)