Two Comedic One-Acts to Lighten Your Heart this Spring!
March 11, 2010
Santa Fe College's Fine Arts department is rolling out two plays for its spring production. “Dog Lady” and “The Cuban Swimmer” will be performed back-to-back with a short intermission in between.
Both plays blend English and Spanish in a way that lends an interesting rhythm to each. The mix also breaks down the ability to pigeonhole the characters.
“It shows a community that is not one thing or another,” says director Kathy Byrne, an adjunct professor in Santa Fe's theater program.
Each play chronicles the events surrounding two women athletes. In “Dog Lady,” a Mexican-American community, based out of an east LA barrio, watches a young woman as she prepares for a marathon. The 30-minute performance is primarily a comedy.
“The Cuban Swimmer,” is more of a comedy/drama that tells the story of a Cuban family following one daughter as she competes in a swimming race from a California beach to Catalina Island. The family is gathered together in a boat as the father coaches his daughter during the competition. Along the way, the parents recall their own history when they left Cuba by boat, abandoning all they had.
The works belong to a genre called “magical realism,” where all the events seem normal except one mythological aspect that the cast accepts as common. The award-winning movie, “Pan's Labyrinth,” uses this same mechanism.
The plays will be performed at 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, March 25-27, with an additional performance at 2 p.m. Saturday. Tickets are $5. Santa Fe students, faculty and staff, seniors, and children under 12, are free.
For more information, please call thre SF Fine Arts Department at 352-395-5296.
CONTACT:
- Kathy Byrne, director, 352-213-1909
- David Hackett, communications specialist, College Relations, for help facilitating your story, 352-256-3424 (cell) or email david.m.hackett@sfcollege.edu or call Julie Garrett, 352-870-2924 (cell)
