The World Premiere of Blu By Virginia Grise At Company of Angels
Online, September 19, 2011 (Newswire.com) - blu received the 2010 Yale Drama Series Award and is available from Yale University Press.
"blu is technically expert. ... Grise's choral effects are thrilling and unexpected. But, just as important, the play uses a heady mix of Latino and musical influences to cast oblique light on people you don't usually come across on the EnglishÂspeaking stage."-David Hare, playwright and Yale Drama Award judge
La Colectiva Chorizo y Maguey will present with Company of Angels The World Premiere of Virgina Grise's award winning play "blu" in October 2011. An epic poem for the stage, blu follows a queer Chicana/o family as they love and war while police helicopters circle their rooftop dreams. The play will open October 14 at Company of Angels at The Alexandria, 501 S. Spring Street, Downtown Los Angeles and run through November 13.
As a South San Antonio middle school teacher,Virginia Grise saw the impact of gangs, the increased standardization of education via NoChild Left Behind, the Iraq war, and the expansion of the prison industrial complex had on the lives of youth. "I watched as students were labeled gang-members or troublemakers, I saw an increased presence of police on campus. And I saw recruiting strategies used on boys to get them to think about joining the military at a very early age. I often found myself writing in between classes, trying to make sense of the upside down world of a school system that devalued the voices and experiences of the young people it claimed to serve. I never set out to write a play. I just wrote."
While receiving her MFA from Cal Arts, Grise moved to the East Los Angeles neighborhood of Boyle Heights. "The helicopters would circle my neighborhood and I said to myself every time I heard or saw a helicopter, I would write a poem and I wanted to write enough poems to make the helicopters fall out the sky." Thus, she began crafting a story about a girl who sits on the roof of her house dreaming under the stars - imagining a world without war, without helicopters, without violence. The world of blu.
Told in a heightened poetic language of street talk, blu traces the explosive after-effects of prison and hunger, desire and war and features a dynamic ensemble of six actors: DIANA DELACRUZ, LUIS GALINDO, ROMI DIAS, PHILLIP GARCIA, ALEX JIMENEZ & XAVI MORENO. The play will be directed by the legendary performance artist LAURIE CARLOS.
Production staff for blu includes LAURIE CARLOS, director, RAFA ESPARZA scenic design, IVAN ROBLES, sound design, JOSE LOPEZ, lighting designer, LUPE LUCERO, stage and production manager, IRLANDA PULIDO, assistant stage manager.
blu is produced by RICARDO A. BRACHO & XAVI MORENO
VIRGINIA GRISE (Playwright) is an award-winning playwright whose published work includes The Panza Monologues (University of Texas Press, forthcoming), an edited volume of Zapatista communiques, Conversations with Don Durito (Autonomedia Press) and blu (Yale University Press). Virginia received a 2010 Pierre Cardin Theater Award from the Princess Grace Foundation and was a 2009 Jerome Fellow at the Playwrights' Center. She holds an MFA in Writing for Performance from the California Institute of the Arts.
LAURIE CARLOS (Director) has developed new characters and daring stage aesthetics for over 20 years. An OBIE Award-winning actor, Laurie created the role of Lady in Blue in Ntozake Shange's For colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf. Two time BESSIE Award-winning choreographer, writer and director, Carlos has helmed the premieres of new work by award-winning writers at theatres including the Guthrie Theater, Penumbra Theater, Trinity Rep, Hyde Park Theater, Pangea World Theater, and Pillsbury House Theater.
"blu" previews for 2 performances beginning October 12, opening October 14 and runs Thursdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m., and Sundays at 7 p.m. through November 13. Preview tickets are priced at $10 and regular performances at $20 for General, $15 for Senior and $12 for Students. Group discounts are also available. Tickets can be purchased through the Company's website www.companyofangels.org Company of Angels is located on the 3rd Floor of the Historic Alexandria Hotel at the crossroads of 5th & Spring.
"We are super excited and honored to partner with the La Colectiva Chorizo y Maguey to present this world premiere play," said Armando Molina, Company of Angels Artistic director. "Company of Angels is committed to presenting works by local playwrights that delve into issues that affect our City and its various communities. We aim to share and help give voice to the many stories that exist in our community. We are grateful to playwrights like Virginia Grise who, through their work reflect and respond to the richness, diversity, and complexity that is our City of Angels."
blu is supported by an ARC grant from the Center for Cultural Innovation, funding from the NALAC Fund for the Arts, National Association of Latino Arts and Culture, the Ford Foundation, Southwest Airlines and is supported (in part) by The Cultural Collaborative, City of San Antonio Office of Cultural Affairs and the generous contributions of Company of Angels supporters and contributors.
"NALAC is pleased that it can continue to support the creative process of Latino artists and organizations through the NFA, now in its fourth year. Now more than ever, it is important to invest in the arts, and stimulate ideas, civic engagement, and local economies." said Abel Lopez, Chair of the NALAC Board.
If you would like to arrange an interview with the playwright, director, cast, would like more information, reservations or complimentary press passes, please call 323.382.5169 or email xmoreno@companyofangels.org