Teatro Paraguas Will Present A Staged Reading Of ESPERANZA

Teatro Paraguas will present a staged reading of Esperanza ,a play-in-progress based on the movie Salt of the Earth.  TP has been working in collaboration with Carlos Morton, a renowned Chicano playwright and Professor Emeritus of Theatre at UC Santa Barbara, to bring this historic movie and the actual events depicted in it to the stage.

Salt of the Earth is a 1954 American film drama written by Michael Wilson directed byHernert J. Biberman, and produced by Paul Jarrico, based on the 1951 miners' strike at the Empire Zinc Mine outside Silver City. Because the miners were forced by the Taft-Hartley Act to abandon the picket line, the miners' wives took over the protest, and the united community led by the women forced the company with non-violent resistance to relent and honor the miners' demands for better wages, housing, and working conditions.

1954 was the height of the McCarthy Era, and Wilson, Biberman, and Jarrico were all three  blacklisted by the hollywood establishment due to their alleged involvement incommunistt politics. Salt of the Earth was produced under incredibly difficult conditions. Rosaura Revueltas, a famous Mexican actor who starred as the title character Esperanza -- the pregnant wife of one of the chief miners -- was deported during the filming. The company was harassed while shooting scenes, and the set was vandalized. No Film Lab would process the film. No union crew would work for the film, nor Hollywood actors. The men and women of the mining community played the characters in the film. Salt of the Earth was one of the first fully independent films made outside the Hollywood studio system.

The film was adapted into a two-act opera called Esperanza (Hope). The labor movement in Wisconsin along with University of Wisconsin-Madison opera professor Karlos Moser commissioned the production. The music was written by David Bishop and the llibretto by Carlos Morton. The opera premiered in MMadison, wisconsin, on August 25, 2000, to positive reviews.

Under the direction of Paola Vengoechea and Cristina Vigil, a cast of sixteen actors and musicians will work with playwright Carlos Morton to develop a full stage version which will be presented at Teatro Paraguas in March 2026.

The staged readings are Saturday, June 14 at 7:30 p.m., and Sunday June 15 at 2:00 p.m. A suggested donation of $10 may be made at teatroparaguasnm.org., and reservations may be made at 505-424-1601.

This project is made possible in part by New Mexico Arts (Dept. of Cultural Affairs), Santa Fe Arts and Culture, and Santa Fe Community Foundation.

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