Teatro Paraguas to Host MAN-MOTH & THE GOSPEL OF POSSIBILITY Event in March 2026

A Multi-media Performance of Man-Moth & The Gospel of Possibility, a new book off      
poems by Santa Fe poet Donald Levering will be presented at Teatro Paraguas—Second Space on Friday, May 1 at 7:30 p.m., Saturday, May 2 at 7:30 p.m., and Sunday, May 3, at 2:00 p.m.

The event is centered around the book of poems, Man-Moth & The Gospel of Possibility, which will be released on the performance dates. The 20 poems will be read by two readers in a unique style of “double-down and overlap.” The live reading will be accompanied by audio and original music played on multiple instruments by a single musician. The readers will perform in a venue set will sculptural, fiber, and lighting elements designed to underscore the themes of the poetry.

The four principles of the performance include Donald Levering, Gary Barten, Corinna MacNeice, and Barbara Mehlman. Levering is a well-known poet in Santa Fe with national awards who curates poetry readings. Barten has contributed to the local artistic scene with his nouveau-Symbolist painting and multi-faceted music concerts, and by hosting the Poets@HERE Gallery series. MacNeice is another long term Santa Fe area resident, accomplished both as a visual artist and an actor. Mehlman's unique installation art, which merges several disparate elements, has garnered her and her Blue Studio recognition from Santa Fe and beyond. More detailed biographies follow.

The book came into existence after Levering read Elizabeth Bishop's 1935 poem, “The Man-Moth.” Her poem was inspired by a misprint of the word “Man-Moth” for the word “mammoth” in the New York Times. Levering expanded on the idea of a Man-Moth hybrid being, writing poems that eventually coalesced into a book manuscript. After Barten heard Levering read some of his Man-Moth poems, Barten proposed a show in which he would create music to go with the poems. Mehlman was already on board to provide art for the book, so it was natural to invite her to create the central Man-Moth image and the setting for the performance at Teatro Paraguas. Levering had witnessed MacNeice's stage performance and recognized how her powerful voice reading the poems would enhance the project. A further synchronicity occurred when Jules Nyquist and John Roche of Poetry Playhouse Publications accepted Levering's book manuscript, Man-Moth & The Gospel of Possibility, and determined it could be published to coincide with the show's opening.

In his collection of poems, Levering fleshes out the Man-Moth tale begun by Bishop in her single poem. Like Bishop's character, Levering's Man-Moth is an often unwelcome “other” who roams New York City, riding its subways “facing the wrong way” and scaling skyscrapers as he is pursued. He is ostracized by ordinary humans for his differences from them. This 21st century Man-Moth loves music and goes to jazz clubs. His human mother plays accordion and he longs to take up an instrument, but none quite fit his physiology.

Because of his metamorphic nature, he is a perceived as a “vector of change,” where most humans crave familiarity. Even as Man-Moth experiences dance and romance as do ordinary humans, he acknowledges a number of traits inherited from his father moth. He is also drawn by powerful instinct to migrate with a host of moths flying to the Yucatan.

Man-Moth receives Gospel of Possibility transmissions through his antennae which extol the virtues of fungi as nature's messenger/resource exchanger and as a renewable building material resource as well as font of psychedelic insight.

The music which weaves through the show reinforces the alien aspects of the hounded and haunted Man-Moth while manifesting the beauty of a shared world that transcends species.

Besides the riveting thematic image of Man-Moth in a receptive mode, the visual / physical setting emphasizes ongoing creation in the staged image of a cocoon and the ephemeral strands of transmission.