Teatro Luna Adds LULLABY to 2010-11 Season

The year-long celebration just keeps getting bigger for Chicago's All-Latina Theatre company," says Managing Director Alex Meda as she announces the addition of two new projects in Teatro Luna's ambitious 10th anniversary season--which in total includes four world-premiere productions, two of which are Luna commissions of Latina playwrights, one ensemble-devised work (GL 2010- produced this past summer), a co-production with Bailiwick Chicago, a remount of 2007's smash hit MACHOS (Be A Man!), and a New Play Festival (LATINAS DO IT WRITE, Summer 2010). Additionally, Teatro Luna's unique training and development program, the Incubation Series, continues with exciting new expansions, including the launch of the third year of the the Lunadas Reading Series, with more plays by Latina/o playwrights from all over the country and beyond, receiving script development workshops and staged readings for a public audience. Also, the second year of the Luna PlayLabs and Directors Lab are joined by the launch of a new laboratory, the Producers Lab.
This special new season marks Teatro Luna's 10th anniversary of producing new work and providing opportunities to Latinas both on and off the stage, and showcasing the work of talented Latina professionals from Chicago and across the nation.
 
"Our 2010/2011 season demonstrates the growth Teatro Luna has undergone over recent years. It showcases our ability to develop and create a variety of exciting and groundbreaking new work, both within the artistic traditions we have honed for a decade, as well as through new artistic endeavors and collaborations that we are currently embarking on," said Meda. "I am beyond proud of the new Teatro Luna Ensemble and Artistic Associates who have come together this year and have pushed Teatro Luna artistically further than ever before. This really will be the most compelling season yet from Chicago's All-Latina Theatre, and I know it will truly cement TL as an institution dedicated to the development and production of New Work from the Pan-Latina voice."
 
This season the ladies of TL continue to ask challenging questions of both themselves and also of those around the country. "We have talked a lot over the last 10 years about what it means to be a Latina, about complex racial/ethnic/cultural/sexual identities, and this year, we're going just a bit further and also looking at where we fit, not just where we don't, within the national landscape today. In a few ways, Latinas are now a part of the mainstream: our perspectives (and money) do affect the norm--but what impact does that have on our everyday lives?" asks Miranda Gonzalez, a founding Ensemble Member who recently Directed GL 2010 and is currently Co-Directing Lullaby. "It is crystal clear from the news headlines alone that there is so much left to accomplish in terms of disarming racism, prejudice, and hate, and we will always continue to talk about that." Meda adds, "We're just making our approach more sophisticated with a more varied offering of theatrical writing and performance styles, including an increase in season offerings by producing more single-author works. This year we are looking both within and beyond our national borders to find the answers to some of these complicated questions, like what exactly does it mean to be any one kind of American today?" Diane Herrera, Ensemble Member says, "We are really excited about this lineup of plays and collaborations. They speak to who we are and where we came from; they celebrate our 10th Anniversary in a really meaningful way."
 
Newest addition to the season:
LULLABY by Ensemble Member Diane Herrera
A Teatro Luna Commission
Co-Directed by Maria Enriquez (Artistic Associate) & Miranda Gonzalez (Ensemble)
Preview: Oct 4, 2010 at 8:00 p.m.
Opens: Oct 6, 2010 at 8:00 p.m. reception to follow
Plays: Oct 6-17, Wed-Fri @ 8:00 p.m., Sat @ 3:00 & 8:00 p.m., and Sun @ 3:00 p.m.
We are proud to announce the latest addition to this season, the world-premiere production of Lullaby. This play was developed, starting in 2009, through the the Luna PlayLabs of which Herrera is the Director. Recently, this play received a workshop through the Lunadas Reading Series and underwent an additional script workshop with the cast and Luna Ensemble, as well as Luna friend, Allyson Gonzalez. This short run at the Greenhouse Theater will begin with a preview October 4, 2010 and will continue for 12 public performances.
 
What happens when an all-Latina cast explores the bizarre world of Bigfoot, aliens, Loch Ness Monster, and mermaids? Take a trip to dreamland as Playwright and Ensemble Member Diane Herrera guides us through the twilight zone and smartly examines themes of love, death, loneliness, motherhood, and magic in the second offering in Teatro Luna's 10th Anniversary Season, Lullaby. This play marks another step forward in the production history of the company: Lullaby is the third full-length production written by an ensemble member and the first direct product of the Luna PlayLab. Let Teatro Luna tuck you in with our "cantos de cuna" unlike any you've heard.
 
About the Plays and Artists still upcoming in Teatro Luna's 2010/2011 Season
(All plays, artists and dates are subject to change.)
 
MULTIPLE AMERICAS
Late Spring-Early Summer 2011
A Teatro Luna Commission
Multiple Americas is a theatrical tour of the varied cultures and sub-cultures that make up our current national landscape. Told from the comedic perspective of the writing team (the ladies of Dominizuelan and MARIA) and developed in collaboration with and produced by Teatro Luna, this show will be sure to make you laugh, think, and relate. Project leaders Lorena Diaz & Wendy Mateo are conducting interviews with people from around the country including but not limited to, an Indiana girl growing up on a nudist colony, a soldier with three tours of Iraq under his belt, Tea Party supporters, and Compton, CA residents. America is not a melting pot, but rather a tossEd Salad, where groups don't always melt together or get along; they exist within the multi-faceted worlds that make up the whole of our nation. Inspired by a quote from Pulitzer Prize winning Dominican writer Junot Diaz, "I came to see the United States as a composite of 'multiple Americas': ones that were racist and xenophobic, coupled with Americas where anything is possible." Dominizuelan, MARIA, and Teatro Luna ask: What does your America look like?
 
Check out more on Dominizuelan at www.tallhispanic-shorthispanic.com; twitter.com/dominizuelan; & facebook.com/dominizuelan

Check out more about MARIA: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001284556227
MACHOS (BE A MAN!) THE REMOUNT
at Studio BE
Early Spring 2011
Originally produced at Chicago Dramatists in 2007 to sold out audiences followed by a completely sold out remount at 16th Street Theatre, Machos has since been on tour all around the country. But due to popular demand, and an endless array of e-mails requesting the Luna "boys" make another appearance on a Chicago stage, we just couldn't keep saying no! That's right, the popular smash hit is back for 10 performances over 10 weeks at Studio Be early 2011. Don't miss this TL classic with a new cast and some exciting new surprises!
 
Men. Women. Women dressed as men. MACHOS (How To Be A Man!), is an interview-based play about contemporary masculinities. In 2006, frustrated with our boyfriends, brothers, and bosses, our company of Latina women set out to answer the question: What are men really thinking? The result is MACHOS, a performance drawn from interviews with 50 men nationwide and performed by an all-Latina cast in drag. From a young man's relationship with his correctional officer father, to a man cheating on his wife with himself, to an epic confrontation between fraternity brothers, MACHOS presents a range of true-life stories with Teatro Luna's trademark humor and unique Latina point of view. MACHOS moves beyond the everyday stereotypes of gender, offering a complex look at how 50 men (and five Latina women) learned how to be men. As always, Teatro Luna is cheeky, straightforward, and willing to ask even the most hard-hitting questions: Exactly how did you learn to use a urinal?
 
MACHOS is presented In English with a sprinkle of Spanish. Originally Developed and Directed by Coya Paz.
NORTH/SOUTH PLAYS
Late Summer 2011
Teatro Luna partners with Bailiwick Chicago in producing two original plays in co-development with theatre companies from Mexico and Canada that explore the explosive and controversial issues surrounding the United States' border with our North and South neighboring countries. Presented in repertory, this promises to be the dramatic event of the summer. Location to be announced soon.
 
THE INCUBATION SERIES
The Incubation Series, now at the end of its second year of operation, is an initiative of programming designed to nurture the individual talents of both emerging and established Latina theatre artists in the Chicagoland area through the following programs: THE LUNA PLAYLAB, THE DIRECTORS LAB, THE NEW WORKS LAB (home of the Lunadas Reading Series), & THE PRODUCERS LAB.
 
Herrera, Director of the PlayLAB reflects on the past year of work in PlayLAB I & II as well as our Luz De Luna Writers Salon. "It has been so inspiring to see these Latina writers in the PlayLab develop their skills--from simple exercises to ten-minute scenes to full-length plays. The Incubation Series follows Teatro Luna's mission to give Latinas their voice and express their creativity, and I'm confident that we will continue to develop these artists to produce their work on a regional and national level."
 
In the first year of these labs, Teatro Luna incubated over 40 different talented Latina women, who wanted to pursue a professional career in the arts, and 19 ten-minute plays and 12 full-lengths were written throughout the program which culminated in the presentation of 10 new plays to a public audience in the Latinas Do It Write, 10X10 New Play Festival. The Lunadas Reading Series has produced 12 public readings to date.
 
The upcoming Reading Series Event is Oct 25, featuring Kristiana Colón's A Week In Spring, Directed by Ilesa Duncan. "As the Director of the Reading Series, I have had the profound satisfaction of working closely with emerging and established artists: directors, actors, dramaturgs, and playwrights. It has been a beautiful experience to see the organic development of a play in progress: actors and directors and dramaturgs working together to assist the playwright in revisioning the world they have crafted on the page," says Dr. Liza Ann Acosta of her work over the past two years in developing the LUNADAS Reading Series program into Chicago's premier reading series dedicated to nurturing the talents of Pan-Latina-Hispana/o playwrights. The LUNADAS Reading Series was launched in 2009 as unique opportunity to bridge the work of all our labs, bringing together the varied artists of the theatre, meeting playwrights and their work outside of Chicago, and crafting a safe space for the development of experimental new work.

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