SOLE SURVIVORS Journeys Across Borders To Off-Broadway 4/2-4/4
After working on "SOLE SURVIVORS" for two and a half years, Santa Fe performance artist and author/journalist MICHELLE VEST just might have the most topical and relevant show playing in New York this season.
Directed by Tanya Taylor Rubinstein, the show is being presented at STAGE LEFT STUDIO THEATRE (438 West 37th Street - between 9th & 10th Avenues) this weekend only - April 2nd, 3rd and 4th.
"SOLE SURVIVORS" is a no-holds-barred portrait of one avaricious American woman and three desperately determined immigrants who willingly put their lives on the line in their dangerous pursuit of THE AMERICAN DREAM.Inspired by Woody Guthrie's haunting protest song (Deportee - Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)
and drawn from dozens of interviews with documented and undocumented Southwestern migrant workers, Ms. Vest has written a show that bravely and with Chaplinesque humor examines the desire for a better life as a basic human issue.
No one knows what to do.
No one knows how to dam up this river of human desperation.No one knows how to stop the dying in the desert.MICHELLE VEST thought she would ask the workers themselves. The answers are riveting; and make for a brilliant show.This is theatre at its most vulnerable and most affective.But isn't any TRUTHFUL presentation of human NEED and WANT affective ?YES.The SOLE SURVIVORS are named Juan, Rosalita, Jesus and Maria after the people in Mr. Guthrie's song that detailed the 1948 crash of a plane that was transporting deported illegal immigrant farm workers from California back to Mexico.
The entire evening is scored by the music of the acclaimed mariachi band FLOR de TOLOACHE who serve as the play's haunting Greek Chorus; and such.Michelle Vest lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Trained in ballet, her passion for performance developed primarily while studying expressive arts therapy at the Tamalpa Institute, Kentfield, CA.
There she discovered the joy of story-telling through improvisation, cultivating a strong somatic awareness, inviting and allowing stories to arise from a deep physical presence and experience.
"Sole Survivors" was developed during a year-long solo performance workshop led by Tanya Taylor Rubinstein of Project Life Stories, and is based on interviews Ms. Vest conducted with both documented and undocumented workers from Mexico and El Salvador, combining her photo-journalistic background and performance experiences.
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