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New November 2012 title from Santa Catalina Editions, an imprint of NoPassport:
 
PLAYS OF LOVE & ENCHANTMENT
by Caridad Svich
 
Astral Yearning,
Bliss,
Elysium at 3 AM,
Slow Fast Walking on the Red Eye,
Transmission 0500/To the Blue Peninsula,
Turn the Dark Up, Bow Down, This is a Hymn
 
The six plays in this collection are a series of meditations on love, time, virtuality, and transience in the modern world. They focus mainly on young characters drifting through their lives, and in and out of relationships. These theatre pieces are written as little spells of love. They bristle with both poison and enchantment, as they send their characters into orbit. What they ask, in sometimes ardently pure text, is for a new kind of theatre language to be born- out of and through aspects of love.
 
paperback
ISBN: 978-1-300-42880-0
retail: $20.00
 

 

 

by matthew paul olmos
 
"What ensues is a complex encounter that challenges notions of boundary, safety, identity and what you would do for your family. It's a dissection of difference, of connection, of the borders and barriers we use to distance ourselves, and those dangerous moments when we cross over those borders and barriers.”
--Philip Himberg, Producing Artistic Director, Sundance Theatre Institute
 

New from Santa Catalina Editions: ART & DECADENCE PLAYS

 

New for October 2012 from Santa Catalina Editions:
 
ART AND DECADENCE PLAYS
(Magnificent Waste, Lulu Ascending, Tilt Heaven)
by Caridad Svich
 
The three plays by OBIE-winning playwright Caridad Svich examine varying aspects of art and decadence through the lens of contemporary visual art, photography, painting, and fashion. MAGNIFICENT WASTE (2012 finalist for PEN Center USA Literary Award in Drama), LULU ASCENDING (a play on Wedekind's Lulu plays) and TILT HEAVEN are acid-dipped views of celebrity culture and consumerism, suffused with a hard ache for the lost souls that inhabit their distinct harsh-lit, emptied worlds of sadness.
 
ISBN: 978-1-300-34935-8
Paperback: $20.00
purchase link:
 
Santa Catalina Editions is an imprint of NoPassport.

 

New October 2012 title from NoPassport Press
 
RED FROGS AND OTHER PLAYS
by Ruth Margraff
 
Afterword by Randy Gener
 
RED FROGS AND OTHER PLAYS by Ruth Margraff collects three astonishing, thrilling plays: the title play, THE ELEKTRA FUGUES and STADIUM DEVILDARE. Margraff is one of the US' most daring playwright-poets and this collection defies expectations and leaves readers and audiences breathless with wonder.
 
ISBN: 978-1-300-32500-0
paperback
US Retail: $15.00
 

INVITE: Reading of Caridad Svich's Spark

 

YOU'RE INVITED TO A FREE
VETERANS DAY READING OF
CARIDAD SVICH'S SPARK


CARIDAD SVICH

LOUIS CANCELMI

MARIN IRELAND

JOCELYN KURITSKY

GLORIA MANN

SCOTT SCHWARTZ
The Cherry Lane Theatre, Gloria Mann, TEL and Mannatee Films in collaboration with NoPassport theatre alliance & press present
 

SPARK

By (2012 Lifetime Achievement OBIE Award) 
Caridad Svich
Directed by Scott Schwartz
Cast includes Louis Cancelmi, Marin Ireland, Jocelyn Kuritsky & Gloria Mann

CHERRY LANE THEATRE
38 Commerce Street, NYC

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 11th at 8pm

The reading will be followed by a panel on issues facing female US war veterans.

INDUSTRY RSVPS: sparkplaynyc@gmail.com


SPARK is a play about three sisters living in the US caught in the mess of a recent war’s aftermath. It is about what happens when soldiers come home, when women of little economic means must find a way to make do and carry on, and the strength, ultimately, of family. A contemporary US story of faith, love, war, trauma, and a bit of healing.
 
CREDITS:
Producer for The Cherry Lane reading:
Gloria Mann, TEL and Mannatee Films
Line Producer for SPARK @ NoPassport:
Lanie Zipoy
Dramaturg for SPARK @ NoPassport:
Zac Kline
Asst. Dramaturg:
Erin Kaplan
Consulting Dramaturg:
Heather Helinsky
 
Script History: SPARK was commissioned by Elaine Avila, Daniel Banks, Raymond Dooley, Amparo Garcia-Crow, Amy Gonzalez, Peter Lichtenfels, Charlotte Meehan, Christi Moore, Flor De Liz Perez, Marisel Polanco, Teresa Perez-Frangie, Otis Ramsey-Zoe, Claudio Raygoza, J.T.Rogers, Meghan Wolf and Tamilla Woodard. The script was developed, in part, through a roundtable at the Lark Play Development Center and at Bristol Riverside Theatre. NoPassport and Caridad Svich are a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas.
 
For more information about SPARK visit:http://www.nopassport.org/spark 
and 

http://www.facebook.com/SparkScheme

 

New from NOPE Press: ETCHED IN SKIN.

 

New from NoPassport Press September 2012
 
ETCHED IN SKIN ON A SUNLIT NIGHT
by Kara Lee Corthron
 
an intense and theatrical drama about lust, culture clash, and betrayal marks the arrival of one of the most exciting new voices in American theatre. The compelling story follows Jules, an African-American painter who has fled the U.S. under ambiguous circumstances and embraced a whole new life and family in Iceland. As Barack Obama’s meteoric presidential campaign makes Jules more homesick than ever, her husband presents their biracial daughter with a shocking present, and a mysterious visitor shows up at Jules’ studio. This whirlwind of events brings the demons of Jules’ past crashing down on her new family and challenges her sense of racial and personal identity. Originally premiered at Interact Theatre in Philadelphia.
 
 
ISBN: 978-1-300-19029-5
Retail: $10.00
paperback
 
 
 
 
NoPassport Press

Honest Truths in The Way of Water

 

By Marylee Orr, Executive Director

Louisiana Environmental Action Network

After the reading produced by Off the Hyphen Productions in Baton Rouge, LA in June 2012.

 

The Way of Water is profoundly moving and for me deeply disturbing. What Caridad Svich captured was so painful for me because it was what I was seeing and hearing every day.

It is what I am still seeing and hearing.

One of the characters in the play could be my friend Jorey.

Sadly since we recorded that video, Jorey went out after the Hurricane and was exposed to oil that had been thrown up on the beach.

He is suffering a relapse or as he calls it a "BP rewind." It is heartbreaking.

I am so thankful for The Way of the Water because it truly tells the honest to God truth of what is happening to the marvelous people along our Gulf Coast.

God bless Caridad Svich and all the wonderful performers who tell the story of what is happening to the people on the Gulf Coast.

Keep up the great work.

 
Marylee M. Orr
Executive Director
Louisiana Environmental Action Network/Lower Mississippi Riverkeeper
marylee@leanweb.org
www.leanweb.org
www.lmrk.org
www.saveourgulf.org

 

 

New from Santa Catalina Editions:
 
 
The Spanish Golden Age Plays
by Caridad Svich
 
 
THE SPANISH GOLDEN AGE PLAYS collects three playful, spirited, go-for-broke adaptation/translations by US Latina dramatist Caridad Svich of comedies by Maria Zayas de Sotomayor, Lope de Vega, and Calderon de la Barca. These three plays - A LITTLE BETRAYAL AMONG FRIENDS, THE LABYRINTH OF DESIRE and THE MONSTER IN THE GARDEN - play fast and loose with issues of gender, sexuality, and identity and shed new light on works from Spain's golden age of drama.

Santa Catalina Editions/NoPassport
www.nopassport.org
 

 

On The Way of Water By Melanie Driscoll

 

On The Way of Water

By Melanie Driscoll

Director of Bird Conservation, Gulf Coast Conservation

National Audubon Society

August 12, 2012

I was asked to be part of a panel following a reading of Caridad Svich’s play The Way of Water at The Red Shoes in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.  The request came because, as National Audubon Society’s director of bird conservation in Louisiana during the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster, I initiated and helped lead Audubon’s science, volunteer, and communications response to the disaster.  And I continue today to work on a team to protect, steward and support our Gulf Coast birds that suffered during the 2010 disaster.  I was glad for an opportunity to see this play and to discuss it, both to help people understand more about the current situation in the Gulf, but also because it would provide me with a chance for personal reflection and for catharsis. 

As a community and as a nation, we still have a need for deep healing from the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster.  The healing will take a long time, perhaps years, perhaps decades.  For some, it will never come.  Some are lost already – birds, dolphins, oysters, marsh grasses, acres, people.  Many resources of the Gulf were injured, and the responsible parties and the government are working out settlements for payment for that which was damaged, lost, or killed outright.  It will be years, decades, perhaps longer, until the true toll is known, until humans can look back and try to tally the true cost.  Even as humans assess the damage – to human health, to cultural integrity, to the environment, to our natural resources, there are damages that remain intangible, about which we rarely even speak. 

For our sense of fairness as a nation was violated.  And Congress used their power to restore some of that sense of fairness, by passing the RESTORE Act, which will return 80% of Clean Water Act fines on every gallon of oil spilled to the Gulf Coast for restoration.  Most Americans believed that fine for damages in the Gulf should be returned to the Gulf, and countless people contacted their legislators to advocate for that outcome.  In some small measure, a sense of fairness is also being restored.

But we have lost even more in the Gulf Coast states, particularly for those who live on the Gulf, fish in her marshes, swim in her waters, and feed their families and their souls on her air, her waters, her sounds and her creatures.  We have lost our sense of safety.  Following a disaster of any kind, social structures disintegrate.  Families lose critical support, and social ills, in the form of abuse, neglect, poverty, chemical dependency, and suicide rise sharply.  Following a manmade disaster, communities that rely on the responsible parties, but hold anger toward them, turn on themselves and each other.  We have lost our sense of trust, in the ecosystem that supports us, in each other, and ultimately, for some, in ourselves. 

The Way of Water speaks of the human tragedy unfolding along the Gulf Coast.  Media attention peaked and began to decline even before most birds drowning in oil were rescued, before most bloated dolphins were found dead on our shores.  National media will revisit the coast from April 10th until April 20th each year, allowing the world to vicariously relive the horror, but to reassure them that life goes on.  And it does, for many.  But the stories of the people, the families, the communities, have barely been told.  The Way of Water eloquently shows the love people of the Gulf have for family, for their personal history, for their waters and their home.  It shows how strongly they are tied to place, in a world that is otherwise mobile and often disconnected from place.  It makes us aware of what has been lost, and what is in jeopardy.  The play is beautiful, stark, and often harsh, much like a landscape that has been made frightening for those who once were rocked gently by its waves. 

During our panel discussion after the reading, an audience member asked if I was an optimist.  I do not know.  I do know this; I believe in resilience.  I believe in the resilience of the warm Gulf waters, the marsh grasses that spring to life from any newly formed land, the birds that return undaunted, though not unharmed, to nest on islands obliterated by hurricanes and fouled by toxic oil.  But I also recognize fragility.  Ecosystems right themselves, unless the assault they face is too great.  Bodies heal themselves, bird populations rebound, communities come together.  But there is a threshold beyond which hurt cannot be healed, in bodies, populations, communities, ecosystems.  I work hopefully, supporting at-risk bird populations to help them recover from recent losses.  I am grateful for the work of others, like panelist Marylee Orr, who support the fishers and other families who are trying to recover from the assault on their health.  And I take heart from the work of Caridad Svich, who is trying to keep the needs of our Gulf and her residents in the hearts of people around the world.  With enough time, enough support, and the right resources, perhaps that healing will come, on so many levels.  Perhaps that hope makes me an optimist.  

New from NoPassport Press: THE HOMOPHOBES

 

New from NoPassport Press:
 
THE HOMOPHOBES
by Susana Cook
 
The Homophobes is a clown show by Argentine performance artist and playwright Susana Cook wherein a misunderstood miracle shakes a conservative congregation’s values to its core when their beloved pastor becomes the center of a spectacular firestorm that will forever shatter their notions of sex, gender and intercourse between animate beings. The Homophobes was commissioned and first presented by Dixon Place in New York City.
 
ISBN: 978-1-300-16210-0
paperback
Suggested Retail: $10.00
 
NoPassport Press
Dreaming the Americas Series
 
 
Available on lulu.com, Drama Book Shop and more.

 

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