PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Roy Conboy,
(415) 338-1614, rconboy@sfsu.edu
THEATRE PRODUCTION
SFSU Theatre Arts and El Teatro Esperanza produce innovative Latino play by Roy Conboy about war and its costs
SAN FRANCISCO, May 26, 2008— Playwright and SF State Theatre faculty member Roy Conboy's new play, "The Journeys of the Angels," is the story of a father and his daughter who've been separated by the Vietnam War. Two decades after the war, this daughter is lost on the freeways, and her father is lost in the forest, while two tenacious tias (aunts) are trying to rebuild their family from beyond the grave. They struggle to find a relationship, each embarking on a journey: his to escape, hers to discover. These themes ring like the Liberty Bell for today's audiences, and Conboy, SFSU Theatre Arts, and El Teatro Esperanza agree that now is the time to produce the play.
Each of the eleven scenes in The Journey of Angels is an incomplete representation of a place, mimicking memories or dreamscapes. Settings include the darkest regions of a coastal California redwood grove, a radio broadcasting studio, a forest meadow near the Sierras and a car on a Los Angeles Freeway. The script is a poetic and powerful depiction of pressing themes. Conboy writes in his notes, "War never ends. Nations fight, declare peace and move on, but the fighters, the victims, the families, the friends bear the weight and the scars of their injuries throughout their lives."
El Teatro Esperanza is one of the last remaining organizations from the collectivist theatre movement that flourished in the 1970's. For nearly four decades it has pursued a program based on social responsibility and action, and has provided a home for diverse voices in the theatre world. The pieces Esperanza stages are written by a range of authors but are generally new works written specifically for the company by a Chicano or Latino playwright. Esperanza's founder, Rodrigo Duarte Clarke, says, "All the work we produce incorporates Chicano/Latino culture…the play may be about a particular set of people, but it has to raise universal questions. And if it's good it will resonate with everyone, no matter what their culture."
SFSU Theatre Arts is one of the largest and most highly rated public university Theatre programs in the country, whose graduates are at work in the professional theatre and related fields throughout the Bay Area and the nation. In any given week, dozens of Bay Area productions are mounted featuring alums of the program. This co-production is an ongoing series of off-campus projects which in recent years have included the GreenHouse play development series and other shows at Teatro Esperanza, as well as at other theatres in San Francisco and Santa Cruz
Conboy is a noted Latino playwright, whose work has been produced extensively in San Francisco and California. His children’s plays have toured regularly throughout Central California in widely variant venues. Conboy has been associated with Teatro Esperanza for over 15 years. Previous productions of Conboy's include "Tailor From Chihuahua," "Suburban Canciones," "When El Cucui Walks," "Dancing with the Missing" and "Drive My Coche." His work has also been produced by such theatres as Teatro Vision of San Jose, East Los Angeles Repertory, Teatro del Pueblo in St. Paul, The Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center in San Antonio, Teatro Milagro in Portland, and PCPA Theaterfest in Santa Maria. Workshops and staged readings of his plays have been seen at the Denver Center, the Mark Taper Forum, the Seattle Group Theatre, the Bay Area Playwrights Festival, South Coast Repertory and Festival Latino of San Francisco.
In addition, Conboy is the head of the nationally recognized Graduate Playwriting program at San Francisco State University. For more than seven years, he also served as Chair of Theatre Arts at SF State's College of Creative Arts, a post he relinquished in Fall 2006 to concentrate on his playwriting. He created GreenHouse, an educational/professional partnership producing off-campus workshops of graduate student plays; and the One-Act Festival and One-Act Fringe, which annually produce multiple plays by student writers.
The "Journeys" multi-cultural team features:
• Gabby Gomez, Director, who is the former Artistic Director of Panhandlers Theatre, and along with dramaturg and cast member Claire Rice has recently founded the AnnMarie production company.
• Richard Talavera, cast member, who is a prominent Bay Area Latino actor and playwright, and longtime member of the Mexican Bus Team. His plays include Trial of Los Siete, Nude Zapata, Chac: The Rain God, and The Rampage Trilogy.
• Cat Callejas and Rocky Haro, cast members, who are the founding members of the noted Bay Area company Teatro Sabor. Sabor has presented work at Theater Yugen, Miracle Theater, Brava Center for the Performing Arts Theater, on the Mexican Bus, for the radio station KPFA in Berkeley and Northern Illinois University Campus radio station; and at various social events from San Francisco to San Jose. They have also performed at college campuses such at N.I.U., San Diego State, University of California at Berkeley, San Jose State, Stanford University, San Francisco State and at various Fresno high schools. Since 2001, Teatro Sabor has made a home performing, as a resident theater company, at El Teatro de la Esperanza.
Tickets and Information
For general information contact El Teatro Esperanza at 415/240-9594, or Conboy at 415-338-1614, or visit http://www.myspace.com/tailor1106 .
Tickets may be purchased online at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/36018 or by calling El Teatro Esperanza at 415/240-9594.
Location and Parking
El Teatro Esperanza is located at 2940 16th St. on the second floor. The site is two blocks from the 16th and Mission BART station, between Capp and S. Van Ness.
Calendar Editors, Please Note:
SFSU Theatre Arts and Teatro Esperanza produce innovative Latino play by Roy Conboy about war and it's costs
Playwright and SF State Theatre faculty member Roy Conboy's new play, "The Journeys of the Angels," is the story of a father and his daughter who've been separated by the Vietnam War. They meet again in the 1990's, thanks to meddling from beyond the grave by their two dead Tias (Aunts). They struggle to find a relationship, each embarking on a journey: his to escape, hers to discover. These themes ring like the Liberty Bell for today's audiences, and Conboy and Teatro Esperanza agree that now is the time to produce the play.
Opening night is Friday, June 20th at 8:00pm (Preview, Thursday, June 19th at 8:00pm). The play will run four weeks; Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00pm, and Sundays at 2:00pm. Additional performance, Monday July 7th at 8:00pm.
El Teatro de la Esperanza
2940 16th St.
(Between Capp and S. Van Ness; two blocks from the 16th and Mission BART station)
For information: 415-240-9594
Tickets: $12 Thursdays, Sundays and Monday, $15(general) /$12(students, seniors, TBA members) Fridays and Saturdays
http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/36018
Christina Penrose, B.A. Classical Music at SF State, wrote this press release.