In a recent interview with co-founders Argos MacCallum and Ron Mier, I discovered that the “umbrella” in the Santa Fe’s Teatro Paraguas’s (TP) name is two-fold in nature. One aspect of the term “paraguas” is an attempt to be inclusive in terms of subject material and audience: to reflect the Spanish and Latin traditions, the Chicano experience, of Northern New Mexico as it interacts with the Anglo and Native American cultures. It also refers to the goal of the company to be a collective of individuals who are provided with the opportunity to develop artistically.
Teatro Paraguas’s first production was a poetry reading that occurred on April 4, 2004, at El Museo Cultural (1615 Paseo de Peralta, Santa Fe) to commemorate the 100th birth anniversary of Pablo Neruda. Two shows on that date drew an audience of 200 and raised $1,500 for El Museo. Teatro Paraguas was off and running.
The Company has always had a local focus that is complemented with international performers. Co-founder Argos MacCallum revealed that his astrophysicist father encouraged him to present the Neruda production and that Mary Mier (co-founder Ron’s wife) and he had acted together for thirty-seven years, beginning as teenagers. While TP has a large, fluctuating group of local theater people involved in its work, it also has artists from Spain, Uruguay, Panama, Macao, India, and British Columbia on its contact list.
After Teatro Hispano and Teatro Popular Santa Fe imploded in the 1990’s, TP stepped into the void and has produced eight productions prior to 2008. Both co-founders cite the cooperation and support of El Museo Cultural for its success. Argos stated that El Museo provides “the perfect marriage in creating collaborative theater” and aids in “the cultivation of a bi-lingual audience for community-based poetry and plays.”
Teatro Paraguas takes a grass roots approach in searching for that “wide audience of the Raza.” Using word of mouth to spread the good news of its work, the Company attempts to balance classical and contemporary plays. Argos believes that the key to the success of TP is mutual trust between company and audience that has frequently been ignored or violated in past failed attempts to establish theater companies in Santa Fe.
The problems that TP faces in Santa Fe are reflective of the difficulties of many of the small theater collectives. Venues are either too big or too overly committed. Audiences are rather small and cultivating them takes time and resources. Furthermore, the bi-lingual aspect of TP needs to be confronted. TP has employed video projections, physically visual acting styles, and simultaneous translations as devices to aid in audience comprehension. Ron Mier mentioned that the burgeoning film industry in New Mexico is actually hurting the small theater companies by providing more (and better remunerated) opportunities for Santa Fe actors. Argos ran into this new reality for Santa Fe small companies in his successful 2007 show on five Latina poets. He had to deal with replacing actors and shifted dates due to El Museo Cultural serving as a surrogate of trade shows now that Sweeney Center is out of commission. The changing of rehearsal dates became a nightmare. Argos summarized the experience as follows: “The show was successful for the audience because the cast pulled through, but it was nerve-wracking for the producers and director.”
But all is not bleak. In a joint production by El Museo Cultural and the Santa Fe Playhouse, Argos directed Jose Cruz Gonzales’s September Shoes that was suggested to him by Theaterworks’ Paula Olsen who decided to do another play. Argos found the language “some of the leanest and clearest” he’d read in years and the themes of “forgiveness and redemption” universal in nature. The 2008 calendar is fully booked.
Teatro Paraguas has a full and rosy future. First on tap is an evening of cuentos in a benefit for Santa Fe’s Alvord Elementary School at El Museo Cultural on February 1, 2, and 3, 2008. This community-based, family-oriented entertainment is based on the oral tradition of Northern New Mexico. As for tickets, there is a sliding scale for parents and kids attend free.
From March 12 to 21, 2008, at Wise Fool Studios (2778 Agua Fria Street), Mary Mier will direct the world premier of Alfredo Cordal’s Our Lady of Buenos Aires in full production. A work of magical realism, the play is based on the French silent film star Maria Falconetta (the luminous star of The Passion of Joan of Arc) who has fled Europe and teaches in a theater school in Argentina.
In July of 2008, at El Museo Cultural, there will a reading of three to five Northern New Mexico poets who will then take their show on the road throughout New Mexico. Funded by the Witter-Bynner Foundation, TP will administer a six-month workshop in which participants will study the masters while developing their own work and honing their performance skills. Santa Fe poet Angelo Jaramillo has been accepted into the workshop.
An on-going project is a film documentary of stories of old Santa Fe. TP Board member Bob Sinn and Santiago Candelaria (Teatro Nuevo Mexico in Albuquerque) are in collaboration with Santa Fe filmmaker Mario Ruiz to interview viejo Valentine Valdez who lives on Apodaca Hill. Another future project involves Jo Jo Sena de Tarnoff and musician husband Jeff (band leader of “Mélange”) who are developing a piece on Chilean song writer, singer, and performer Violeta Parra who was active in politics during the Allende years and who was the first Latina artist to have a show at the Louvre. In the United States, Parra is perhaps best known for “Gracias a la Vida,” the song Joan Baez introduced in the United States. The success of this song created a much wider audience for Latino music in the US.
See you at the theater.
