OXNARD — Teatro de las Américas inaugurates its new theater in Oxnard with two short plays by Oscar Liera: “El gordo / The Big One” & “La pesadilla de una noche de verano / Midsummer’s Nightmare.”
Teatro de las Américas will present El gordo / The Big One and La pesadilla de una noche de verano / Midsummer’s Nightmare on Fridays and Saturdays, from Aug. 16 through Sept. 14, at 8 p.m., at its new theater, 880 Wagon Wheel Road (corner with Ventura Road at the 101 Freeway), in Oxnard.
Synopses:
In El gordo four friends exhibit their fanaticism for the game of chance, dreaming and imagining what they would do when they win the big one.
In La pesadilla de una noche de verano, an audition for Shakespeare’s Midsummer’s Night Dream turns into a nightmare for the director, thanks to the egos of certain actors who focus on anything other than the work as actors.
The plays are direcred by Jesús Castaños Chima, director of the Latino Theater Program at the 24th Street Theatre in Los Angeles. Chima worked as an actor in the play La Razón blindada at the Rubicon Theatre in Ventura in 2012.
All the actors in these plays come from the local community
Oscar Liera is considered one of the most important playwrights and directors of the second half of the twentieth century. He is recognized for his original and innovative dramatic structures, the precursor of the Nueva Dramaturgia Movement in Mexico. He wrote 36 plays. He founded the Theater Workshop of the Autonomous University of Sinaloa of which Chima was a member.
The play is staged in Spanish with English supertitles. It is appropriate for the entire family, but some parental guidance is suggested for use of strong language..
Tickets — $15 general admission, $10 seniors, students and military— are available at Burrito Express, & the Law Offices of Richard L. Francis and Associates, in Oxnard; and at www.teatrodelasamericas.org