The Scarlet Ibis - video poem

This video poem of Susan Hahn's The Scarlet Ibis is by Kristin Reeves who designed the video projections for 16th Street Theater's production that premiered July 2008. She captures the essence of the text, movement, music, metaphor, video and dramatic arc all within 6.5 minutes. I am in awe. Enjoy!

What audience members said about KITA

Thanks to our audiences for sharing their thoughts on KITA Y FERNANDA. It means so much to us to hear from you!




"We all enjoyed the show immensely. Both my girlfriends speak Spanish and really appreciated seeing a show that they both could relate to in such a personal way. They recognized songs and personal echos from their own pasts.

I especially liked the fact that it was centered around that amazing rally in downtown Chicago. I remember that day so vividly. Maria was working across the street at LaSalle bank that day and she totally blew off her job and got swept away in the crowds and the passion of that day! She will never forget the feeling either. I wish she had seen the show."
-- Marilyn

"Ann, Congrats on Kita y Fernanda! Well done. I enjoyed the show very much. The whole production touched me and left me with a wonderful warm feeling inside. Thanks!"
-- Ivan

"Funny story: On the drive home, Matthew was talking about how all of the actors deserved Jeff nominations. Without playing favorites, I said I was particularly impressed by the two women who played double characters. Matthew said, "OK, I know that the actress who played Fernanda's mom also played Kita's tough friend... but who played the "Valley Girl" friend?" And I said, "The same woman who played Kita's mom."

"What?!" he shouted, eyes bugging out and hair on end. (Seriously, his hair stood up.) "No way!"

I laughed...

Kudos to all of you."
-- David

"Hi Ann,

Mark and I both very much enjoyed the show. We discussed it the entire walk home.

I thought the play was well written. The playwright commented after the show what a great job you did as director. I hadn't considered how much a director shapes a performance. (What about a question/answer/discussion some time before or after a play?) Mark and I both thought the actors were all great, and I was amazed how the "mothers" played the friends with such skill. Some friends of ours, also in attendance last night, didn't even realize they were the same actresses. Lastly, even though I don't speak Spanish most of the time I could pick up on the emotion and a lot of the story during the "Spanish-only" moments. When a few audience members responded to the Spanish-only moments I felt disappointed I didn't know what was being said. I so admire - and am envious of - those who are multi-lingual.

Thanks, Ann. I hope your first year was a success. We plan to get subscription passes for next year."
-- Sara
"Ann,

Kita y Fernanada is a perfect ending to a great inaugural season. We enjoyed the show thoroughly last night in so many ways. And the acting was stellar. Wow! Congratulations!"

--Will

"Seriously, Ann. I've always admired your work but hadn't been able to see much of it for a while. Kita was just wonderful. Yes, you did have some fabulous actors with whom to work, but your wonderful work was evident and on display, as well. I've been seeing a lot of shows lately in prep for leaving town and although some of them have been good, yours was the one that restored my faith and reminded me why I LOVE theatre so much. And the friends I brought along agree whole-heartedly."
-- Adrianne

"Dear Ann,

Just wanted to let you know my wife and I attended Kita Y Fernanda and once again we were very impressed. I think what I liked most was that the two characters don’t reconnect in the end—that no matter how much we are tempted to want it, they don’t come together, they don’t face each other. In my own experience, it is always so hard when you can’t give the audience what they want, when you have to deny them that happy ending, because the world of the play itself denies it. I felt so sad and yet so satisfied by the ending, because it was utterly courageous in sticking to the truth of the play.

Congratulations on a successful first season, and thanks for bringing theatre into the neighborhood."

--Carlo

"KITA Y FERNANDA is really lovely. I was very engaged and moved."
-- Russ

"Dear Ann,
Harlan and I are bursting with pride for all you have done at 16th Street. We not only loved KITA Y FERNANDA and your direction last night, but you have started a new equity theater in an area that will now easily have access to local theater."
Love,
Susan

"Ann,

Thanks for your note! I just knew it would be a hit!!
My friends and I enjoyed the show so very much! The acting was awesome and so realistic, and the story so heartfelt.

You are a very gifted director. Thank you for the wonderful season of plays and for bringing your art to Berwyn! You've enhanced our lives! Looking forward to seeing next year's plays!"

--Mary

Illinois State Representative Lisa Hernandez at KITA

Illinois State Representative Lisa Hernandez was in the house for Tanya Saracho's KITA Y FERNANDA on Saturday October 18 for the 8:00 PM show. She spoke to the cast after about Tanya Saracho's powerful play which puts the human touch on the immigration issue.

Pictured: Stephanie Diaz, Suzette Mayobre, Amanda Lopez (understudy) and State Representative Lisa Hernandez after KITA Y FERNANDA running thru Oct 25 at 16th Street Theater (708) 795-6704

"I experienced communion that night."

This is an excerpt from my friend and fellow Artistic Director, playwright David Alan Moore:

"In many ways, that play was as far removed from my own experience as it could possibly get. Much of the dialogue was in Spanish (I speak French and English). It explored the immigrant experience (my family has been in America for many generations). It examined the challenges facing women (I know a lot of women, but...).

Yet, despite all of these differences, I understood what was happening on that tiny stage, in that darkened room. I knew what those characters were feeling, I looked through a window into a small part of their souls, and I knew that the people around me also saw through that same window - and saw themselves reflected. As audience members and as actors, we laughed together, we grew silent together, we were moved together. Together, we considered the meaning of both our own, unique experiences and our common, shared experiences.

We sat by ourselves, inside our own skins, wrestling with our own reactions to what we saw onstage. At the same time, we sat together, enveloped by a sense of community and common exploration. And as we applauded at the curtain call, I hope we all felt, in some small ways, less alone. Felt that our lives, as separate and distinct as they can be sometimes, had touched the lives of others - briefly, perhaps, but in a way that also left a mark.

That, I believe, is the value of live theatre. That, I believe, is what makes theatre different from literature and film and television. That, I believe, is why the ensemble and board of Stage Left Theatre and of companies across the city devote so much of their own time, energy and resources to the act of sharing stories, person to person.

We make theatre and we see theatre so that all of us - me, my suddenly unemployed friend, my friends who just got married, my friends who just had their first baby (and are finally getting out of the house!), and my friend fighting breast cancer - can gather in one place to laugh and to weep and to ponder together. To live together. In communion."

Beautifully said, David.

Filmer's gringa notebook...

WARNING! Another language is spoken in this play. And it’s not Irish!

Working on this play with Tanya and the cast has made me think about language, culture and isolation. Below are excerpts from the notebooks I have kept during this process. Enjoy!

“The greatest distance between people is not space but culture.” -- Jamake Highwater
Stephanie Diaz, who also hails from the Bay Area, gave me the book Drink Cultura by Jose Antonio Burciaga. The above quote is in the book. Chapter One is titled “Chief Wachuseh”. Say that out-loud. Go ahead.

I took 3 years of French at Westmont High.
When I hear another language, whether it is Polish or German, Italian or Spanish, or even American Sign Language, I wish I knew what was being said. I long for understanding, communication. But maybe I just hate being left out.
Sidenote: My senior year my boyfriend Rick criticized me for taking choir instead of French IV. Now I work in the language of theater.

I am gringa.
My father immigrated to the US from England after WWII. He never became a citizen of this country, though he has lived here ever since. He had two daughters born here. He now lives in a public housing high rise in Sacramento, CA. His neighbors are mostly all Ukranians. He complains all the time he has no one to talk to. They don’t speak English. He doesn’t speak Russian. Do svidaniya.

Poquito espanol.
I am frustrated that I cannot know everything! That I may never learn Spanish even though my sister married a Ruiz and my daughter is leaning Spanish in preschool. Do I resent them from achieving what I have not? Do I berate those that don’t speak “my language”? Whose job is it to reach out to whom?

I learned to count to 10 in Espanol on Sesame Street.
I am nervous to speak the little Spanish I do know. Do I order Mexican food in Spanish. Side order of frijoles y arroz por favor? Am I a phony? Trying too hard? Will I be made fun of? I don’t want to butcher the pronunciation.
Forget it. I’ll just say rice and beans.

“Speak only in our secret English language.”
Just learn the language?! Between making a living and raising a family, how does one have time to learn a language? It is more than just words and sentence structure, no? It is culture. One of my closest friends has lived in Berlin since 2001. He tells me communicating in German has opened up a new way of thinking for him. His next experiment was to learn Spanish by way of German. The experiment failed.

Culture Barriers
In a hipster diner in Humboldt Park. A group of six hungry construction workers walk in. They are working in the ‘hood. They speak English. They are American. Yet they look over the menu as if it is in another language. They snicker a bit about home fries, seitan meat, and organic tofu.
I give one of the men a bite of my vegetarian pastrami sandwich. He says, “That’s not bad.”
No Literal Translation
Must I be threatened? Can another language be a beautiful mysterious thing? Like poetry. Like dance. I realize art has no literal translation. I will try to let these “foreign words” wash over me and let my mind and thoughts and feelings travel where they may.

Will I understand it?
Do I understand the moon and the stars?
I only want to see myself up on stage. Why? I am with myself all day.
There is so much I have yet to comprehend. Does this paralyze me or inspire me to learn more? I long for the latter.
“But, Tanya, I don’t understand!”
“Does that make you feel isolated?” she replies.
“Well… yes. Yes. I do feel isolated,” I respond defensively.
“Good.”
“Good?”
“Silvia and Concha. They also feel isolated.”

Oh… It’s not all about me. I am beginning to understand…

A conversation with Tanya Saracho by Amanda Lopez

Amanda Lopez: What has been one of your most rewarding experiences so far as a playwright, and what has made it so?

Tanya Saracho: Every year keeps getting better and better. Technically as a writer, I've been enjoying rewrites more. That's something that's been quite rewarding because I feel like I'm more in control of the craft. More in control of the story that way and that's kind of exciting to me. And in the social aspect, I think I get addicted to having people come up to me after they see the show and say, "that's my story." "That's my sister up there. That's my mom." Or "oh, I feel that way about Americans too." "Eso es lo que yo pienso de los Mexicanos." It's so important for me to reflect our lives, our stories. To represent us in complicated and fully dimensional ways. It's imperative we see the riches in our culture, in our gender, but also the barnacles and the flaws. That's what makes us interesting and worth hearing about.

AL: Is there anything or anyone specific who inspires you to write?

TS: I love real people. Sitting in a waiting room, on a bus, at the airport, overhearing a conversation at a cafe- that's inspiring to me. What I mean is that it inspires me to write something down, it prompts an essence and oftentimes a character. I love listening how real people talk. I love hearing how my family talks. Well, mostly they argue, but it can become quite cathartic to write it down. To sift through it on paper. My family and friends are my ultimate source of inspiration: Con ellos tengo material para largo!

I do have heroes that I look up to, of course, my former teacher Maria Irene Fornes, Sandra Cisneros (whose classic "The House on Mango Street" I'm adapting for Steppenwolf), Zora Neale Hurston, Caryl Churchill and (my most beloved) Achy Obejas for their literary brilliance. I love artists like Frida Kahlo for how she navigated her art and the struggle with her health, that's something very close to my body. I love Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz for being complicated and so accomplished in such a dark time in our history. Marta Carrasco, the Spanish eminence who is a genius with her body; I think in another life, I'd have liked to have been as capable of the sublime with my body as she is in this lifetime.

I just realized my list only includes women. That was not on purpose by the way, but it's interesting to see who my influences have been. Very interesting to me.

AL: After seeing Kita y Fernanda, what do you hope that people will come away with?

TS: Oh, I don't know. Questions like this make me nervous sometimes because I don't think about an effect or even a message when I write. I just hope people love these women as much as I do. That they get a glimpse of what it's like to live on the border, both physical and imagined. I hope this sheds some light on the invisible people. I hope I've put at least four faces on the whole topic of immigration and that an audience realizes the whole thing is much more complicated than a bit of legislation. I don't know. I hope they snap their fingers when they hear "Los Garibaldi."

AL: If you could go back in time and talk to yourself 10 years ago, what advise would you give yourself?

TS: Become an accountant, Tanya!

It's funny, I talk to myself a lot and I write myself letters. So every so often I find written mantras and declarations to myself in this form or that. Not long ago, I found my high school yearbook while I went home to McAllen for the holidays and on the "Senior Hall of Fame" pages I read my answer to the prompt, "Where will you be in 10 years?" Well, I was very detailed with how I answered, I said: "I will be walking home in the snow from a rehearsal of my latest play, happy and satisfied." Reading it made me smile because it has actually panned out that way. Of course, back then I thought walking home in the snow was super romantic, having grown up in the desert; turns out it's not as romantic as I'd cracked it up to be, but the whole thing still made me smile. I mean... it made me smile that I was a little psychic. I AM happy and satisfied ten years later.

AL: And....Chivas o América???

TS: Chivas. We lived in Guadalajara for a time, so if I had to pick... escojeria a Las Chivas

Going back in time to... 1990

1990... the year of 21 Jump Street and Edward Scissorhands.

Jessica is looking through this magazine at one point during the play.

Oh... johnny depp. what a treat.

so sassy.