BEACONS

A staged reading of a play written and directed by Georgina Escobar

Performed by Mindy Leanse with support from Marfa actors

Wednesday, April 19, 2017

7pm (doors at 6.30)

Crowley Theater

Free

 

Marfa Live Arts’ 2017 playwright-in-residence Georgina Escobar presented her new play BEACONS on Wednesday, April 19, 2017, at the Crowley Theater. The show was performed by Mindy Leanse with support by actors from the community.

 

BEACONS is a satirical work envisioning a fictitious dystopian society with “Divisible and Justice for Some.” After an ignorant, thick-lipped, evil clan of males take over the country, America has lost a Civil War. Puritanical Fascism rules the land. The divide affects women, too. In New York City, they have broken up into many clans—and they have been fighting everyone, including one another, for years… until now.

 

Her residency in Marfa will be a homecoming of sorts. Currently living in New York City, Escobar has roots in West Texas growing up in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. Her life in theater began as an actor but she transitioned to playwriting out of a desire to “tell bigger stories” and went on to get her MFA in dramatic writing from the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. She describes her style as more Ibsen than Chekov and takes inspiration from Tony Kushner, Paula Vogel and Sara Ruhl to create other worlds.

 

“Stories that are boiled in a place of conflict always or tension always inform the way artists from those regions write, speak, think and paint,” Escobar told ArtsATL in a recent interview. “I tend to write stories that are a bit askew where we are walking not on this ground.”

 

She goes on to say this about her work, “I really want to plant a seed of understanding and wanting to explore American mythology. We depend on our Greeks and ancient history to justify a lot of our adaptations. I want the literati to start thinking about American myths. And, for the younger audience members, I want youth to feel a sense of empowerment. Yes, humanity has made mistakes. We are impermanent, imperfect and incomplete, yet life is about living it. No outside forces can really be the one that is in charge of bringing you down. The secret to our evolution is remembering that living is a gift.”

 

During her time in Marfa Escobar will also teach Marfa Live Arts’ 6th Annual Playwriting Workshop with Marfa High School students April 17-21, 2017. Her work with Marfa Live Arts in collaboration with Marfa Independent School District is the primary reason Escobar will be in Marfa. He will work one-on-one with students in their English classes helping them write their own plays. Working with the schools, Marfa students will be invited giving students from the workshop an opportunity to see a professional production while working on their own plays. Plays written by Marfa students during the workshop will be performed during the 6th Annual One-Act Plays a free public performance by area actors and staged at the Crowley Theater on Tuesday, May 2, 2017.

 

On April 18, listen to Marfa Public Radio for a West Texas Talk interview with playwright Georgina Escoba and actor Mindy Leanse. Tune in live at 6:30pm (CST) at 93.5FM or streaming online.

​

She will also lecture at University of Texas at El Paso and will lead a higher education workshop with undergraduate students.