The University of New Mexico’s student-run Theatre X launches their Fall 2006 season with performances of References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot by Jose Rivera, Sept. 1-3 and 7-10 at 7:30 p.m. Rivera dedicated References to his four soldier-brothers. The play is set just after the end of the Persian Gulf War.
Though the play is a love story at heart, its dialogue about Iraq, freedom, justice and Islam now have a heightened poignancy. Rivera was recently nominated for an Oscar for his screenplay of The Motorcycle Diaries.
UNM’s production is a collaboration between director Asae Dean, choreographer Cynthia Boles-Montoya and designer Patricia Goodson. References marks Asae’s sixth solo directorial outing. Her mentor, local director Michael D. Blum, exposed her to Rivera’s playwrighting and together they have brought many of his works to Albuquerque audiences. Goodson graduates this December. She signed onto References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot because it offered her the chance to create a complete stage design.
The production draws together diverse talent from UNM Theatre and Dance Department and Albuquerque Academy. Babak Gharaei-Tafti, last seen as Lysander in UNM’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, plays Benito and the Moon. Gabi Rojas, a UNM dance major on the performance roster for Cirque du Soleil, makes her acting debut as Gabriela. Other cast members include Joanna Furgal, Kanani Fricke and Albuquerque Academy senior Luis Ballesteros.
Tickets are $10, $8, and $7 and available at Tickets.com or by calling the UNM Box Office at 277-4569.
Contact: Sari Krosinsky, (505) 277-5813