News Roundup, May 19, 2022 – Addendum
NEWS ROUNDUP, May 19, 2022 – Addendum
Today, May 20, the Public Theater of San Antonio, informed us that the musical, She Loves Me, will not be opening tonight due to COVID-19 cases among the cast and staff. New dates will be announced later. This is a reminder that the coronavirus is still a threat to all of us. We wish everyone affected a speedy recovery.
But here are some “consolation prizes” for our readers.
Aria Creative Productions will present a staged reading of a brand-new play, Backstage Fairytale,by Michael John McGoldrick as the fourth installment of the 2022 New Play Development Series, initiated by Jade Esteban Estrada during his short tenure as the artistic director of the Overtime Theater. The idea behind the series is to give playwrights an opportunity to develop new works. Selected scripts receive two rehearsals, followed by staged readings and audience feedback sessions.
Backstage Fairytale is the story of Adam, an aspiring playwright, who visits his former girlfriend, Celeste, now a successful New York actress. Since his play is about their former relationship, he wants her to read it, and give her approval. He eventually admits that he has written the play to win Celeste back.
McGoldrick explained that he was motivated to write this play to explore “how the artifice of theater relates to the real-life circumstances of the people who create it.”
The staged reading is directed by Estrada, who is now the new artistic director of Aria Creative Productions, an entity founded by Nicole Erwin more than a decade ago. Until recently, she was also the managing director of the Overtime Theater. (May 25 at 7 p.m.; Alamo City Studios, 1113 Houston St., 78205; tickets $10, available at the door or online at Brown Paper Tickets; www.ariacreariveproductions.com)
The other “consolation prize” is Spanish flamenco star, Bellen Maya, who is currently in San Antonio thanks to the local flamenco company Arte y Pasion, founded and led by Tamara Adira. Flamenco fans will have two opportunities to see Maya on stage: May 26 at 7:30 p.m., Brick at Blue Star Arts Complex and May 27 at 8 p.m., Roosevelt Library, 311 Roosevelt Ave.; social hour at 7 p.m. In addition, Maya will lead a master workshop in flamenco technique May 30-31, at the Raices de Arte Espanol. Two classes for beginners and a class for more advanced performers.
Others performing with Maya are guitarists Berto Boyd and Jose Alconchel, singers Jose Cortes and La Memphi, and Adira, an accomplished flamenco dancer herself.
(For more on each event visit, respectively, https://fb.me/e/18M5peWEL; https://fb.me/e/313JleEJ9; https://fb.me/e/277TC6vaV