Title | Braided Sorrow |
Playwright | Marisela Treviño Orta |
Director | Natalie Villamonte Zito |
| Stage Manager | Jordan Jones |
Category | Mainstage, Thayer Theatre |
1st Rehearsal | November 28 |
Tech/Dress | January 27-February 2 |
| Performances | February 3-5 & 8-11 |
Roles to be Cast | Age (Presentation) | Gender (Presentation) | Description |
| La Llorona | 30s | Female | A ghost from the past; an omen; a mother who has lost her daughter, and a woman murdered in the desert. She is displaced by time and loss. |
| Alma | 16 | Female | A girl from San Luis Potosí - like many of the missing women in Juarez she has long dark hair. |
| Carlos | 20s | Male | Alma's older brother. Kind, caring, light-hearted. |
| Yadria | 20s | Female | Carlos's pregnant wife. A Realist, yet warm and caring. |
| Socorro | 50s | Female | Carlos and Alma's aunt. Very faithful Catholic and protective of her family. |
| Eulalia | 50s | Female | Socorro's comadre (friend). Very religious and faithful. A good friend. |
| Señor Fillmore | 30s | Male | Manager of a maquiladora and Alma's boss. Abuses his power over his female employees. |
| Officer | 20s-30s | Male | Police officer in a station where the bodies of women found in Juarez are brought for identification. Cold, uncaring, and machista. |
| Chorus | 20s-30s | 3 Male, 1 Female | Will play the parts of Man 1, 2, 3, 4, street thugs, factory workers, and additional moments of memory |
| Synopsis | In the Mexican border city of Juárez, Alma has newly arrived to take a job in an American-owned factory in order to help her family survive by sending money back to her parents and helping to provide for her brother and pregnant sister-in-law. At sixteen years old, Alma is shocked by the dangers of the city–the femicides and disappearances–lurking outside the factory’s walls, until she is visited by La Llorona. In Marisela Treviño Orta’s (MFA '18) poetic Braided Sorrow, Alma is set on a treacherous journey calling on her bravery to end the unnatural nightmares of Juárez. |
| Notices | Note That students will need to return early from Winter Break as this production will resume rehearsals the week before classes begin from January 9-January 13th. Intimacy & Fight Choreography- Señor Fillmore and Man 1/2/3/4 make aggressive sexual advances on Alma, in two separate scenes. While there is no intimate kissing or touching, there is an aggressive sexual tension that occurs which mixes Intimacy and Fight Choreography together, as Alma fights to protect herself. Detailed Fight and Intimacy Breakdowns can be found at the following links:
Fight
Intimacy |
| Important Dates/Holidays | 12/8 Bodhi Day, 12/18-12/26 Hanukkah*, 12/12-12/16 Fall Finals, 12/19 -1/16 Winter Break, 12/21 Solstice (Yule/Litha), 12/25 Christmas (Observed), 12/19 -1/16 Winter Break, 1/1 New Year’s Day, 1/6 Epiphany, 1/7 Christmas (Orthodox), 1/7 Mahayana New Year, 1/14 New Year (Orthodox), 1/15 Tamil Thai Pongal Day, 1/15 Makar Sankranti, 1/16 Martin Luther King Jr. Day (Observed), 1/17 Spring Classes Begin, 1/22 Seol-nal. 1/22 Chinese New Year (Year of the Rabbit), 1/22 Tet Nguyen Dan, 2/5 Thaipusam, 2/2 Groundhog Day * Holidays marked with an asterisk (*) begin at sundown on the previous day. |
