FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
BRAVA! Presents:
La Lengua Teatro En Español Production
Performed reading: “ La Muerte y La Doncella ” by Ariel Dorfman
Saturday, June 20, 2020
5PM (PDT)/8PM (EDT)
LIVE STREAM ON FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/events/177803467006875/
Brava Theater + La Lengua Theater
ONE SHOW ONLY A performed reading in Spanish with English subtitles.
Running time: 90 minutes with two 10 minute intermissions.
TICKETS: Tickets are $15 suggested donation ( with a pay-what-you-can option ). Proceeds from ticket
sales go to the artists behind the work as well as to Brava!, making it possible for this, and other
works, to have a future once Brava Theater Center reopens. If you are viewing with two or more
people, please consider adjusting your ticket price accordingly.
WARNING: This play contains language and violence. PG-13.
LOCATION: ONLINE
To view the Live Stream, all you have to do is FOLLOW, LIKE, OR SUBSCRIBE to these social media
platforms and then tune in to the page at the time of the event:
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4F-VukNCntrur_fv4gQlIg
Facebook: Brava Theater or La Lengua Theater
ABOUT THE PLAY
LA MUERTE Y LA DONCELLA (Death and the Maiden)
‘A mirror in which it is still difficult to look’
Clarín
‘An eminently political text and, at the same time, loaded with suspense’
Página 12
It has been years since Paulina was kidnapped and kept as a political prisoner. She suffered at the
hands of a man whose face she never saw but whose memory grips her still in a secret terror. The
military dictatorship that plagued her country (Chile, or Argentina, or El Salvador?) has just fallen, and
nothing is certain. When an unexpected visitor arrives at the secluded beach house she shares now
with her husband, Paulina is convinced this stranger is her tormentor and confronts her deepest fears in
search of that long-sought-after justice.
“ Death and the Maiden ” by Ariel Dorfman is the most produced Latin American play in the history of
theater and has become a classic on the dichotomies of justice/ forgiveness and memory/forgetfulness.
The playwright has set out to explore a question seldom asked aloud: "How can the oppressors and
the oppressed cohabit the same land, share the same table?". A question that is still as valid today
as when Dorfman wrote this work.
The piece addresses, in Ariel Dorfman’s words, "the mythic theme of a woman who seeks retribution
and seeks to do what society will not do for her […] But it's also about truth and memory and how you
could tell that truth”.
Cast: Ben Ortega, Virginia Blanco, Francisco Rodriguez
Stage Directions: Deborah Cortez
Director: Roberto Varea
Creative Team: Deborah Cortez, Paul S. Flores, Virginia Blanco
Sound Design: David Molina drmsound.com
Graphic Design/ Illustrator: Feras Khagani ferask.daportfolio.com
ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT
Ariel Dorfman, a Distinguished Emeritus Professor of Literature at Duke, is a Chilean-American novelist
and playwright. His works include the Laurence Olivier award-winning play Death and the Maiden
(which will be revived next year on Broadway), and numerous books, including, most recently, of the
children’s story The Rabbits’ Rebellion (2020) and a novel, Cautivos (2020) about Cervantes’s life in jail
in Seville.
ABOUT LA LENGUA THEATER
Founded in 2019 by Virginia Blanco, La Lengua Teatro en Español/La Lengua Theater is an emerging
company that creates spaces for theater in Spanish, sharing its immense diversity and wealth, in order
to empower the Spanish-speaking community in the San Francisco Bay Area. Learn more about us at
www.lalengua.org
ABOUT ARTISTS-IN-RESIDENCE AT BRAVA!
Brava! for Women in the Arts fosters the artistic expression of women, people of color, LGBTQIA
community, and other underrepresented artists. Through its residency program, Brava! supports the
professional development and creative work of directors, actors, dancers, musicians, visual artists, and
designers, providing space for creation, assistance with grant writing and fiscal sponsorship, and the
support of Brava's marketing and technical staff. In return, these artists continue to generate excellent
art, mentor youth in Brava’s education programs and contribute to the artistic life of the 24th Street
corridor in San Francisco.
CAST & CREW BIOS
BEN ORTEGA (Roberto Miranda) is back at La Lengua after playing Santiago in our first show, a
staged reading of Anna in the Tropics . He has been recently seen as Winston Smith in Los Altos
Stage’s production of Michael Gene Sullivan’s adaptation of George Orwell’s “ 1984 ”. Ben’s favorite
roles include Johnny in “ Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune ”, Felix Ungar in “ The Odd Couple ”,
George Hay in “ Moon Over Buffalo ”, Picasso in “ Picasso at the Lapin Agile ”, Yvan in “ Art ”, Daniel
Kaffee in “ A Few Good Men ”, Verdecchia/Wideload in the one-man show " Fronteras Americanas ",
Molina in “ Kiss of the Spider Woman ”, Buddy in “ Thunderbabe ”, Allan Felix in “ Play It Again, Sam ”, and
George in “ Same Time, Next Year ”. Ben studied acting at UCLA and privately with Lisa Chess. Ben is
also a stand-up comedian and has performed in numerous clubs on both coasts.
VIRGINIA BLANCO (Paulina Salas/Co-producer) Actor and theater-maker. Originally from Argentina,
she was a founding member of Drakma Grupo Teatral. Back in her country, she has performed in
Spanish in both classic and contemporary plays. Regional credits include Orinda Starlight Village
Players, Ubuntu Theater Project, Shelton Theatre, TheatreFirst, Theatre of Yugen, The Cutting Ball
Theater, and Anton's Well Theater Company, along with several staged readings with Brava Studio
Sessions and 3 Girls Theatre. Her last performance was a reading of the new play La Paloma by
Alejandra Rivas at the Aurora Theater. Her local acting training is from Studio ACT, BerkREP Theatre
School, and Shakespeare & Company. She studied Communications at Universidad de Buenos Aires
and has worked as a journalist and editor for several written media platforms. Virginia is the Founding
Artistic Director of La Lengua. virginiamblanco.com
DEBORAH CORTEZ (Stage Manager/ Assistant Producer) was born in Argentina but spent most of her
youth in Peru. Deborah relocated to the US in late 1998. Her theatre work goes back to 1996 with her
debut on the Stage in Peter Pan , playing Captain Hook’s ship keeper. Deborah is a Bay Area actress,
singer, producer, and director. She’s worked in many plays as well as films and commercials. Some of
her recent works are Josefa ( Convoy 31000 ), Lucy ( Strange Ladies ), Theseus ( A Midsummer Night’s
Dream ), Olivia ( Twelfth Night ), Jean ( Dead Man Cell Phone ) and many more. Film credits include: No
Quiero Verte , One Long Day , Drops of Sunshine , Drunk Theatre and many more. Deborah’s Producing
credits are: Drunk Theatre -Bread and Butter and Titus Andronicus with Theatre Lunatico, in which she
is now a Core Member. To learn more about Deborah: deborahcortezactor.wixsite.com/website
PAUL FLORES (Subtitles/Co-producer) Writer and Producer. He started making spoken word as a
Youth Speaks y Los Delicados founding member in 1996. In 2001 he debuted in Cuba, while he was
working al Centro Cultural La Peña, and since then he has been performing frequently in La Habana,
México and El Salvador. His work approaches immigrant stories with all their complexity, from violence
-forced migration, gang life, the war, incarceration, divided families- until cross-generational
relationships and the struggle to preserve cultural values. His most recent shows were " On the Hill: I
Am Alex Nieto " (which gathered San Franciscan communities that had been divided by gentrification
and police violence), and " Tenemos Iré/We Have Iré ,” premiered in 2019 at Yerba Buena Center for the
Arts, San Francisco. Flores is an associated Theater Professor at the University of San Francisco.
http://paulsflores.art/
ROBERTO VAREA (Director) This is his second work at La Lengua, after our inaugural production of
Ana en el Trópico . His creative work includes directing world premieres of works by Migdalia Cruz, José
Rivera and Cherríe Moraga, as well as founding community-based companies such as El Teatro
Jornalero! and Secos & Mojados. His research work focuses on live performance as a means of
resistance and peacebuilding in the context of social conflict and state violence. His writing includes the
two-volume anthology Acting Together-Performance and the Creative Transformation of Conflict, and
publications in numerous journals in the US, Cuba, and the UK among others. He teaches at the
University of San Francisco, where he is founding faculty of the Performing Arts & Social Justice and
Critical Diversity Studies Programs, and he directs the Latin American Studies Program and the Center
for Latinx Studies in the Americas (CELASA).
