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COMING SOON

WORLD PREMIERE IN DECEMBER 2010 to La MaMa, NYC!!!

 
They found each other in the lonely, apocalyptic city.
Now they must choose between their
bliss and their convictions.

A poetic and poignant post-recession love story set in the near future, 
directed and performed by Karina Casiano and Daniel Irizarry. 
(Photo by Marius Chira. www.zbabam.com) 

DECEMBER 2 - 12, 2010
. La MaMa ETC, New York City

The Orphans is made possible with public funds from the New York State Council for the Arts,
celebrating 50 years of building strong, creative communities in New York State's 62 counties.
And by the support of  Puffin Foundation and The Yip Harburg Foundation. 

        

You too can DONATE by clicking HERE. Thank you!

For press inquiries, please write to: ron@spincycle.com.




ONE-WOMAN PLAYS

ROOTLESS: La No-Nostalgia
April 2008, chashama at 42nd street, NYC
October 2008, Gerald W. Lynch Theater, NYC
May 2010, 7th Annual soloNOVA Arts Festival, P.S.122, NYC
July 2010, Teatro Bar El Vicio and Foro A Poco No, 8vo Festival Int'l de Cabaret by Las Reinas Chulas, Mexico City.

WATCH THE VIDEO!

 

An ardent, insightful, bilingual cabaret wih video and live piano songs about  the migration experience and the
emotional life of migrants. A confused immigrant
begins to forget her past, her accent and even her gender
after years of living away
from her country. The foreigner contemplates her dilemma through music, sharing

with the audience the transformation that exile has caused in her and the guilt of not wanting to return home.
“ROOTLESS” illustrates the dichotomy of postmodern exile:
we are happy follow the rules of a new nation but we
allow corruption, apathy
and pessimism to smother our own motherlands. Throughout this journey, our eternal

inferiority complex informs our bittersweet adaptation. (Photos by C. Rodríguez.) 

 


¿Qué me trajiste?: Cabaret Boricua
       Written, directed, produced and performed by Karina Casiano 
         San Juan, Puerto Rico, May and June 1999 
     Café-Teatro Delirio Habanero, Teatro Nacional, La Habana, Cuba, January 2000 
       Ecuador, Perú, Chile, Argentina, January - May 2001 
                                                                            
     WATCH THE VIDEO! 
                                                              
   

                         A bold play about the issues of identity and sovereignty of the Puerto Rican people, it was
inspired by the cultural and ideological shock Casiano received as a Latin U.S. citizen on her one-year
trip to diverse South American countries in 1998. The play raises the question of the role of Puerto Ricans in
their country's political and social destiny with bittersweet humor. A deceived and jaded prostitute leads the
audience through the travels of a young wide-eyed girl who leaves her country in search of a more ideologically
fulfilling life. A disturbingly practical flight attendant and an enigmatic nightclub employee test the reasons of the
Little Red Riding Hood who fled her land only to find and envious, fed up "third world." The astonishment of
coming face to face with the dilemma of her identity and nationality as a Puerto Rican makes her realize
how fragile dignity can be. (Photo by Jorge Dieppa, postcard design by Matt Egan.)
 

    COLONIA2007o el cabaret de los días terribles

               Written, directed, produced and performed by Karina Casiano
        Old San Juan, Puerto Rico, November 2000 
                 Teatro Malayerba, Quito, and Casa de la Cultura, Ibarra, Ecuador, February 2001 
              HERE Arts Center, New York City, 2004  

       WATCH THE VIDEO!
                                                                                                              
       .

A musical multimedia play which fictionally predicts the future of Puerto Rican society based
in the prevailing repressive policies enforced in the United States and other countries. An array of
baffling characters sing, dance and invite the audience into the world of Puerto Rico in 2007: a
government-run night club where behavior considered illegal before a fictional uprising in 2001, is
permitted. The purpose is to keep social order through an illusion of freedom. Terrorized citizens
accept and promote these measures as a response to the threat of losing their individual well-being.
The social issues raised by the show are even more pertinent now than in the year 2000 when Casiano
originally wrote the play. Omnipresent surveillance, the police and the military flooding the streets, and
ethnic and ideological profiling are now part of our everyday lives. The show presents, with a
heavy
dose of sarcasm and dark humor, how a US-owned nation sloppily subscribes to its version of an
expensive, sophisticated police state. Clip available on our videos page.
(Photos by Eric Borcherding and David Rubio. Postcard design by Matt Egan.)


THEATER COMPANIES

La Criatura T
heater
www.lacriatura.org

Silence Is Health / Silencio es Salud

Written and directed by Karina Casiano for La Criatura Theater

With: Miguel Belmonte, Jorge Dieppa, Antonio Pantojas,
  David Storck, Elodián Barbosa and José Acevedo
Stage Manager: Miguel Ángel Reyes
CSV Cultural Center, Lower East Side, New York, February 2006
chashama @ Queens, old Citibank Building, Long Island City, New York, June 2006

WATCH THE VIDEO! 
                                                                                                             


Based on official documents, testimonies, historical research and analyses of similar
periods in Argentina, Guatemala, Chile,
Spain, Germany, Ireland, Israel and the United States,
Silence Is Health is an aesthetic approach to the pressing debate on
human rights, warning us
of the symptoms of a horrific pattern too often repeated throughout History. A chilling, site-specific,

documentary play seeking to shed light onto mass psychology, fear, individualism and oblivion.

For more photos, info and audience reviews, click HERE for La Criatura theatre company's site.
(Photos by Abel Ramírez and La Criatura.)




COLECTIVO C-4
 
Founded in 1996 by Fermín Candelario, Karina Casiano, Manolo Castro and Myrna Cuevas, Colectivo C-4
works in a completely
cooperative fashion taking advantage of its members' array of skills, which feed
the Company's creative process and administration.
No hierarchies or static roles are established;
duties are distributed freely and variably. Colectivo C-4 selects plays which address
our society's
most pressing issues, such as violence, inequality and lack of solidarity. The company
seeks to build
eclectic
stagings that go beyond traditional theatrical form, and includes movement and dance
as crucial references
to creation. (Photos by Colectivo C-4.)




Hamletmachine
by Heiner Mueller: Festival de Teatro Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña 1996

University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras, 1997
Festival de Teatro de Caguas, Puerto Rico, 1997
Día Uno: Eve of the Beheading by Jorge Díaz: Festival de Teatro de Caguas, Puerto Rico, 1999
University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras, 2000
Centro de Bellas Artes, San Juan, Puerto Rico, 2000
Festival de Teatro de La Habana, Cuba, 2000
Luz Negra by Álvaro Menén Desleal: Festival de Teatro Insitituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, 2000
University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras, 2000
Festival de Teatro de Caguas, Puerto Rico, 2004 


Copyright Karina Casiano 2003-2010. All rights reserved.