K A R I N A C A S I A N O
plays
ONE-WOMAN PLAYS
¿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! :::new:::
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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. Clip available on our videos page. 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!:::new:::
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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.
THEATRE COMPANIES
Written and directed by Karina Casiano
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
www.lacriatura.org
WATCH THE VIDEO! :::new:::
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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.The play had 10 sold-out shows
at the Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural Center in the Lower East Side, New York in February 2006 and encored at an abandoned
bank in Long Island City, Queens, in June in a co-production with chashama. For more photos, info and audience reviews,
click here for La Criatura theatre company's site. Clip available on our videos page. Photos by Abel Ramírez and La Criatura.
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
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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 images, movement and dance as crucial references to creation.
Photo by Colectivo C-4.