DISTANT STAR is about many things: accountability and guilt, the totalitarian state, poetry and art. It is a play that bears witness to an unspeakable past without presuming to make sense of it. It is also the biggest undertaking Caborca has ever embarked upon, with a budget double the size of any show we have ever produced. We are turning to our community to help fully realize the world premiere of this urgent, timely piece of anti-fascist theatre.

Caborca is premiering its adaptation of Roberto Bolaño’s ground-breaking novel DISTANT STAR, a harrowing tale of fascism and its aftermath, at the Underground Theater of Abrons Arts Center. Written by Caborca’s Artistic Director Javier Antonio González and directed by Shira Milikowsky, DISTANT STAR is a memory play and an archive of American-backed terror.

DISTANT STAR has catapulted Caborca into a new tier of theatrical undertaking, a challenge that feels necessary to take on given the play’s prescience about our time. Bolaño’s novel follows a Chilean poet as he tracks the devastating rise of fascism under Pinochet, offering a frightening lens into the America of 2017; this project’s scale and scope are made possible and indeed necessary by the urgency of its anti-fascist content. Abrons is one of New York’s most important homes for groundbreaking work, and they have chosen DISTANT STAR to open their season out of the conviction that it has never been more important for the arts to engage with and confront politics. This moment is an opportunity that we must rise to meet.

The project’s scope is large in several ways: the budget of DISTANT STAR is almost double the budget of Caborca’s previous shows, and 80% of it goes directly towards paying people, our actors, our designers, our creative team, and our technicians. The show runs for three weeks on a full union contract, a first for the company and a major milestone in our development. We believe that producing this show is of the utmost importance and paying our collaborators fairly for their work is unconditional, so we are asking you for help to close the gap between the demands of DISTANT STAR and our previous endeavors.

We would love for you to come see the powerful work our cast and creative team have done on DISTANT STAR. If you're able to join us and like what you see, please consider a contribution to our campaign to help us pay for it. If you can't join us, can you help us bring this vital play to life, and possibly to a theatre near you in the future?

In preparation for this project Caborca has secured funders who will match the proceeds of this campaign, meaning that every dollar we receive does double the work! a $5,000 campaign turns into $10,000 for the project, which helps us pay actors, designers, and creatives.

Caborca makes sprawling, adventurous works in theatre and film. Combining epic auteurship with a finely tuned ensemble of actors and a flux of collaborators, we bridge language, background and media, inviting our audience, guest artists and members alike, to delve into the pleasure of seeing anew. A true New York company, our ensemble of collaborators comprises artists primarily from Puerto Rico and the United States, as well as China, Korea, and beyond. We have premiered 10 works since 2009 including Zoetrope at the Los Angeles Theater Center and Pregones, and Open Up, Hadrian at Magic Futurebox.