"Why support this show?" you might ask. "There are so many shows to support!" Well, here's a few good reasons....

1. Because on Black Friday, we’ll be flying to a communist country to make art.

2. Because Helen Shaw says you should: "Theater fans! There's a show you must see! .... Zoetrope." (both exclamation points are legit)

3. Because Donald Trump says you shouldn't: The U.S. government just canceled all commercial flights to Cuban destinations outside La Habana. (insert us taking an 8-hour bus ride to Camagüey)

4. Because you like relevant theatre. Zoetrope is a bilingual play that brings international audiences together around contemporary issues of diaspora, a family’s migration, and the empty promise of the American Dream.

5. Because you believe in taking theatre to the people. The Festival Pueblas-Escena takes place in the middle of the island. Last year Caborca was instrumental in facilitating the founding of this historic gathering - the first international theatre festival in Ciego de Ávila. This year we return to a festival that has expanded to a second town, Camagüey, home of the internationally renowned Teatro del Viento.

Our friends in Cuba are enormously excited to host and support us, but because of the embargo, they are forbidden from contributing financially to the tour beyond subsidized room and board. Your dollars will go directly to pay artists, buy plane tickets, acquire visas, and get our set and props to Cuba and back home. Please also consider sharing the campaign with friends who may be interested in supporting work that fosters international exchange!

Caborca's 7th original work, ZOETROPE is a sweeping and aesthetically charged theatrical experience. Through movement and live-feed video, Zoetrope tells the story of an underdog military postal officer with a dream. Until he dies. Then it tells the story of his widow, her sister, his lover, her friend, his son, the playwright René Marqués, and el Grito de Lares. Development began in 2010-11 when Javier was a member of the Emerging Writers Group at the Public Theater and then the show was workshopped and premiered in 2014-15 at Pregones Theater and the Los Angeles Theater Center’s Encuentro Festival. We are thrilled to be restaging Zoetrope for the 2019 Festival Pueblas-Escena, and we hope soon thereafter to bring it to a regional theatre near you!

“A zoetrope is a film machine that takes static images and rolls them together to create the illusion of movement. But this Zoetrope was, in many ways, a study in disillusion. The performers moved like dancers and the entire event contained the grace of a poem.” - LA Weekly

“The bilingual performance flipped supertitles between English and Spanish. Meanwhile, the actors slid between languages with similar ease. Conceptually, I can’t think of a better way to show the divides at the heart of this absorbing and beautifully enacted saga.” - American Theatre Magazine

“Javier Antonio González and Caborca’s creative capaciousness reconceives the Latinx family drama, and in this way, they expand the aesthetic horizons of Latinx theater in extraordinary new directions even as their bold experimentation takes up an important theatrical discourse that ardently attends to Puerto Rico’s embittered history of colonization and possession.” - Professor Irma Mayorga, Encuentro: Latinx Performance for the New American Theater, Northwestern University Press

Escritos sobre Zoetrope en Español, por: Rojo Robles, Laura Rodríguez, Rosa Luisa Márquez.

Hailing from Puerto Rico, the United States, and beyond, CABORCA makes sprawling, adventurous works in theatre and film. Combining epic auteurship with a tuned ensemble of actors and a flux of collaborators, Caborca bridges language, background and media, inviting audiences, guest artists and members alike, to delve into the pleasure of seeing anew. Caborca steals its name from the novel The Savage Detectives, by Roberto Bolaño.

Zoetrope features the work of artistic director and playwright Javier Antonio González directing the ensemble of Brooke Bell, Laura Butler Rivera, Tania Molina, Pedro Leopoldo Sánchez Tormes, Veraalba Santa, David Skeist, and Alejandra Maldonado who is also the Stage Manager. Produced by Jenny Tibbels. Scenic Design by Jian Jung with Associate Scenic Design by Brian Bernhard. Lighting Design by Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew with Associate Lighting Design by Christina Tang. Sound Design by Keenan Hurley and Elizabeth Rhodes.

For more information about Caborca, go to: http://caborca.org/