Staging the play at Paraguas and beyond

Teatro Paraguas is committed to staging original plays by local playwrights about the complex landscape that is New Mexico.  We want to create spaces for different voices to be heard, for memories to be re-visited, for us to recognize how the past lives on in the present.          

As part of deepening this commitment, we are launching a campaign to stage a full production (6 performances over two weekends) of the oral history play, When the Stars Trembled in Rio Puerco in spring 2014 in Teatro Paraguas’ Santa Fe theatre. We aim, in the future, to take the play to other venues in New Mexico.

Staging a play requires passion, commitment and funds. We have plenty of passion and commitment from everyone involved in the project - what we need your help with are funds for sets, tech folks, actors, costumes, publicity, archival footage, venue rental, music.  

We've seen the power of these recuerdos - the play had its first staged reading in Dixon, NM in August 2013 as part of the Hispanic Arts Fair. The response moved us - and the full house audience. People spoke of the impact of seeing these stories  brought to life and the memories they triggered. 

That's the resonance of this project for us - it both tells a story and evokes other stories - about connections to each other, land, community, what we lost, what we still hope for, what separates, what binds us.

Your donations will go towards giving this project life on the stage and beyond. Any extra money raised above our goal will support our efforts to widen the scope of this project to include other voices - such as Navajo and Pueblo communities in the Rio Puerco valley.  

Please help us celebrate our past and step into our future with originality by donating to this campaign to stage this play.

This site only takes donations by credit card.  If you would like to support the project (via check or cash), please contact us via cell 609-651-5840 and/or email: recuerdosvivosnm@gmail.com

Thanks for your kind support. Muchísimas gracias por su cariñoso apoyo.

The Rio Puerco today

The Story

When the Stars Trembled in Río Puerco is an oral history play based on the work of celebrated folk historian Nasario García, and adapted and directed by Shebana Coelho. The play makes vivid recuerdos of life in four now ghost towns south of Cuba, New Mexico. The stories span the 1920s through the 1950s: a small boy witnessing Navajo raiding parties, influenza carrying a whole family away, somber and funny rituals with saints (punishing the santos), traumas about land regulation and destruction of cattle by law enforcement agents, ballads about tragedies and shootouts, and ghost stories about brujería and cosas raras, witches and strange sights.

The running theme is how - as one of the narrators says - Aunque nosotros olvidemos, el pasado recuerda. Even if we forget, the past remembers.  And also that stories that move us - even if they are someone else's memories -  connect us. 

That's why it's not just their stories. This project is about re-telling and re-imagining  our stories as living memories.

The play is part of a larger multimedia project, Recuerdos Vivos New Mexico/Living Memories New Mexico that brings oral histories to re-imagined life through plays, radio, videos, and other genres.

Other Ways You Can Help

Donating money is one way to help.  There are many others: help us spread the word, share this link with others,  or just get in touch with any ideas.