Dear AROHO Friends,
This is an invitation for you and your friends, students, and colleagues to attend a free New Mexico performance of Ellen McLaughlin’s “Penelope”, a gripping one-woman theater piece about the trauma of war, Saturday, March 6 at the NHCC’s Salon Ortega from 6:30 – 8pm. Ellen’s work is life-changing and the evening will be intimate and beautiful.
Composed and performed by McLaughlin, “Penelope” opens when a woman’s husband appears at her door after an absence of 20 years, suffering from brain damage. A veteran of a modern war, he doesn’t know who he is and she doesn’t know who he’s become. While they wait together for his return to himself, she reads him The Odyssey, and in the journey of that book, she finds a way into her former husband’s memory and the terror of war.
McLaughlin, an award-winning New York actress and playwright, is best known for originating the Angel in Tony Kushner’s “Angels in America”. She is on AROHO’s advisory board and has endowed an AROHO Shakespeare’s Sister Scholarship for Women Playwrights. She lives in New York and teaches at Bernard, also having taught at Princeton and the Yale School of Drama. She has stunned many of us by systematically rewriting the classic Greek Plays, which, according to the New York Times, make us “feel the new acutely. Every age has its own rhythms and drives…McLaughlin..serves and uses the original with true power and grace”. Don’t miss her!
We are partners with the “2010 Women & Creativity Conference” at the National Hispanic Cultural Center. You may have received the hot pink program guide in the mail. The full calendar of events is available on the NHCC homepage— http://nhccnm.org/images/PDF/womanandcreativity/women2010schedule.pdf. AROHO’s weekend programming includes classes and workshops for writers and women looking for funding for their creative projects (price reductions available). All of the details are on our site: www.aroho.org (conferences).
You are also encouraged to attend Littleglobe Theater’s performance of Salve: Women on War and Warriorship following the “Penelope” performance at 8pm. The spoken word performance piece features the poetry of Santa Fe Poet Laureate, Valerie Martinez, and the music of BING, and will be staged just across the courtyard at the NHCC’s Albuquerque Journal Theater. Tickets are $12. The two performances back-to-back will offer a fascinating presentation of women’s perspectives on war.
Please reply to this email if you’re interested in attending any portion of the weekend’s events or classes. We’re planning a champagne toast following the “Penelope” performance and the RSVP numbers will help.
Thank you so much for your support, and hope to see you there!
All the best,
Tracey
Tracey Cravens-Gras
Associate Director
A Room of Her Own Foundation
mailto:tracey@aroomofherownfoundation.org
PO Box 778
Placitas, NM 87043