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Fire Never Dies: The Tina Modotti Project
This Italian photographer and her revolutionary art thrived in Mexico City in the 1920s. She was Frida Kahlo’s lover and posed for Diego Rivera’s murals. After seven years of photography, she abandoned her art to join the anti-fascist cause in Europe, running the Red Aid Hospital in Madrid during the Spanish Civil War.
Raised in a working-class family, Tina’s legacy is one of dedication to justice and equality and the four hundred photographs she left behind. She died of a heart attack at the age of forty-five in the back of a taxi cab in Mexico City. Carmen is compelled by Tina’s struggle to reconcile her artistic practice and intimate life with her political commitment.
The play takes place during Tina’s heart attack and consists of twenty-five episodes performed by a seven-actor ensemble. Each episode differs stylistically: film noir when Tina is in 1930s Berlin spying on the Nazis for the Soviets, naturalism when she is at a 1920s party in Mexico City, catwalking when characters are introduced on a runway, etc. The thematic thread is: what is the personal cost of militancy?
An Undeveloped Sound
Five antisocial outsiders are chosen to be spokespeople for a new development in a small coastal town. The job is a lifeline; a chance to get their lives back on track with a renewed sense of purpose and belonging. But what exactly are they representing? The true nature of the development is a mystery and what first seemed a straightforward assignment becomes a kind of language experiment, a conjuring act, as the spokespeople attempt to speak on its behalf.
Loosely inspired by Goethe’s Faust, An Undeveloped Sound is about the essential wager made between development and destruction. In Goethe’s play, Faust is estranged from the world and deeply depressed. His bet with the Devil lifts him out of despair with a new lease on life – on one condition: for as long as Faust refuses to be content with what is, and strives endlessly toward what could be, he can save his soul from damnation.
For the spokespeople in An Undeveloped Sound, it’s the verbal impulse – language itself – that becomes the force of salvation: the striving for connection, the quest to say what must be said. If they can sustain this quest in a state of perpetual development, their sense of place in the world will be eternally secured.
Rolling Hills, Green Pastures
Presented as part of Climate Change and Other Small Talk — a theatrical podcast series created by Sunny Drake and produced in association with Why Not Theatre and 9 companies around the world. With our partners, The Cultch, the entire podcast series is hosted on RePlay Series online.
With a satirical tone, Core Artist Carmen Aguirre’s episode Rolling Hills, Green Pastures, will probe the US Army’s “going green” initiatives. Esperanza Soto welcomes new recruits to a U.S. drone centre. Run entirely on wind energy, the centre is part of the U.S. Army’s Green Military Movement. One of the drone operators is a climate refugee from Vancouver. What choices will they make when climate refugees attempt to cross the border from Mexico?
Carmen and Justin Podur met on May 29, 2023, at the Cultch to speak about a number of topics around Climate and how we can make changes. The video of that talk will be available on our Youtube page soon.
Previous Shows View All
The Magic Hour
2021Reframed
2020Anywhere But Here
2020Transmissions
2019The Full Light of Day
2019The Virtual Light of Day
201940 Days and 40 Nights
2018Great Day for Up
2016Flee
2015Betroffenheit
2015Obstructions: There is No Way To Fix What is Going Wrong
2014All The Way Home
2012Initiation Trilogy
2012Community Dinner
2011You Are Very Star
2011Tear the Curtain!
2010Everyone
2010The Flannigan Affair
2008No Exit
2008At Home With Dick & Jane
2006Studies in Motion: The Hauntings of Eadweard Muybridge
2006Palace Grand
2004The Fall
2003The One That Got Away
2002Flop
2002Doña Flor and Her Two Husbands
2001The Score
2000The Wake
1999Brilliant! The Blinding Enlightenment of Nikola Tesla
1996In Development
Epigone
A new script in development by Kevin Kerr
In this play, Epigone’s brother has to travel into the wasteland (a ravaged landscape of resource extraction in the wilderness) to recover the body of his sister after news arrives of her sudden death. But the body is elusive, hard to find, as she’s also on a journey of her own. In a space between this world and next, Epigone herself is attempting to fulfill a decades long quest to recover the remains of her twin daughters, trapped in a sort of purgatory, and finally put their spirits to rest. World Premiere slated for 2026/27.
Blog
View AllAdvancing Research Capacity – ARC Residency
Call for Submissions Apply Here – Deadline Nov 1 About the Program Electric Company Theatre is seeking submissions for the … Advancing Research Capacity – ARC Residency
August 2024
Please join us in welcoming the newest Electric as our new Communications & Administration Coordinator: Julian Legere! ⚡️ Born and … August 2024
July 2024
After more than three years, we bid farewell and happy trails to our Communications and Marketing Coordinator, Valeria, who will … July 2024
February 2024
DIANA ROSS DREAM is set to take place this March 1 and 2 at Left of Main! We are so … February 2024
January 2024
We are kicking the year off with the upcoming staged reading of Fire Never Dies: The Tina Modotti Project, hosted … January 2024
December 2023
Happy Holidays from the Electric Elves! Another year has flashed by right before our eyes. We have many things to … December 2023
November 2023
PXR2023 + Assembly Hall Congratulations to our core artist Jonathon for the highly anticipated ASSEMBLY HALL, created along with longtime … November 2023
October 2023
Join the Powering Progress movement + Noche de Teatro with Carmen! Join our NEW monthly giving program, The Illuminaries, and … October 2023
September 2023
Splitting our time between Left of Main and Progress Lab 1422 Cleaning out our inventory means we reunite to serve … September 2023
June 2023
Tina Modotti Workshop at the Russian Hall Describe Tina Modotti with one word. Ready, set, GO! Here’s a little snippet … June 2023
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