A Look Back by Jessica Marie Padilla: Mariachi Girl by Roxanne Schroeder Arce, Teatro Vivo at the Zach Theatre

Mariachi Girl: A Look Back

by Jessica Marie Padilla
November 10, 2012

I remember it as if I had suddenly woken from a dream. I was crouching on the living floor, ear pressed to the window like Beethoven, listening to the sound of a tuning guitar, chords on a keyboard, and the distinct hum of the accordion and amplifier. They were bringing my mother a serenade for Dia de Las Madres, Mother’s Day. It was my father, grandfather, and whatever friend they could find with a cable and amplifier. This happened every year from the beginning of time and was practiced for throughout the year every Friday or Saturday night. So by the time Mother’s Day arrived, my mother was usually annoyed. She did however act as if she’d never heard Las Mañanitas before every year on this special day. And twice for everyone's birthday. For her, a delight. For me, it was how I fell in love with music.

It is the allure of multiple perspectives that I love about the musical Mariachi Girl by Roxanne Schroeder-Arce. Everyone’s voice was represented on stage through a character, a line, a song, a hat, and yes, even a Barbie. Everyone in the audience had a stake in what was happening on the stage. Full of opinions, explanations, words of wisdom and story, these identifiable characters mirrored our lives and entertained us with humor, song, and intrigue.

The entertainment value of the production was matched by his educational value. Heritage, history and tradition came alive. Children were taught to follow their dreams, celebrate their diversity, and also to respect authority. Adults in the audience related to the pressures of parenting and the complexity of establishing a healthy family. Issues of gender role, social status and race were held in different light. And the artist was celebrated. ‘Those people” who practice music in garages, or alone in their rooms can treasure a folkloric production like Mariachi Girl.

Mariachi Girl is a well rounded Theatre for Youth musical enjoyed by all ages, one that asks important questions of its audiences. The musical asked me to remember.

My answer? I do remember -- as if it was yesterday.

Original Family Theatre in Austin -- Playground Superhero and Mariachi Girl

by Michael Meigs


Children's theatre -- sometimes passed off as 'family theatre' -- is not easy, despite the deceptive appearance of ease when it's well done. And there's not that much of it in Austin.


Visiting companies set up shop for a single day's performance at the One World Theatre out on Bee Caves Road or at the Paramount and State theatres downtown. And of course, studios such as KidsActing, Buzz Productions, Easy Theatre and Center Stage offer young persons their first experience of performance. There's even the Flying Theatre Machine that will initiate them in improv.


Very often purveyors of children's theatre or theatre by children are offering authorized adaptations of familiar stories, successful children's books, and movies. Lots of these studios and various schools are doing Disney scripts -- for example, the MacTheatre at McCallum Fine Arts Academy performed Disney's Beauty and the Beast this past September and the Buzz Productions did Disney's Alice in Wonderland, Jr. this past May.


There's some piracy, too -- not the Long John Silver type but copyright infringement. To date those occasional offerings by community groups and others have remained below the radar (luckily for them, because Uncle Walt's administrators and their ilk are little inclined to tolerance or mercy).


Last week I attended two productions of original scripts for family theatre, done by uniquely Austin theatre companies in partnership with well-established Austin arts institutions. Judy Matetzschk-Campbell's Pollyanna Theatre Company has been performing since 2002; Teatro Vivo of Rupert and JoAnn Reyes, established at about the same time to serve, entertain and reflect Austin's Tejano community, has now moved into family theatre with a script submitted by Roxanne Schroeder-Arce to their first Latino New Play Festival in 2011.

Click to read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Upcoming: Mariachi Girl by Roxanne Schroeder-Arce, Teatro Vivo at Zach Theatre, October 6 - November 4

AND

WITH

present
MARIACHI GIRL


Written by ROXANNE SHROEDER-ARCE
Music and lyrics by HÉCTOR MARTÍNEZ MORALES
Directed by BRANT POPE, Chair of the University of Texas Department of Theatre and Dance 

Premieres October 6. Saturday and Sunday performances continue through November 4, 2012. 
 
Public Shows: Friday: October 5 at 7 p.m.; Saturdays: October 6, 20, 27 at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m.; Sunday: November 4 at 6 p.m.

ZACH’s intimate Whisenhunt Stage, 1510 Toomey Road (click for map) (Toomey intersects S. Lamar Blvd. between W. Cesar Chavez and Barton Springs Rd.)


TICKETS
To order tickets call 512-476-0541 ext. 1 or visit www.zachtheatre.org. Children’s tickets are $14, and adult tickets are $16. Concessions will be open one hour before showtime. Drinks welcome inside the theatre.

Mariachi Girl is a new bilingual Spanish/English musical for children and family audiences. This is the world premiere production of the play, which had its first reading at Teatro Vivo’s 2011 Austin Latino New Play Festival. Mariachi Girl is a co-production with ZACH Theatre and Teatro Vivo, in partnership with the University of Texas Department of Theatre and Dance.

Full of vibrant original mariachi music, this play explores how one girl can challenge her identity in a modern society while embracing her rich heritage. Eight-year-old Carmencita dreams of being in her father’s mariachi band, but her father insists that mariachi groups should only include men. When Carmencita reads a book about a famous female mariachi, it expands her world and notion of what is possible.


ZACH’s Education Director Nat Miller says: “ZACH is partnering with Teatro Vivo to expand our reach in to the Latino community with shows for schools and families. We already have more than 10,000 students from dual language schools attending our school matinees and think it is important for ZACH to produce stories that represent their lives. Teatro Vivo is one of the only bilingual theater companies in Texas, and it is their mission to produce culturally relevant Latino theatre that addresses critical social issues. ZACH is honored to partner with Teatro Vivo to bring more Latino families to ZACH. More than 4,000 students will be attending the production, a large percentage of them from low income schools who will be coming for a reduced cost.”

ZACH and Teatro Vivo’s production features an all-star cast: MARIO RAMIREZ, ALEJANDRA MCGUIRE, AISHA SAN RAMON, SARAH WALKER, JULIAN CASTILLO, & RUPERT REYES with Mariachis: DAVID PERALES, OLLIN CHAVEZ, JAVIER TORRES, & MIGUEL MACHADO.


For real-time updates on ZACH Theatre news, events and happenings, visit http://www.zachtheatre.org/blog, be a fan of ZACH Theatre on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/zachtheatre, and follow ZACH on Twitter @zachtheatre http://www.twitter.com/zachtheatre.

ZACH’s production of Mariachi Girl is sponsored by: Carolyn and Marc Seriff, Silicon Labs, Texas Gas Service, Applied Materials, Dollar General Literacy Foundation, JPMorgan Chase, and Target.


About ZACH Theatre ZACH Theatre is Austin’s leading professional producing theatre. Founded in 1932, ZACH is the longest running theatre company in Texas, serving 85,000 adults and youth annually. ZACH creates its own nationally recognized dramatic, musical and comedic productions that elevate, motivate and stimulate the human spirit under the leadership of Producing Artistic Director Dave Steakley and Managing Director Elisbeth Challener. Now in its 80^th season, ZACH continues to expand and engage with Austin, adding a third theatre to its Central Austin performance campus. The 420-seat, 32,000-square-foot Topfer Theatre will nearly double ZACH’s capacity while retaining its hallmark intimate theatre-going experience upon its completion in the fall of 2012. The Topfer Theatre Campaign has currently raised more than $20 million of its $22 million goal. Visit www.zachtheatre.org for more information.

ZACH Theatre is sponsored, in part, by Austin Catering, Four Hands Home, Holiday Inn-Lady Bird Lake, Kirk Tuck Photography, Marquee Events, OnRamp, Austin American-Statesman, Austin News TV 36, and Time Warner Cable; and by grants from The Shubert Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts, Texas Commission on the Arts, and the City of Austin through the Cultural Arts Division, which believes an investment in the arts is an investment in Austin’s future. Visit Austin at NowPlayingAustin.com.


About Teatro Vivo  Teatro Vivo is a popular, viable and culturally necessary arts organization for the entire Austin community. Committed from the beginning to developing a new theatrical aesthetic that is based on and draws from the culture, history and mythology of Latino experience, Teatro Vivo continues to be one of the only bilingual Latino theater companies in the state of Texas. Since its first year in 2000, Teatro Vivo has produced more than 24 full-length productions, a variety of performance collaborations with other arts organizations, and several theatre workshops for traditionally underserved populations in the Austin community. Teatro Vivo garnered numerous nominations for acting, writing, and design from both B.Iden Payne Awards (Austin Creative Alliance) and the Austin Critics Table awards, including the Cohen New Play Award. The National Association of Latino Arts and Culture also recognized Teatro Vivo with a grant as part of NALAC Fund for the Arts national funding program.

As a bilingual theater company, Teatro Vivo’s mission is to produce culturally relevant Latino theatre that addresses critical social issues. All of Teatro Vivo’s productions have Latino roots and branch into every corner of human experience, exploring age-old themes and modern dilemmas. Teatro Vivo serves the community by telling the Latino story, positively reflecting the Latino community and uniquely celebrating the vibrancy of the Latino culture and the power of the human experience. Visit www.teatrovivo.org or contact JoAnn Reyes for information, images and interviews. 512-413-6791 or joannreyes@yahoo.com.

Click to go to the AustinLiveTheatre front page

Auditions for Mariachi Girl, Teatro Vivo, April 14

Announcing Auditions for actors, singers and musicians for Mariachi Girl April 14, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Community Engagement Center, 1009 E. 11th Austin, 78702 (click for map)

Teatro Vivo is auditioning for Mariachi Girl, a bilingual musical by Roxanne Schroeder Arce. This play was presented as part of the Austin Latino New Play Festival last year and now we have plans to produce this in collaboration with the University of Texas, Department of Theater and Dance.

Auditions are for singers and musicians (all ages) who can perform Mariachi. We are also casting the lead role with a young actress (age range 8 -18) with experienced singing ability. The audition will consist of reading from the script and singing a song a capella or with your own accompaniment. Knowledge of Spanish is a plus but not required. Actors and musicians will be compensated. Upon request a preview script can be emailed to you prior to the audition.

To schedule your audition, contact JoAnn at joanne@teatrovivo.org or call 512 413-6791. (Drop-ins are ok.) Bring a headshot or current photo to the audition. Visit our web site teatrovivo.org

Latino New Play Festival, Teatro Vivo at the Mexican-American Cultural Center, April 21 - 23

The three Austin playwrights showcased at the Autin Latino New Play Festival last week could not have had a gentler or more supportive audience. Organizers Rupert Reyes and Joanne Carrion-Reyes founded their Teatro Vivo about ten years ago, producing appealing, comic pieces, usually written by Rupert and featuring him.

Just the way that Austin has branded itself as the home of "live music," the Reyes' theatre group is known for its "live theatre." "Teatro vivo" can also mean "lively theatre," and their productions have always been that. They reach out to the Tejano community, that large and increasing population of this town whose first language is English but who have close, family familiarity with the Spanish-language community, principally of Mexican connection.

These were staged readings in the recently inaugurated "black box" theatre on the south end of the Emma S. Barrientos Mexican-American Cultural Center. Rupert or Joanne prepped the expectant audiences, explaining that the festival was designed to assist playwrights by putting their works of imagination before live audiences for the first time. Actors carried their scripts with them and moved across minimalist sets. Decoration and costuming existed mostly in the minds of the audiences. Both of the longer pieces used an on-stage reader to deliver the authors' stage directions and descriptions of silently mimed action.

Teatro Vivo has produced full-length works by two of the three writers. Erica Saenz' piece for the festival, Lightning Strikes, comes a year after their production of another family comedy Keeping Track a year ago at the Salvage Vanguard Theatre, and Raul Garza's Dos Pocitos follows a fine production of his Fantasmaville at the Long Center's Rollins Theatre in November, 2008.

The three pieces workshopped by a recognizable regulars from Teatro Vivo differed in form and subject matter. Saenz' s Lightning Strikes examines three households in "the Valley" -- the Rio Grande valley at the southernmost tip of Texas. Roxanne Schroeder-Arce's one-act play Mariachi Girl focuses on the yearnings of an 8-to-10 year old girl to sing the mariachi music of her father and grandfather. Garza's Dos Pocitos posits a hypothetical future in which the United States has de-accessioned an area of southern Texas, leaving it to drug runners, roving bands and the few stubborn Tejanos who refused to move to safer areas of the state.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .