Re-Imaginings exhibition opening ceremony + HOLAfestival: Staged Reading of CARMEN'S PEARL by Lina Gallegos

HOLAfestival
Abrazo Interno Gallery
Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural and Educational Center
107 Suffolk Street, Second Floor
(between Rivington and Delancey streets), NYC

AN OFFICIAL EVENT OF THE
2011 NYC LATIN MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT WEEK
(OCTOBER 3-9, 2011).

FREE ADMISSION, BUT RESERVATIONS RECOMMENDED
FOR MORE INFO OR TO RSVP, CALL (212) 253-1015

OPENING NIGHT RECEPTION
Monday, October 3, 2011 at 6pm

(Photos of HOLA member-playwright shown at right.)

Monday, October 3, 2011 at 7:30pm
Carmen’s Pearl
Written by Lina Gallegos
Directed by José A. Esquea

A look at the Salinas family from the “free state” of Galveston (in South Texas) in the 1940s, as told through adolescent Marisa and matriarch Carmen.

LINA GALLEGOS is a native Texan. She received her B.A. summa cum laude and her M.A. from the University of Houston and started her career in education. She moved to Los Angeles in 1989 where she taught while developing her career as an actress and writer. She has acted in theatre (including Anna in the Tropics, The House of Bernarda Alba, Hamlet), in television (including “The Shield,” “The Guardian,” “Reyes y Rey”), and in film (including Coyotes, Seventeen and Under, Peace of Heart). She has just had the pleasure of working with Houses on the Moon Theatre Company on the powerful docudrama De Novo. As a writer, her plays Maggie’s Madness, Latino Lunacy, Damn Joe, Yellow Tulips, Is It Hot In Here Or Is It Me? and her musical Paloma (currently being developed as a film) all had world premieres in Hollywood. In 2008 she moved east and started a new life there. In 2009 she wrote a comedy, Wild in Wichita, and submitted it to MetLife Foundation’s Nuestras Voces national playwriting contest and was overjoyed at first to be a finalist and later to be the winner. The Spanish translation (Locuras en Wíchita) premiered in June 2011 at the Repertorio Español and is still running. Carmen’s Pearl, a true labor of love, was inspired by the women in her family and her new goal is to have it produced in New York City. She is thrilled that it is a part of HOLAfestival. “Thank you so much José Esquea, for embracing my play and giving me this opportunity to introduce it to New York audiences.”

Abrazo Interno Gallery Hours: 3:30pm-10pm DAILY

Re-Imaginings Photo Art Exhibit
Curated by Hispanic Organization of Latin Actors (HOLA),
María F. Nieto and Luis Carle

Photography by Luis Carle
Concept and Styling by María F. Nieto
Makeup by Ura Yoana Sánchez and Ashton Pina

Re-Imaginings is a photographic art exhibit with the unifying theme of visualizing a world where Latinos were already more fully integrated into the mainstream entertainment culture. The photographic art exhibit would take iconic television cast images and "re-imagine" them, showing Latinos as part of the re-imagined cast. The photos would strike a visual chord of familiarity while also showing how seamlessly a Latino actor could be integrated into the shows' universal themes of the human experience.

[Photo: Photographer Luis Carle photographs Haydée Díaz and Ángel Salas for the Re-Imaginings photographic art exhibition. Photo by A.B. Lugo.]