Kickstarter

We had a wonderful three week run of PALOMA in Albuquerque that ended on Sunday.  Audiences seem to love it and we got some great press.   For example:

"A masterpiece" - Lora Lucero, community journalist and blogger.

"A powerful play that gets under the skin of religious tensions".-- Rob Spiegel, Talkin' Broadway website

"Fascinating theatre"  -- Graham Gentz, New Mexico Daily Lobo

Now we're opening at Teatro Paraguas on Friday.  This is the part that you made possible with your Kickstarter contributions and we thank you profusely.

Re your rewards:  Your names are in the program with our thanks and on our FB Events pages.  Those of you who were getting tickets to the show have received them.  It's only the peace buttons and bumper stickers that are still waiting to be sent -- and they will be.  But maybe not until next week -- we're kinda busy right now.  Thanks for your patience.

Thanks again so much for your support of this wonderful theatrical event.

Here's a photo taken at dress rehearsal of our entire cast, crew and creative team:  Richard Hogle, set and lighting designer; Jaime Pardo, costume designer; Ron Weisberg (Jared;, Abe Jallad (Ibrahim); Lena Armstrong (Paloma); Gil Lazier, director; Anne Garcia-Romero, playwright; Linda Lopez McAlister, producer; Jose Castro, dresser; and Donna Marie Barra, stage manager.  

If we look happy, it's because we are!

Last night PALOMA opened at the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque to an enthusiastic audience, many of whom remarked afterwards how moved they had been by the play and the performances.   

Before the show various groups devoted to coexistence and peace and justice were at tables in the lobby spreading the word about their work:  Abq Jew (www.abqjew.com), Albuquerque Center for Peace and Justice (www.abqpeaceandjustice.org), Bookworks (www.bkwrks.com), Friends of Sabeel Albuerque (www.sabeelsw.info), Holocaust & Intolerance Museum of New Mexico (www.nmholocaustmuseum.org), New Mexico Human Rights Projects (www.nmhrp.org), One Million Bones (www.onemillionbones.org), Project PeacePal (www.peacepal.org).

Thanks again to all of you,  our Kickstarter supporters, who helped us get this amazing production off the ground.    Onward!

PAZ.  SALAAM. SHALOM.

Photo:  l.r. Linda Lopez McAlister, producer, Ron Weisberg who plays Jared Rabinowitz, Abe Jallad who plays Ibrahim Ahmed, Gil Lazier, director, Anne Garcia-Romero, playwright, and Lena Armstrong who plays Paloma Flores.

There was a period in Spanish history when Moors, Jews, and Christians lived together in relative harmony for several hundred years.  The book that inspired Anne Garcia-Romero to write Paloma,  a treatise on love by Ibn Hazm de Cordoba called Ring of the Dove was written during this period which has come to be called "la convivencia," i.e., the era of living together.  

If you come to see Sunday matinees of Paloma in Albuquerque you can hear a pre-show talk about "la convivencia" by Manuela Ceballos, a scholar of that period of Spanish and North African history.   And, as you make your way from the parking lot to the NHCC Performing Arts Center, you can stop and visit the fresco by Frederico Vigil in the Torreon and see these beautiful images of two key figures of the period, Moses Maimonides and Averroes  -- a Jew and a Muslim -- both philosophers who lived and worked in 11th C. Cordova.  

Hello PALOMA supporters,

Last night we hit 102% of our goal for this project, which means it will be funded. [Huge sigh of relief].  

I can't tell you how grateful I am to those of you who have backed this show and that it's really going to happen.  Our designers are working away on set, lighting and projection design, music, props, and costumes. We'll soon start building the special things we need for the set.   We go into intense rehearsals on June 25 (with our playwright in attendance via Skype for the first day).

Manuela Ceballos, a scholar of "la convivencia" will be giving pre-show talks  before Sunday matinees.   We are encouraging groups from mosques, temples, and churches to attend with special group rates.  And we're working with the Albuquerque Center for Peace and Justice to set up post-show dialogues about creating peace -- all in the spirit of PALOMA.

Thanks to your backing of the project, we will be able to bring the show to Teatro Paraguas in Santa Fe on August 10-12 after we close in Albuquerque.

This was our first Kickstarter project and it was a little scary.  We set our goal low because we knew if we didn't achieve it we would receive nothing. (Realistically, the cost for building the set pieces we need and paying the cast and crew for the weekend in Santa Fe is more than the $1,450 we aimed for).  So we'd like to ask you to help us keep this going:  keep spreading the word about this project and encouraging your friends to join you in pledging right up to the deadline of 1:00 pm on June 3rd.

Again, our heartfelt thanks.  

Linda Lopez McAlister

PAX.  SALAAM.  SHALOM.

No spoilers, but Ibrahim needs a lawyer and his best friend Jared Rabinowitz, takes his case.