As part of our 2011 – 2012 season we are presenting Miguel Piñero’s SHORT EYES at the Los Angeles Theatre Center and are asking for your support. As a result of our hard work and dedication to our mission, this production has been selected by the Los Angeles Theatre Center (LATC) as a part of their season and will open in November 17, 2011.
SHORT EYES, a term prisoners use to brand a child molester, reveals the racial, sexual and dangerously seditious personal politics wielded by an explosive group of inmates at an unnamed House of Detention in New York City. Their petty ploys and communal rebellions are unexpectedly disturbed when they are joined by a middle-class white man accused of raping a young girl. Written during Miguel Piñero’s incarceration for armed robbery in Sing Sing prison the play debuted at the Riverside Church, moved Off-Broadway in 1974 to The Public Theater in New York City and to Broadway at the Vivian Beaumont Theater to critical acclaim including 6 Tony Award Nominations, the New York Drama Critics Circle Award and an Obie Award for “Best Play of The Year”.
Please click on the link below to be directed to our Kickstarter campaign for more information about this project and to make your contribution.
[ Message From the Director ]
SHORT EYES by Miguel Piñero is the first play I ever read. When the thought of becoming an actor first occurred to me I decided to head towards the library in order to search for plays thinking to find something I could relate to. I am Puerto Rican and so decided that plays by Puerto Rican writers might be a good place to start my search. That is how I first discovered Miguel Piñero’s work. When I read SHORT EYES I was moved, mesmerized and terrified. That hasn’t changed.
It is my privilege to be directing this play as Artistic Director of Urban Theatre Movement. It is exactly for companies like ours—families—that this play was written. In his introduction to the play, Marvin Felix Camillo the director of the original production, described the original theatrical family that brought SHORT EYES to life this way, “We traveled with a good artistic reputation, little money and the strongest kind of desire imaginable…” I can think of no better way to describe where our UTM family finds itself today.
We are proud to be producing Miguel’s Piñero’s SHORT EYES at the Los Angeles Theatre Center this Fall and cannot do so without your support. Please support our UTM family and become part of the movement bringing this beautiful play to life.
Julian Acosta
Artistic Director
Urban Theater Movement
for further questions on how to donate please contact Evelyn Arreaga: Eve.urbantheatremovment@gmail.com
KICKSTARTER LINK: http://kck.st/nvF5KI
