Posts Tagged The Ballad of Alejandro Lopez
New York actor praises my work as “complex, beautifully structured”
Posted by Dwayne Yancey in News, Reviews, Uncategorized on June 19, 2014
From Facebook!
While taking my morning walk last Saturday, I came upon a startling sight: A hornet’s nest lying in the road, brought down by a storm the previous.
Thankfully, this was an old nest, unoccupied for some time. (I’d been keeping an eye on it as I walked under it each morning, just to be sure.)
Naturally, I did what everyone does these days. I took a picture of it with my phone, and zapped it out to Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. On the latter, it produced much chatter, including this high praise from a New York actor I know: “Hornet nests seem an apt metaphor for your plays: complex, beautifully structured, fascinating and vaguely dangerous. Although I’ve never found hornet nests to be as funny as I find your writing. Hornets need to work on that.”
As I note in the screen capture, hornet’s nest figure in both THE BALLAD OF ALEJANDRO LOPEZ and SOFTBALL IS LIFE. In the former, a young boy’s pitching prowess is discovered when he hurls a rock through a hornet’s nest. In the latter, a high school principal tries to solve two problems at once — the softball coach refuses to recognize a girl’s throwing skills, and the neighboring landlord refuses to remove a hornet’s nest near the school grounds. You can probably guess how that goes.
Here’s the nest, if you’re curious:
A hornet’s nest, fallen from the sky! Or, at least a tree.
More photos from my staged reading in New York
Posted by Dwayne Yancey in News, Personal, Photos, Productions, Uncategorized on June 27, 2013
My daughter, Rain, took this panorama shot of me outside the Cherry Lane Theatre. That’s Keith and Trina at right.
Here are some more photos related to my recent staged reading that the Barefoot Theatre Company in New York did of my full-length script “The Ballad of Alejandro Lopez.”
First, some other links if you want to catch up:
* Photos from rehearsal, production and the after-party
* Photos of the cast and show poster
* The original announcement about Barefoot doing a staged reading of my script
And now, more photos, mostly taken by me: Read the rest of this entry »
Poster and cast photos from “The Ballad of Alejandro Lopez” in New York
Posted by Dwayne Yancey in News, Photos, Productions, Uncategorized on June 11, 2013
Poster for my show in New York.
The Barefoot Theatre Company in New York will hold a staged reading of my full-length script “The Ballad of Alejandro Lopez” on Monday, June 17 at the Cherry Lane Theatre in Manhattan.
Here’s a poster, and the cast.
Tickets are free, but you have to email barefootrsvp@aol.com to get on the list. Other details here.
The cast of “The Ballad of Alejandro Lopez.”
New York theatre to hold staged reading of “The Ballad of Alejandro Lopez”
Posted by Dwayne Yancey in News, Productions, Uncategorized on May 10, 2013
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I’m thrilled to announce that the Barefoot Theatre Company in New York to hold a staged reading of my full-length script “The Ballad of Alejandro Lopez” on June 17.
The particular details: It’s at 7 p.m. at The Loft near Broadway and East 3rd, specifically 682 Broadway, #5W.
UPDATE: The venue has changed. The reading will now be at the Cherry Lane Theatre, 38 Commerce Street. To get on the list, you need to email barefootrsvp@aol.com.
For those of you not familiar with Barefoot, it’s been described as a “scrappy, young Off-Off Broadway company” whose past productions have included the first stage adaptation of Sidney Lumet’s “Dog Day Afternoon” in 2008, and a revival of Lanford Wilson’s “Balm in Gilead” in 2005.
The Boston Globe has called it “a company to notice in New York.”
I’ve had one-minute pieces performed in New York in the Gone in 60 Seconds Festival, and some New York City high schools have produced some of my one-acts. But this is the first longer piece of mine to break into The Big Apple.
As for the script itself, it’s superficially about baseball, but really about immigration. Here’s my official synopsis:
THE BALLAD OF ALEJANDRO LOPEZ
A play about baseball – and immigration. The immigrant-hating and baseball-loving sheriff of a rural Texas county faces a dilemma when he discovers a Hispanic boy who can throw a 90-mile-per-hour fastball. Cast: Ten – four female, six male, but three of those males have small parts.
I’m indebted to Rose Bonczek for helping make this reading happen.
Video: “Coyote” at the Liminal gallery in Roanoke, Va.
Posted by Dwayne Yancey in News, Productions, Uncategorized, Video on December 12, 2012
The Liminal gallery (housed in the same building as Community High School) in Roanoke, Va., hosts monthly readings. They’re built around a particular theme — usually something on display in the gallery, or something students are studying.
Writers from both the school and community are invited. Most of these are short story writers, but I’ve been going — and reading organizer Cara Modisett has been kind enough to recruit students to perform my work.
For the Nov. 29, 2012 reading, the theme was based on “Children in the Shadow of Conflict: Selected Novels and Cultural Perspectives,” a course being taught at the school.
Hannah Garry performed my piece “Coyote,” about how an illegal immigrant had to pay off a “coyote” — one of the border crossing guides — to get her family across. It was inspired by a newspaper story I read some years ago about how dangerous such crossings can be because many “coyotes” are quite unscrupulous.
Immigration is a theme of another one of my works — the yet unpublished and unproduced full-length script “The Ballad of Alejandro Lopez,” which is currently under consideration at a theatre in New York.
