{"id":15721,"date":"2019-04-23T15:06:04","date_gmt":"2019-04-23T15:06:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fiualumni.com\/stay-connected\/alumni-news\/newsroom\/?p=15721"},"modified":"2019-04-23T15:06:21","modified_gmt":"2019-04-23T15:06:21","slug":"featuring-8-alumni-amparo-immerses-audiences-in-1957-cuba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fiualumni.com\/stay-connected\/alumni-news\/newsroom\/index.php\/2019\/04\/23\/featuring-8-alumni-amparo-immerses-audiences-in-1957-cuba\/","title":{"rendered":"Featuring 8 alumni, AMPARO immerses audiences in 1957 Cuba"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2013By Ivan Lopez for FIU News<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

It\u2019s New Year\u2019s Eve 1957, and you walk into a rocking Club N\u00e1utico in Varadero, Cuba. A server hands you a drink as you join the crowded dance floor, moving to the irresistible sounds of the live band. Suddenly, the revelry is interrupted by whispers spreading throughout the club \u2013 Fidel Castro\u2019s revolutionaries are in the mountains and everything is about to change.<\/span><\/p>\n

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AMPARO,\u00a0<\/em>an immersive theatrical experience, which officially opened last week in Miami, takes you back in time more than 60 years and puts you right in the center of the action as the Cuban revolution shakes the island.<\/p>\n

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The eight FIU alumni on the creative team for AMPARO. From top left: director Victoria Collado and actors Melissa Almaguer, Gabriel Bonilla, Ernesto Gonzalez, Melissa Ann Hubicsak, Bertha Leal, Nora Pantoja and Ryan Rodriguez.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

FIU Theatre alumna Victoria Collado directed the captivating piece and the ensemble cast features seven FIU alumni: Melissa Almaguer, Gabriel Bonilla, Ernesto Gonzalez, Melissa Ann Hubicsak, Bertha Leal, Nora Pantoja and Ryan Rodriguez.<\/p>\n

AMPARO<\/em>\u00a0tells the story of the Arrechabala family, founders of Havana Club Rum, whose company was seized at gunpoint by Cuban revolutionaries. The story, written by Vanessa Garcia, is told in an immersive and interactive style, where the audience is constantly on the move and the story unfolds around them.<\/p>\n

The audience is divided into five tracks, each guided by a different character in the story. Although everyone experiences the main spine of the story, there are points where the story breaks off into separate streams, and you follow one of the characters to get a little deeper into their story before eventually being guided back to the main story.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re approaching major points in the Arrechabala story from many different perspectives,\u201d Collado says. \u201cThe story breaks off and comes back together many times.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ensemble cast guides you through the meticulously designed rooms of the converted villa in Downtown Miami. You walk through a door and suddenly you\u2019re transported to a different time and place in the story.<\/p>\n

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Bertha Leal as Young Amparo in a scene in Club Nautico. Photo by Jose Juan Seijo.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Bertha Leal, who plays the title character, describes that connection with the audience as a very personal one.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no separation with the audience,\u201d she says. \u201cWe\u2019re right there with you, sometimes speaking right to one person. It\u2019s very intimate.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Collado and Garcia, there is power in that kind of personal connection with an audience. They started their company,\u00a0Abre Camino Collective<\/a>, with a mission of \u201cradical storytelling.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to create these massive, huge projects,\u201d Collado says. \u201cWe want to create theatre where people go and fully experience the story through all of their senses.\u201d<\/p>\n

The two met in 2015 and instantly felt a tight bond, each recognizing their \u201cartistic soulmate\u201d in the other. When Garcia was hired by Bacardi to tell the Arrechabala story, she brought on Collado as her creative partner.<\/p>\n

The initial idea was only supposed to be a 20-minute vignette in a bar and became two, 90-minute theatrical pilots in Miami and New York. Broadway Factor then joined them as producers and they launched their full theatrical run.<\/p>\n

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AMPARO director Victoria Collado and writer Vanessa Garcia, founders of the Abre Camino Collective. Photo by Diego Texera.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a beautiful relationship,\u201d Garcia says. \u201cThere\u2019s a freedom to saying we\u2019re committed to telling these stories together. She has the final say in directing, and I have the final say in writing, but we\u2019re constantly crossing those roles and drawing inspiration from each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

They also drew great inspiration from the cast. The vast majority of the performers have their family roots in Cuba. As they began working on the show, they started having conversations with their own families and unlocked stories they had never heard before. Some of those stories then connected with their character and found their way into the show.<\/p>\n

For Hubicsak, discovering her own family\u2019s story was an impactful experience. She was able to name her character Edna, after the Cuban grandmother she never met.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only thing my mother had left from her mother was a ring, and they took it from her at the airport,\u201d says Hubicsak. \u201cI also found out that my uncle was in prison for seven years and tortured. I never knew that until I started doing this play.\u201d<\/p>\n

The cast documented their stories along with old family photographs on Abre Camino Collective\u2019s Instagram (@abrecaminocollective<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Collado and Garcia recognize that the play could be a cathartic experience for the Cubans who lived through the revolution and their families who have inherited the pain.<\/p>\n

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Gabriel Bonilla as a Cuban revolutionary during one of the pilot productions of AMPARO.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cCuban people have gone through trauma, but we\u2019ve never actually called it trauma,\u201d Collado says. \u201cThis play can be a bridging moment where everybody who\u2019s been screaming about this for 60 years can actually be heard.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn order to heal, you have to enter the wound. That\u2019s where the pain is,\u201d Garcia says. \u201cWhat we\u2019re doing is saying \u2018okay, you can go back there, and when you go back there, no one is going to laugh at you.\u2019 In fact, other people are going to hear it for the first time and understand where it\u2019s coming from. I think there\u2019s healing in that.\u201d<\/p>\n

AMPARO runs until May 31 in Downtown Miami. For more information and tickets, visit\u00a0www.theamparoexperience.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2013By Ivan Lopez for FIU News It\u2019s New Year\u2019s Eve 1957, and you walk into a rocking Club N\u00e1utico in Varadero, Cuba. A server hands you a drink as you join the crowded dance floor, moving to the irresistible sounds of the live band. Suddenly, the revelry is interrupted by whispers spreading throughout the club […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":15727,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[415,12,452],"class_list":["post-15721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","tag-alumni-association","tag-fiu-alumni","tag-fiu-theatre"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fiualumni.com\/stay-connected\/alumni-news\/newsroom\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15721"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fiualumni.com\/stay-connected\/alumni-news\/newsroom\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fiualumni.com\/stay-connected\/alumni-news\/newsroom\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fiualumni.com\/stay-connected\/alumni-news\/newsroom\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fiualumni.com\/stay-connected\/alumni-news\/newsroom\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15721"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/fiualumni.com\/stay-connected\/alumni-news\/newsroom\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15721\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15728,"href":"https:\/\/fiualumni.com\/stay-connected\/alumni-news\/newsroom\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15721\/revisions\/15728"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fiualumni.com\/stay-connected\/alumni-news\/newsroom\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fiualumni.com\/stay-connected\/alumni-news\/newsroom\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fiualumni.com\/stay-connected\/alumni-news\/newsroom\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fiualumni.com\/stay-connected\/alumni-news\/newsroom\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}