Directed by Eliana Stratico
THE ZEHNGEBOT-STONEROCK THEATRE
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Elenco / Cast DRA. Roda............................................................................Susi Rivera Alicia.............................................................Widalys Guzman Marquez Chloe........................................................................ Ibis Enid Rodriguez Fernando...................................................................... Orlando Miguel Amantet...................................................................... Guillermo Suarez Juan............................................................................ Gregorio Sanchez Cora Yako.......................................................................Eliana Stratico Voice Over........................ Eliana Stratico - Paola Ferrer - Alfredo Gomez Stage Manager........................................................Thamara Bejerano Wida Guzmán (Alicia) is honored to work with the Mad Cow Theatre again. She is a Puerto Rican singer and actress with a Bachelor’s Degree in Music Education and Vocal Performance from the Interamerican University of Puerto Rico. Wida is finishing her Master’s Degree in live entertainment management and music business at the University of Miami. Some of her theatre and opera roles include: Amelia in Bernarda Alba, Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, Nina in In the Heights, Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni and others. She is excited about this opportunity and is grateful to God, her loving husband, family and friends for their support.
currently presenting a radio show in Orlando, Florida.
Orlando Miguel (Fernando) is an actor with just over 30 years of artistic careerin Cuba, Mexico, Colombia and US. He studied at the Higher Institute of Arts in Havana. He is known internationally for his characters in TV soaps of great success.He has extensive experience in theater, radio and television. He has conducted acting workshops and voice and diction classes. He’s
IBIS ENID RODRÍGUEZ (Chole) has worked in the performing arts for 36 years. She graduated from Valencia College with associate’s degrees in theatre and film and she is a student at the University of Central Florida. Ibis founded OMANOT Productions for Hispanic artists. Her roles in theatre include Angélica in Alejandro Casona’s La Dama del Alba . Also, Ibis participated in the theatri-
Susi Rivera (Doctora Roda) is celebrating her third role in Mad Cow’s Teatro Español. Audiences may recognize her as Angustias in La casa de Bernarda Alba and Criada in Bodas de sangre. Graduate in Theatre (Boston University) and Interactive Design (Valencia College), Susi’s credentials include television roles, theatre directing, fable adaptation to stage, and set design. Favorite roles are Angela in Los ángeles se han fatigado and Storyteller in Befana. “A big shout out to the audience. ¡Son un público maravilloso!”
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cal readings The House of Bernarda Alba, Martirio, and Yerma, both of Federico Garcia Lorca at Mad Cow Theatre. Gregorio Sanchez (Juan) is thrilled to be a part of Mad Cow Theater’s Spanish Season and to portray the role of Juan. He began his acting training at Truthful Acting Studios where he studied under the Sanford Meisner and Michael Chekhov techniques. He has worked on plays in the past such as A Few Good Men and Metamorphosis. Gregorio feels a great deal of gratitude towards Mad Cow Theater for providing a stage for Spanish Plays. He would like to thank the Director, Eliana Stratico and to the entire cast of Prohibido Suicidarse. Eliana Stratico (Cora Yako) was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, she graduated from the Universidad Nacional del Arte as National Actress. After moving to the United States in 2004, she earned her Master of Education degree from Northeastern University in Boston, and her Master of Spanish degree from the Universidad Pontificia of Salamanca, in Spain. Her background includes music, acting for film, playwriting, and tango dance. She worked in Argentina and the United States as an actress, director, and adapter. Her acting credits in the U.S. include Anna in the Tropics, Twelve Angry Jurors, and The Seagull. As a director, her works include Los árboles mueren de pie, by Alejandro Casona, and this version of Prohibido suicidarse en
primavera by the same playwright, staged with two different companies in Boston and Buenos Aires. She has directed at Mad Cow the dramatic readings of Garcia Lorca’s rural trilogy -Bodas de sangre, La casa de Bernarda Alba y Yerma. Once more, she is thrilled to work with Mad Cow Theatre in Teatro Español, to give the Orlando community the opportunity of enjoying Spanish theatre in original language. Guillermo Suarez (Amante) born in Caracas, Venezuela, takes his first acting steps from his mentor, actor Juan Carlos Gardié. Toured around Venezuelan cities as assistant director for José Simón Escalona in Theja Cyrano. He relocated to Orlando, FL, resuming his artistic career and graduated from Sociedad Actoral Hispanoamericana. He participates in a sainete called Looking for Godot at MadCow Theater-Orlando. Then, he gets involved with local theater in plays such as Teatro a la Carté, Sor Peligro y los Ladrones, Moliere-Escuela de Mujeres at Shakespeare TheaterOrlando and Bellas Artes TheaterMiami, Esperanza Inútil along with first Venezuelan actress Alba Roversi, El Montón de Chago and Traición Real, among others. Awarded as “2015 Revealing Actor-Orlando”, Guillermo is thrilled with the opportunity to return to the Mad Cow Theater, feeling honored and pleased to delight you with this amazing Spanish Classic of Alejandro Casona.
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SYNOPSIS
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(No Suicide in Springtime) by Alejandro Casona In the Hogar del Suicida, the Home for the Suicidal, a clinic for souls founded by Dr. Ariel, a doctor and a nurse save lives of the hesitant who are looking for a way out. A lover goes around the world in imaginary journeys, a star has to increase her presence in the media — without risks —, while a sad lady is looking for an original procedure. After going around a world that has exhausted its interesting topics, a couple of journalists randomly arrives to this comfortable and tempting place, where they thought they have found the material to write an original article. However, they will find a story about two brothers that will eventually interest them more. No suicide in Springtime. Prohibido suicidarse en primavera. Scene Breakdown Act 1 Dr. Roda and Alicia, her assistant, run the Home for the Suicidal, founded by late Dr. Ariel. This clinic offers a variety of methods to commit suicide comfortably. However, the true purpose of this hospital for souls is to save lives. One of the patients, Amante Imaginario, is passionately in love with an opera singer and crafts a fictional romance between himself and the singer. Unfortunately, because no one believes his fantasy he realizes how empty his life is and becomes suicidal. Chole and Fernando, a pair of journalists, are on vacation in the mountains when they arrive at the Home for the Suicidal, under the assumption that it is a hotel. When the journalists find out the mission of the institution, they decide to stay to write a sensationalist article for their magazine. But soon after, they discover a painful truth: Juan, Fernando’s brother, is one of the patients. Act 2 Alicia is happy to find a friend in Chole, the first person who laughs with her for some time. Chole tells Alicia that she is innocent and that she should not say thank you all the time, that she should let people thank her. Chole is interested in the suicide statistics and the fact that there are more suicides when people are younger than when they are older, more in the springtime of their lives than in the winter. Dr. Roda explains to her that the answer is that pain is intolerable when the blood is young and everything blooms around us. Dr. Roda has a conversation with Fernando about life, nature, and creativity. She then invites him to go to her office to tell him the story of “two brothers”. Fernando is more interested in writing about Alicia’s story,
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a former patient of the clinic herself. Then, an opera singer seeking attention from the press, arrives at the Home for the Suicidal to revive her career. Her name is Cora Yako. The Amante Imaginario cannot believe his eyes when they meet each other. Juan is unable to hold back the truth when he is alone with Chole: the reason why he wants to kill himself is that he has been in love with her all of his life. Then, Chole sees herself as an obstacle between two brothers that otherwise could love each other, and decides to jump to the lake. It happened before, and now again: she thinks that Fernando saved her from drowning in the lake, but it was in fact Juan who saved her life. Act 3 Alicia is astonished by what happened the night before with Chole. She cannot believe that the source of her happiness, her first friend who laughed with her, was depressed to the point of suicide. Dr. Roda wants to see how Chole is doing after her suicide attempt. Chole finds the resolve to tell Dr. Roda what she thinks about this dangerous place that represents a potential risk for those like her who, otherwise, would not have thought about suicide. She asks Dr. Roda to close the Home for the Suicidal and to use her talent and Dr. Ariel’s fortune where men live and work. The Amante Imaginario, now in a true relationship with Cora Yako, realizes that he prefers the image of the opera singer from the audience, he prefers the Cora Yako he imagined all his life, since the real Cora Yako does not live up to his expectations. He is faced with the hardest choice of his life: following the real Cora Yako who is waiting for him in the car, and go around living the adventures he had only imagined, or stay with the Cora Yako he created in his mind and become a writer to offer his true love story, the imaginary one, to the readers. Chole confronts Fernando, who did not see her after the suicide attempt the night before. She wants to know who jumped to save her life, and Fernando tells her that it was Juan. Chole decides to stay with Juan, to repay him for being there for her all his life. She wants to be the mother who did not understand him, the sister he did not have, even when she knows that Juan loves her in a romantic way. Fernando asks her to listen to reason and calls Juan to clarify the situation. Juan sees his brother losing Chole and feels that now the misery makes them brothers again. Juan asks Fernando to take Chole far away and be happy without regrets. The couple leaves to an uncertain future together while Juan stays with his pain and the sudden decision of doing what he came to do in the first place. Alicia notices the situation, makes him listen to the music and reminds him that the spring brings flowers and hope for everyone. She takes his gun and when she is about to leave to throw it in the lake he asks to leave with her, because he does not want to be alone. Alicia says thank you. No suicide in springtime.
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Alejandro Casona (playwright) His real name was Alejandro Rodríguez Álvarez. He was born in Besullo (Asturias) in 1903. He began his career by writing the short plays known as entremeses, such as Sancho Panza en la ínsula and the Entremés del mancebo que casó con mujer brava. He achieved well-deserved success with La sirena varada (1934), which was performed by the company of Margarita Xirgu and Enrique Borrás; this was followed by Nuestra Natacha (1936), a work of social content which received great popular acclaim. After the Spanish Civil War he moved to Argentina where he wrote La dama del alba (1944), which evokes the memory of the land of his birth and includes an allegory on death, portrayed as a beautiful woman. His last major success was El caballero de las espuelas de oro (1964). He died in Madrid in 1965.
Out of respect for the audience and the artists, patrons who leave the theatre during the performance and patrons who arrive late will be re-admitted at the house manager’s discretion. The photographing, video and/or audio recording of this performance by any means whatsoever is strictly prohibited.
Produced with the support of United Arts of Central Florida and Orange County Governments through the Arts and Cultural Affairs Program.
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Teatro Español and Mad Cow Theatre: Founded in 2014 by Mad Cow Theatre, Teatro Español and Clases de Teatro are committed to bringing great Spanish theatre, performed in its original language, to Central Florida, and to providing Spanish-language classes and workshops to the community. These programs are supported in part by a project grant from United Arts of Central Florida and Orange County Government through the Arts & Cultural Affairs Program. Celebrating its 21st season in 2017-2018, Mad Cow Theatre was founded on the belief that the theatre is a dynamic and powerful means of social understanding, as well as a hugely entertaining art form. Through the combination of passionate, skillful acting and compelling, insightful writing, nurtured by an attentive and ever-changing process, Mad Cow presents entertaining works of Theatre to an ever-widening audience--promoting, enhancing, and celebrating the human condition through art.
Mad Cow Theatre is a 501(c)(3) arts organization funded by The State of Florida, Division of Cultural Affairs, United Arts of Central Florida, The Downtown Development Board, The Florida Theatrical Association, Orange County Government through the Arts & Cultural Affairs Program, and members of the Central Florida community just like you.