c/o New Dramatists
424 West 44th Street
New York, NY 10036
Phone: (212) 757-6960
Fax: (212) 265-4738
Email:
newdramatists@newdramatists.org
Caridad Svich is a playwright-songwriter-translator-editor of Cuban-Argentine-Spanish and Croatian descent. Her works have been staged across the US and abroad at venues as diverse as Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, INTAR, The Women’s Project, 7 Stages, Cleveland Public Theatre, Salvage Vanguard Theatre, Dad’s Garage and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Her plays have been workshopped by Actors Touring Company in London, Mark Taper Forum, The Public Theatre, A Contemporary Theatre/Hedgebrook, Last Frontier Theatre Conference, Royal Court Theatre, and Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh, among many others. Awards include 2002-2003 Bunting Fellowship from Harvard University/Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, a TCG/Pew National Theatre Artist Residency, an NEA/TCG Playwriting Residency, and Rosenthal New Play Prize. She is editor of Trans-Global Readings: Crossing Theatrical Boundaries (Manchester University Press), and Divine Fire: Eight Contemporary Plays Inspired by the Greeks (BackStage Books). She is co-editor of Conducting a Life: Reflections on the Theatre of Maria Irene Fornes (Smith & Kraus), Theatre in Crisis? (Manchester University Press), and Out of the Fringe: Contemporary Latina/o Theatre and Performance (TCG). Some of her translations are collected in Federico Garcia Lorca: Impossible Theatre (Smith & Kraus). She is founder of the pan-American theatre collective NoPassport, is contributing editor of TheatreForum, and on the advisory committee of Contemporary Theatre Review (Routledge/UK). She holds an MFA from UCSD. Following is selected listing of works and translations available. For full listing visit her website at www.caridadsvich.com.
- ALCHEMY OF DESIRE/DEAD-MAN’S BLUES
- ANY PLACE BUT HERE
- THE BOOTH VARIATIONS
- FUGITIVE PIECES
- GENUINE BONAFIDE ARTICLE
- IPHIGENIA CRASH LAND FALLS ON THE NEON SHELL THAT WAS ONCE HER HEART
- MAGNIFICENT WASTE
- PRODIGAL KISS
- STEAL BACK LIGHT FROM THE VIRTUAL
- THE TROPIC OF X
- TILT HEAVEN
- TWELVE OPHELIAS
- WRECKAGE
Selected Translations Available:
by Federico Garcia Lorca
The House of Bernarda Alba
Blood Wedding
Yerma
The Public
Dona Rosita
As Five Years Pass
Love of Don Perlimplin
The Shoemaker’s Prodigious Wife
by Calderon de la Barca
The Monster in the Garden
ALCHEMY OF DESIRE/DEAD-MAN’S
BLUES
A Play with Songs
Full Length in One Act
1M (20s), 2W (20s), 3W (40s-50s)
Fluid, Open Space
A play with original songs set in a primeval landscape of swamp and
burnt-out woods. The death of a young soldier (killed in a recent war)
sends his widow, and a community of women left behind, on a journey where
the soldier’s ghost, fried chicken, and other mysteries of spirit and
nature come together in a search for pure grace.
Workshop at PlayLabs at the
Playwrights Center of Minneapolis (1993). Workshop at the Royal Court
Theatre (1994). Premiered at Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park (1994) as
winner of the Rosenthal New Play Prize. Subsequent productions at many
theatres including Northern Light Theatre, Canada (1997); Repertorio
Espanol (1998); Hackney Empire Studio Theatre (1999); and The Bug
Theatre (2003). Published by TCG in Out of the Fringe:Contemporary
Latina/o Theatre & Performance.
“It is a rich and provocative piece of theater that deserves to be seen
elsewhere.”—Variety
ANY PLACE BUT HERE
Two Acts
2W (20s-30s), 2M (20s-30s)
Flexible Unit Set
A savagely comic drama set in a US landscape of economic desolation where
two sets of verbally aggressive couples struggle to find meaning in a
world where it is increasingly difficult to do so. A surrealistic and
often brutal account of the disintegration of relationships.
“Svich has created a universe that
is exhilarating.”—The New York Times
Any Place But Here received a staged reading at Traverse Theatre,
Edinburgh. Premiered at INTAR Theatre (1992); Latino Chicago Theatre
(1993); Theater for the New City (1995) directed by Maria Irene Fornes.
Published by TCG in Plays-in-Process, Vol 13, No. 12, and Playscripts,
Inc. (2003, www.playscripts.com)
THE BOOTH VARIATIONS
Co-Written with Todd Cerveris
A solo multimedia piece told in fragments of narrative – original and
source material – which examines the life and times of 19th-century US
actor Edwin Booth, the Lincoln assassination, and the shaping of a
national character.
Workshopped at Denison University,
Ohio; Voice & Vision Theatre, NY, Hourglass Group, and Blue Heron
Theatre. Premiere by Moonshine Project at 59 East 59th Street Theatre,
NY (2004), Edinburgh Fringe Festival (2005). Fourth act published in
Play A Journal of Play Volume 1, 2003.
“A far-reaching historical fantasia.”—New York Times
FUGITIVE PIECES
A Full-length Play with Songs
2W (20s-30s), 2-3M (20s-30s), one M role
may be doubled
Fluid, Open Space
A play with original songs that charts the violent journey of two troubled
souls who make their way through the rural and industrial wastelands of
the U.S. An accumulation of simultaneous glimpses as characters grasp for
the coordinates of what was once a sensible world.
Premiered at Kitchen Dog Theater
(2000); New Play Network Festival (2000); Cleveland Public Theatre
(2001); Salvage Vanguard Theatre (2002); Nominated for Best New Play by
the Dallas Theater League. Finalist for 2001 PEN WEST USA Award in
Drama. Published in Theatre Forum (Summer/Fall 2003), and Playscripts,
Inc. (2005).
GENUINE BONAFIDE ARTICLE
Full-length.
1W (late teens, early 20s), 1W (50s-60s), 2M (20s), 1M (60s)
One central unit location with others suggested.
Against the backdrop of war, an American family tries to keep things
together in a forgotten town in the heartland. This is a true story, a
story true about the here and now and what may be. A tragic-realistic
play lit with dreams.
Written on an Inge Center for the
Arts Playwriting residency (2004). Reading at New Dramatists (2005).
IPHIGENIA CRASH LAND FALLS ON THE NEON SHELL THAT WAS ONCE HER HEART
A Full-length Rave Fable
1W (20s-30s), 1W (30s-50s), 3M (20s-30s), multiple roles
Fluid Space
A rave fable inspired by Euripides Iphigenia in Aulis, this play with
music and video spins Iphigenia into dangerous orbit through an un-named
Latin American country as she journeys through a meta-hell where she finds
her body embraced and destroyed by a rock star named Achilles, and
discovers she cannot escape a destiny set forth by myths ancient and
modern.
Workshop by Actors Touring
Company, UK at the Euripides Festival in Greece (2000). World Premiere
at 7 Stages, Atlanta, GA (2004), area premiere at LIDA Project, Denver,
CO (2004). Named one of Top Ten Theatre Events in Atlanta for 2004
(Creative Loafing), and Critics Choice in Denver Post. Published in
TheatreForum (Summer/Fall 2004), and by BackStage Books in Divine Fire:
Eight Contemporary Plays Inspired by the Greeks (2005).
“A play of mythic power.”—Variety
MAGNIFICENT WASTE
Full-length Comic-Drama
Five Locations Suggested Simply
2W, 4M, and Chorus of 3M, and 1W: to be performed live or on tape. All in
their 30s.
Lizzie B makes shock art. Arden buys beautiful things. A young man wants
to be famous. In a modern world addicted to speed, fashion, celebrity, and
trauma, these three people make a pact that will change their lives, while
a TV show documents everything and a movie star tries to stay out of the
fringe.
Part of the Hot Ink Festival at NYU,
NYC, 2004. Reading at New Dramatists (2003), winner of National Latino
Playwrights Award (2003), selected for Tribeca Film Institute All Access
Open Stage Program (2004).
PRODIGAL KISS
A Full-length Play with Songs
1W (20s-30s), 1W (30s-50s), 2M
(20s-30s)
Fluid Space
A play with original songs that traces a young Cuban woman’s journey from
the perilous Florida straits to various hidden corners of America. Both
hallucination and dream, this play casts a lens on migration, longing, and
the often darkly humorous encounters of an exile on the road, caught
between desire and faith.
Staged readings at Mark Taper Forum, New Georges, and King’s Head
Theatre; Workshop at PlayLabs at the Playwrights’ Center of Minneapolis
(1999); Key West Theater Festival (1999). Published by Smith & Kraus in
Best New Plays by New Playwrights 1999.
STEAL BACK LIGHT FROM THE
VIRTUAL
Full Length
3W (20s-30s), 3M (20s-30s)
Fluid Space
This play explores the intersecting lives of six characters caught in an
emotional labyrinth, both real and imagined, in a city haunted by death,
violence and a Minotaur. A look at contemporary culture and the impact of
globalization through a series of fractures love stories.
Readings at New Dramatists, NY,
Synchronicity Performance Group, GA, and Circle X, CA. Workshop at
Evidence Room, Los Angeles (2001). Finalist for the Prism International
Prize for Stage (2003).
THE TROPIC OF X
Poetic Latin Hip-hop-infused Drama.
1W, 3M, and 1M or F (all 20s)
Open space.
In a market of video arcades, old and new drugs, swift-changing
political regimes, cheap sex for the tourist trade, and ex-bullrings
turned into discos and hotels, two lovers named Mori and Maura try to
make their way against the ceaseless watch of a dirty sea.
Workshop at INTAR (2003), readings
at Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre Exposure Festival (2004), and Ford
Theatre Foundation Latino Theatre Series (2005).
TILT HEAVEN
Full-length Comic Drama.
2W (20s-30s), 3M (20s-40s)
Unit set.
A modern comedy of manners set in the upper fringes of the fashion,
modeling and visual arts world of Miami, Florida. A play about a father
and a daughter, and the father’s lovers during a night-long party that
re-arranges everyone’s equilibrium.
Readings at New Dramatists (2004)
and Inge Center for the Arts (2004). Finalist for Ojai Playwrights
Conference (2005).
TWELVE OPHELIAS
Poetic Drama
3W, 4M, and a Chorus of 3-5W
An Open Space
Shakespeare's Ophelia rises up out of the water dreaming of sugar pops and
other sweet things. She finds herself in a neo-Elizabethan Appalachian
setting where Gertrude runs a brothel, Hamlet is called a Rude Boy, and
nothing is what it seems. In this mirrored world of word-scraps and cold
sex, Ophelia cuts a new path for herself.
Workshopped at Powerhouse
Theatre/New York Stage & Film; Reading at New Georges (2002); Red Bull
(2003). Presented at Baruch Performing Arts Center, NY (2004). Published
in Performing the Here and Now (Kendall/Hunt, 2005), and CallReview
Issue No. 2 (2004).
WRECKAGE
Poetic Drama
1W, 4 M (20s-40s)
An open space where several locations are suggested.
In a gleaming house a marriage disintegrates as two boys
act out the sexual masquerade of their remembered past. A contemporary
text shot through with ancient Greek underpinnings.
Workshop at New Dramatists (2004), Hartt School New
Play Festival (2005). Honorable Mention for Bay Area Playwrights
Festival (2005).