La Llorona by Gabby Wolfe is a story of the weeping woman, a Latin American myth that takes us on a horrifying journey back in time to meet La Llorona in the flesh and to watch as the tragic young woman becomes a thing of nightmares. La Llorona's origin story weaves us through three generations of women and their relationship with family, love, and colonization.
DIRECTED BY
Kerry McGee, Rachel Dixon, & Esteban Marmolejo-Suarez
FEATURING
Gabby Wolfe, Fabiolla da Silva, Sara Hernandez, Luz Nicolas, Cristina Sanchez, Victor Salinas, & Manuela Osorio on violin
DESIGN
Vanessa Losada (producing), Makenzi Wentela (stage management), Stefany Pesta (graphic design), Rachel Dixon (production management), Jason Aufdem-Brinke (sound design),Manuela Osorio (sound design), Megan Holden (set design), Rose Talbot (prop design), Sabrina Simmons (costume design), Alex Berrios (dramaturgy), Mallory Shear (fight and intimacy direction), Matty Griffiths (technical direction)
La Llorona is based on a haunting and ghostly oral story that has been passed down for centuries. The play by Gabby Wolfe takes place in a small town in Latin America during the 16th century and in the present day. It follows the conflict of a mother and daughter, while simultaneously weaving the reimagined folktale into the play. The small cast, budget, space, and time constraints required a creative lens to help character change within the costumes. To do this, simple garment layers throughout the show were changed, most notably the scarves they wore and how they wore them. The scarves changed characters into soldiers, and dancers, changed the age of a character, noted signs of wealth and gender, acted as guns and nooses, and helped mask the actors when needed.
An article in DC Theatre Arts Noted, “The cloth and scarves also successfully give the show a simultaneous cultural specificity and symbolic universality: Esperanza is both one woman and every woman as her story is passed down from her time to our time.”
If you would like to read more about the production, you can do so here:
