Telenovela Hits the Stage as ĦEl Conquistador! Opens Off-Broadway Oct. 3
By Ernio Hernandez
03 Oct 2006
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Thaddeus Phillips in ĦEl Conquistador!
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Thaddeus Phillips stars in the New York City premiere of the telenovela-inspired ĦEl Conquistador!, which opens Oct. 3 at New York Theatre Workshop.
Tatiana Mallarino directs the unique theatre experience created herself and Phillips in collaboration with Victor Mallarino. The intermissionless 90-minute work began performances Sept. 20 at the downtown Manhattan company's home for a run through Oct. 22.
ĦEl Conquistador! billed as "simultaneously a foreign film, theatre play, epic history and telenovela" mixes live action with video. The work is presented in Spanish with simultaneous English title projections.
The story centers on Polonio (Phillips), a peasant who flees his war-torn village to become a soap opera star. "What he finds instead," according to an NYTW release, "is a job as the doorman of a fancy high-rise apartment building populated by crazy and exotic residents who are portrayed by some of Latin America's best TV stars."
Actors featured in the production on video are Cristina Campuzano, Luis Fernando Hoyos, Helena Mallarino, Tatiana Mallarino, Victor Mallarino and Antonio Sanint.
The design team includes Phillips (scenic), Jeff Sugg (lighting), Jamie McElhinney (sound), and Austin Switser (video). The production stage manager is Rachel Zack.
Phillips artistic director of The Lucidity Suitcase Intercontinental has designed and created Red-Eye to Havre de Grace, The Tempest (in a kiddie pool), PlanetLear (King Lear performed on a putt-putt golf course), Lost Soles (a solo tap adventure about Wyoming and Cuba), The Earth's Sharp Edge (a travelogue through Morocco, 1970s hijackings and Newark's "Liberty" Airport).
Director and co-creator Mallarino is currently an artistic associate of the Buntport Theater in Denver and the Lucidity Suitcase Intercontinental. She has previously directed Henry Five Live, Lost Soles and appeared as Leila Khaled in The Earth's Sharp Edge. Collaborator Victor Mallarino is a prominent figure in Colombian television and theater, having appeared in and directed a number of telenovelas.
Tickets to ĦEl Conquistador! at New York Theatre Workshop, 79 East Fourth Street (between Bowery and Second Ave.), are available by calling (212) 239-6200. For more information, visit at www.nytw.org.
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