Dragoncillo Puppet Troupe Coming to Loco for Love Festival
By Ben Gunter
Dragoncillo Puppet Troupe is winning rave reviews from all kinds of audiences, all over the USA. They have entertained hundreds of school children in El Paso, Texas, with bilingual performances. They have educated dozens of families around Storm Lake, Iowa, with living examples from a rich, theatrical Hispanic Heritage. They have held whole symposiums of Siglo de Oro scholars spellbound, with sparkling revivals of hilarious plays from the Spanish Golden Age. They are the only shadow-puppet troupe in the world who can bring you face to face with characters, ideas, stories, and struggles that connect us with people in Spanish La Florida 400 years ago. And they are coming to Tallahassee this fall to perform for you, absolutely free, during the Loco for Love Festival in Railroad Square Art District, September 13-15.
Four exceptional artists from four different states make up Dragoncillo Puppet Troupe. Esther Fernández is an expert in how theater companies today are reviving plays that were written in Spanish all over the world between 1550 and 1700. She teaches at Rice University in Houston, Texas, showing students how puppets can help us rediscover the Spanish past. Jared White teaches Spanish at Buena Vista University in Iowa. He uses plays as ways to build bridges between people from different age groups, educational backgrounds, and languages, through inviting outreach programs. Jonathan Wade teaches at Meredith College in Raleigh, North Carolina. Fluent in Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian, he leads the interactive introductions to Dragoncillo’s performances, where the whole audience gets to build a puppet who will later appear in the performance. Jason Yancey is the troupe’s puppet-builder. An award-winning educator, he coordinates Spanish courses for Grand Valley State in Michigan, where his university courses in puppetry create performances that tour to Spanish-immersion elementary schools.
During the Loco for Love Festival, Dragoncillo will present new translations of three plays that were international hits while Florida was governed by Spain. Ladies’ Man pokes fun at people who expect women to behave better than men, by introducing you to a young man who becomes terrified that his father will find out three different women are asking him for a date. Second Hands satirizes efforts to turn back the biological clock, by taking you to a store where you can buy younger hands, straighter teeth, and a more beautiful face … for a price. The Fabulous Johnny Frog gives you a whirlwind introduction to the most famous funny-man of the 1600s, by showing you highlights from plays that were written to showcase his talents – including one play where he gives birth to a baby onstage! Between performances, Dragoncillo will build more bridges between present-day Floridians and Spanish La Florida by leading hands-on workshops in puppetry, theater translation, and Spanish culture in the 1600s and 1700s.
Tallahassee marks this world-class troupe’s first appearance in Florida. To learn more, and to see how Dragoncillo builds its shadow puppets, visit this website: www.dragoncillo.com.
