This episode marks the first in a series exploring a beauty pageant that takes place at El Buen Pastor, the national women’s prison in Bogotá, Colombia. Working with a group of Colombian artists and interviewers, Civilians Artistic Director Steve Cosson spent a month documenting the preparation for the pageant. The material featured in this series — performed for the first time at the 92YTribeca in June of this year — represents English translations of the interviews conducted during that month.
In this episode, Vanessa Aspillaga plays woman serving time for her connection to a guerrilla group, Carolina Ravassa plays an inmate incarcerated for her part in an attack on the presidential palace in Bogotá in 2002, and KJ Sanchez plays a public servant convicted of using her office to assist the paramilitaries. The interviews highlighted here were conducted by Lorena Lopez and Alejandro Jaramillo.
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The Civilians is a company that creates new theater from creative investigations into the most vital questions of the present. Through a number of artistic programs, the Civilians advances theater as an engine of artistic innovation and strengthens the connections between theater and society. An artist-led company, the Civilians creates and produces new theater and pursues its artistic mission through programs serving artists and the public. The company’s work is grounded in investigative theater, an artistic practice rooted in the process of creative inquiry that brings artists into dynamic engagement with the subject of their work. Artists look outward in pursuit of a question, often engaging with individuals and communities in order to listen, make discoveries, and challenge habitual ways of knowing. The ethos of investigative theater extends into production, inviting audiences to be active participants in the inquiry before, during, and after the performance. Since its founding in 2001, the Obie Award-winning company has supported the creation of 14 original shows, and its work has been produced at many theaters in New York, nationally, and internationally. Last season saw two highly successful shows: "Mr. Burns: a Post-Electric Play" at Playwrights Horizons, which was included in eight Top 10 of 2013 Lists, and "The Great Immensity" at The Public Theater. The Civilians’ work has been published by Dramatists Play Service, Oberon Books, Ghostlight Records and Playscripts, Inc.