Welcome to Durango!
On March 24 on the stage of the still-running Our Enemies, the actors, designers and technical team for Durango met for the first time. The assembled included playwright Julia Cho and director Carlos Murillo, as well as company members Carol Blanchard (costume design), Rob Steel (sound design), Rebecca Barrett (lighting design), Isaac Sernoffsky (associate producer), and Jen Shook (literary manager). We were joined by guest designers Marianna Csaszar (set design) and Dan Katz (prop design), and a collection of other staff and crew folks. As always with first rehearsal, it was a wonderful experience to finally see everyone face to face.
After a round of introductions and a lot of business and paperwork, we got to the point of the evening - the text. More than a few of us were giggling out loud at Julia’s hillariously tragic story of the secrets and misconnections between an aging father and his teenage sons on a road trip from Mesa, Arizona to Durango, Colorado. For example:
Isaac: Are you telling me this stupid train is in COLORADO?
Boo-Seng: SO?
Isaac: YOU DIDN’T TELL US THAT!
Boo-Seng: I SAID DON’T YELL. Durango is in Colorado, everyone know that.
Isaac: WE didn’t. We didn’t know that we wereembarking on a trip that actually crossed STATE LINES.
Boo-Seng: LINE. State LINE. Arizona, Colorado. Thassit!
The cast that will bring the piece to life on stage this spring includes Joseph Fornonda (Boo-Seng Lee), Erik Kaiko (Jimmy Lee), Dawen Wang (Isaac Lee), Walter Brody (Ned/Jerry) and Austin Campion (Bob/The Red Angel).