BWW Stage Mag Mars - PM Theater Stage Mag

Mars

          

A New Play by Daniel Mesta

          

 

Starring
                     Dima Koan           Fernando Zermeño Garavito

 

          
Dramaturgy by
Amelia Johnson Jones 
 Directed by
Miranda Kelly Macbeth
Sound Design by
Xenia Clement 
          
               

Costume Design by
Wendy Triana

Lighting and Production Design by Darci Ramirez

          

 

          
House management provided by Megan Orr, Joshua Carpenter & Fleur Van Woerkom.
          
         
Special thanks to Kirk Gostkowski, Amelia Herder, Seth Gunsay, Taylee Mathis, Dillon Jones, Marquel Sa'u, Elisa Mesta & Annalise Bonner.          

 

          
Dedicated to the memory of Mark Purves, who is on Mars now. 
   

         
           

 

PLAYWRIGHT'S NOTE

Prince Felix Yusupov once observed, "In exile, we are all ghosts wandering through a world that does not know us." 

 

I often describe myself as having a Mexican Heart, American brain and Russian soul. It's not always a harmonious internal dialogue. 

 

My world turned upside down several years ago when my home, a place called Saint Petersburg, was taken from me due to a military conflict I think you have all heard about. My future, friends, work, possessions vanished in a day. 

 

I have been lost ever since. 

 

Of course I am in a far luckier camp than a majority of others who found themselves displaced by these horrific events. Here in New York I have even found fulfilling work assisting survivors of political violence from Russia, Ukraine, Venezuela and many other places adjust to their new reality here in New York. Mars is inspired by their stories as much as my own. Adjustment and acceptance is an ongoing process for me. And some days I see a beautiful play or enjoy a wonderful dinner with my friends and find myself smiling or even laughing again. 

 

But every time it snows, I close my eyes and listen for the almost imperceptible clink of the delicate shards of ice striking against each other. 

 

And just for a moment, I'm home again. 

 

I hope you're lucky enough to find your Mars, no matter how it ends. 

 

- Daniel Mesta 

 

A LITTLE BIRD

In alien lands devoutly clinging

To age-old rites of Russian earth,

I let a captive bird go winging

To greet the radiant spring's rebirth.

My heart grew lighter then: why mutter

Against God's providence, and rage,

When I was free to set aflutter

But one poor captive from his cage!

 

- Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin


 

Cast

Fernando Zermeño Garavito
Valdez
Dima Koan
Kovalenko

Creative Team

Daniel Mesta

Playwright

Miranda Kelly Macbeth

Director and Scenic Designer

Amelia Johnson Jones

Dramaturg

Xenia Clement

Sound Designer

Wendy Triana

Costume Designer

Darci Ramirez

Lighting and Production Designer

Meet the Company

Fernando Zermeño Garavito

Valdez
Fernando Zermeño Garavito - Valdez Born in Tucson, AZ, raised in Nogales, Sonora, Mexico, Fernando spent his childhood looking up to people who made him feel hopeful, people who made him smile. As time passed, he found himself on stage, and has since searched for this feeling. His credits include: Chicago, In The Heights, The Antelope Party, Three Sisters, and with The Humanist Project, MAD MAD MAD and A CRUCIBLE: A Puritanical Celebration of Witches and Turkeys. He would like to dedicate every performance to his parents and his little old ladies. “Enjoy Every Sandwich.”

Dima Koan

Kovalenko
Dima Koan - Kovalenko Dima Koan is a New York–based actor, director, dancer, and teaching artist. Dima has worked across theater, film, dance, and performance, collaborating with La MaMa Theatre, Chain Theatre, Signature Theatre, Theatre for the New City, Dixon Place, National Sawdust, TurnPark Art Space, and Brooklyn Public Library. His stage credits include Eden. Part III, Le Grand Voyage, The Singing Windmills, Bad Roads, The Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, Five Evenings, and Aleksey Aleksandrovich. His screen and interdisciplinary work includes the lead role in Expatriate Dreamer, appearances in Mr. Robot and Fosse/Verdon, and voiceover for the documentary Welcome to Chechnya. Dima is the co-founder and director of TUT (Theatre of Ukrainian Teenagers), a New York–based theater laboratory whose performances have been presented at La MaMa Theatre.

Daniel Mesta

Playwright
Describing himself as having a “Mexican heart, American brain and Russian soul”, Daniel Mesta creates work dedicated to man’s quest for identity, meaning and home. Mesta has worked extensively in opera and classical theatre as both the former literary manager of the Latine Musical Theatre Lab and alum of the BIPOC Critics Lab. Collaborators have included Heartbeat Opera, The Public Theatre and MTI. Recent work includes The Rabbit in the Moon/El conejo en la luna at Encore Stage & Studio in Washington, DC, translations for Zorro by Opera Cultura and adaptations for Shrek, The Musical Jr. For MTI's Broadway Bilingual pilot project. His play In Spain There Was Guernica! was a finalist for the STX New Play Festival.

Miranda Kelly Macbeth

Director and Scenic Designer
Miranda won the Director of the Year Award for her production of Thoroughbreds in 2019 from Brigham Young University where she graduated with both a BFA in Theatre and an English Literature degree. She later self produced and directed an adaptation of Rossum’s Universal Robots by Karel Čapek 2021 in Long Beach, CA. She moved to New York in 2023 and works at The Evolution Store as their COO. This will be Miranda’s Off-Broadway debut and she is so proud to be doing this play and working with this team in particular.

Amelia Johnson Jones

Dramaturg
Amelia Johnson Jones is a Peruvian-American dramaturg, playwright, and designer based in NYC. She earned her MFA in Dramaturgy from Columbia University and has now worked all over the theatrical spectrum in various parts of the country. Most recently she has helped develop three new musicals and served as a facilitator for the Julia De Burgos Cohort. She is thrilled to have had a part in this production of Mars and hopes you enjoy the show!

Xenia Clement

Sound Designer
Xenia Clement is a composer and sound designer based here in New York City! Xenia has a BA in music composition from the University of California- Santa Barbara. Her previous work include composing an opera titled Bearskin, and designing sound for a WIT Theatre production titled Rossum Universal Robots. She is currently working on several musicals of her own: an adaptation of Jojo’s Bizzare Adventure and an original piece loosely-based on swan lake! While you listen to the different movements in this play, think about the planets in our solar system as Gods above humanity, trying to communicate to their last two subjects on earth.

Wendy Triana

Costume Designer
This is her first show designing costumes. She is a women’s shoe designer for Macy’s and Belk, and previously worked as a milliner. She studied Apparel Entrepreneurship at BYU–Idaho and enjoys exploring the intersection of fashion, storytelling, and craftsmanship.

Darci Ramirez

Lighting and Production Designer
Darci is a lighting and production designer based in New York City. She had a great time creating the lighting for this show and hopes that you find your Mars!

KEEP THE CONVERSATION GOING

Throughout the play Valdez yearns for Mars. His time on Mars was where for a short period, everything was ideal, safe, and beautiful. What is your Mars? Is there a time or place in your life that you wish you could return to and experience just as it was? Do you think that it's possible to ever get those moments back or do you just need to look forward to new moments to become your Mars?

 

If you were one of the last people on earth, what would you wish you would have done before the world ended? What is something you've always wanted to do but haven't done yet? What's stopping you? Is that worth never doing something you've always wanted to do? Can you overcome that? I think you can. 

 

- Amelia Johnson Jones, Dramaturg

 

Learn More About Stage Mag