HOLA is celebrating its 35th anniversary!!
HOLA has found an angel who will match every donated dollar with another up to $10,000. We have until June 22, 2010. Please donate what you can afford. Help keep Latino artists at the forefront of our profession. Click on the above part of this notice to our donation page. Help us meet the challenge. All donations are tax-deductible.
For our 35th year, please mark your gifts "HOLA@35."
UPDATE: We are, as of this writing at 52% of our way towards our goal of raising $10,000.
In addition, two theater producers have decided to have benefit performances for the HOLA@35 fund.
--R.Evolución Latina is presenting Ser o no Cer... vantes. The play which explores t he possibility that Shakespeare and Cervantes were the same person will be presented in Spanish and will take place at the Baruch Performing Arts Center (East 25th Street between Third and Lexington Avenues in Manhattan, NYC). For the matinee (2pm) and evening (8pm) performances on Saturday, May 29, 2010, if one orders online and enters the code "HOLA@35," HOLA will receive a portion of the proceeds. Tickets are $25. For more information, click here. To buy tickets, click here.
--Repertorio E spañol is presenting famed Colombian humorist Saulo García in his new show, La vida en los Esclavos Unidos. Presented in Spanish, the benefit performance will take place at the Spanish Repertory Theater (138 East 27th Street, just off Lexington Avenue in Manhattan, NYC) on Thursday, June 24, 2010 at 7pm. Tickets are $35 and a portion of the proceeds go to the HOLA@35 fund. For more information, click here. To buy tickets, call the HOLA office at (212) 253-1015 and we will more than happy to take your order.
If you cannot make either of these offerings, you can still always donate directly to the HOLA@35 fund by clicking here (please mark your gifts "HOLA@35"). REMEMBER, every dollar counts and time is of the essence.
Jackson Repertory Theater presented 167 Tongues, a play "celebrating the most diverse neighborhood in the world," also known as Jackson Heights, Queens. The show, conceived and directed by Ari Laura Kreith, was produced at P.S. 69 (in Jackson Heights, natch), features a text by 11 authors and a diverse cast of 29, including Patricia Becker and Lina Gallegos.
Gitesha, Gladys K. Nilsen and Geisha Otero will sing later this month in the cabaret show Birds of Song: Las Tres G's [sic] at the Paris Commune in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan.
Thalía Spanish Theatre (Ángel Gil Orrios, producer) presented the Ballet Fiesta Mexicana de Yloy Ybarra in its new show México 200 at its namesake theater in the Sunnyside section of Queens. The title refers to the bicentennial of México's independence. Thalía plans to follow that up with a production of the solo show Las prostitutas os precederán en el Reino de los Cielos/The Prostitutes Will Precede You into the Kingdom of Heaven. Written by José Luis Martín Descalzo (with the English translation by Daniel Sherr), the production will be directed, designed and produced by Angel Gil Orrios with Soledad López and Kathy Tejada acting in the Spanish and English versions, respectively. The production is scheduled for a late-May and June run.
Joel A. Luna booked a role in a short film called Love and Hate, directed by Juan P. Noguera.
Pregones Theater presented Las facultades at its eponymous theater in the Mott Haven section of the South Bronx. Written by Enrique Aravind Adyanthaya and directed by Jorge B. Merced, the play featured Varín Ayala, Rosal Colón, Sol Crespo, Koko De Jesús, Orlando Ríos and Carlos Alberto Valencia in the cast.
Milteri Tucker performed twice at the Hunts Point-based Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance (BAAD!) as part of their 2010 Boogie Down Dance Series. She performed as part of the evening entitled Power Dancing and the evening entitled Made In The Bronx, the latter referring to dancers and choreographers who are born in, based in or rehearse in the Bronx.
A.B. Lugo danced with Jack Waters + Peter Cramer Dance Company in the piece called Untitled, as part of the opening night festivities of the Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance's 2010 Boogie Down Dance Series.
HOLA held an Accent Reduction Seminar in late April 2010 at Los Kabayitos Theater in the Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural and Educational Center (home to HOLA). Led by Glenn Zuraw, the one-day seminar gave a bit of information on how to minimize one's accent and sound more "general American."
Zuraw, a licensed ESL teacher who has lived in Mexico and Colombia for several years, started the seminar by serving refreshments and getting to know his students individually and finding out the reasons they took the course. Most of the students wanted to minimize their accent (or be able to play with it) and to be able to expand the amount of roles they could get.
Zuraw continued wit h talking about his background as a youth in Pittsburgh and later as an ESL teacher in Latin America. He also highlighted the fact that one cannot totally remove an accent and one minimize it in a short period of time; this seminar was just the beginning of a process.
He later had the students perform exercises as well as show t hem where certain vowel and consonant sounds lie in the voice and face and how they differed from certain Spanish vowels and consonants.
At the end of the seminar, the students were asked to fill out a survey regarding their experiences. Some of the feedback included the following.
"He gave us many tips and insights. He's great. Very amenable and clear."
The students unanimously thought that the seminar should be repeated in the future. HOLA would like to thank Ura Yoana Sánchez for acting as a monitor of the seminar. HOLA plans on repeating the seminar again in the future. If you are interested in taking it, please call the HOLA office at (212) 253-1015.
UPDATE: We are, as of this writing more than 40% of our way towards our goal of raising $10,000.
Ricardo Montalbán (born Ricardo Gonzalo Pedro Montalbán y Merino in 1920, died 2009) was a Mexican-born American radio, television, theater and film actor. Born in Mexico City, but raised in Torreón and later Los Angeles, he was the son of Castilian Spanish émigrés.
He had a career spanning seven decades and multiple notable roles. During the mid-1970s, Montalbán was most notable as the spokesman in automobile advertisements for the Chrysler Cordoba (in which he famously extolled the "rich Corinthian leather" used for its interior).
From 1977 to 1984, he became famous as Mr. Roarke, the main star in the television series "Fantasy Island." He played Khan Noonien Singh in both the 1967 episode "Space Seed" of the first season of the original "Star Trek" series, and the 1982 film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. He won an Emmy Award in 1978, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Screen Actors Guild in 1993. He also founded HOLA's sister organization on the West Coast, Nosotros. Into his 80s, he continued to perform, often providing voices for animated films and commercials, and appearing in several of the Spy Kids films as "Grandfather Valentin."
The clip below is from the 1947 film Fiesta, where he plays a bullfighter who wants to be a composer. In this scene, he dances with the legendary Cyd Charisse.
Trivia: When starting in Hollywood, film executives wanted him to change his name to Ricky Martin.
Also, Montalbán is credited with naming the five stages of the actor.
E3Outlaws Productions is scheduled to present the Abniel Marat play El olor de los machos/El olor de las hembras. Directed by Enmanuel García, the play features Raúl Rivera, Cristián Sebastián, Mônica Steuer and Silvia Tovar in the cast and is scheduled for a July run at The Living Theatre in Manhattan's Loisaida neighborhood.
R.Evolución Latina is set to present the production Ser o no Cer... vantes. The play written by Yolanda García Serrano and Salvador Toscano and directed by García Serrano will have a late May run at the Baruch Performing Arts Center in the Gramercy area of Manhattan and will feature Modesto Lacén, Freia Canals, Noëlle Mauri, Erika Cazeneuve and Adela María Bolet in the cast.
Betsy Pujols, le ft, booked a radio voiceover for Fifth Third Bank shortly after taking Manuel Herrera's Spanish Language Voiceover workshop. She was spotted in the HOLA online directory and asked to audition. She e-mailed us to say that "Manuel Herrera is an excellent instructor. He educated and prepared me to develop [my talent] to a professional level. My preparation was so effective that a week after completing my demo, I booked my first job."
Below is a list of new (and returning) HOLA members who joined between March 1, 2010 and April 30, 2010.
(From left to right, top row): Fernando Alicea, Ricardo Alvarado; (second row): Victoria Beltrán, Carme Boixadera; (third row): Freia Canals, Irene Hernández; (fourth row): Ramón Hierro, Eduardo Leáñez; (fifth row): Frank Robles, Cristina Rodríguez; (sixth row): Laura Sáenz Vidal, Silva Gil.