LAGUNA BEACH, CALIFORNIA – August 7, 2006 – Laguna Playhouse presents the second production of its 2006-2007 season, the West Coast Premiere of SONIA FLEW, written by Melinda Lopez and directed by Juliette Carrillo.

SONIA FLEW opens on Saturday, September 16, 2006 and continues through Sunday, October 15 (Previews: September 12 – September 15) at the Laguna Playhouse, 606 Laguna Canyon Road in Laguna Beach. Poignant and thought-provoking, yet also heart-warming, this moving account of two intertwined family dramas shows how political events impact ordinary lives.

Set in post 9/11 America and Cuba of the Castro revolution‚ Melinda Lopez’s play revolves around Sonia, cross-cultural matriarch of a mid-Western Jewish family, as she struggles with her son’s decision to join the Marines. The emotions triggered transport her back 40 years to Havana, when Sonia’s parents made a heart-wrenching choice and sent their teenaged daughter to a new life in America. What do we owe our children? What do we owe our parents? Can we forgive the past? These universal questions resonate in a play embedded in the complexity of family life.

SONIA FLEW received its World Premiere production at the Huntington Theatre Company in Boston, which commissioned it, and has had subsequent productions at the Contemporary American Theatre Festival in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, and the Coconut Grove Playhouse in Miami. It will be produced by Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago later this Fall.

The Creative Team:

Melinda Lopez (Playwright)

As a playwright, actress, college instructor and parent, Melinda Lopez knows how to juggle multiple hats. In fact, the idea for her play, Sonia Flew came to her about five years ago when she was performing in Miami. She met a cousin in Florida, whom she learned had been part of Cuba’s Operation Pedro Pan. Lopez, whose parents emigrated from Cuba to South America and then the United States, had never heard of the story of the Pedro Pans and did not know that her cousin had been part of it. “That incredible saga has always stayed with me,” she said Lopez, who researched Operation Pedro Pan through interviews and books, said she became fascinated with the idea of the lengths parents must go to in order to keep their children safe.

Operation Pedro Pan occurred between 1960 and 1962 when Cuban parents sent more than 14,000 children to Miami, unaccompanied, with fake American visas. With Castro’s rise to power, parents were afraid the state would revoke their parental rights, and their fears were heightened when the government closed religious schools and sent young women to teach the uneducated to read. Although Pedro Pan parents planned to reunite with their children, some were never able to, and the children were placed in foster homes around the country. When she began to write the play, Lopez also became interested in the feelings of patriotism that were sweeping the United States immediately following Sept. 11, 2001, and the stories of young soldiers going to war. “Somehow the two stories became tied together in my mind,” she said. “Out of this whirlwind of many thoughts emerged this woman.”

The play begins in Minneapolis in December of 2001, and then travels back to Cuba in 1961. It tells the story of Sonia, who was sent by her parents to America as one of the Pedro Pans. As an adult, she lives a comfortable middle class life, married to a Jewish husband. But when her son, Zak, joins the Marines, she must come to terms with her past, her parents” decisions and the choices of her children, especially Zak. Lopez said she did not write the two stories of Sonia’s past and the present situation with Zak separately, but developed the parallel stories together. “Through the whole thing, I had no idea what was coming next,” she said. Lopez said she wanted Sonia’s family to feel very contemporary and the mixing of American, Jewish and Cuban traditions was important to the play. “I know so many Cuban women who are married to Jewish men,” she said.

Although the historical events in the play are accurate, Lopez said the characters are completely fictional and not based on her cousin’s story or anyone she knows. She said she made the discoveries about the characters as she was writing the play. Lopez continues to act, teach and write, although she said she never writes while she is acting and vice versa because of the creative demands of each discipline. “I feel like I only have so much imaginative space,” Lopez said. She said “Actors can make good playwrights because actors understand conflict and dramatic action on a gut level.”

Juliette Carrillo (Director)

Julliette is an Ensemble Member with the nationally recognized Cornerstone Theater Company where she recently directed As Vishnu Dreams by Shishir Kurup, a play that opened to critical acclaim in Los Angeles. Juliette was an Artistic Associate at South Coast Repertory Theatre for seven years, where she directed regularly in their season and ran the Hispanic Playwright's Project, collaborating with Latino writers across the country. A graduate of the Yale School of Drama, she has directed theatre extensively throughout the US.

Some of her favorite collaborations have been directing the West Coast premiere of the 2003 Pulitzer Prize winner, Anna in the Tropics by Nilo Cruz, the World Premiere of References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot by Jose Rivera at South Coast Repertory, and the West Coast premiere of Sam Shepard's Eyes For Consuela at the Magic in San Francisco. She has directed for the Alliance Theatre, New Jersey Shakespeare Festival, Actor's Theatre of Louisville and for the Mark Taper Forum's New Work Festival, as well workshops in NY theatres such as New York Theatre Workshop, The Public, INTAR and The Women's Project. She is a recipient of several awards, including the prestigious National Endowment of the Arts/Theatre Communications Group Directing Fellowship. She also participated in American Film Institute’s Directing Workshop for Women, where she wrote and directed her first short film, Spiral. Spiral played in nine film festivals around the country and in Europe, garnering finalist recognition in several.

The Cast and Crew:

The cast of SONIA FLEW will feature (in alphabetical order): Christian Barillas, Marissa Chibas, Judith Delgado, Matt Gottlieb, Tanya Perez and Jaime Tirelli.

The Scenic Design is by Myung Hee Cho. The Lighting Design is by Lonnie Alcaraz. The Costume Design is by Joyce Kim Lee. The Sound Design is by Laguna Playhouse resident Sound Designer David Edwards. Music composed by Chris Webb. New York Casting is by Calleri Casting.