Firestarter Productions opens season with Sonnets for an Old Century

by Shawn Parikh

Firestarter Productions, founded in 2002, has a tradition of presenting regional premieres to the DFW community. This year is no different since Jaime Castañeda, Artistic Director and Founder of the company, has picked Sonnets for an Old Century to kickoff the 2007 season.

The play is written by author, José Rivera, who was nominated for an Oscar for Motorcycle Diaries. The play is a series of monologues taking place in a realm between life and afterlife, and range in emotions from comedy to tragedy, and romance to drama. The play asks, "Could you tell your life story in the space of a moment (or a sonnet)?" The characters will try to accomplish this by telling their stories about memories, desires, tragic events, people they lost, and things that were left unsaid.

To design the show, the company has also roped in an award-winning and Pulitzer Prize-nominated documentary photographer, Alyssa Banta. She is going to use what she has shot in the DFW area and will showcase the lives of locals to ground the production in Fort Worth. Jaime Castañeda, who just received the Young Theatre Artist Award by the Live Theatre League, will be directing and producing the piece as well.

An award-winning author, plus an award-winning designer, plus an award-winning director definitely means that a fire has been started. The show runs for only one weekend (May 31-June 2) in the Hays Theatre on the TCU campus. For reservations ($10-15), call 817-926-7960.