Tag Archives: theater

San Miguel de Allende, Uncategorized

FASMA2025 is more than a festival; it is a feast served up by local arts and culture groups

Read the latest on FASMA 2025 here.

The third edition of the San Miguel de Allende Festival of the Arts (FASMA2025) is coming in August and will offer more than 100 events from scores of local arts and culture organizations.  Music, theater, opera, film, dance, literary and plastic arts programs will be presented in many of San Miguel’s finest venues, Aug. 1-17.

Individually, these are the kinds of events for which this city is famous around the world.

Collectively, this is an opportunity for San Miguelians to sample the many lively, beautiful, and inspiring performance programs that make up the fabric of this community.

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San Miguel de Allende

Soprano Barbachano has grown from flirty teen boy to a young maiden to savvy Countess Rosina in ‘Figaro’

It was just one year ago that opera soprano Jacinta Barbachano performed in San Miguel de Allende as the youthful and highly desirable single Rosina in “The Barber of Saville.” One year on, she will have to age 10 years as the story resumes this weekend in “The Marriage of Figaro.”

Older but wiser, as they say. 

For soprano Barbachano that may well be the key to her character, the now Countess Rosina, in the highly anticipated Pro Musica production of “The Marriage of Figaro.”

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San Miguel de Allende, The Week in SMA

SMA events, Aug. 4-10: What a bazaar week this is, plus all-star baseball … and yes, everything else

So many opportunities for shopping: Sunday Market, Tuesday Market, Bazar Nativa, Rodarte, Tosma Saturday Market , Bazar Los Frailes— so much great shopping, so little time.

Sunday, August 4   

10-5 p.m.  Raising the bazaar on shopping

Bazar Nativa brings together merchants of second-hand and new clothing, antiques, costume jewelry, oriental, ecological and artisanal products, stones, toys, food, and even micheladas and live music on the first Sunday of each month in the Los Pinos Hall. 

Bazar Nativa is also a space that provides an opportunity for local artists to make themselves known. Yesenia Múñoz stressed that although most of the exhibitors are local they currently also have merchants from Celaya, Dolores Hidalgo, and Querétaro.

This Sunday, organizers expect more than 70 exhibitors and they have room for more. The exhibition hall is located at Salida Real a Queretaro #173.

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San Miguel de Allende, The Week in SMA

SMA events June 30 to July 6: What a week! What a week!

Miss me? Sure you did. I’ve had fun these past few weeks but now I’m ready to have fun in San Miguel de Allende. Here is a sampling of some of the great events coming your way.

What off-season? Nobody takes a seasonal break in San Miguel anymore!

As always, this is just the tip of the tortilla. Check out the several events sites devoted to keeping you busy and entertained in San Miguel.

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San Miguel de Allende, The Week in SMA

SMA Events, March 17-23: From Semana Santa to Carlos Santana

One thing is certain, San Miguel de Allende sunsets will always be there for you. Even if you can’t make all the other stuff that goes on every day and night.

We’re a busy little town. That’s for sure. This week we have Semana Santa and it started while you were probably still in bed. In the photos above, families help dress the streets for the arrival of the Lord of the Columns statue. This is the 201st year that it has been carried to San Miguel from Antotonilco.

More events leading up to Easter are on their way.

Meanwhile, there are two Santana events — a tribute concert and a documentary screening that will be attended by his drummer. There are two events for the Bomberderos, our mighty fire department for the past 40 years. There are also two events that find their inspiration in death — one in not being dead yet and one that faces the inevitability that death is coming. Pick your favorite.

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San Miguel de Allende

Angel in the wings: San Miguel Playhouse has a new home

But for the big hearts and amazing foresight of one Mexican family, a newly built structure in Colonia La Luz might have become another OXXO store. Instead, with a lot of help from a lot of friends, it will become the new home of San Miguel Playhouse.

The theater lost its home on Independencia when the owners of the property put it up for sale. With no lease on the property they have been occupying since 2014 and the threat of eviction hanging over their head, the troupe couldn’t plan a new season. As they say in the business, the theater went dark in May.

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Memoirs -- fact and fiction, Rants and raves, San Miguel de Allende, Writings

That time I tried to overthrow the local government at a Tiblisi puppet show

Editor’s note: In a newsletter for former Union-Tribune newspaper staffers, a colleague in San Diego recently recalled a review I once wrote that outraged the mayor and her staff. Jack Reber, the editor of the newsletter, asked if I would fill everyone in.

Glad to do it. But, as in my online days with SignOnSanDiego.com, I take great pleasure in scooping mainstream media. So, you will read it first, here on my own blog. My newspaper friends may get it at midnight tonight. (Sorry, Jack. I can’t help myself.)

Ah, the Russian Arts Festival of 1989. Gather round kids and I’ll tell you as much as is permitted by the several nondisclosure agreements I signed to gain a generous separation bonus from the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Obviously, I kid. There was no bonus.

My one assignment during the Festival was the Tiblisi State Puppet Theatre, under the direction of the great and late-Rezo Gabriadze (below with some of his creations). Georgean puppets aren’t like the Muppets, Shari Lewis and Lambchop, or Punch ‘n Judy. They tell real and elaborate stories, often tragic, and even violent or sexually mature.

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Colonia San Antonio, photography, San Miguel de Allende, Uncategorized, Writings

A world away, next door: Instituto Allende’s garden campus of tranquility inspires creativity

Lost and found art, seen through a workshop window near the sculpture complex.

When I first heard that the Instituto Allende and I were born in the same year I had some mixed feelings.

I mean this venerated arts center on the Ancha de San Antonio in San Miguel de Allende looks ancient. Old stone and mortar. Buildings and walls that go back centuries. An architectural graybeard.

And me, well, I’m … I’m … well, never mind.

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Memoirs -- fact and fiction, San Miguel de Allende, Writings

Soon to be on Netflix, ‘Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom’ brings back some violent memories

Chadwick Boseman is Levee in “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.” It was his last performance as an actor before passing away in August.

Netflix begins streaming  “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” on December 18. The August Wilson play has enjoyed an excellent life on Broadway and beyond. And for good reason. It is a powerful creation. 

I think that in the Denzel Washington-produced movie we will see what a treasure and tragic loss was the death of Chadwick Boseman in August. This was his last performance.

This most recent news from Netflix sends me back nearly to the creation of the play, in 1982.

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Memoirs -- fact and fiction, San Miguel de Allende, Writings

Exit, stage left, smoking Glock in hand

tunnel-mystery (1)

A two-character, three-page play written to honor a talented theater critic, newspaper colleague, and friend who just announced an early retirement. The characters in this play no way resemble my friend. That would be purely coincidental …

Curtain goes up, in an empty theater.

On an empty stage, two characters face each other. One, Jim, is fully lit. The other is in the shadows. We enter in the middle of a conversation.

Voice: You’re sure? Continue reading →

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