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PATRON NOTE:
** The performance takes place in multiple spaces throughout the Universalist Church on three floors with stairs for access.** Seating will be available in some performance spaces while others may require standing.
** We recommend you wear comfortable shoes.
** The building is not handicap accessible. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Sonnets for an Old Century 
​by José Rivera

Directed by Elizabeth Dinkova, Spooky Action's new Artistic Director

CAST: Helen Hayes Awards nominees Lisa Hodsoll, Jamil Joseph, and Gabby Wolfe with Raghad Almakhlouf, Jared Graham, Jolene Mafnas, Victor Salinas, Kay-Megan Washington, including a special video appearance by playwright José Rivera

​PRODUCTION: Barrett Doyle (Set Design), Helen Garcia-Alton, Mike Durst (Lighting Design), Frederick Kennedy (Sound Designer),Stephanie Parks (Costume Design), Mark Williams (Projections Designer) and Holly Morgan (Production Stage Manager), and Frederick Kennedy (Sound Design)

​June 15 - 25, 2023
10 Performances Only!
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“[Rivera’s] voice shimmers with imagery, at times yielding ABSURD COMEDY and, at other times, TRANSCENDENT BEAUTY” – Theatermania

​“Rivera’s script is STAGGERING AND LOVELY…a vibrant celebration of life in the midst of a somber dreamlike parade of the dead." – Chicago Stage Reader

If you had one last chance to broadcast your story into the universe, what would you say?

José Rivera’s Sonnets for an Old Century captures the psychic residue of ten lives in ten intimate, searing encounters in the afterlife. In this immersive production, audience members journey through the landscape of each character’s mind to experience their most treasured memories, clandestine confessions, and climactic revelations. This experiential DMV premiere, which utilizes the full architectural potential of Spooky Action’s home at the Universalist National Memorial Church, offers a kaleidoscopic vision of the joy and pain of the human condition. (Running time: approx 90 minutes)
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​From the Director:
"Rivera’s writing celebrates the precarious beauty of our brief but glorious time on earth. It’s the perfect antidote to division and devastation. His work is an extraordinary gift to actors, inviting them to exercise the full virtuosity of their craft. In this communion with the afterlife, rendered experientially in the surreal labyrinth of the Universalist National Memorial Church, I hope to evoke the startling, electrifying feeling of being alive, here and now.”

ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT
José Rivera is an award-winning screenwriter and playwright. He has won two Obie Awards for playwriting for Marisol and References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot, both produced at The Public Theater in New York. His plays The Promise, Each Day Dies with Sleep, Cloud Tectonics, The Street of The Sun, Sueño, Sonnets for an Old Century, School Of The Americas, Brainpeople, Giants Have Us in Their Book and The House of Ramon Iglesia have been produced in theaters across the country and around the world. Plays-in-progress include The Last Book of Homer, Human Emotional Process, The Hours Are Feminine, a new translation of Kiss of The Spiderwoman and Scream for The Lost Romantics. Adoration of The Old Woman made its New York debut at INTAR Theatre in March 2014. Celestina, based on his play Cloud Tectonics, will mark his debut as a feature film director. Mr. Rivera has received awards from the Fulbright Arts Fellowship, the Whiting Foundation, the Kennedy Center, National Endowment for the Arts, the National Arts Club, New York Foundation for the Arts, the McKnight Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation. He has amassed numerous film and television credits. His screenplay for The Motorcycle Diaries was nominated for a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar in 2005 making him the first Puerto Rican writer to be nominated for an Academy Award; additionally, he was nominated for a BAFTA and a Writers Guild Award for the film which also won top writing awards in Spain and Argentina. Mr. Rivera made his film-acting debut playing himself in Margarita with a Straw. He is a former member of the Board of Directors of the Sundance Institute and has been a creative advisor for Screenwriting Labs in Utah, Jordan and India. A member of the LAByrinth Theatre Company and Ensemble Studio Theatre, he leads a weekly writing workshop in New York City, where he lives. In the works is his first novel, Love Makes the City Crumble.