MEDIA CONTACT: Judy Moore at (847) 491-4819 or jkm229@northwestern.edu

March 10, 2004

Play by Chilean Playwright Juan Radrigan to be Performed April 16 and 17

EVANSTON, Ill. --- The English-language world premiere of “Finished from the Start,” a play by Chilean playwright Juan Radrigan, opens at Northwestern University, 8 p.m. Friday, April 16, and 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, April 17, in the Theatre and Interpretation Center’s Mussetter-Struble Theatre, 1949 Campus Drive, Evanston campus.

The playwright, Radrigan, will travel from Santiago for an opening night reception, an exhibition accompanying the production, and post-show discussions with audience members.

Director Martin Balmaceda is a preeminent interpreter of Radrigan’s work. Balmaceda and Northwestern University theater department faculty member Ana Puga are the co-founders of LaMicro Theater, a Chicago- and New York-based group dedicated to staging Spanish, Latin American and United States Latino/Latina theater works.

The three principal cast members are from New York, where they have been rehearsing with Balmaceda for many weeks. The remaining cast is comprised of Northwestern students.

Ana Puga, assistant professor of theater at Northwestern, and Monica Nuñez-Parra are responsible for the new translation of the play. As the dramaturge and co-president of the theatre company, Puga has worked closely with the playwright on translating a number of his plays into English. This is the first time their English translation of “Finished from the Start” will be staged.

Radrigan’s play is set in the early 1980s in Chile during the regime of Augusto Pinochet. It chronicles a few critical hours in the lives of two unemployed laborers who lack food, shelter and family, and is a powerful statement about the brutal and absurd ways in which the dictatorship affected Chileans.

A 6 p.m. reception with the playwright on opening night (April 16) in the Theatre and Interpretation Center commons area is open to the public. The exhibition about Chilean resistance to Pinochet’s dictatorship will be available for viewing in the commons area before and after each performance. The playwright will be present for discussion after every show.

Admission to the play, the opening night reception and the exhibition is free, but reservations are required. To make a reservation, call (847) 491-7282.

Seating will be on a first-come, first-seated basis. Unclaimed reservations will be released to the general public 15 minutes prior to each performance.