Full Circle Presents

Atacama 
by Augusto Federico Amador

 

Directed by Lara Trujillo

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Starring Pedro R. Bayon and Lara Trujillo 

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Producer: Rick Shiomi

Associate Director: Martha B. Johnson

POSTPONEMENT OF ATACAMA

 

With our community's expanding concerns about COVID-19 and given Full Circle’s commitment to the health and safety of our staff, artists, audience, and other participants, we have made the decision to postpone our May 2020 production of Atacama to Spring 2022.

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We’ll announce Atacama's new dates later this year and provide you with updates about our presentation of this compelling and brilliant play by Augusto Federico Amador.

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Thank you for your continued interest, support, and understanding, and we look forward to seeing you at our production next season!

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And we'd like to give a very special thanks to the wonderful production team who have so graciously and generously supported our decision to postpone Atacama.

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Note: We will be refunding the full cost of all Atacama tickets purchased to this date.

For more information and updates, continue to visit our website and email us at

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ABOUT ATACAMA

 

Set in the extraordinary landscape of Chile’s gorgeous Atacama desert, Amador’s play takes the audience on a powerful, metaphoric quest that begins with the meeting of two strangers in this vast desert. Both have come in search of the sun-bleached, shattered bones of their children, who were “disappeared” years earlier--killed by the brutal General Pinochet regime (1973-1990,) then buried in the Atacama Desert.  

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With the unfolding of the past and present lives of these two mysterious figures (Ignacia, played by Lara Trujillo, and Diego, played by Pedro R. Bayon), Atacama transforms into the realm of magical realism.  The play then metaphorically and powerfully explores universal themes of human polarization—gender and intergenerational tensions, religious and political divides—that can lead to transgression and tragedy, as they did in Chile.  Chile’s painful history becomes a metaphorical lesson for all humanity as this play grapples with political forces that tear families and countries apart because of opposing views, choices, and actions—all so painfully relevant to the world today.  And in the end, the play magically explores transformative possibilities that can lead from national and family transgression, to remorse, reparation, forgiveness, and redemption.  

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Selected by Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre for its list of 50 outstanding plays highlighting “intersecting social identities,” Atacama was given its world premiere in September 2018 by Teatro Paraguas both in Santa Fe and in Albuquerque, performances coinciding with the 45th anniversary of the U.S.-backed coup d'etat in which the democratically elected socialist government of Salvador Allende was overthrown by the army under General Pinochet on September 11th, 1973.

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Full Circle chose to produce Atacama because of the play’s tremendous relevance to our contemporary lives, and for its issues at the heart of Full Circle’s mission of diversity and social justice.  

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Atacama will soon be published in Spanish by Teatro Sin Paredes (Mexico City) in a collection of five plays by noted North American playwrights, including works by celebrated writer Caridad Svitch and Pulitzer Prize winner ‎Quiara Alegría Hudes. 

Atacama Creative and Production Team

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Playwright: Augusto Federico Amador 
Director: Lara Trujillo

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Producer: Rick Shiomi
Associate Director: Martha B. Johnson   

Cast: Lara Trujillo (Ignacia); Pedro Bayon (Diego)​

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Production Consultant: Alberto Justiniano
Chilean Cultural Consultant: Cristina Castro
Community Engagement: Tor Chavarria
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Set Designer: Mina Kinukawa
Lighting Designer: Alex Flinner
Costume Designer: Khamphian Vang
Sound Designer: Quinci Bachman

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Stage Manager: Kenji Shoemaker​

Set Builder: Alex Olsen

Marketing Consultant: Stephen Hage
Photographer: LKBachman (Linda Bachman)