March 04, 2003

Cuban children’s theatre company
to perform bilingual Shakespeare

La Colmenita, an internationally acclaimed Cuban theater company of abled and disabled children, will perform a bilingual rendition of Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and Caribbean folktales “La Cucarachita Martina” and “Menique” at California State University, Sacramento on Monday, March 17, at 7 p.m. in the University Union Ballroom.

The first Cuban children’s performing group to visit the United States in over 45 years, La Colmenita—The National Children’s Theater Company of Cuba—began as a grassroots family and neighborhood theater and workshop program aimed at building self-esteem and social responsibility in youth. The program also reaches out to youth with physical and mental disabilities. Local Colmenita groups, totaling about 10,000 children, are scattered throughout Cuba.

Tickets are $20 and are available by contacting (415) 575-5559 or www.globalexchange.org. For media assistance contact the CSUS public affairs office at (916) 278-6156. All tour funds raised will be used to purchase pediatric medicines for use in Cuba.

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