Cover and text design by Julia Hill

Don Juan of Seville

Tirso de Molina, translated and adapted by Lynne Alvarez

This play is included in the collection:

Description

When the 17th-century Spanish dramatist and monk Tirso de Molina penned EL BURLADOR DE SEVILLA, it was the first time the legendary libertine Don Juan had appeared on stage. Lynne Alvarez’s translation and adaptation of Tirso de Molina’s play gives us the legendary Latin lover in his original incarnation.

Production Info

Cast: 15 total (5 female, 10 male)
Full Length Drama (about 100 minutes)
Multiple Sets
Period Costumes
Reviews

Press Quotes

“Lynne Alvarez is an enchantress. Her plays unfurl like flying carpets — the joy, the daring, the loop, the loops … prepare yourself for an exhilarating flight.” —Tina Howe, playwright

“The plays of Lynne Alvarez possess a poetry and eerie quietude that is unique in our dramatic literature.” —Mac Wellman, playwright

“In her magical and mysterious plays, Alvarez creates characters filled with longing, imagination and an outrageous sense of humor. Her highly theatrical landscapes invite us into a world where towers rise up, people flee their pasts, love appears around surprising corners and the poet in all of us is reborn. Alvarez has a unique and joyful voice that celebrates the complexities of the American experience in all its diverse and startling incarnations. This collection is a major achievement by one of the best kept secrets of the American Theater.” —Carey Perloff, Artistic Director, American Conservatory Theatre

About the Author

Author

  • Lynne Alvarez

    Lynne Alvarez (1947 – 2009) arrived in New York in 1977 planning to be a hot-shot poet who burned out brilliantly and died young. In the first matter, she won a CAPS grant for poetry in 1979 and served as Vice President of the board of directors for Poets & Writers for ten years. She did succeed in publishing much poetry, giving many readings and having two books published by Waterfront Press — THE DREAMING MAN (1981) and LIVING WITH NUMBERS (1986). She also became a member of PEN. But in the second matter — she continued to live, did not burn out but turned abruptly to playwriting in 1978. On a whim, Alvarez accompanied a friend to a gathering of Hispanic writers at Miriam Colon's Puerto Rican Traveling Theater. At 31 she had never considered writing a play, but she was now hooked. She wrote two plays under the auspices of this workshop, GRACIELA and THE GUITARRON, which premiered at the St. Clements Theatre in 1983 and won her an NEA fellowship and entry into New Dramatists. It was first published in a TCG anthology ON NEW GROUND in 1986. Alvarez wrote several plays as a New Dramatist — including HIDDEN PARTS (1981), which won a Kesselring Award in 1983 and premiered at Primary Stages in 1987; THE WONDERFUL TOWER OF HUMBERT LAVOIGNET, which won two awards, The Compte de Nouey Award for new plays in 1984 and a FDG/CBS award for best play, and later Best Production at Capital Repertory Theatre in Albany, NY in 1985. In 1984 The Actors' Theatre of Louisville commissioned a one-act play which became the full length THIN AIR: TALES FROM A REVOLUTION. THIN AIR premiered at San Diego Repertory Theatre in 1987 and won a Drama League Award and a Rockefeller Fellowship in 1988. Two New York Foundation grants followed in 1994 and 1998, years in which she wrote three plays for ACT's Young Conservatory in San Francisco: THE REINCARNATION OF JAIMIE BROWN, EDDIE MUNDO EDMUNDO and ANALIESE. All three opened there and were variously published in Smith & Kraus anthologies, BEST PLAYS BY WOMEN IN 1994, 1997, and 2001. Volume I of Alvarez's collected plays was published by Smith & Kraus in 2000. The Lincoln Center Institute commissioned Alvarez to adapt …AND NOW MIGUEL, which was produced in their 1995 season. The Repertory Theater of St. Louis also commissioned two children's plays which they produced in 1991 and 1992 — RATS, a musical based on the Pied Piper of Hamlin, and also an adaptation of RIKKI TIKKI TAVI, which was remounted in 2004. Alvarez was often commissioned as a translator of plays and poetry as well. In 1988, she translated Fernando Arrabal's THE DAMSEL AND THE GORILLA, OR THE RED MADONNA for a 1988 production at INTAR. In 1990, she translated and adapted Tirso de Molina's DON JUAN OF SEVILLE for the Classic Stage Company's production in New York City. She translated three plays by the great contemporary Mexican playwright Felipe Santander. These were published as a collection by Smith & Kraus in 2002. Primary Stages produced TWO MARRIAGES: ROMOLA & NIJINSKY Off-Broadway in 2003.

  • Tirso de Molina

    Tirso de Molina (c. 1579 – 1648) was the nom de plume of friar Gabriel Téllez, Spanish dramatist, poet, and Roman Catholic monk. One of the great playwrights of the Spanish Golden Age, he was the author of EL BURLADOR DE SEVILLA, the first stage play to immortalize the legend of Don Juan, which Mozart used as the basis for his opera Don Giovanni. He is credited with writing over 80 plays, and together with Lope de Vega and Calderón de la Barca, he is part of the golden triad of Spanish Baroque theatre.

About the Book

Book Information

Publisher Smith & Kraus
Publication Date 10/1/1998
Pages 384
ISBN 9781575251462

Special Notes

Special Notes

Licensees are required to include the original stage producers credits in the following form on the title page in all programs distributed in connection with performances of the Play and in all advertising in which the full cast appears in size of type not less than ten percent (10%) of the size of the title of the Play:

Originally produced by Classic Stage Company, New York

The following must appear within all programs distributed in connection with performances of the Play:
Don Juan of Seville is produced
by special arrangement with Broadway Play Publishing Inc, NYC
www.broadwayplaypublishing.com