thePULSEIt’s All in the Family
By Annette Cinelli
Meet Rosa, Nydia, Myrna, and Mari Colón, four sisters whose goal it is to promote the performing arts in Worcester and contribute to our cultural scene as a whole. Instead of waiting for an opportunity to fall in their laps, they decided to create it for themselves. The women joined together to start This Way Productions, a company that plans to work on plays, film, and in television to become an integral part of the artistic community.
Rosa is an Emerson College grad who has worked in costume design and has now decided to “…throw myself into producing!” She loves the freedom and creativity that comes along with working for her own production company.
Nydia is the actress of the group and has worked in film and on stage, most notably as the lead role in The Story with Zeitgeist Stage in Boston. Working now in Worcester, she find is it gratifying to be able to put local talent to work.
Myrna is an experienced hairstylist and makeup artist; she is excited about coming into this field with her sisters. She will also be adding co-producing to her responsibilities to “…see what it’s like and what I can learn from Rosa.”
Mari is based in Florida but still collaborates with the sisters; she’s currently working on graphics and design for their new show.
All of the sisters work in the business and with Worcester in a sort of Renaissance, they figured, “All the elements are there, so why not create an environment to put those elements to work for us?”
Their first official production will be a play by Andrew Bovell called Speaking in Tongues. Theatre was the best way for the production company to start since at this stage they are funding from their own bank accounts and a play allows them to use the least amount of initial capital while still puttting out a quality product.
Rosa is the one who found the play when, in her junior year of college, she saw a movie in her Australian film class that was based on it. She loved it so much that she bought the script, read it, and went to Nydia raving, “You have got to read this play because I want to produce it!”
Speaking in Tongues is a play with “very real characters” and the theme is lack of communication. It explores how we talk to each other but don’t really communicate what we want to say. It is a challenging piece but they are very excited about how it is shaping up. The show opens May 18th and runs through June 16th at the Foothills (Blackbox) Theatre on Front Street.
Visit www.thiswayproductions.com/index.html for tickets and more information. These sisters are doing things This Way and you had better keep an eye on them because they are about to hit the scene in a big way!
Pictured: Myrna (left) Rosa (right) and Nydia (middle).
