Frida Kahlo was born ahead of her time in July, 1907 in Coyoacan, Mexico. During the intervening forty-seven years, she lived a life of great pain brought on by polio as a child and a bus and trolley crash that had her in and out of a body cast and body brace, spending long periods in bed, which is where she began to paint, what she knew best, herself. Despite having to endure this physical pain, her on again, off again marriage to the famous painter of murals, Diego Rivera was as most of her insights about herself, work and relationships, very direct and honest, as when she told him: “I had two big accidents in my life, you and the trolley, you were by far the worse. Her graphic, brutally honest paintings are original and captivating. Against the backdrop of the 2,500 year old Mexican Day of the Dead Celebration, honoring the joy and life of those departed, our story is told by three Frida’s, as a child, teenager and adult, her sister Christina and Leon Trotsky, whose brief refuge trying to escape Stalin’s persecution, and their intimate relations with each other are factual. It is why the title of our story is VIVA LA VIDA, which was also her motto: Enjoy Life, Be Yourself, Let Nothing Stop You!
“Viva la Vida”
Co-Created by Mike Carson & Beth Woronoff
Produced by: Mike Carson
Choreography by: Beth Woronoff
Young Frida: Emily Rosakranse
Teenage Frida: Sara Forsythe
Adult Frida: Beth Woronoff
Diego Rivera: Patrick Conelly
Christina Kahlo: Elisa Angeli
Leon Trotsky: Alizah Allen
Young Frida’s friends:
India Sachi, Eliza Joe Hughes, Maeko Plotena,
Sophia Reynolds, Storey Littleton and Ana Dooley
Mexican Maidens:
Poeu Breckenridge, Mimi Ditkoff, Gracie Fossett, Olivia Wogan
Skeletons: Carl Carrozza and Eli Melemud
Music by: El Tranchete and Sandiego by Mariachi Real de San Diego Danzon No 2 by Arturo Marquez
Los Laurdes – Traditional
Puppets by: Sara Peattie and Theresa Linnihan
Set Construction by: Tim Ganon
Viva La Vida is supported in part with funds from Strategic Opportunities Stipend through New York Foundation for the Arts and New York State Council on the Arts, administered in Mid-Hudson by Garrison Art Center.