Dissonance

by Abel González Melo

ABOUT THE PLAY

It takes place between two eras and spaces, with the central theme being the mark that dictatorships, often rising under the guise of democratic revolutions, leave on societies and human beings. Through the tools that theatre, thought and art offer, we analyze how totalitarian regimes develop mechanisms of violence, often covert and subtle, that break and test the integrity of individuals.

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ABOUT THE COMPANY

Founded in 1979, Teatro Avante is a non-profit, tax-exempt cultural organization whose primary goal is to preserve our Hispanic cultural heritage. The company has represented the U.S. in Mexico, Costa Rica, Spain, Japan, France, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Portugal, Brazil, Venezuela, Argentina, Puerto Rico, and Slovenia. In the United States, Teatro Avante has performed in Miami, New York, Albuquerque, Los Angeles, El Paso, and Buffalo. It has staged works by Albee, Alomá, Ariza, Assad, Cabrujas, Cocteau, Ferrer, García Lorca, Manet, Matas, Pinto, Piñera, Reguera Saumell, Santana, Triana, Valle-Inclán, Williams, Orwell, Camus, Shakespeare, and González Melo, among others. In 1994, the Cultural Olympiads of The Olympic Committee in Atlanta honored Teatro Avante with the Regional Award in the Arts. That same year, it received Premio Ollantay in Madrid; in 1995, the Federico García Lorca Award in Fuente Vaqueros, Spain; in 2004, the Kusillo Award, in La Paz; in 2009, the FIT Cádiz- Atahualpa del Cioppo Award, in Cádiz; and 2012, an award from Universidad Científica del Sur (UCSUR), in Lima. Teatro Avante is the producer and presenter of the award-winning International Hispanic Theater Festival, in Miami. 

Teatro Avante has been designated an official Major Cultural Institution by the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs and South Arts selected Avante as a Southern Cultural Treasure to acknowledge and honor the diversity of artistic expression and excellence of arts and cultural organizations led by and serving minorities in the region. Recently, the new program, National Latinx Theater Initiative, awarded Avante support for two years.

ABOUT DE AUTHOR

Abel González Melo (Havana, 1980) holds a PhD in Literary Studies and an MA in Theatre and Performing Arts from the Complutense University of Madrid, and a BA in Theatre Arts from ISA, the University of the Arts, Havana. He was a participant in the 2005 Royal Court Theatre international playwrights residency in London and studied with Panorama Sur in Buenos Aires and at the Maxim Gorki Theatre in Berlin. During the 2015-16 season, he was a resident playwright at Manchester’s HOME, and since 2018, he has been Teatro Avante’s resident playwright, where he has premiered Nowhere in the World, Bayamesa, Pandemic Ubu, I’d Better Shut Up and Dissonance. His works have been published and presented in more than twenty countries and have been translated into a dozen languages. He has received the Casa de las Américas International Award (Bayamesa), the Virgilio Piñera National Playwriting Award (Epopeya), the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba’s Award (Inner Workings), the Spanish Embassy in Cuba’s Award (Chamaco), and the Goethe Institute Cuba-Germany Play Award (Talc), among others. He has on three occasions won the Cuban Literary Critics Award and is the five-time recipient of the Villanueva Theatre Critics Award. In 2012, he received the Cultura Viva Award in Madrid for his body of literary works. His most recent work as a film scriptwriter is La partida. He now resides in Madrid, where he teaches at Carlos III University. Since 2022 he has been an artistic associate at the Teatro de La Abadía, Madrid, incorporating his role as artistic coordinator of the Alcalá de Henares Corral de Comedias, an iconic, original Spanish Golden Age theatre, first opened in 1602.