ECAS en Casa 2021 – Ana Mendiburu & Marcela Astudillo

ECAS en Casa, is a virtual program series in which Teatro ECAS Executive Director Francis Parra interviews artists and scholars from across the Spanish-speaking world about humanities topics connected to the theater. Programs will be in Spanish with English-language subtitles and can be viewed on Facebook Live the night of the event. To view ECAS en Casa in English, log on the Teatro ECAS YouTube Channel three days after the event.

Thursday, April 8, 2021 at 7:00 pm EST on Facebook Live
Ana Mendiburu and Marcela Astudillo

Lorca: A Brief Life and Two Perpetual Flames.  Garcia Lorca and Langston Hughes

Suspended in time, Federico Garcia Lorca and American poet Langston Hughes occupied the planet Earth at the same time.  Langston Hughes was first to translate Garcia Lorca’s work into English and both poets were in New York City at the same time, however they never met face-to-face.  We will look at New York City, and particularly Harlem of the 1920’s.  And later as Hughes visits Spain as a reporter during World War II, and it was while there that he learned that Federico Garcia Lorca was shot.

Guest scholars: Ana Mendiburu  and Marcela Astudillo

Ana Mendiburu is a National Board Certified teacher with a B.A. in Spanish and French cum laude from Rhode Island College. She studied in a collaborative program of Brown University with the Universidad de Granada, Spain and is a Leadership Fellow with the Providence School Department. Currently Mendiburu is teaching Spanish language at Classical High School, as well as Students Love Travel (Educational Travel to Québec and Puerto Rico) and Johnson and Wales University.  She has been an interpreter for the Rhode Island Supreme Court and has worked at the International Institute of Rhode Island.

Marcela Astudillo has been a professor of the social sciences department in the Providence district since 2002. Astudillo graduated from Rhode Island College with a Masters in Education (2002) and then earned a PhD in Education from the University of Rhode Island in 2017.  She graduated from the school administration program (PRN) – Principal Residency Network in 2017. She began to connect with the poetry of Langston Hughes after taking a reading class at Rhode Island College and then developed that interest in the poetry of this great African-American author to deepen her connections as a teacher, introducing Langston Hughes to students during Black History Month. Additionally she organizes poetry performances at the spring arts festival at the school. Working with April Brown, she became a member of the Langston Hughes Community Poetry Reading committee.

This series is supported in part by a major grant from the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities.