Karen Alvarado and Johnny Meyer Initiate AFTERSHOCK/LA RÉPLICA Podcast on Latinos in Military Life, March 20, 2021

 

Art Spark Texas and Thinkery & Verse are proud to announce AFTERSHOCK / La Réplica PODCAST -- a new podcast shining a spotlight on Latinx military service.

Starting March 20th 2021, Thinkery & Verse will premiere the first episode in a four-part podcast series unpacking the themes from the celebrated 2019 stage-play AFTERSHOCK / La Réplica.

The podcast, like the play, draws on interviews, first-person narratives, archival sources, Latinx poetry, veteran writings, rumors, legends, and some of the best ATX imaginations.

Hosted by Tejana director Karen Alvarado, every episode will begin with text from the original play followed by a discussion with artists, veterans and scholars. Alvarado, who is also the wife of a military veteran, speaks candidly with these insiders to understand the triumphs and trials of wartime service.

“The Latinx soldiers and citizens in this play expect military service to reinforce their identity and ideas about family, patriotism, and even sexuality,” Alvarado says, “but the military is often a place that mixes up the moral compass, and one’s sense of self, and invents a new identity.”

The podcast often emphasizes the need for affirming that Latinx citizens have a stake in patriotism and American identity. Alvarado continues: “Here in 2021, white nationalists are trying to jam Latinos into second-class citizenship, and art that tells our story is the surest way to assert ourselves as artists and as Americans. Latino military service has always been a way for us to prove our status both as providers for our families, and as protectors of our country. With this podcast, we get the chance to honor the service and lives of our ancestors and families by looking at the messy, sexy details of what it means to be a Latinx U.S. soldier.”

AFTERSHOCK / La Réplica PODCAST will be available to stream for FREE on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, thinkeryandverse.org, and all other major podcast directories.

This podcast was produced by Art Spark Texas and made possible by grants from National Endowment for the Arts and Texas Commission on the Arts.

AFTERSHOCK / La Réplica PODCAST is a collaboration by Thinkery & Verse and Celia Hughes of Art Spark Texas. Direction and hosting by Karen Alvarado, dramaturgy by Dr. JM Meyer, management and sound engineering by Erin Bogert, original sound design by David Demaris, image design by Paul Del Bosque, video trailer by Jose Lozano of Magic Spoon Productions, guitar by Estrella Saldana and Ulises Ortega Escalante, and vocals by Estrella Saldana and Diana Guizado. Voice actors include Idelisse Collazo, Christina Romero, Diana Guizado, Estrella Saldana, Victor Hugo Jaramillo and David Segura. Guest speakers include Colonel Lisa Carrington Firmin, activist and poet Jenny Pacanowski, MacArthur Fellow Dr. Thomas Palaima, the poet Victor Inzunza, writer Rocio Iribe, artist and oral historian Mary Alice Carnes, Dr. JM Meyer, and artist Oscar Franco.

Release Schedule
Episode One (Suppressive Fire: Latinx and Women in War) goes live 3/20 at 11 am EST

Episode Two (Door Kicker: The Force of Machismo) goes live 3/27 at 11 am EST

Episode Three (Grenade Launcher: Relationships in War) goes live 4/3 at 11 am EST

Episode Four (Team Lead: Navigating Forward after War) goes live 4/10 at 11 am EST

About Thinkery & Verse

Thinkery & Verse are a critically-acclaimed artistic partnership between artists Karen Alvarado (MFA Rutgers Mason Gross) and JM Meyer (PhD UT-Austin). In 2018 they took Bride of the Gulf, a transnational collaboration with artists from Iraq, to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. In 2019 they produced a sold-out run of a true-crime original Thou Shalt Not in New Jersey, a wild adaptation of The Bacchae at The VORTEX in Austin, Texas called Dionysus in America and (along with Art Spark Texas) created Aftershock/La Réplica, which premiered at the Emma S. Barrientos Mexican-American Cultural Center. In 2020, Thinkery & Verse produced podcasts Decameron 2020: Survival Through Stories and That's How the Story Goes - the Hall-Mills Murders PODCAST as well as Ghost Hunt: a multi-city geocache and audio adventure reimagining the Hall-Mills double homicide of 1922. Thinkery & Verse seeks to perform classically inspired, politically aware plays that challenge us to be empowered, globally oriented citizens with a keen awareness of the high stakes of modern life.

Contact Information

Karen Alvarado and Dr. J.M. Meyer
Co-Creators for AFTERSHOCK / La Réplica PODCAST Production Company: Thinkery & Verse www.thinkeryandverse.org thinkery.and.verse@gmail.com
732-520-8253

If you enjoy AFTERSHOCK / La Réplica PODCAST, go to thinkeryandverse.org to check out Thinkery & Verse’s other FREE content: Decameron 2020 PODCAST: Survival Through Stories, That's How the Story Goes - the Hall-Mills Murders PODCAST and Ghost Hunt: a geocache & audio adventure reimagining the Hall-Mills double homicide of 1922.