DISTANT STAR
About the show.
The year is 1973. In Chile, a group of young poets meet to write, argue, critique and flirt. Days later, the government collapses and the president is shot. Amidst the brutality, one poet rises to fame as a skywriting daredevil—and, possibly, as a killer.
A harrowing tale of fascism and its aftermath, this eerily relevant drama weaves Roberto Bolaño’s memories of life and death under Pinochet’s American-backed dictatorship into a perverse, seductive noir of urgent political necessity. Adapted by Javier Antonio González with approval from the Bolaño estate and built over a decade of collaboration with director Shira Milikowsky, Distant Star is at once a memory play and an archive of terror.
2017 September-October Abrons Arts Center, NYC (Premiere)
2015 March American Repertory Theater, Cambridge, MA (Workshop)
Written by Javier Antonio González
Co-conceived and Directed by Shira Milikowsky
Based on the novel by Roberto Bolaño
2017 Cast
Laura Butler Rivera • Yaremis Félix • Jon Froehlich • Anne Gridley • Tania Molina • Luis Moreno • David Skeist
Set by Jian Jung
Lights by Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew and Christina Tang
Projections by Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew and Simon Harding
Costumes by Sarah Cubbage
Sound by Bozkurt “Bozzy” Karasu
Producer Madeleine Bersin
Stage Managers Sarah Devon Ford and Rachel Winfield
Dramaturg Kyoung H. Park
Distant Star was developed in part over a Next Stage Residency at The Drama League and an Artist Space at Pregones (ASAP) residency.
Photo by Marcos Toledo
Photo by Marcos Toledo
Photo by Marcos Toledo
Photo by Marcos Toledo
Photo by Marcos Toledo
Photo by Jian Jung
Photo by Marcos Toledo
Photo by Marcos Toledo
Photo by Marcos Toledo
What People Are Saying
“Hard to follow, tonally inconsistent, digressive, and deliberately primitive in its special effects—all perfectly befitting Bolaño’s slippery yarn, which, like this show, reverberates with dread precisely because it leaves so much to the imagination.”
— Distant Star, THE NEW YORKER, September, 2017
“An excellent ensemble of actors… Projected film and still images push beyond the concrete walls; scrawled words and shadow pull you forward; lighting changes pull you inward; offstage mystery catches your ear. All factors contribute to a plasticity that presents a narrative unfettered by spatial or even temporal concerns… Distant Star is both storytelling and story-being.”
— Sarah Downs, The Front Row Center