Yamel Cucuy: A Bilingual Reading+Screening

Glass Half Full Theatre is bringing Yamel Cucuy to the Ragsdale Center on Tuesday, September 1, from 7 to 9 PM. It's not a typical play, and it's not a typical screening. The evening is a live Spanish dubbing of a filmed recording of the play, with English supertitles running throughout, so you can follow along even if you don't speak Spanish.

Here's how it works: the recording, shot by José Lozano, screens on stage, and as it plays, actors read the text live in Spanish. They're joined by sound effects performed in the moment, which is the opposite of a lip sync—the voices and the sounds are happening right there in the room, not coming from the recording. The English supertitles keep the story accessible to non-Spanish speakers, so the whole thing works as a bilingual experience.

Yamel Cucuy itself has a bit of a pedigree: it won 12 B. Iden Payne Awards and is set to tour nationally to Chicago and Los Angeles. This particular presentation puts the live reading and the filmed recording side by side, and it's Glass Half Full Theatre bringing it to Austin.

The show runs from 7 to 9 PM at the Ragsdale Center, in the Jones Auditorium at 3001 S. Congress, on the St. Edward's University campus. Admission is free, though donations are encouraged.