Gardel’s Tango tells the story of the short life of composer, singer, musical innovator and international film star Carlos Gardel (1890-1935). Gardel is best remembered as the man who embraced the traditional Argentine musical form, the tango, and modernized and popularized it, making worldwide phenomena of the dance, the music and himself.
Gardel was born out of wedlock in France, but brought to Argentina as an infant and raised in Buenos Aires, achieving full Argentine citizenship in 1923.
Gardel’s Tango depicts Gardel’s invention of the modern tango, and features the real people who most impacted his life: his lyricist Alfredo Le Pera, revealed here to be a closeted gay man; his early musical partner Jose Razzano, a.k.a. The Maestro, a mentor to Gardel who is later overshadowed by his protégé; his mother Berthe; and his long-lasting romantic partner Isabel del Valle, with whom he maintained a relationship despite his devoted womanizing.
Over 80 years after his demise, he is loved and appreciated by fans the world over. A bronze statue of him stands in his old Buenos Aires neighborhood. A. U.S. postage stamp with his likeness was issued in 2011.
The cast of Gardel’s Tango includes, in alphabetical order: Mantha Balourdou, Hildy Brooks, Agustin Coppola, Anibal Silveyra, Saratoga Ballantine and Richard Lewis Warren.
Gardel’s Tango is written and directed by John R. Lacey. He is a writer member of the Dramatists Guild of America (DG), director member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC) and Vice-Chairman of the Theatrical Producers League of Los Angeles (TPLLA). He is also a dual member of The Actors Studio Playwrights/ Directors Unit, where Gardel’s Tango was developed (as well as Ensemble Studio Theatre, InterACT Theatre Company and Samuel French Hollywood Bookshop.) He is an alumnus of the Pasadena Playhouse’s Directors Lab West and the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute, UCLA Screenwriting, LACC Film school, Oxford University and graduate of Pepperdine University’s Masters Program. He has written sitcoms for Univision/Televisa in Mexico City and worked as an actor in TV and film in Argentina. He most recently directed Showdown at the Temple of Meat at Greenway Court Theatre, The Tango Singer at Theatre West, Suddenly Last Summer at Strasberg Theatre Institute, Executive Encounter at Casa de Espana, The Debt at the Latin-American Hebrew Society, and Magical Transformation at de la Cova Theatre in Buenos Aires. He has acted in Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge, Playmates, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The King and I, The Diary of Anne Frank at Strasberg Institute and Maurice Maeterlinck’s The Blue Bird at the Actors Studio directed by Anna & Lee Strasberg.
Gardel’s Tango, the story of the colorful life and loves of Carlos Gardel, will hold the interest of the fans of and the uninitiated to the tango alike.
Gardel’s Tango opens tonight at the Zephyr Theatre, 7456 Melrose Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90036 and runs November 25- December 18, 2016. Fri. & Sat. at 8:00, Sun. at 6:00.
Admission is $40.
Reservations can be made by calling (626) 381-9767.
Tickets can be purchased online at https://www.artful.ly/store/events/10033