Otherland Theatre Ensemble Brings ‘Forgive Us, Gustavito!’ to Baduwa’t Festival July 26–28

This is a press release from Dell’Arte International:

WHO:  Dell’Arte International present Otherland Ensemble

WHAT:  Forgive Us, Gustavito!

WHEN:   July 26–28, 2024   7:00pm

WHERE:  Dell’Arte, 131 H Street, Blue Lake, CA  95525
ENTRANCE:  Advance tickets $20 at dellarte.com

As part of a celebration of 50 years of creations, Dell’Arte International presents Otherland Theatre Ensemble’s FORGIVE US, GUSTAVITO! at the 2024 Baduwa’t Festival.

Inspired by bizarre true events, FORGIVE US, GUSTAVITO! is set in the backdrop of a horrific crime. Gustavito, the solitary hippo of the National Zoo, was found dead from fifteen stab wounds to the snout. Join his twin brother Detective Emilio Hippo, the devastating Elvira Spider Monkey, Toto the Gentleman Gorilla and a whole host of Zoo friends for a story that is equal parts classic noir and outrageous animal madness. In the shadowy underbelly of the zoo, we ask the question, “what does it mean to be complicit in a system you cannot identify?”

This show is the winner of Best of Fringe at the Charm City Fringe Festival.  FORGIVE US, GUSTAVITO! is an an outrageous animal noir. It will play three nights only at 7pm from July 26 to 28 at Dell’Arte’s Carlo Theater, 131 H Street, Blue Lake.

Advance tickets are recommended; you can purchase tickets individually or as part of a festival Patron Pass. Get them today at dellarte.com.

This show is funded in part by the Nancy LaFrenz Memorial Fund.

Praise for Forgive Us, Gustavito!

“For a play about a hippo, it’s pretty dark. Forgive Us, Gustavito! is bookended by the primal howling of a grieving animal, as the audience is enveloped in a blackout. This is not to say, however, that this production by Otherland Theatre Ensemble doesn’t have a profound sense of humor. Many audience members, including myself, seemed to have a bit of a permanent smile for the duration of the show, as even the more serious beats brought a sense of collective delight.” — Megan Wills, DC Metro Theatre Arts

“Forgive Us, Gustavito! marked the first production I’ve seen since 2020 that succeeded in being consistently, unabashedly funny – from snorts and chuckles to full-blown guffaws”

“Otherland cleverly re-envisions this saga as a noir thriller, and it’s this juxtaposition of entertaining genre tropes and tragic real-world influences that makes the piece so unexpectedly moving.”   —Maegan Bergeron-Clearwood, New England Theatre Geek

ABOUT OTHERLAND THEATRE ENSEMBLE

Otherland Theatre Ensemble is a physical theatre devising company. Through transformative embodiment of larger-than-life characters, we tell stories of outcasts and underdogs moved by universal struggles in outrageous worlds. Otherland Ensemble’s work is rooted in our ability to cherish the cultural differences of our individual members while simultaneously responding to global conversations that unite us.  Otherland IG: @otherlandensemble

Rebecca Finney is a physical theatre maker and somatic practitioner. She is honored to have served in ensemble and/or leadership roles in rural theater-of-place companies around the country, including: Bread and Puppet Theater, Dell’Arte International, and Roadside Theater. She currently serves as affiliated faculty in the Performing Arts at Emerson College and as a Physical Therapy student at North Shore Community College. She is a cat mom and loves the Blue Hills Nature Reservation just outside of Dorchester, MA, where she currently resides.

Lucius Robinson is a Princess Grace award-winning performer, director, writer, and teacher. He received his MFA from the Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theater and is currently based in Baltimore, where he is a grateful primary school teacher for the city. He is beyond delighted to have the opportunity to return to this story with these people.

Tushar Mathew is a theatre maker and teaching artist from the state of Kerala, India. Tushar’s teaching and creative pursuits often focuses on movement, physical embodiment, storytelling, and our relationship to the environment. His current preoccupations include re-framing narratives to center animal protagonists, dystopian worlds, an AI bot named Secret Hyena, and our relationships with our neighbors. Tushar is currently an Assistant Professor in the Performing Arts Department at Emerson College, Boston.

ABOUT THE BADUWA’T FESTIVAL

Formerly known as the Mad River Festival, the Baduwa’t Festival is a culmination of performing arts, music, celebration and connectivity, held on the ancestral lands of the Wiyot Tribe. In Soulatluk, the Wiyot language, Baduwa’t is the word for Mad River. The festival name change was approved by Wiyot leaders in Spring 2021 and Dell’Arte is honored to support the work of the Wiyot Tribe to revitalize the language by using the original name of the river for the festival name.

ABOUT DELL’ARTE INTERNATIONAL

The Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theatre is a unique institution in North America. Its training programs attract students from around the world, with more than 1,000 graduates from 41 countries since the formation of the school in 1975. As one of only a handful of professional ensemble-based theatres in the United States, Dell’Arte is internationally recognized for its work to push the boundaries of physical theatre, its actor-creator training programs, and for pioneering “theatre of place.”