Summer Course 1

I have always taken pride in my father, Adolfo's decision, thirty years ago, to establish a center for classical theatre in Almagro. Nurtured by the enthusiasm of his successors, the center has blossomed over the years into an eminent international festival. This past year, as part of my work as the founding Director of the Marsillach Acting Academy in Madrid, I traveled to the U.S. to attend a series of courses and lectures at the Yale School of Drama. I was very surprised to find how few English-speaking scholars and theatre enthusiasts, even at this prestigious institution with world-wide connections, had heard of our festival. Later that summer I traveled to Fuencaliente, the small town near Almagro that has grown up around the festival. Fuencaliente is an experience unto itself, a mountain setting so remote that its early defenders never bothered to build fortifications. The nearby Almagro Theatre is and has been a retreat for lovers of Spanish and theatre for over thirty years. So it was a very natural calculus that led me to ask myself if the time was ripe for my efforts at the Academy and the fruits of my father's earlier decision to finally come together. Why not craft an experience for American and English-speaking educators here at Almagro that would be as rich and illuminating as the time I spent at Yale?

Language is so much more than syntax and grammar and nothing succeeds quite like theatre at bringing life and immediacy into classrooms of students struggling with something that can, at first, seem so unwieldy. Since its inception, our mission at the Marsillach Acting Academy has been to harness the power of drama to the teaching of language. This has been a year of great growth for us. The success of our methods has brought our work to the attention of the teaching community in Madrid and we are now sharing these methods with hundreds of teachers throughout the region. But summer is a time for refreshment and returning to sources.

I am happy to announce that starting in the summer of 2007, together with scholar and playwright Anne Garcia Romero, my generous colleagues at El Festival Internacional de Teatro Clásico de Almagro and our gracious hotelier Antonio, we will be offering a three week long summer intensive program in theatre and language that we feel will be of singular interest to those who believe, as we do, that language and communication are humanity's first principals and nothing illuminates those principals quite so powerfully as great theatre. A good meal comes a close second and a good night's rest makes the unattainable possible so we've provided for those as well. As you read further, I think you will agree we have brought together the elements for a memorable summer. Hope to see you there.

Cordially,

Cristina Marsillach