Theater & Dance


Theater & Dance


Edited by Virginia Gil timeout.com/miami/theater @virginwrites


Short and sweet


Microtheater’s shrunken plays offer


large-scale innovation in a small-scale format. By John Thomason


IMAGINE SEEING A play in a pitch-black room where you, as a spectator, provide the lighting with a flashlight that’s handed to you upon entry. Or envision an intimate spin on theater-in-the-round in which an audience of just 15 people encircles the set—a full-size raft carrying actors playing Cuban immigrants—while sitting close enough to participate. Now picture a show in which playgoers are given masks, soon to become voyeurs to a story involving bondage, a cage and a secret door. These are three of the countless


productions staged by Microtheater Miami, the five-year-old theatrical concept located in the courtyard of downtown Miami’s Centro Cultural Español (Spanish Cultural Center), which founded the initiative. The criteria for its particular kind of short-form theater are very specific: Each 15-minute play must be performed five to seven times a night inside seven air-conditioned, 160-square-foot shipping containers with an audience capacity of 15. Some shows are musicals, others are improvised, and many are comedies—but all are creative, witty and boundary-pushing. Admission is $5 per play, and performances range from mainstream prime-time presentations to sometimes risqué late-night productions.


BOOK! Time Out Miami May 18–August 16, 2017 46 Unlike some theater companies,


Microtheater doesn’t take a summer breather: Just days after one five-week program ends, another series of plays commences. It may still be the best-kept secret in Miami’s theater scene. “Once people find out about it, they’re


thrilled,” says Microtheater Miami coordinator Marlen Muñoz. “Why? Because you’re getting entertainment that’s accessible. We get soap opera stars and talent you can see on TV commercials and other bigger plays. But they’re here in this very small format, where they’re basically sweating on you.” Microtheater has


become a global brand with a largely Spanish-language focus. Its inception dates to Madrid circa 2009, when an enterprising theater company transformed a former bordello into a spate of ministages. Jorge Monje, one of its members, brought the concept


to Miami in 2012, obtaining a $100,000 Knight Foundation grant to purchase the durable shipping containers. From the beginning, Microtheater began integrating English-language shorts, and today, the programming is split. “Now you have Spanish-only speakers going to the English shows; you have English-only speakers going into the Spanish shows,” says Vanessa Elise, who has followed Microtheater’s evolution from Day One. She has written, directed and acted in Microtheater shorts; she’s even worked the box office and concession stand. “It has an amazing energy. It promotes


Cristina Redoli and Veronica Rocco in La Breve Historia de Ramona Pineda


Score the best seats at timeout.com/miami/theater.


PHOTOGRAPHS: SARA CORIAT


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