Cuenca is often called the cultural capital of Ecuador. Symphony is always free, and there are multiple free music venues every week.  Tonight saw the inauguration of a new theater group in town — The Azuay Community Theater, with their Festival of One-Act Plays (yes, I know the Spanish says ‘comedy’, but their English title did not). This is a mostly-gringo community theater group, who opened with a set of four plays, all in English.  They asked for a $5 donation, and were sold out.  Fortunately, Evelyn had the foresight to make reservations, or we would not have gotten in. 

Though this was clearly “community theater,” and not the Broadway level of productions we usually watched in California, the stories were interesting, the cast was enthusiastic, and I spent much of the evening in stitches.  In particular, the second play (“Car Talk“) included Laura Inks who played the part of cars from BMW (“stroke me, feel me, see how my leather makes you feel“), Prius (“we can save the world together“), and half a dozen other makes had me guffawing through the entire skit. In addition to performing tonight, Laura is the co-founder of Fishbon del Sur here in Cuenca, after having created a similar program in Santa Barbara (www.FISHBON.org). She also provided the space for the Azuay Community Theater to perform.

Estafania Ortiz played “The Woman” in the first play (Gnash, Gnash).  She was the only Cuencanan actor, and is also the daughter of Evelyn’s Spanish teacher — which led to another Spanish phrase being taught in Evelyn’s Spanish lesson the next day — “Es un mundo pequeño” (It’s a small world).