 In 2006, a group of students from Stetson
University were led by their theatre professor and his wife on a journey
to encounter, explore, and respond to two international theatre
festivals: the XXI Festival Internacional de Teatro Hispano (21st
International Hispanic Theatre Festival) in Miami, Florida, June 2006;
and the XXXIV Festival Internacional Cervantino (34th International
Cervantes Festival) in Guanajuato, Mexico, October 2006. These pages are
an abbreviated record of their responses to that experience.
This travel/study program was performed under the auspices of the
Latin American Studies Mentored Field Experience at Stetson University
in DeLand, Florida. Instituted in 1996 and occurring
annually ever since, the purpose of the Mentored Field Experience is administered by
Stetson University’s Latin American Studies program is for one or two
professors in a given academic discipline to mentor a small group of
student scholars who travel abroad in order to experience first-hand
developments in that discipline in the context of another Latin American
country and/or culture.
This year's theatre project yielded in-depth reviews from
8 theatre productions, not
merely from Miami and Mexico, but also from Colombia, Spain, Paraguay,
Russia, and the United Kingdom. The plays ranged from new or original
scripts to adaptations or spinoffs of classic plays to faithful
renditions of the classics, and included texts by Shakespeare, Goethe,
García Lorca, and Cervantes, among others.
In addition to the main purpose of the project, the group also explored
other opportunities to experience Latin American culture in the area of
travel; these activities included visiting a pre-Colombian archaelogical
site and a tequila factory tour.
The participants in this year’s MFE and co-authors of these pages are:
- Rebecca Barnett, Music major (Guitar)
- Eileen Betancourth, Theatre Arts, Spanish, and Psychology major
- Rob Esparza, Theatre Arts major
- Leah Floyd, English major
- Elise Holt, Theatre Arts major
- Cathleen Plazas, Theatre Arts and Psychology major
- Dr. Ken McCoy, Assoc. Professor and Chair, Communication Studies and
Theatre Arts, and his wife
Michele, an elementary school teacher in
Volusia County, Florida
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