To The Winners

To the Winners is a play that chronicles a young man's search for a long lost message he says was whispered to him on his birth day. In order to achieve his aim, the character invites the audience to follow him in this wondrous adventure. Everyone in the audience then is inevitably exposed to this young man's awakening of sexual and emotional awareness. Making use of mime, dance, accordion playing, background music and sound effects, the story unravels fantasy as well as historical perspective. Both character and audience travel from the claustrophobic closeness of a TV set to the magnitude of Neptune's oceans with their creatures and orishas, from the solitude of a cradle to the company of thousands of roaring students revolting in the late 6o's in the streets, from the space of a tiny living room to the imaginary depths of a fish bowl. At the end of the play, both the character and the audience finally arrive (from their shared journey) at the realization that the message was all along with them. The message is finally revealed and can hopefully be found in the heart of each single theatergoer who is sitting in the darkness of the theater.

Biography

Wilson Loria is a writer and performer. Before leaving Brazil in 1986, Loria worked with the Grupo Teatro-Circo Alegria dos Pobres on the outskirts of São Paulo from 1975 to 1983. Some of his monologues have been presented at various theatrical venues in the U.S. such as Teatro Pregones, the Venezuelan Consulate, Dixon Place in New York and at the University of San Francisco, CA. Loria received his Master's Degree in Performance Studies from NYU in 2001. He also works for the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Studies at NYU. As assistant director, Loria has worked with Brazilian performer Denise Stoklos in two her plays: Dissonant Voices and Louise Bourgeois, I do, I Undo, I Redo at La MaMa. To The Winners had its world premiere in São Paulo in March of 2003, and it has also been presented in Miami, Curitiba and New York City.