Hartwick College Theatre Arts Presents Tropicana’s ‘Milk of Amnesia’

The Hartwick College Theatre Arts Department presents Carmelita Tropicana and her one-woman show, “Milk of Amnesia,” directed by Ela Troyano, and sponsored by the Foreman Institute for the Creative and Performing Arts. The performance is Thursday, March 21 at 7:30 p.m. in Slade Theatre, Yager Hall, on the College campus.

“Milk of Amnesia” is a travelogue drawing on [Tropicana’s] personal experience, going back to Cuba for the first time. It acknowledges the difficulties facing new immigrants as they adapt to a country with a different language and culture. It tells of the immigrant’s constant balancing act of negotiating then and now, forgetting and remembering life “then” before they immigrated and life “now” in their adopted home.

The Chicago Tribune writes, “… while serious enough in the issues it raises about identity and ethnicity, [“Milk”] is a rollicking good time.”

Based in New York City, Tropicana (whose real name is Alina Troyano) has been active in the theatre and performance arts scene in the U.S., Europe and Latin America since the 1980s. She has received numerous awards and fellowships including the Guggenheim Fellowship (2017), Creative Capital Award (2016), Performance and Activism Award from the Women in Theatre Program/American Theatre in Higher Education (2015), and an Obie for Performance (1999).

Her recent theatre/performance works include several collaborations with Ela Troyano, including “Schwanze-Beast,” “Post Plastica,” and “Recycling Atlantis” (which was also created with Uzi Parnes). Tropicana also co-edited the book “Memories of the Revolution: The First Ten Years of the WOW Café” with Holly Hughes and Jill Dolan.

“Milk of Amnesia” was first presented in 1994 at Performance Space 122 in New York with help from the Joyce Mertz Gilmore Foundation and the Suitcase Fund, and Tropicana has been touring the work nationally and internationally since then.

Admission is free for Hartwick College students, $5 for Hartwick College faculty, staff, other students and seniors, and $10 for General Admission. For reservations or more information, please contact theatre@hartwick.edu or 607-431-4227.