“Looking For América” – August 2021

AV/Projection Design for Once Off Productions’ production of Federico Julian Gonzalez & Janet Moran’s ‘Looking For América’. Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Assembly Festival. August 2021.

ClientOnce Off Productions / Mermaid Arts CentreServicesAV/Projection DesignerYearAugust 2021Linkassemblyfestival.com

‘Looking For América’
Once Off Productions
Edinburgh Festival Fringe
Assembly Rooms

Once Off Productions in association with Mermaid Arts Centre
with support from Culture Ireland

Federico Julian Gonzalez & Janet Moran, written by
Federico Julian Gonzalez, performer
Janet Moran, director
Colin Doran, lighting designer
Mark Jackson, sound designer
Kevin Michael Reed, AV/Projection Design
Ian Whelan, cinematography
John Hyland, cinematography
Ian Whelan, editor
Mark Jackson, stage manager
Veronica Foo, production manager
Susannah Cummin, LX crew
Grace Donnery, LX crew
Once Off Productions, produced by
Cally Shine, line producer

Recorded live at Mermaid Arts Centre.
Released Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Assembly Rooms On-Demand.

In 2019, Fede and his mother, went on a quest to look for América. Shared memories and conflicting recollections led them through their past in a city that had taken them in more than 30 years before, when following his Father’s arrest, Fede and his family were forced to flee the Salvadoran civil war. A story of two journeys. The journey of that night in Havana looking for an ex-Guerilla fighter and the journey of escaping the catastrophe in Fede’s country decades before. Sometimes the idea of home has to be remade. And remade. And remade.

✰✰✰✰ Broadway World

✰✰✰✰ The Scotsman

“Vibrant music and images envelop us with atmosphere and a taste of another culture” – Jo Tomalin, Fringe Review

“A large background screen adds location and context effectively with the ocean’s ripples, maps of cities and people from his past. Supported by a creative team (Music: Sound Design by Mark Jackson, Lighting Design by Colin Doran, AV Design by Kevin Michael Reed and Cinematography by Ian Wheelan and John Hylan) the stage comes alive, especially in between chapters when González moves to the rhythmic beat, always with his suitcase in hand!” – Jo Tomalin, Fringe Review

“The piece is split into chapters  which are interspersed with some nifty Latin American dance moves against a backdrop of context giving slides.” – John Chapman, 2nd from Bottom.

“Gonzalez is not an actor but that gives immediacy to a story told in six chapters which comes flecked with evocative old film and photographs as he sets out on a journey looking for the past.” – Lyn Gardner, Stage Door.

Looking for America brings person and political history alive and illuminates it as if watching the afterflash of an extinguished firework.” – Lyn Gardner, Stage Door.

“illustrated with wonderful, haunting old film and images of his parents, his family, his disrupted childhood. At one point, Gonzalez describes himself, as a child, watching images of refugees on Cuban television, and suddenly realising that he himself, and his family, are political refugees.” – Joyce McMillan, The Scotsman.

“There are old film clips and political history peppered throughout the show but Looking for América is very much a personal account of one particular families story” – Natalie O’Donoghue, Broadway World

Production Photos

Privacy Preference Center

Mastodon