The Talavera company Paraskenia Teatro has been one of the groups selected in the contest phase of the XVI National Contest of Amateur Theater of Argamasilla de Alba ‘Journey to Parnassus’. The play ‘Maison Close’ by the Talaveran company won the third national theater prize for best play, a special audience award, the prize for best male performance for Roberto Jifer from Talaveran, and also the Regional Prize for Best Company of Castilla la Mancha, prize ‘The place of La Mancha’.
Prado Amor and Roberto Jifer, members and founders of Paraskenia Teatro, have been very satisfied with this award: «It comes at a very special moment for Paraskenia, since we are celebrating 10 years, and one of our main objectives has been to be prophets in our land, and with this award, we put the finishing touch to our first 10 years». Amor and Jifer are already preparing the next autumn tour, which already has fixed destinations such as Alicante, Valencia or Madrid, after increasing their list of awards on their 2022 summer tour.
The prizes were awarded last Saturday at the Casa de Medrano in Argamasilla de Alba and the contest had been held last Saturday in July, organized by the town council and First Act Theater Company, with the collaboration of the Diputación of Ciudad Real, Bodegas Verum, Globalcaja and Reale Seguros.
The jury of the contest, after the corresponding deliberations, agreed to grant, as has already been indicated, the First Prize of the contest to the company De Sur a Sur Teatro de Sevilla for the staging of ‘The bald singer’ by Eugéne Ionesco; the Second Prize went to the Druida Teatro de Alcobendas company (Madrid) for the play ‘Senectute’ by Manuel Pérez; while the Third Prize went to Paraskenia Teatro de Talavera de la Reina (Toledo) for the play ‘Maison Close’, which also won the Regional Prize “El lugar de La Mancha” for the best play by a group belonging to the Regional Federation of Amateur Theater of Castilla-La Mancha, and also the desired, by all groups, Audience Award.
On an individual level, the “José María Arcos” Award for Best Direction, endowed with a trophy and a wine collection case from Bodegas Verum, went to Jorge Cuadrelli from the Compañía De Sur a Sur for the work ‘La singer calva’; the Best Female Performance Award went to Beatriz Sanromán, for her role as Mrs. Smith in the play ‘The Calva Singer’; while the Best Male Performance went to Roberto Jifer from the Paraskenia Teatro company, for his performance of “Totó” in the play “Maison Close”.
The Councilor for Culture of Argamasilla de Alba, José Antonio Navarro, congratulated all the winners, participants in the final phase and those who have participated in the contest «because thanks to all of them the amateur theater in Castilla-La Mancha becomes bigger and throughout the national territory”, and thanked the sponsors for their commitment to culture and especially Primer Acto Teatro for maintaining and promoting the event for sixteen years, “if they continue like this, with the love they have for amateur theater and putting more desire and enthusiasm every year, we are going to have many more years of Journey to Parnassus, “according to the consistory.
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