Azul Otra Vez [Blue, Revisited] by
Inspired by Rubén Darío’s poetry and short stories, Azul Otra Vez [Blue, Revisited] is a bilingual musical about the financial struggles of the artist, fatherhood, generational trauma and forgiveness. By way of a framework rooted in Latin American culture, the universal story explores how memory, nostalgia and imagination can reshape and archive cultural, familial and immigrant identity.
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Inspired by Rubén Darío’s poetry and short stories, Azul Otra Vez [Blue, Revisited] is a bilingual musical about the financial struggles of the artist, fatherhood, generational trauma and forgiveness. By way of a framework rooted in Latin American culture, the universal story explores how memory, nostalgia and imagination can reshape and archive cultural, familial and immigrant identity.
The first act, a collage of Darío’s short stories, is in Spanish and follows El Pájaro Azul [Blue Bird] -- a hungry and idealist poet in an imaginary historical realm (circa 1888), who leaves his home and Papá behind to journey towards a “new world.” His hopes of being a published poet are destroyed when he realizes that in this “new world,” he must not only face the obstacles of being an artist, but also those of being an immigrant. After discovering that his long-lost, now late girlfriend has given birth to a baby girl, he finds himself trapped in a menial job serving a wealthy art patron as an “entertainer” in order to bring his daughter to the “new world,” and fund both their lives.
The second act, which is in English and Spanish, is set in New York, both in 2001 and present-day. We meet Margarita, an eleven-year-old girl who is the daughter of a contemporary analog of El Pájaro Azul -- a Nicaraguan immigrant and failed poet named Garcín who works a menial desk job at a newspaper. Margarita obsessively reads her father’s copy of Azul, which inspires her to compose songs on her toy piano. When she witnesses her father attempting to commit suicide, we flashforward to Rita, Margarita’s grown self, who is desperately trying to come to terms with her past, forgive her hospitalized father, and find community. When she realizes that she must be the owner of her own narrative and lineage, she begins to see her father under a different light in her own artistic work.
The score strings together Latin American jazz with folklore, and combines lyrics from Darío’s poetry with original verses. A hybrid between heightened comedy, magic realism and naturalism, Azul Otra Vez is a spectacle in the legacy of the American book musical, as well as a psychological deep-dive into the immigrant father-daughter relationship.
The first act, a collage of Darío’s short stories, is in Spanish and follows El Pájaro Azul [Blue Bird] -- a hungry and idealist poet in an imaginary historical realm (circa 1888), who leaves his home and Papá behind to journey towards a “new world.” His hopes of being a published poet are destroyed when he realizes that in this “new world,” he must not only face the obstacles of being an artist, but also those of being an immigrant. After discovering that his long-lost, now late girlfriend has given birth to a baby girl, he finds himself trapped in a menial job serving a wealthy art patron as an “entertainer” in order to bring his daughter to the “new world,” and fund both their lives.
The second act, which is in English and Spanish, is set in New York, both in 2001 and present-day. We meet Margarita, an eleven-year-old girl who is the daughter of a contemporary analog of El Pájaro Azul -- a Nicaraguan immigrant and failed poet named Garcín who works a menial desk job at a newspaper. Margarita obsessively reads her father’s copy of Azul, which inspires her to compose songs on her toy piano. When she witnesses her father attempting to commit suicide, we flashforward to Rita, Margarita’s grown self, who is desperately trying to come to terms with her past, forgive her hospitalized father, and find community. When she realizes that she must be the owner of her own narrative and lineage, she begins to see her father under a different light in her own artistic work.
The score strings together Latin American jazz with folklore, and combines lyrics from Darío’s poetry with original verses. A hybrid between heightened comedy, magic realism and naturalism, Azul Otra Vez is a spectacle in the legacy of the American book musical, as well as a psychological deep-dive into the immigrant father-daughter relationship.