Sofia Zaragoza
Storyteller │ Artist │ Activist
Current and Recent Projects
Amal y Suenos
5 NOVEMBER 2023
Imagine Brave Spaces &
Walk with Amal
Co-Directed by Catherine Hanna-Schrock and Sofia Zaraoza
Little Amal, the beloved 12-foot puppet has been walking across the country to raise awareness about the global refugee crisis and now she’s coming to San Diego! Learn more about her story at www.walkwithamal.org.
Join us for a special free event—Amal & Sueños, ”Hopes” in Arabic and “Dreams” in Spanish—led by artists and organizations who identify with Amal’s story of displacement. Developed by Imagine in partnership with the Chicano Park Steering Committee, Common Ground Voices/La Frontera, Majdal Center, and Monarch School, this immersive, multicultural performance event will bring Amal through a dream world—manifesting her hopes and dreams, as well as those of children of all ages. Over the course of an hour, audiences will encounter short pop-up performances throughout Chicano Park representing a montage of music, magic, and memories; a joyful experience of community connection and radical belonging.
Déjà Vu Kabaret by Alara Koroglu and Frederick Zennor
20- 22 JULY 2023
Off the Beat Productions &
East London Theatre Collective
Directed by Sofia Zaragoza
Déjà Vu Kabaret is an immersive protest musical chronicling the fight for environment justice as it escalates to a revolution for freedom.
“This is just the beginning, we will keep on fighting.”
Deep in the depths below the Nomad Park, a lonely performer prepares her act. Beneath the earth and amidst the soil, a late night cabaret show becomes both a haven and a battlefield as its cast of performers face off against a fascist government who will stop at nothing to silence their voices.
Déjà Vu Kabaret is based on a real story from Istanbul that began with environmental protests in 2013 that rapidly turned into a revolution in Turkish history — the Gezi Park Protests. Centred around a mounting pressure from the police and the governmental based news platforms spreading propaganda and censoring the protests, activists established a cabaret beneath the park where artists would perform to challenge the laws and policies being enacted. This led to immediate plans from the authorities to tear down the cabaret, and the tragic consequences for the performers and audience one June evening in 2013.
It’s a play that challenges where and when you can forget about your problems, the privilege associated with that choice and a call to audiences to feel freely, speak freely, and live freely.
Performed and created for the historic Red Lion, Leytonstone — this site-specific immersive protest musical takes place across five different rooms in order to take the audiences on a journey to unveil what really happened to these protesters on June 15th, 2013.
Strike! by Tracy Ryan
13 APRIL - 6 MAY 2023
Ardent Theatre & Southwark Playhouse
Directed by Kirsty Patrick Ward
Assistant Directed by Sofia Zaragoza
Dunne’s Stores, Dublin, July 1984
A South African grapefruit starts something that will take nearly three years to finish…
It’s a hot, hot summer and Frankie Goes to Hollywood are riding high in the charts. At Dunne’s Store, shop assistant Mary Manning refuses to ring up a grapefruit, sticking to her union instructions not to handle South African goods, in protest of the country’s apartheid policies. Mary is immediately suspended and it’s not long before she and eight other young women and one young man, all workers at Dunne’s, are out on strike. It’ll only last a few weeks…
Full of passion and humour, Strike! is the true story of the hardships and personal sacrifices, the friendships and camaraderie these extraordinary young people experienced as they stood up for what they believed in.
As their understanding of the suffering under apartheid in South Africa and the politics within their own Government deepened, they began a journey that would change their lives, and Ireland, forever.
The Phase by Morris and McGrady
The Vaults Festival and
Chromatic Creative
Directed by Sofia Zaragoza
It’s 2014, Gay marriage has just been legalised in the UK, and Rowan and their LGBTQ+ bandmates want to sing it from the rooftops. But their all-girl Catholic secondary school has other ideas. Disbanded and reprimanded, the group has a choice: do they bow down, retreat, and let the school rules divide them? Or, through all the angsty mess of adolescence, do they unite and fight back to make a change?
The Phase is a coming of age story, filled with catchy pop and pop-punk songs that you won’t be able to get out of your head! A hugely exciting piece of new British musical theatre written by two upcoming, award-winning writers Zoe Morris and Meg McGrady.
Bloody Influencers by Ena Begovic and Ben Mansbridge
Barons Court Theatre and
East London Theatre Collective
Brighton Fringe Festival
Directed by Sofia Zaragoza
Bloody Influencers is a one-woman, original comedy piece about the inner life of social media influencer, Daisy. Following the story of Daisy's rise into becoming Instagram famous, this play grapples with what it means to find happiness in the real world when our lives our intertwined with an online, digital world.
Organized Chaos by Pravin Wilkins
University of East London
Directed by Sofia Zaragoza
Organized Chaos explores how the Workers Rights and Labour Movements of 2020-22 can lead to tangible change within a community. In a moment where we are seeing extreme exploitation at the hands of our capitalistic society, Organized Chaos will juxtapose the fictional world of characters unionizing at a university with devised moments based on real stories of individuals fighting for workers rights. Organized Chaos will be a call to action for the audience to understand that these issues are currently being fought for in our local community, and that we must help uplift the stories of the current struggle.
New Newham Diamonds
East London Theatre Collective
Co-Directed by
Marianne Eilers and Sofia Zaragoza
Starring:
Alara Koroglu
Niya Nikolova
Sofia Zaragoza
Vishakha Khandelwal
New Newham Diamonds is a world premier devised production, aimed at criticizing the historic treatment of the land and female bodies in the London Borough of Newham, specifically Stratford. Created through a lens of ecofeminist dramaturgy, New Newham Diamonds was inspired by the South American ecofeminist quote, "ni las mujeres ni la tierra somos territorio de conquista" (translation: "neither women nor the earth are territory of conquest"). Set within a fictional beauty pageant, the contestants must compete against each other to win a brand-new house. Utilizing historic research on real stories found within the Newham Archives, New Newham Diamonds grapples with themes of women's rights, labour, gentrification, and the treatment of the land in Stratford. The audience is invited to get involved by helping to choose the winner of the competition, creating an immersive participatory performance which may have 3 different outcomes. New Newham Diamonds challenges audiences to think about if there are any winners when fighting for a home on a dead earth.