Nuevitas, 2025.- Among the proposals of Camagüey's community theater, few generate as much expectation this year as “Galápago y los cuenta cuentos (Galápago and the storytellers)”, by the Clara Narración company, from this municipality.
The staging, presented in April at the La Avellaneda House of Culture, was part of the national oral narration festival “Almacén de los cuentos” 2025 and has marked a milestone within the scenic expressions of the territory.
In the story, Abuela Jicotea (Grandmother Tortoise) is dying and needs her grandson Galápago to get three impossible things before dawn: a little piece of blue sky, a drop of dew and a flower that never dies. What follows is a journey of imagination, tenderness and search, where love is expressed in poetic acts.
The choice of this text by an oral storytelling company, and from a municipality such as Nuevitas, which has turned the art of storytelling into a tool of identity, further enhances its resonance. This stage version not only revives a classic, but reinterprets it from popular codes, in the direct voice of a community that narrates from its memory, its sensibility and its way of resisting through words.
It is precisely this power of community theater that promotes the V edition of the Provincial Amateur Theater Festival “Between Gestures and Words”, to be held from May 21 to 23, sponsored by the Provincial Center of Houses of Culture. The event recognizes the artistic and social value of art instructors and amateur actors who, from their territories, maintain a scene that is alive, authentic and deeply connected to its environment.
This edition is dedicated to Iraida Caridad Barrueca, for her life's work; to Arnaldo Alfonso Rosales, for his 40 years of dedication to theater; and to the 13th anniversary of the Pequeños Son project. The activities will be distributed among La Andariega space, the eJo project and the El Gallo Square.
The opening day will begin with the exhibition Historia de mis títeres, by Graciela Fuentes, at the eJo Project, and a theoretical meeting between instructors from Nuevitas, Florida, Camagüey, Minas and Jimaguayú.
The performances will be presented, according to their characteristics, in the mornings at Proyecto eJo, in the afternoons at La Andariega and in the evenings, starting at 7:00 p.m., at El Gallo Park.
“Each municipality comes as far as they can with its results,” said Elías Gomero, provincial theater methodologist, confirming the participation of groups from Guáimaro, Nuevitas, Minas and Florida.
The closing ceremony will take place on May 23 at 9:00 a.m., with the presentation of awards and a festive closing by the Matutino Loco of Tus Payasos Project.
