DE NOVO
Penn Law Fitts Auditorium
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Event Description
The Penn Law Immigrant Rights Project, in cooperation with LALSA, IRAP, JLSA, ILOHR, EELSA, LAGAPSA, GAPSA, SWAIR, WHALASA, LMSA, and the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, will host the Houses on the Moon Theater Company at Penn Law to present “DE NOVO – Part 1: Lil’ Silent” on March 28, 2013. In 2002, a fourteen year-old boy named Edgar Chocoy fled Guatemala to escape the largest gang in Central America, which had put a hit out on his life. He traveled over 3,000 miles, and across the borders of three countries in search for his mother, who had left him when he was baby to work in the United States. Detained by the Department of Homeland Security, he pleaded with a Colorado judge to grant him asylum and not deport him to Guatemala, where he was certain he would be killed.
This new play from Houses on the Moon Theater Company chronicles the gripping true story of Edgar and other undocumented youth, many thousands of whom make the harrowing journey across the border and through the U.S. system of justice each year. “DE NOVO – Part 1: Lil’ Silent” is a documentary theater piece crafted entirely from immigration court transcripts, letters, and extensive interviews conducted by the company with so-called “alien” children (and their advocates) in immigration proceedings in New York, Arizona, Colorado and Los Angeles.
The play is augmented with the projection of startling and poignant images from Donna Decesare, an award-winning photojournalist widely known for her groundbreaking coverage of the spread of Los Angeles gangs in Central America. Performed by bilingual actors in English and partly in Spanish.
In addition to the above play, we will be hosting a "talkback" with actors and community advocates following the performance that touches on the some of the core themes of the theater piece. For more information about the show and the theater company, visit: http://www.housesonthemoon.org/
This program has been approved for 2.0 hours of substantive law credit for Pennsylvania lawyers. CLE credit may be available in other jurisdictions as well. Attendees seeking CLE credits should bring separate payment in the amount of $25.00 - cash - or check payable to "The Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania".
