by Antonio Mejías-Rentas
Pancho Rodríguez and Tennessee Williams (photo from the Estate of Johny Rodrigue)
RANCHO ‘ON’ STAGE: A new play about the little-known relationship between Tennessee Williams and a Mexican-American lover will be performed this month at a prestigious festival dedicated to the late American playwright.
Written by journalist and playwright Gregg Barrios, Rancho Pancho had its world premiere Sept. 6 at the Jump-Start Theater of San Antonio, Texas. The play tells of the tumultuous, two-year relationship, 1946 to 1947, between Williams and Pancho Rodríguez, the Eagle Pass, Texas born man said to have inspired the Stanley Kowalski character in William’s Pulitzer-Prize winning A Streetcar Named Desire.
The play is based ons near 10-year investigation by Barrios, who had access to letters exchanged by the two men and who interviewed the family of Rodríguez, who died in 1993.
Rancho Pancho takes its title from the name Williams used for the various homes he shared with Rodríguez and will be performed Sept. 27 and 28 at the Province town (Massachusetts) Tennessee Williams Theater Festival. It will be the fi rst time a play not written by Williams is performed in the prestigious event.
VOICE OF SNOOPY: Bill Meléndez, the animator and cartoonist who produced all of the Peanuts TV specials died Sept. 2 in Santa Monica, California. He was 91.
Bill Meléndez
Born José Cuauhtemoc Meléndez in Hermosillo, Mexico, he at~ tended the California Institute of the Arts in Los Angeles and worked as a Disney and Warner Bros. animator. In 1959 he worked on a Peanuts commercial and befriended the strip’s creator Charles M. Schulz. He went on to form his own company, Bill Meléndez Productions, and created the 1965 Emmy and Peabody winning TV special A Charlie Brown Christmas.
Meléndez also voiced the Snoopy and Woodstock characters on several Peanuts specials; his company also animated the Cathie and Garfi eld strips.
“CHE’ OPENS: The first of two fi lms about the Argentine hero of the Cuban Revolution from the Oscar-winning team of director Steven Soderbergh and actor Benicio del Toro had its commercial premiere in Spain last week.
Puerto Rican actor del Toro plays Ernesto Guevara in Che, el argentino and in Guerrillero. Both films by director Soderbergh screened as one title at the Cannes Film Festival in May. Che, el argentino was met with lukewarm reviews in Spain, the only country where the Spanish-language films have secured distribution. Guerrillero is expected to open later this year.
ONE LINERS: director Patricia Riggen (La misma luna) and playwright, composer and actor Lin-Manuel Miranda (In the Heights) will be feted Sept. 9 at the National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts’12th annual Noche de Gala dinner in Washington, D.C….and nominees for the 9th annual Latin Grammy Awards are to be announced Sept. 10 in Los Angeles… Hispanic Link.
