About Lydia

• Remembering Chris Webb: 1973-2008
• A Note from The artistic director
• Border Play
• Close my eyes and you're there:
  A Poem by Octavio Solis
• LOTERÍA: La Vida Cecilia
• Slanglish Glossary
• Mining Memory: An Interview with Octavio Solis and Juliette Carrillo

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Remembering Chris Webb: 1973-2008

 

When Chris called me on September 3, 2008 to tell me he had some really bad news, I braced myself. He can’t do Lydia, I thought. What am I going to do? But the news was worse than anything I could have ever imagined. He had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Although he was committed to staying on the project, he passed away before our first rehearsal at Yale Rep. Needless to say, we were all completely devastated.

Chris was one of those rare composers that loved telling a good story. It was an honor to watch his process, how he molded and shaped and caressed a piece of music so that it fit just perfectly with the instruments of the actors, with the rhythms of my staging, and with the tone of the play. Chris’s music created a kind of dance between the physical world and the emotional and spiritual world. And he did it beautifully because he was an exquisite listener. True collaboration is in the listening, and Chris was a master at it.

I had the privilege of collaborating with Chris for over ten years. He was my artistic partner and a great friend. His body is gone, but his music lives on, pushing our work forward just as he would have wanted it. Thank you, Chris, for your extraordinary gift.

Juliette Carrillo
Director