El Club de los Caballeros
A musical created and played by teenagers, making society aware of gender-based violence
Expressing through art a big issue in society
“I will create a musical on gender-based violence”
It was a cold day of January 2022 when Lara told her parents “I have to do something. We, the society, have to realize and address that this is a problem”.
A few days later, she was starting to create the play “El Club de los Caballeros”, together with “Las Ophelias” production company, a tool from where to design and produce musicals aiming to help make the world a better place, starting with Uruguay and with the vision to expand the reach further, by having teams embracing the concept around the region, adapting to the local needs and doing plays too.
The research and writing process
As a starting point for “El Club de los Caballeros”, Lara began doing a lot of research so that they would be sure that the play would be built on solid data. She started gathering all possible information about the topic, including statistics and even read psychological books to learn as much as posible about it. Understanding the different types of violence was crucial to build a solid play.
Building up the team and cast
It has always been clear to her that the power of a team is what really matters when building something. This is why Lara’s first task, now that the idea was alive, was to build a solid team with high convictions about the cause as well as passionate about theatre.
Berman started by reaching out to some friends, where she found a few that immediately joined the team to help write the play, co-direct, take acting roles, and more. They also held auditions to recruit more cast members and eded up with a great and solid crew of 18 brave cast members, including actors, singers and dancers, all between the age of 14 and 17 years old.
Learning more: United Nations
In the “El Club de los Caballeros” it was key for everyone in the cast to be able to fully understand the issue of gender-based violence, so to be able to accurately perform it.
For that, Berman connected with United Nations representatives in Uruguay and managed to get some high-level people to come to a rehearsal to share with us more information about gender-based violence in our country, Latin America and around the world. This talk proved to be very important, lifting motivation and conviction to an ever higher level with everyone envolved.
Stefan Liller, Head of United Nations Development Program in Uruguay (LinkedIn)
Let the show begin!
Opening night was a full house and the show ran as planned, with everyone shining. It was almost an hour of pure adrenaline and applause for the full cast.
The initial two shows ran at max capacity so, as a team, they decided to run a third show in which we had the honor of having among the audience….friends, family, strangers, and also the….
- National Director of Culture of the Uruguayan Government
- Director of the National Institute of Scenic Arts of Uruguay
- USA Ambassador in Uruguay …and many many more.
The experts critics…!
Among the audience, we were honored by having remarkable professionals in the art of scenic arts, who expressed their views on the play after it.
Here, the experts critics about the play...
National TV coverage
Committed with the objective of surfacing the gender-based violence topic, so to try to build consciousness around it, the play managed to reach out to thousands around the country, not only touching the people that attended the show, but also those who were exposed to the message in national media.
During the days of the play, a national TV channel invited them to come to one of their most popular live shows. In this half hour interview, they talked about the play, the mission, and their thoughts about gender-based violence.
In addition to it, one of the largest national radio station also dedicated almost an hour of a mainstream show to talk with them about the play and their mission.
All proceeds donated to do further good in society
With the primary focus of doing good in society, they were (and are) committed since day one to donate all proceeds of the play to non-profit organizations. “Nunca Mas a Mi Lado”, supported by the United Nations, was their non-profit choice to donate all proceeds, given their work and full alignment with the mission.
With our donation, the non-profit built several “actions” within Uruguay to further foster the fight against gender violence.
