In the final public lecture of the series, author Isabel Allende will be in conversation with Caridad Svich, theater-maker and playwright, about The House of the Spirits in its may iterations: novel, play, and the upcoming staged performance by the Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies, directed by Michael Moran at UC Berkeley's Zellerbach Playhouse. Michael Moran will moderate.

Celebrated Chilean author Isabel Allende won worldwide acclaim with her first novel, The House of the Spirits, published in 1982. In addition to launching Allende’s career as a renowned author, the book, which grew out of a farewell letter to her dying grandfather, also established her as a feminist force in Latin America’s male-dominated literary world. She has since written twenty-two more works; her latest is The Japanese Lover. She is also the author of a trilogy for young readers and books of nonfiction including Aphrodite, a humorous collection of recipes and essays, and three memoirs.

Caridad Svich received the 2011 American Theatre Critics Association Primus Prize for her play The House of the Spirits, based on Isabel Allende’s novel. Among her many other awards and accolades are the 2012 Obie Award for Lifetime Achievement, a 2018 Tanne Foundation Award, and a 2018 Ellen Stewart Career Achievement in Professional and Academic Theatre Award.

Michael Socrates Moran is Founder & Executive Director of Ubuntu Theater Project, based in Oakland, where he has directed over 20 productions. Favorite directing credits include: West Coast Premiere of TO THE BONE by Lisa Ramirez, West Coast Premiere of Dance of the Holy Ghosts by Marcus Gardley, World Premiere of Rashomon by Philip Kan Gotanda, World Premiere of Pool of Unknown Wonders by Philip Kan Gotanda, Grapes of Wrath, Death of a Salesman, Othello and Hamlet . He has a BFA with a focus in acting from Boston University, an MFA in directing from the University of California, San Diego and is the recipient of the San Francisco Bay Area Theater Critics Circle Award for Best Director in the East Bay.

Course Description: Co-taught by Peter Glazer and Stan Lai, this series will explore the specific and metaphoric connections amongst Creative action - adapting Stan Lai's concepts and training - and the possibility of personal, cultural, and social transformation. How do we understand movement, migration, and change both metaphorically and literally? How do artists working in literature, visual art, film, performance, and design explore and enact transformation? Aside from featuring insight into the works and creative methods of Asia's Stan Lai, the series will also delve into current trends in Latino-American/Latino arts, as well as European and African art and performance. Arts + Design Thursdays is made possible thanks to support from the Big Ideas Courses Program in the College of Letters & Science at UC Berkeley and from generous supporters of Berkeley Arts + Design. For more information, visit artsdesign.berkeley.edu/thursdays.