Oak Park writer finds inspiration in Guatemala's black-market baby industry Ventura County Star

Cynthia Lewis Ferrell and Melanie Emelio, Rosetta Stone Languages music director, go over a few notes during the rehearsal.CALIFORNIA INTERNATIONAL THEATRE FESTIVALWhat: The third annual, 10-day festival will feature plays, concerts and more in Ventura, Calabasas and downtown Los Angeles, including El Canguro, an opera written by Oak Park resident Cynthia Lewis Ferrell.When: Thursday through Sept. 18.Where: In Ventura at the Museum of Ventura County, 100 E. Main St.; in Calabasas at the Calabasas Civic Center, 100 Civic Center Way; and in L.A. at Los Angeles Theatre Center, 514 Spring St., and AT&T Center Theater, 1150 S. Olive St.El Canguro: The world premiere of this opera written by Ferrell and composed by Peter Michael von der Nahmer will begin at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 10 in L.A. at AT&T Center Theater; PEN award winner Donald Freed will give a pre-opera talk at 7 p.m. Tickets are $25 general admission, $20 students.Tickets to most events: Single tickets are $30 general admission, $25 seniors, $17 students. Six-show passport is $135 general admission, $75 students. Three-show passport is $75 general admission, $43 students. Group rates available.Information: citfestival.org or 888-712-CITF (2483).-----------------------Actress Megan Gillespie is struck by Kellaway during a combat scene. Violence is part of the child-trafficking trade in Guatemala. Ants and kangaroos are a tangle of humanity in an opera written by a woman from Oak Park.Cynthia Lewis Ferrell encountered — and was transformed by — both "species" in Guatemala.While traveling there in 2007, the "kangaroos" she heard so much about were not the pouched marsupials native to Australia, but rather "canguros," or "kangaroo mothers," a term used to describe impoverished Guatemalan women who breed and sell their babies to American couples who can't have children of their own; "canguro" also means "baby sitter" in Spanish. The babies are sold for as much as $50,000. After intermediaries take their share, the birth mothers end up with about $800 to $1,000 — to them, a fortune.Ferrell also was mesmerized by Guatemala's leaf-cutter ants, destructive insects Rosetta Stone V3 that can tear apart a tree in one day, cutting off all its leaves and carrying the green bits back to their colony to grow a fungus that feeds the ants' larvae. The ants return, again and again, to the same tree, denuding but never totally destroying it.The title of Ferrell's opera is "El Canguro" (The Kangaroo), and leaf-cutter ants "are symbolic in it," she said."It just makes for opera," she continued, referring to the ants, trees, moms, babies, corruption, violence, infertility, patriarchal power and everything else in the opera. "It's so dramatic, pulled straight from your heart. And as much as you can talk about international politics, it's just people."CULTURE SLAM"El Canguro," which despite its title is sung all in English, will have its world premiere Sept. 10 in Los Angeles as part of the third annual California International Theatre Festival. For the past two years, the festival was centered in Calabasas but this year will expand into Ventura and Los Angeles. The 10-day event opens in Los Angeles on Thursday, moves to Ventura Sept. 13-15 with performances at the a.inline_topic:hover Museum of Ventura County, and ends in Calabasas on Sept. 16-18.Although many of the plays, concerts and other performances will travel to each city, "El Canguro" will be staged in L.A. only, at KUSC's AT&T Center Theater.The festival will include performers and works from Armenia, Canada, France, Germany, Iceland, Japan, Scotland, Ukraine, the U.S. and, of course, Guatemala.Actually, the origins of "El Canguro" are listed as the odd trio of "USA/Guatemala/Germany." The opera's composer, Peter Michael von der Nahmer, is from Germany. Joe Peracchio, a CITF co-founder and this year's festival director, said "El Canguro" is a "multicultural opera that hits on all that the festival is meant to do: It slams cultures together, and makes them get to know each other. Rosetta Stone Spanish We're about building bridges, expanding what cultures are and what they mean."He cited as another example one of the productions that will be in Ventura, "?Gaytino!" "You have big Latino and gay populations up there," said Peracchio, who lives in Los Angeles. "?Gaytino!" "embodies what the festival is about — although it's international, Rosetta Stone Languages it's intercultural too."FESTIVAL SCHEDULEVisit the website for a complete lineup. The first shows will be in L.A., Thursday through Sept. 11. Listed below is the schedule for Ventura (Sept. 13-15) and Calabasas (Sept. 16-18).