SAG/AFTRA/EQUITY * Download Begonya's Resume -- IMDB * Contact: Tel: 310279-2981
QUANTUM'S BIG PICTURE is a fifteen minute prologue to a full-length solo-play in the works.
Scene I: Doctor Sal is late in arriving to her physics 101 class after a long night at the ER with a patient who had a Near-Death Experience. Finding that occurrence distinctly unusual, and worthy of further investigation, she shares it with her college students, spontaneously enacting her patient's graphically perceived descriptions. Suddenly the mystery of the nature of consciousness is laid-out on the table for an open exploration with relation to the laws of quantum physics. Astounded by the obvious alignments between quantum's spooky behavior and the strange mechanisms consciousness demonstrated during her patient's NDE, doctor Sal addresses each fundamental corresponding law with eager trepidation.
Written and performed by Begonya Plaza-Rosenbluth
Directed by Dana Jacks,
Equity Library Theatre Festival of Short Plays at New York Public Library
Videography by Beverly Batzel - August 26, 2023
For an early booking performance/workshop of QUANTUM'S BIG PICTURE
contact: [email protected] or (310) 279-2981
During these seismic shifting times, tech has encouraged quantum physics to work out its mysterious processes, persistently developing copious artificial intelligence functions for restructuring our new world with man-made machine beings, but all the while, classical orthodox science feels challenged to recognize that these same unfamiliar and counterintuitive potentialities are actually the prominent underlying foundation for all reality, the nexus of our existence, and our very consciousness.
Dr. Sal discovers the urgent impulse to imagine quantum physics as unlocking the door to our own inner most intelligent awareness. Suddenly she wonders: what if we don't embark on this path to self-knowing? We then won't keep pace, in lock step with the machine, and we won't transcend it. Technology's mind blowing advances which are already outdoing us, could probably overtake us, and eclipse our own conscious evolution. Was this NDE a fortunate happenstance? Dr. Sal senses a new understanding based on the laws of physics, and if applied to consciousness will it revolutionize life as we know it? Technology is forcing us to admit that we know very little, and yet readily make use of quantum's advantages for quantum computing purposes, and material gain, but what about our being benefitting? and our existence surviving and thriving? Or will we become ignorant slaves to the machine? Quantum could also be alerting us to reflect on it as the basis for consciousness, without having anything to do with religion, and all to do with the science of who we are, beyond the material realm.
Dr. Sal is now delving into deep waters that could rattle the status quo, while too excited to even notice. She explores with her students, because for her, it's all about the mathematical equations of proven set of theories succinctly explaining the phenomena of that Near Death Experience that she was unintentionally privy to.
According to the laws of physics, what you place your attention on is illumined, and becomes alive. So if I place my attention on my consciousness, will I illumine my essential nature, and realize my super-intelligent awareness? Will I realize that, I AM?
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GERNIKA LIVES
A documentary about the bombing of Gernika
Filmed on the 50th Anniversary of the bombing, in honor of my father.
In my early twenties I set aside my acting career to dedicate myself to a part of me. Maybe I needed to prove to my father something; compassion, recognition, gratitude, but mostly I wanted to learn some truths about what had happened, and why my father from age five was subjected to such extreme suffering.
The many voices, including my father's, taught me about that time period, and the quality of people inhabiting those mountainous lands in northern Spain, when my dad's life derailed into a battle to survive. To rebuild Gernika and Euskadi, everybody collaborated with hands, and feet. My father was barely six by the time he arrived to a demolished Gernika, motherless, and hungry. He remembers cleaning up the rubble, the scratch metal, and the pulverized materials, that his family used to patch up a shack by the river's edge.
Violence is a horrid, and unforgiveable act that produces trauma, and all kinds of ills, and yet what beautiful spirits also rise from its ashes.
How I love that I made this film, and that my life was enriched by it, and all the valiant humans I met, who so generously shared their stories of innocence, and horrific shock, while preserving infalible hope, and pride. I honor my family for suffering such enormous losses, and my grandparents whom I never met, but acknowledge and carry them in me. Through my father, his siblings and all his people who tenaciously fought to keep their culture, values and sensibilities alive, confronting the gruesomeness of greed, a profound meaning of invincibility lives on forever.
50th Anniversary of the Bombing of Gernika-Lumo (April 26, 1987 )
During dictator Francisco Franco's years, the survivors were forced into silence, until films like mine gave them a chance to express their side of the story.
Gernika Lives explains how bombs were unleashed on an innocent, and unsuspecting population on a Monday morning (market Day in Gernika), when all the surrounding towns and villages come to sell their produce and product from the sea, the land, and hand made crafts.
It was one of the first aerial bombings, after Harar in Ethiopia, Madrid, Durango, Barcelona, and Valencia, and before Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Dresden. The town of Gernika is the heart and soul of Euskal Herria (the Basque country in Northern Spain, and Southern France). It is where the historic parliament was established in 1366, and where under an oak tree all the territories of Euskal Herria assembled and created a democratic rule for a united people. Fascists targeted this area, and between Franco, Hitler and Mussolini became one more victim of their war of aggression. My film attempts to explain the reasons through asking many questions.
Personally, my experience as a 7 year old sitting on my daddy’s lap, and listening very attentively to his tragic stories, and seeing his eyes well-up with tears that streamed down his cheeks, impacted me more than I could imagine. So at 19, when the opportunity arose, though innexperienced in filmmaking except for my observations as an actor on sets, conversations with my filmmaker boyfriend, and discussions with other filmmaker friends, I ceased the moment and embarked on a wonderful creative journey; raising the funds, finding the backing, creating the story, researching the characters, and embracing all the information I could gather. For a year I submerged into making this film a reality, and learn so much through every aspect of the filmmaking process. For a month I sat at the editing bay with my expert friend, Emmy winning editor and learned from him to edit, and tell the story through visuals and sounds.
Basques are the indigenous people of Europe, it is said. They are the indiginous, auchthoctonous people of their fertile lands, mountains and waters, with their own language, government, and monetary system. They are rugged, industrious and straight forward. Loyalty is their badge of honor, and their word is gold.
Basques were prohibited from speaking their own language, and forbidden to blame their assailants until the death of Francisco Franco. Now, the basque language is back, and sovereignty is regained, to a certain point. But now, Basque embrace all who come with good intent, and because of their own experiences in their struggles for liberatin, are empathetic people.
After making this film, when I returned to the States, and was looking for distribution, I realized that nobody in Hollywood knew about Gernika nor cared to know. Or, perhaps were not interested in bringing attention to this obscure but important subject. Fortunately I returned to a busy acting schedule and creativity replaced the business aspect I resist so much. The take away is always the experience, the process, the people involved, and the lessons learned that mold me into what I am today. PEACE & LOVE. Enough with war.
CLICK ON VIDEO to watch. ENJOY THE REALNESS OF YOUR EMOTIONS.
Prior to Gernika's bombing, when my aita, (my father) was a child of four years of age, his life was completely different, and the complete opposite of what was to come. His family lived in a splendid chalet in Barakaldo, my dad had his own full time baby sitter, and everyone's life was quite comfortable. Dad's father headed the worker's union of the company, Los Astilleros in the shipyards of Bilbao. One fine day, the Nationalists went after him, appropriated themselves of my grandparent's home, and kicked the family out, sending them off to vanish under homeless conditions. They first fled to France on cargo trains, and then continued on to Barcelona until finally returning to the shattered remains of Guernica when my dad was six years old, and barefoot with childhood friends helped clean up, and rebuild their ravaged town.
Written, directed, narrated, produced, and co-edited by Begonya Plaza
In a co-production with K2000 in Bizkaia
Edited with Jack Tucker (Emmy winning editor)
Music by Xeberri and other distinguished Basque musicians (in the film credits).
Introduced by John Randolph (actor/activist, and victim of McCarthyism).
Featuring: Basque artist/author Luis Iriondo, and historian, author Mario de Salegi
Dedicated to my father, Jesus Plaza "El Conde".
In Spanish, and Euskera with English Voice-Over & subtitles. 39 minutes.
Redirect to Gernika Lives page:
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My early acting career Demo:
Links for recorded performances
The Invisible Catalyst (a poem dedicated to Covid-19)
A scene from "In Arabia We'd all be Kings" by Stephen Adley Guirgis
Benefit performance at First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles, hosted by Ed Asner
"Silver Tongued Devil" Begonya Plaza for Rimes of The Ancient Mariner February 24, 2016
Invisible Catalyst (Poem to Covid-19 NY)
Cat and I in Port Lligat researching Salvador Dalí
Childhood friends: Mauri, Felipe and Jesus breaking bread in Euskadi
On the US1 with Zelda Kaplan * Jeffrey Gurian
The Persistence of Memory is a screenplay I wrote that was a semi-finalist at the 2005 American Zoetrope Screenplay competition. It also garnered the interest of notable Hollywood artists with signed letters-of-interest but the competitive process of raising money in Hollywood turned out to be uninspiring, especially at a time when I was a single mom committed to raising a teenage girl, my proudest joy and responsibility. Instead, I continued exploring through my writing a stage version and later a novel that still to this day I'm struggling to finish.
This is a fictionalized account about Salvador Dalí and his wife Gala, seen from the eyes of a young man who was privy to their private lifestyle and forever affected by his intimate experiences with them. This character-driven phychological thriller explores and exposes the juxtaposition of genius and wickedness, the purity of art with the vulgar hunger for celebrity.
I have always been inspired by artists and the question of how someone can be so powerfully moving in their artistic represention of humanity, yet demonstrate such abusive and selfish personality. Many years in the late 90's, during a summer writing program at NYU I wrote a script about Jacqueline Picasso about her last day on earth prior to ending her own life, just because without Picasso she felt worthless. That contrast of power and weakness fascinates me. Having met several of Gala and Dal´'s lovers in NY and Los Angeles, and many fascinating individuals, in their own right, who knew Dalí intimately while I was living in Barcelona, I feasted on their intriguing stories.
Unfortunately, other films have gotten made with individuals who had actually read my script prior and praised it. Oh well, that's life. But what hurts me the most is seeing how none of these films have been capable of evoking the depth of Salvador Dalí's magnetism, and grandeur. He was ahead of his time as a thinker and visionary. Dalí was not the clown that so many want to make him out to be, nor was Gala his lascivious wife the evil stupid Russian. No, no, no. There is a lot more to these two intensely astute and intelligent beings. But in our time we want to place limits by classifying, judging, and belittling what we don't want to take the time to understand.
I've learned so much through this creative and investigative endeavor, intellectually, spiritually, and professionally, so much so that even if others have taken ideas from me in order to attain their quick fix, and faltering success, I feel alright about it. I wish Hollywood would stop with the gimmicks though, so the world could be a better place, because this Dalí genius was a rare specimen bringing with him many lessons for us to absorb. One of the Dalí's gifts was their vulnerability, and so revelatory was how they used their weaknesses with a fearlessness to overcome society's limitations. It is through their sensibilities and insensibilities that they, like mythological figures of our time, stand forever as masters of innovation.
DALI Esque-Apades is a short segment of my writings. A stand alone short story. This video was filmed with East Village poet and actor, Phillip Giambri narrating. Enjoy!
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LINK TO PAGE Where you can see more of my research videos going back to the year 2000, and information I've accumulated over the years.
A LUCID DREAM
A workshop reading of A Lucid Dream
a two-character play
About Evita Perón, and Dolores Ibarruri.
Carmen Cabrera reads the part of Evita Perón: Argentina's leading political figure of the late 1940's.
Begonya Plaza reads: Dolores Ibarruri, known as La Pasionaria. The Spanish Republican Communist,
and leader of the Spanish Civil War.
They meet near the river Styx, at the boundary between earthly matter, and the infinite underworld.
Forced to confront the reality of their existence through a prism of immortality.
Begonya Plaza © 2000