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The Blues Opera, produced and presented by Juggerknot Theatre Company,opens Wednesday, Sept. 21, with performances Wednesday-Sundays/ Performance times are Wednesday and Thursday at 7:30 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 8 p.m., and Sunday, 4 p.m. Performances are at an undisclosed location in Little Havana. Location revealed after ticket purchase.
Tickets on-sale at www.TheBluesOpera.com. Information available at www.JuggerknotTheatreCompany.com.
Back by popular demand, Juggerknot Theatre Company, creators of “Miami Motel Stories,” presents “The Blues Opera,” an autobiographical, immersive one-man-show written by Miami blues musician Eric Garcia, aka “Uncle Scotchy.” Returning on Wednesday, Sept. 21, after two months of sold-out shows, this one-of-a-kind intimate performance opens to 12 guests at a time in a secret location in Little Havana.
Participants can expect a night of live music, games, drinks and true stories about love, family, loss and redemption.
Each night, audience members will be greeted by Garcia, as a lifelong friend invited into his home. Then they will be whisked away into a whirlwind of live music, games, drinks and true stories. Locals familiar with the bluesman’s work will soon realize that The Blues Opera isn’t your usual concert or performance, but an immersive experience connecting audiences through music, comical truth-bombs, drinking games, laughter, and the stories that form us as adults.
“Everyone who has a parent, is a parent, or will become parents, can relate, said said Tanya Bravo, Juggerknot Theatre Company founder and The Blues Opera co-producer. “And what will connect audience members to Eric even more are the shared experiences of being a caregiver.”
“When my mom was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s at the tender age of 57, I embedded my tragedies of being a sole caregiver to her into my stories and into my music.
It saved my life,” Garcia said.
“And, just like Eric, my father was diagnosed with the same disease at the very same age,” Bravo said.
“We are really seeking to familiarize, normalize, and de-stigmatize what it is to be a person who is also a caregiver to a loved one and all the realities that come with it,” added co-producer and Tanya’s sister, Natasha Bravo. “Watching each other grow on this path, The Blues Opera really culminates in a true labor of love.”
Eric Garcia is a modern-day bluesman. He fell in love with the sound of a harmonica back in college and never looked back. He learned the instrument from the Miami/Texas legend, Fleet Starbuck; began playing professionally and writing his own lyrics in 1995, and then formed Juke in 2009.
A year later, Garcia took the stage as the beloved “Uncle Scotchy,” an original one-man-band where he simultaneously plays guitar, vocals, harmonica, and drums with his feet. He has been the frontman of the Blues/Fusion Miami based powerhouse band, “Juke”, for 13 years. He has opened for many national acts and played with the likes of G. Love & Special Sauce and Gary Clark Jr. most recently in 2019, selling out the Filmore Miami. He has toured California, played many high-profile festivals such as the acclaimed Wanee Festival since 2009, and Suwannee Hulaween Festival twice, as well as countless other venues throughout the country. Eric is grateful to be able to command an audience, connect and generate excitement with local and national crowds as he does with his dynamic performances.
As an only son, Garcia began the journey as primary caregiver to his mother who was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s disease in 2002. The trek he now embarked on and experienced with his parents influenced his music and writing tremendously.
His music and writing became not only a professional tool but a personal means to processing tragic events he experienced, eventually utilizing his music and writing to heal from the death of both of his parents. In 2020, Eric conceptualized, produced and performed “Uncle Scotchy’s Storytelling Extravaganza,” a weekly event at Bar Nancy on Calle Ocho where people in the community are invited to story-tell their true, personal stories.
He began recording his own stories, and created a podcast of the story telling nights accessible on Spotify as well as other platforms. It was during this time Eric began playwriting for an autobiographical one-man-show he conceptualized The Blues Opera.
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