![\"Herbert](\"https:\/\/sduptownnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/web-REP_Picasso_41_Herb_Siguenza_credit_J_-Katarzyna_Woronowicz_Photography.jpg\")
<\/a>Originated with a three-week workshop production at San Diego REP in 2010, director Todd Salovey, the REP\u2019s associate artistic director, and Siguenza took the show on the road, playing in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Denver and Houston, and garnering some fine critical notices. Salovey terms it \u201can inspiring story about Picasso\u2019s passion to create and his talent for being an artist who remained forever young. Herb paints, writes and channels Picasso.\u201d<\/p>\n
Like Duncan\u2019s book, Siguenza\u2019s play is set in Picasso\u2019s studio on the coast of France in 1957. Picasso\u2019s second wife Jacqueline Roque and two of his children are in Paris.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s 76, really calmed down by then and not the man that many people know as a philanderer,\u201d Siguenza said. \u201cBy that time, he was pretty content as a family man. In the photographs you see him down on his knees with his kids. He was good to Jacqueline. He\u2019s not going through that turbulence, but he talks about it: \u2018the thing I used to do.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Art came first to Siguenza, who drew from early childhood. He went to the California College of the Arts in Oakland, Calif. where he earned a bachelor\u2019s of fine arts in printmaking. When he was in college, he discovered theater and was one of the founders of Culture Clash, the renowned Latino comedy group.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen Culture Clash started going on the road, I neglected my art for 20 years. Now I do art a lot \u2013 on stage as well as off \u2013 and I\u2019m exhibiting again. I actually have more confidence in my art than in my acting,\u201d he said. \u201cPicasso had that confidence when he approached a canvas or a piece of paper. He was very direct.\u201d<\/p>\n
Recipient of a Theatre Communications New Generations Grant, Siguenza is an artist in residence and mentee at the REP until the end of 2013. This means he shadows mentor Sam Woodhouse, the REP\u2019s artistic director, learning how to run a regional theater.<\/p>\n
The final three performances Oct. 5 and 6 of \u201cPicasso\u201d are performed in Spanish. Siguenza calls it a challenge, but it is also meant to demonstrate to the REP and San Diego audiences that \u201cif you build it they will come.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel that Spanish-speaking audiences are under served in our community, and I wanted to see if they would come out and support a play entirely in Spanish,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Siguenza has lived in Normal Heights for 18 months. He plans to make San Diego his theatrical home. La Jolla Playhouse is producing his adaptation of Shakespeare\u2019s \u201cHenry IV, Part 1\u201d outdoors in Barrio Logan as part of their With Out Walls initiative. At the REP, he is developing a play titled \u201cSteal Heaven\u201d concerning Abbie Hoffman, the 1960s radical. It was work-shopped at this year\u2019s Jewish Arts Festival.<\/p>\n Performances of \u201cA Weekend With Pablo Picasso\u201d continue 7 p.m. Wednesdays, 8 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, and 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays through Oct. 6. Additionally, there are several night-specific events throughout the run, including a Surrealist poetry reading Wednesday, Sept. 18 and a Spanish-language led discussion on artists as social historians Oct. 5. Siguenza will participate in a post-show \u201cMeet the Artists\u201d discussion Friday, Sept. 20.<\/p>\n<\/a>