Onstage at The Clarice, a Storm Is Brewing

On a remote road through a South Florida swamp, Ava, a nurse finds herself stranded when her car breaks down. Over the radio, she hears news that a dangerous storm is approaching. Then she realizes she’s not alone. A man, seriously wounded, is in another car crossing the swamp. Can she rescue him—and the car he’s driving, which might be her escape—before the storm sets in?   

That’s the dilemma at the heart of “El Ciclón,” a musical-meets-film-meets-experimental theater production that runs Friday through Sunday at The Clarice.

While the basic plot might follow thriller movie conventions, the show aims for deeper truths about women’s labor, relationships between men and women, power dynamics and more.

“The theme of this work is that this world doesn’t have to be this way,” said Yara Travieso, the writer and director of “El Ciclón,” which translates to “the cyclone.” “We do not have to be trapped in these patriarchal, colonial, violent systems. There are other worlds right here, alive, next to us that we can tap into right now. We just have to wake up to them and start living in them.”

The setting for “El Ciclón” was inspired by South Florida, where Travieso, a School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies visiting guest artist, grew up. In 2018, in the aftermath of Hurricanes Maria and Irma, she began writing the show while considering the role that storms had played in her own life. “I grew up with a lot of natural disasters,” she said. “Hurricanes would always reveal what was hiding underground, literally but also metaphorically.”

During the Fall semester, Travieso worked with the student cast in a class on devised theater, a theatrical practice in which a piece is written and developed collaboratively by all involved. The cast and crew started from Travieso’s initial 2018 script; the show was performed that year in Miami, but the 2026 version differs in meaningful ways.

Both versions include onstage camera operators, who film the show’s events, then edit and broadcast a film alongside the show to create a different perspective. UMD’s Maya Brin Institute for New Performance supported the production by providing wireless cameras for students to use.

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Music is central to “El Ciclón.” Samuel Crawford, UMD sound and media technologist and co-director of the Maya Brin Institute, composed the show’s songs for both the 2018 and new versions. The songs, performed by a band called the Ava-Glades that Ava hears over the radio, are rooted sonically in ’90s punk and the riot grrrl movement, said Crawford.

Evangelyn Olson ’26 plays Cassandra, the lead singer of the Ava-Glades. Olson hopes that audiences embrace the many layers of the show—even if they’re a lot to process. “If they are confused, I hope that gives them the chance to think about it and that it opens the door to new thought,” she said. “I welcome confusion in that way.”