A Family Caught Between the Past and the Future

Pulitzer Prize-Winning “Anna in the Tropics” Comes to Clarice Smith Center Nov. 6-15

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Andrew Zender, azender@umd.edu
(301) 405-8151

Thursday, October 22, 2009 – College Park, MD. – The UM Department of Theatre continues its 2009-2010 season with a presentation of Nilo Cruz’s, Anna in the Tropics under the direction of Washington-area theatrical veteran José Carrasquillo at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center’s Robert and Arlene Kogod Theatre Friday – Saturday, Nov. 6 – Nov. 15, 2009 (showtimes listed below).

Anna in the Tropics, described by the New York Times as "a lyrical paean to a lost pocket of culture and a lost way of life," is set in 1920’s Ybor City, Florida, where family members who work in a cigar factory struggle to reconcile the traditions of the past with their desires for the future. Passions erupt and emotions flare as the workers embrace the unfamiliar ideas presented to them by a handsome new arrival in their midst, who reads Tolstoy’s tragic novel Anna Karenina aloud to them as they roll cigars. The power of the story heightens the impact of existing inter-family tensions and encroaching industrialization, with life-altering results. The play won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for drama, making Cuban-American playwright Nilo Cruz the first Latino to receive the honor within the genre.

Cruz told Boston Globe reporter Michael Kuchwara that Anna in the Tropics "is about the power of art and how art can actually change your life." The play also captures the essence of the immigrant experience, both in reality and as the representation of larger ideas.

In a free engagement event on Saturday, Nov. 7 at 7 p.m. in the Leah M. Smith Lecture Hall (Rm. 2200), director Jose Carrasquillo will lead a pre-performance lecture exploring Nilo Cruz’s prevalent theme of escape in his plays; Cuban culture and immigration to south Florida in the early part of the century; the importance of the cigar culture in Cuban life; the role of a lector in a cigar factory; and how the extreme gender roles defined in the play intersect.

The cast includes Greg Twomey as Santiago; Scott Whalen as Cheche; Tonique Heaven and Kiara Tinch as Marela; Ann Fraistat as Conchita; Amanda Celine Miller as Ofelia; Thony Mena as Juan Julian; and Jonathan Berenson as Palomo.

Showtimes of Anna in the Tropics include:

• Friday, November 6 at 8 p.m.
• Saturday, November 7 at 2 p.m.
• Saturday, November 7 at 8 p.m.
• Sunday, November 8 at 2 p.m.
• Wednesday, November 11 at 7:30 p.m.
• Thursday, November 12 at 7:30 p.m.
• Friday, November 13 at 8 p.m.
• Sunday, November 15 at 2 p.m.

There will be a Talk Back with the artists following the 8 p.m. performance on Saturday, November 7. To learn more about “Anna in the Tropics,” please visit the Engagement Page on the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center’s website at http://claricesmithcenter.umd.edu/2009/c/engage09/e09-annainthetropics.

Tickets are $26 for the general public and $9 for full-time students with I.D. Tickets are available by visiting www.claricesmithcenter.umd.edu or calling (301) 405-ARTS (2787). In support of state employees during these trying economic times, the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center has joined the Maryland State Arts Council’s Arts StepUp program with a special ticket offer. The Center's StepUp offer will allow state employees to purchase two tickets per ID to any performance in our 2009-2010 season at a 20% discount, with no limit on the number of performances. Online and phone purchases will be held at will call. Use promotional code STEPUP. ID must be presented when picking up tickets.

The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center is located at the intersection of University Boulevard (Route 193) and Stadium Drive in College Park, on the campus of the University of Maryland. A parking garage is located across the street from the Center.

The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center is supported by a grant from the Maryland State Arts Council, an agency dedicated to cultivating a vibrant cultural community where the arts thrive. An agency of the Department of Business & Economic Development, the MSAC provides financial support and technical assistance to nonprofit organizations, units of government, colleges and universities for arts activities. Funding for the Maryland State Arts Council is also provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency. Additional support is provided through generous grants from the Leading College and University Presenters Program of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and from The Morris & Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation.

About the Artist: Nilo Cruz
Cuban-American playwright Nilo Cruz won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for drama for Anna in the Tropics, becoming the first Latino so honored. Born in Matanzas, Cuba in 1960, Cruz arrived in Miami with his family on a Freedom Flight in 1970; he studied theater at Miami-Dade Community College before moving to New York City, where he studied with fellow Cuban Maria Irene Fornes. Fornes recommended him for admission to Brown University, where he received his MFA in 1994. He wrote Anna in the Tropics in 2001 while playwright-in-residence at the New Theatre in Coral Gables, Florida. John Williams, writing for American Theatre, has described Cruz's works as "rich in myth, symbol and metaphor."

About the Artist: Jose Carasquillo
Jose Carrasquillo has been part of the Washington theatrical landscape for more than two decades. His recent productions have included a Macbeth for Washington Shakespeare Company in which the full cast is nude for the entirety of the play, and several productions for GALA Hispanic Theatre, including Cita a ciegas (Blind Date) and The True History of Coca-Cola in Mexico. Carrasquillo, who spends a portion of his time in his native Puerto Rico, once told an interviewer that he started directing as a child, finding it a very natural extension of storytelling. "I come from a family of frustrated musicians, storytellers and performers. So directing theatre came very naturally to me," he said.