Anna in the Tropics for Peck SoA

PRESS RELEASE

Milwaukee, WI December 10, 2017

Up in Smoke: Drama about cigar-rollers to aid Peck School of the Arts

Seat of Our Pants Readers Theatre Troupe, in collaboration with The Milwaukee Entertainment Group, will present an enhanced staged reading of Nilo Cruz’s 2003 Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Anna in the Tropics, Feb. 1,2, and 3, 2018, 7:30 pm at UW-Milwaukee’s Peck School of the Arts, Kenilworth Square East #508. This special production is an effort to help raise funds for The Peck School of the Arts after its devastating theatre fire of April 9, 2017.

Patrons will be supporting an exciting, original, two-part program: First, live contemporary Latin music from two superb musicians known to UW-M audiences and people across the country as specialists in performing it. Elena Abend, piano faculty at UWM, and her husband, Orlando Pimentel, UWM alumnus, clarinet, will present several sparklingly original works by Latin American composers. Second, eight actors will present the complete two act play, Anna in the Tropics, with live interludes integral to the script, of music by Cuban composers, delivered by the world-renowned Rene Izquierdo, also of Peck School of the Arts, on classical guitar.

Nilo Cruz, the only Cuban-American Pulitzer prize-winning playwright, crafted a poignant, poetic play with particular topicality. Amidst improving relations with Cuba and a flood of Americans wanting to visit it now, this drama is about Cuban immigrants seeking success in the USA in the 1920’s. In small, family cigar factories in Ybor City/Tampa, workers hand rolled cigars while listening to trained readers, lectores, sharing the news of the day, labor news, and literature. Although many workers were themselves illiterate, they became well-versed in classical literature and poetry by Cuban and European authors. In Anna in the Tropics, a new lector has just arrived, and he chooses to read Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. Passion, betrayal, and conflict between new and traditional ideas fuel a remarkable climax.

The stationary reading we present, directed by Margaret Bridges, is enhanced with theatrical lighting, music, and costume and prop items, so that the audience can experience the full play with the participation of their own imaginations. Several UWM alumni are involved in the production, which features actors well-known to Milwaukee audiences: Claudio J Parrone, Jr. plays the new lector, Juan Julian. Roger Rivas and Nate Press play half-brothers and owners of the small factory that is the setting for the drama. Abigail Stein, Kay Allmand, Shayne Steliga, and Izetta Rees are members of the family.

Tickets will be available via Brown Paper Tickets after Dec. 15, and at the door, KSE 508. All shows at 7:30. General admission: $18; students and seniors: $15. Open seating is limited to 99. https://www.facebook.com/events/301231553712532/

Contact: L Mark Flagg, Seat of Our Pants Readers Theatre Troupe,

505 E Henry Clay St. #204, Whitefish Bay, WI 53217 414.534.6328