Tickets are now on sale for the Laredo Theater Guild International production of Nilo Cruz’s Anna in the Tropics, which opens Thursday, March 31 and runs through Saturday, April 9.
The adult-themed play, which is set in 1929 in a Cuban-American cigar factory in Ybor, Florida, is directed by Chris Morgan and produced by Karen Mejia. The story takes flight with the arrival of a new lector, a person that cigar companies hired to read aloud to their employees who hand-rolled cigars.
The new lector is cause for celebration, but when he begins to read from Anna Karenina, he unwittingly becomes a catalyst in the lives of his avid listeners, for whom Tolstoy, the tropics, and the American Dream prove a volatile combination.
The performance venue is at the Shoebox Theater on the Fort Macintosh campus of Laredo College. Limited seating is available. Tickets are $20 and are available for purchase at www.laredotheaterguild.org. The Shoebox Theater is located at T-30 on Hudson Road.
Performance dates are thus:
Thursday – Sunday: March 31- April 3
Wednesday – Saturday: April 6 – April 9
The cast includes Armando X. López as Santiago, the owner of the cigar factory; Rafael Orduña as Cheche, Santiago’s half brother; Veronica Ramirez as Santiago’s wife, Ofelia; Tricia Cortez as Conchita, the eldest daughter of Ofelia and Santiago; Sergio Saenz as Palomo, Conchita’s husband; and Gerardo Piñon as Juan Julian, the new handsome lector.
Author Cruz, who was born in Cuba in 1960 and lives in the United States, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2003, the first Latino so honored.
