The Journey of Sergio Blanco’s Unique Play ‘Kassandra’ To Miami

Ysmercy Salomón stars in “Kassandra” at Westchester Cultural Center, produced by Arca Images, opening Thursday, Oct. 16 through Sunday, Oct. 26. (Photo courtesy of Arca Images)

Sergio Blanco wrote “Kassandra” in a single day while in Athens, Greece.

“I had gone there for the premiere of another one of my plays, and since I had a few days to wander, I thought, ‘Why not write a piece in Athens so I can have something in common with Euripides, Socrates, and Aeschylus,” said the French-Uruguayan playwright.

“Kassandra” is being performed by South Florida Hispanic theater company Arca Images, opening Thursday, Oct. 16 through Sunday, Oct. 26 at Westchester Cultural Center.

The result was a monologue – with the titular character named from Greek mythology, a Trojan princess fated by Apollo with the gift of prophecy, but then cursed when she rejected his advances. Blanco’s heroine is a transgender immigrant who tells her story in broken English.

Sergio Blanco al Piccolo Teatro di Milano. The playwright wrote “Kassandra” in 2008 while walking in Athens and completed it in one night. (Photo by Masiar Pasquali, courtesy of Arca Images)

“From the moment I decided to choose a character from Greek mythology, mythology inevitably entered the text. I found it fascinating to mix Greek mythology with our contemporary world,” said the playwright.

Blanco said he went out walking along the streets of Athens. “(I) started saying the monologue out loud. As I spoke and ideas came to me, I wrote them quickly and succinctly on a map.”

When he returned to the hotel where he was staying, he said the map was covered with hundreds of words and ideas, which he then transferred onto paper. “Little by little,” he said, the text developed. “That same night, when I went to bed, the play was finished.”

Alexa Kuve, executive and artistic director of Arca Images, said there were many reasons to choose the play to open the company’s 25^th season, including working with Blanco on a successful production of his work “Tebas Land” in a past season. But there was another compelling factor that would assure “Kassandra” coming to life, according to Kuve. It was the actress she had in mind to take on the tour de force role.

“When I read the play, I loved the script. But the reason why I am doing ‘Kassandra’ is because I have Ysmercy Salomón. I wouldn’t want to do this monologue without her,” said Kuve. There was also Salomón’s association with Carlos Celdrán, who is directing “Kassandra” and is a longtime collaborator with Arca Images.

Ysmercy Salomón in Sergio Blancos’ “Kassandra” at the Westchester Cultural Arts Center. (Photo courtesy of Arca Images)

Kuve said that Salomón had a “great career in Cuba” and that Celdrán was her teacher.  The actress worked with Celdrán at his Argos Teatro, the award-winning Havana-based theater company he founded in 1996. She went on to appear in film and television roles in Cuba, including 2012’s “Penumbras,” where she starred as Tati, a dancer living during the island’s post Soviet crisis in 1991.

“ ‘Kassandra’ is something that I was always interested in working on,” said Salomón, who now lives in Miami, about the one-character play, where she is on stage for 90 minutes. “She is the possibility to express everything that we have as an actor inside of us.”

The actress said she shares much in common with her character she portrays. “I was born in Cuba, so English is my second language, just to let you know” she confided as she apologized during the interview for her own ability to communicate “without a mistake” in English. “And it’s the same for Kassandra. She’s an immigrant and she’s trying to express herself with the audience with broken English, with the few words she knows.”

In the opening scene, the character is sitting inside of what Blanco describes as a “truly squalid and extremely marginal bar located on the outskirts of a city.” She tells a would-be buyer that she does not speak Spanish.  “I’m not speak Spanish. . . . .Very little. Hombre… Casa… Sexo… Dinero… Caro… Muy caro… Hola… Señor… Muy señor amigo… I’m sorry… It’s not ok… It’s very difficulty for me… But I speak English… Little English… Sorry… Disculpe…”

To those who want to produce “Kassandra,” Blanco is emphatic in the preface of the play that it not be translated.  “This piece was written in the precarious English of its character, Kassandra, who barely knows it, and in the insufficient English of its author, who is completely ignorant of it. It is a language of survival for both,” he writes.

His purpose, he said, is that audiences must make their own investment in understanding the character.

It will be Sergio Blanco’s first visit to Miami where he will see his play “Kassandra” performed and also appear in his own one-man show “Memento Mori” at Westchester Cultural Center. (Photo courtesy of the artist)

“I also love the idea that Kassandra refuses to be translated — it’s her way of asserting her identity. No one has the right to translate her, to understand her, we have to make the effort of understanding her language.”

Salomón said it isn’t only speaking the lines but having to be fully involved in the way the character communicates.

“It’s very interesting for an actress because you have to find different ways to express everything. It isn’t just verbally, it’s with your body and with the emotions.”

And while she says that character is not “living a very good life,” what’s refreshing is her positive outlook.

“She says, ‘I have hope in the future.’ And this is wonderful. Sometimes we are playing characters that are not very optimistic. So for Kassandra, living for the day and hope in the future, that is her dream.”

Since he released “Kassandra,” it has been performed on five continents in more than 30 productions.

Carlos Celdrán, who is directing “Kassandra,” is a longtime collaborator with South Florida Hispanic theater company Arca Images. (Photo by Alfredo Armas, courtesy of Arca Images)

Last year. an operatic version premiered at Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, with music composed by Argentinian musician Pablo Ortiz. “He translated Kassandra’s world into the musical realm with great fidelity to the spirit of the play. The roles was magnificently sung by trans soprano Maria Castillo de Lima.” The production, with the same soprano in the role, then played the Greek National Opera.

Blanco wrote his play about a transgender immigrant in 2008 who states, “I am not a man, I am not a woman, I am Kassandra.” And while times for LBGTQ+ individuals and their rights has always been a divided issue, in 2025, there were 1,000 anti-transgender bills introduced across 48 states in the United States, according to the independent research organization Trans Legislation Tracker.

The playwright hopes that his character’s story helps people understand what he considers to be three important issues.

“First, that gender identity is something that’s constructed. Second, that each person is free to create their own construction. And third, that as a society we must respect each other’s choices. ‘Kassandra’ is a text that defends freedom — not freedom as a slogan or motto, but freedom as an inalienable right.”

WHAT:  “Kassandra” (Three Times Cruz)

WHEN: 8 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 16, Friday, Oct. 17, Saturday,Oct. 18 and 25. 5 p.m., Sunday, Oct. 19 and 26.  (Sergio Blanco will be performing a U.S. premiere of his one-person show “Memento Mori” in Spanish with English translation at 8 p.m., Thursday, Oct. 23 and Friday, Oct. 24.)

WHERE: Westchester Cultural Arts Center, 7930 SW 40th St., Miami

COST: $30, $25 for seniors, students with valid ID.

INFORMATION: (305) 934-5103 and arcaimages.org 

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