Nilo Cruz goes back to his childhood in Cuba with ‘A Park In Our House’

Ricky Saavedra, Grettel Trujillo, Carlos Acosta Milián and Claudia Tomás are four of the six-member cast of “A Park in Our House,” by Nilo Cruz. Arca Images presents the play in Spanish with simultaneous English translation at the Miami-Dade County Auditorium’s On.Stage Black Box Theatre opening Thursday, Nov. 9.  (Photo courtesy of Alfredo Armas/Arca Images).

When Fidel Castro, against all warnings, assured in 1970 that Cuba was ready to produce 10 million tons of sugar, many Cuban families wondered if the dictator’s “revolutionary enthusiasm” was just an alibi to impose the voluntarism typical of communist regimes.

One of those families is the protagonist of “A Park in Our House,” the play by Nilo Cruz that Arca Images presents in Spanish opening on Thursday, Nov. 9 through the Sunday, Nov. 12 in the Miami-Dade County Auditorium’s On.Stage Black Box Theatre, with simultaneous translation into English.

The author, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play “Anna in the Tropics,” also directs the staging, with a cast of six actors: Grettel Trujillo, Claudia Tomás, Daniel Romero, Carlos Acosta Milián, Guillermo Lavandera and Ricky Saavedra.

“Moved by the idea that the revolution was going to change their lives for good, a Cuban family is waiting in 1970 for the visit of a Russian national who is going to live with them for a while as part of an international exchange program,” says Cruz when asked to share a synopsis. “He comes from the mecca of communism, where life is supposedly free of problems, but what they find is a disillusioned individual whose experience begins to validate the emptiness the family feels. And that changes their lives.”

Born in Matanzas, Cuba, in 1960, Cruz came with his family to Miami a year before the 10 million ton sugar harvest disaster in 1969. He studied theater with Teresa María Rojas in the Prometeo group at Miami-Dade College and later in New York with Irene Fornés.

It is the first of his plays where he addresses the Cuban issue from the perspective of someone who lives on the island.

“This company from Princeton University, McCarter Theater, invited me to write something for their festival under one theme: Home,” explains Cruz on how “A Park in Our House” began to take shape. “For me, home was Cuba when I was 10 years old, the age I was when I came to the United States. I sent them a monologue: ‘Madrigal,’ which is now at the center of the story.” Then they asked him if he would add more characters, and he said “Yes.”

“In all my work, there is always something personal, even in an indirect way,” says the author. “But this play is very autobiographical: there are characters like me in 1970, the mute child, for example  — I was not mute, but I was absorbing everything happening around me. I felt a certain fear of vulnerability when writing something autobiographical. I wouldn’t say fear, per se  — it was feeling exposed, and perhaps that’s why I had evaded the topic. With ‘A Park in Our House,’ I went in”.

As a pedagogue, Cruz has taught playwriting at Yale, Iowa, and Brown universities. He mentions the case of one of his students, an Iraqi girl who had lived through the experience of war and felt that she was not able to write about the subject. “I suggested to her to do it little by little, indirectly at first, and I could understand her because that’s what happened to me.”

Among the six characters in “A Park in My House,” Ofelina is the one responsible for keeping the family balanced amid everything, says Cruz. “But sometimes, she also looks for a way to escape that reality. She is inspired by women in my life, like my mother, grandmother, and even one of my sisters. They were fighting women because working men were people already damaged by the system.”

Ofelina is played by actress Grettel Trujillo, who in 2004 played Conchita, the protagonist of “Anna in the Tropics,” when it was onstage for the first time in Spanish in New York. Here in Miami, Trujillo joined the casts of other works by Cruz in 2006 and 2013: Sofia in “Two Sisters and a Piano” and Luciana in “Hortensia and the Museum of Dreams.”

“Ofelina is the type of character that any actress dreams of. Vibrant and optimistic, tender, earthly and simultaneously dreamy, full of transitions,” explains Trujillo. “It is in the tradition of great female characters of Cuban Theater such as Luz Marina from ‘Aire Frio’ by Virgilio Piñera. It’s very curious that an author who came to the United States as a child and lived here most of his life has captured that spirit of the Cuban woman so well”.

Cruz believes that women are braver than men.

“Maybe I’m saying that from my own experience; my father was a man marked by the system,” says Cruz. “He was in prison, and that has greatly nourished my work, especially with the male characters.”

Considering how often he directs productions of his own plays, what methods does he employ to work with actors, if any, to direct them? Cruz remembers that he began his career in theater as a director, not as an author.

“You have to be very patient with the actors; you have to give them space so that they can explore the characters,” he responds. “The playwright as a dictator when going to direct his or her own plays does not work. You must be willing to see it through new eyes, and you need to undertake a completely different task. It’s a different responsibility with the piece because you want to get certain things out of the actor, but flexibly, not rigidly”.

When he and Alexa Kuve, the founder and executive producing director of Arca Images, were trying to decide which one of his plays they would stage, he sent her the text of “A Park in Our House” without rereading it. “More than 20 years after writing it, I came to listen to it in the reading session with the actors here in Miami. I wanted to see it through new eyes as if it was not my work.”

WHAT: Spanish premiere of Nilo Cruz’s “A Park in Our House,” in a production by Arca Images.

 WHERE: Miami-Dade County Auditorium On.Stage Black Box Theatre, 2901 West Flagler St., Miami.

 WHEN:  8:30 p.m., Thursday, Nov. 9, Friday, Nov. 10 and Saturday Nov. 11, 5 p.m., Sunday, Nov. 12. In Spanish with simultaneous English translation. Following Sunday’s performance, there will be a bilingual Q&A with the author, the producer and the actors.

 COST: $30, $25, students, seniors and groups.

 INFORMATION: Tickets can be purchased at www.arcaimages.org and at the theater box office on the same day of each performance. 

ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music, and more. Don’t miss a story at www.artburstmiami.com.

REVIEW: Moisés Kaufman’s ‘Juan Planchard’ is a wild ride through Venezuela’s past at Miami New Drama

Carlos Fabián Medina is Alias Ramiro in the Miami New Drama world premiere of “Las Aventuras de Juan Planchard” at the Colony Theatre on Lincoln Road in Miami Beach through Sunday, Nov. 12. (Photo courtesy of Morgan Sophia Photography)

Developing world premiere theater and bringing it to the fruition of a gala opening requires (among other things) immense creativity, abundant courage, collaborative fortitude and a budget to realize the creators’ dreams.

In the case of the Miami New Drama-Tectonic Theater Project world premiere of Moisés Kaufman’s “Las Aventuras de Juan Planchard,” the play got all of the above, including a budget in the neighborhood of $1 million.

The co-production runs through Sunday, Nov. 12 at the Colony Theatre on Lincoln Road in Miami Beach.

Based on the massively popular 2016 novel by Jonathan Jakubowicz, “Las Aventuras de Juan Planchard” is a departure for Kaufman, the celebrated playwright-director whose credits include “The Laramie Project,” “Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde” and dozens of plays on Broadway, Off-Broadway and in major regional theaters.

“Juan Planchard” is Kaufman’s first play written and performed in Spanish, and the first to deal with the political and personal realities of the Venezuelan homeland he left in 1987. Satire, ugly politics and stark tragedy blend in his theatricalized version of Jakubowicz’s story.

Launching the play at Miami New Drama, the theater Kaufman co-founded with artistic director Michel Hausmann, makes sense. Nearly 200,000 Venezuelans now call South Florida home, as do a vast potential audience of other Spanish speakers.

To make the piece accessible for those who don’t know the language, the dialogue is translated into English (or Spanish, in the few sequences where the characters speak English) and displayed as a running subtitle just under the playing area.

One problem: If you’re an audience member sitting at certain angles behind a tall person, forget trying to follow along word for word.  Supertitles at the top of the stage might not have worked as well aesthetically, but that placement would have been far better for anyone with minimal Spanish.

In truth, it’s best to keep your eyes on the action so you don’t miss any of Kaufman’s masterful staging or the powerful performances from the cast of nine, seven of whom are from Venezuela.

As the title promises, the play revolves around the evolving adventures of Juan Planchard (Christian McGaffney), the 29-year-old son of middle-class educators who deeply disapprove of the socialist government of President Hugo Chávez.

Juan is a believer, in part because his entrepreneurial dealings with corrupt officials have allowed him to amass a $50 million fortune, though the people the revolution was to have uplifted continue to live in violent, poverty-stricken barrios.

As the narrator and central character, the striking McGaffney has to command the stage. Juan evolves from bored jet-setting rich guy who’s a little shocked at his own unhappiness to ardent lover in pursuit of his American dream girl to a man whose wakeup call is bathed in blood.  Rarely off the stage, McGaffney grows even more compelling as the play turns darker.

Initially, Juan Planchard is living out a rather comic love story. He meets the radiant blonde psychology major Scarlet Thomas (Elysia Roorbach) at a Las Vegas poker table, then goes into romance overdrive. Juan woos her with rides in his private plane, takes her to a performance of “Il Postino” at the Metropolitan Opera and eventually consummates their fast-developing passion in Manhattan’s Battery Park, within sight of the Statue of Liberty.

In truth, this isn’t a cultured couple. Juan’s sleek apartment is in the building that houses the Metropolitan Museum of Art, though he’s never bothered to visit the museum; California girl Scarlet has not only never been to the opera, she’s never gone to New York. More problematically, they’re both shady, Juan in the way he has amassed his wealth, Scarlet in her side hustle as a high-end prostitute who has figured out an easy way to pay her UCLA tuition.

“Las Aventuras de Juan Planchard” grows more interesting, compelling and unnerving when the action moves to Venezuela.

It’s 2011, two years before the death of Chávez from cancer.  Scarlet is entranced by the beauty of twinkling lights on a hillside as Juan’s plane approaches Caracas, not realizing that they’re dotting the impoverished barrios near the port of Guaira, the dangerous Petare, the place called Los sin techos (without roofs).

She (and we) meet Juan’s parents.  Papá (Orlando Urdaneta) makes clear his disapproval of Juan’s embrace of a system that has brought increasing violence and poverty to Venezuela. Mamá (Elba Escobar) lovingly shows Juan’s childhood photos to Scarlet, who smoothly lies and says the two have been together for a year.  Outside, deadly disaster beckons.

One of the most arresting scenes takes place at the Palacio de Miraflores at a reception where Juan learns he can get in on a deal to construct prisons, making millions without actually building them.

At first, the deal-making among Juan, an official dubbed Diputada Endragonada (Deputy Dragon Lady, also played by Escobar) and Juan’s government fixer Vera Góldiger (Mariaca Semprún) is played as high comedy. Just before an ailing Chávez arrives, the characters have thermometers stuck in their mouths because their leader can’t be around anyone who is sick. As they speak, the thermometers wiggle.

But once the president enters, sporting a red beret, the temperature in the room changes.  Tall and somber, Roberto Jaramillo as Chávez delivers a chilling fable about a hunter, cannibals and a white elephant, a story whose meaning other characters will try to pinpoint several times.  The scene, with its emotional turns, demonstrates Kaufman’s prowess at tonal shifts.

Though the first act of “Las Aventuras de Juan Planchard” is overly long (the play currently runs about 2½ hours including intermission), the second is intense, urgent and filled with tragedy. People important to Juan are murdered. Seeking vengeance, he comes up against Liebre (Carlos Fabián Medina), who knows where the perpetrators are.  Revenge transforms him, and Juan’s dealings with the ruthless Alias Ramiro (also played by Medina) are even worse, the outcome more horrific.

A kind of coda involving Scarlet, her violent ex-boyfriend Michael (Patrick Ball) and Juan becomes the setup for a Juan Planchard sequel.  But it plays like something of an afterthought, except when the radiant Góldiger visits Juan in prison – see the play to find out why he’s there – to offer him an unexpected future.

Kaufman’s creative team, which includes Tony Award-winning set designer Derek McLane, creates a stylish yet somewhat minimalist/abstract world that’s just right for a story emanating from Juan’s memories.

Evelyn Villegas’s costumes (particularly the stunning blue outfit Góldiger wears to visit Juan in his orange jumpsuit), the lighting (and strategic darkness) by co-designers by Alejandro Fajardo and Ben Stanton, music and sound by Salomon Lerner, Arnoldo Maal’s props, movement choreography by Marcos Santana, intimacy choreography by Lauren Kiele DeLeon and fight choreography by Lee Soroko are all first rate and essential to Kaufman’s fluid storytelling.

The cast seems far larger than it is because most of the actors play two, three, four or more roles.

Semprún, who won a best actress Carbonell Award for her role in last season’s “Papá Cuatro” at Miami New Drama, is sensational as Góldiger (pay attention to how her accent changes), Scarlet’s ebullient friend Francesca and a Brazilian beauty who “toasts” Juan with a pre-orgy tab of Ecstasy sporting Che Guevara’s likeness.

Urdaneta and Escobar are wonderful, seasoned actors who bring the gravitas of their long careers in Venezuela to playing Juan’s stricken parents and other roles.

Vicente Peña flies high as Juan’s coke-sniffing pal Eduardo, anxious to get his fortune smuggled out of Venezuela before Chávez dies. In addition to Chávez, Jaramillo is an imposing presence as Juan’s longtime friend and bodyguard Pantera. Medina is truly chilling, particularly as Alias Ramiro.

The Juan-Scarlet-Michael triangle may intrigue some, but it seems to pale against the power of the Venezuelan story.  Roorbach is certainly alluring as Scarlet, but though she conveys the character’s faux innocence and self-serving pragmatism,  she lacks the steel Scarlet would have in unguarded moments. Ball’s domineering Michael is a bully, a blackmailer and an abuser, so who wouldn’t give him up for a rich Venezuelan hottie?

Watching Kaufman’s take on the cultural phenomenon that is “Las Aventuras de Juan Planchard” offers a rare opportunity to be among the first audiences experiencing the work of a theatrical master. But there are levels of engagement, and the deepest ones will be felt by those able to appreciate the intricacies of  Kaufman’s script and the references/details that make up the world of Juan Planchard.

WHAT: World premiere of “Las Aventuras de Juan Planchard” (“The Adventures of Juan Planchard”) by Moisés Kaufman (in Spanish with English supertitles)

WHERE: Miami New Drama production at the Colony Theatre, 1040 Lincoln Road, Miami Beach

WHEN:  8 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday, 3 p.m. Sunday. Extended through Nov. 19

COST: $46.50, $66.50, $69.50, $76.50, $83.50

INFORMATION:  305-674-1040 or miaminewdrama.org

ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music and more. Don’t miss a story at www.artburstmiami.com. 

Zoetic Stage’s quest for the perfect sandwich is food for thought in Lynn Nottage’s ‘Clyde’s’

From left, Kristian Bikic, Randy Coleman, Karen Stephens, Gabriell Salgado and Sydney Presendieu in Zoetic Stage’s “Clyde’s” in previews on Thursday, Nov. 2 and opening, Friday, Nov. 3 through Sunday, Nov. 19 at the Adrienne Arsht Center’s Carnival Studio Theater, Miami. (Photo courtesy of Justin Namon, ra-haus/Adrienne Arsht Center)

For the second year in a row, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Lynn Nottage has topped the list of the country’s most-produced playwrights, with 22 productions of different Nottage plays planned by regional theaters.

Her play “Clyde’s,” which ran on Broadway from November 2021 to January 2022 and has just opened at London’s Donmar Warehouse, will be this year’s second most-produced play regionally, with 14 productions.

One of those productions will launch the 2023-2024 season for Miami’s Zoetic Stage, which performs in the Carnival Studio Theater at Miami’s Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts. Previewing on Thursday, Nov. 2 and opening Friday, Nov. 3, the comedy – which has as many layers as a sky-high old-school Dagwood sandwich – runs through Sunday, Nov. 19.

The sandwich metaphor may seem odd when applied to the work of an artist whose Pulitzers were awarded in 2009 for “Ruined” (about women’s struggles to survive the violence of civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo) and 2017 for “Sweat” (locked-out steelworkers and their families in Reading, Pa., cope with economic disaster).  Zoetic’s last season opener, Nottage’s “Mlima’s Tale,” was similarly and heartbreakingly serious in its exploration of the illegal ivory trade and the slaughter of a majestic African elephant.

This time, though, “Clyde’s” serves up laughs aplenty. And sandwiches. Lots and lots of sandwiches.

For Stuart Meltzer, who is staging “Clyde’s,” he says: “It shows that a systemic circle of negativity doesn’t always have to be there. You can swim to land if you want to.”

“Clyde’s” is set in a truck stop sandwich shop in Berks County, Pa. The place is operated by the tough-as-nails Clyde (Carbonell Award winner Karen Stephens), who shares one particular item of personal history with her four employees: All were formerly incarcerated, and the diner represents their only post-prison job opportunity.

In a Zoom conversation from Nottage’s childhood home in Brooklyn (she and her filmmaker husband Tony Gerber now own it), the playwright says the idea for “Clyde’s” began brewing as she was interviewing people in Reading before writing “Sweat.”

“One of the common threads I found was that many were formerly incarcerated.  I think that’s because of the spaces I liked entering – shantytowns, halfway houses, unemployment centers,” says Nottage.  “They came to Reading with the hope of finding employment, but they had to check the box saying they were formerly incarcerated. Therefore, their options were limited.”

Given the darkness of “Sweat,” Nottage wanted to write a comedy about hope, redemption and resilience.  She knew that humor can be disarming and wanted to give “three dimensions to folks who are not really seen.” The characters who began speaking to her as she was writing “Clyde’s” were “just funny, full of joy and full of life.”

Though “Clyde’s” is a comedy, it shares at least a little DNA with Jean-Paul Sartre’s “No Exit.”  Nottage’s characters are free to come and go, of course, but Clyde uses condescension and cruelty to nip their dreams of a better life in the bud.

Nottage says in her script that the kitchen where the play takes place is a “liminal space,” a kind of threshold or limbo or purgatory between what came before and what could follow.  And while Clyde may not be the devil, she appears to have made a deal with the prince of darkness.

“Clyde is the personification of all the obstacles these people face; someone who is on the surface enticing but underneath somewhat diabolical, the manifestation of all the things they fear,” says the playwright.

The role of Clyde is often played by physically imposing women whose size becomes another weapon in their arsenal of intimidation.  Though she sports Clyde’s bold wardrobe, big jewelry and talon-like nails, Stephens is a slender woman who stands just 5’3″.  But she has Clyde’s nature down cold.

“She’s the boss, the overseer, oppressive and cruel,” Stephens says. “Her No. 1 objective is to keep these people down. She pulled them out of their s—holes. She needs them to not strive to be better,” says the actor. “She’s the representation of how society treats them and how they view themselves as unworthy of anything more.”

On Clyde’s crew are Montrellous (Randy Coleman), a man who has dedicated himself to inner peace and the creation of a perfect sandwich; Rafael (Gabriell Salgado), a goofy guy with a romantic streak; Letitia (Sydney Presendieu), a single mother who keeps getting drawn back to her abusive ex; and Jason (Kristian Bikic), a standoffish white supremacist whose face and neck tattoos let his BIPOC coworkers know his point of view.

Jason is the only character who appeared in “Sweat.”   Nottage put him in “Clyde’s,” she says, “because I felt that of all the characters in ‘Sweat,’ he’s the most unresolved.  The play ends before we understand where he’s landed.”

Bikic knows Jason is the outsider in “Clyde’s,” the last to be hired and someone unlikely to be accepted by the others.

“He’s trying to move on from his past. He’s looking for forgiveness . . . He finds solace in the kitchen with this unlikely group, but because of his physical appearance, he can’t hide who he is,” says Bikic.

He adds of Nottage’s writing, “Her language is so deeply rooted in reality, yet there’s such a heightened element to it while it remains truthful. It’s a recipe for magic.”

Of Montrellous, Coleman says, “He has his eyes set on the prize, big plans, dreams and aspirations. He’s not scared.  He feels he has to look out for these young ones and share his wisdom.”

Presendieu, the only cast member who was also in Zoetic’s “Mlima’s Tale,” compares Clyde to “that warden boss you have to defeat in the final stages of a video game.”  Although her character Letitia (aka Tish) respects Clyde as another Black woman who was also formerly incarcerated, she feels broken by her impossible-to-please boss.  She’s also wary of Rafael, who seems sweet and protective of her but more like a big goofy kid, not the go-getter she needs.

“I love a Nottage play. It has so many layers,” says Presendieu.

Salgado, who will return to Miami New Drama Jan. 25-Feb. 18 in “Two Sisters and a Piano” written and directed by Miami Pulitzer winner Nilo Cruz, sees similarities between himself and Rafael.

“We have a lot in common, up to a point,” says Salgado. “He’s an innocent, honest, goofy guy who wears his heart on his sleeve. He’s romantic and a people pleaser.  He protects himself by being submissive and eager to learn.”

Like the others in “Clyde’s,” Salgado has to make sandwiches at precise moments throughout the 90-minute play – while handling ingredients and knives.  Though he’s not a superbly trained chef like Jeremy Allen White’s Carmy in the Hulu series “The Bear,” Salgado thinks he can handle the speaking and cooking combo in “Clyde’s.”

“This (role) is like a dance,” he says.

Meltzer agrees.

“Gabe and Sydney and Kristian have to learn their (roles) with the choreography,” he says. “Especially Gabe, who has so many comic bits.  We had to figure out how to create realistic chaos.”

Says Nottage: “Directors are always surprised by how complicated it is to keep the kitchen alive.”

WHAT: “Clyde’s” by Lynn Nottage

WHERE: Zoetic Stage production in the Carnival Studio Theater at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, 1300 Biscayne Blvd., Miami

WHEN: Previews 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 2, opens 7:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 3; 7:30 p.m. Thursday-Friday, 2:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, 2:30 p.m. Sunday, through Sunday, Nov. 19

COST: $55 and $60

INFORMATION:  305-949-6722 or arshtcenter.org

ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music and more. Don’t miss a story at www.artburstmiami.com. 

‘Yankee Bajan’ at MDC Explores What It Means to Return to Ancestral Roots

A story of migration, expatriation and immigration comes to the stage in “Yankee Bajan,” at the Lehman Theater on Miami Dade College’s North Campus on Friday, Nov. 3 and Saturday, Nov. 4. (Photo courtesy of Russell Watson (RSTUDIO)/Parris-Bailey Arts Inc.)

They say home is where the heart is, but when you’re an immigrant that can be a complicated matter.

Linda Parris-Bailey delves into the conundrum in her new play “Yankee Bajan,” playing Friday, Nov. 3 and Saturday, Nov. 4  at the Lehman Theatre on Miami Dade College’s North Campus.

Directed by Dahlak Brathwaite with music composed by H. Stefan Walcott, the introspective performance takes an in-depth look into how one family grapples with the question of what or where is home after experiencing racial strife in the United States and then deciding to return to Barbados.

Parris-Bailey, whose grandparents immigrated from Barbados, uses the play as a theatrical outlet to give the issue a closer look, she says.

“For the past five years I’ve been thinking about the African diaspora broadly, but also our relationship to that diaspora in terms of being an African American,” says Parris-Bailey, adding that she began to think about her own roots.

“ . . . How immigration and migration patterns shift and change and why people leave where they are and go to where they go And so this is a story about a family that explores that dynamic of,  ‘Where do we belong? Where is home? How do I want to raise my family and in what environment?’ ”

The piece, she says, was “built in Barbados” and the production is touring as part of the National Performance Network Tour Subsidy program and supported by a New England Foundation for the Arts Touring Grant.

“Miami was selected for a (stop on the tour) for many reasons,” she says, one of which is primary partner Rosie Gordon-Wallace who “believed in the concept from the very beginning,” she says. “There are significant partnerships that really enabled this work to move forward.”

Another she says is because of Miami’s diverse population.

“We intentionally selected cities with significant populations from the West Indies so that we could make a deep and authentic connection with the Bajan community in the U.S.,” the playwright says.

Parris-Bailey, who lives in Knoxville, Tenn., explains that “Yankee Bajan” also explores the reasons why going back to one’s ancestral land can prove to be an attractive option.

“There is a certain sense of self that you’ve gained by being in a space where you are in the majority,” she says.  “You see leadership. You see success. You see cultural richness. You see all of these things that are sometimes absent in a space where you are considered a minority or less than or suspect or any of those things, and I think there’s a certain power in being in that environment. And I really wanted to explore that through the family.”

But Parris-Bailey does not shy away from discussing some of the pitfalls that the family encounters. She points out that many times the transplants feel that they aren’t as welcome as they might think. The playwright uses scenes in “Yankee Bajan” as a springboard to broach a broader issue of elitism and, additionally, how those who come from the United States are often viewed by those who live abroad.

“People don’t always appreciate the behavior of Americans,” she says. “And we know that there are cases where that’s legitimate. We have to acknowledge American privilege and that not everyone sees that privilege in the same way.”

Brathwaite says that he can relate.

“There’s a lot of intersections with my own life,” he reveals.  “My dad is from Trinidad. My mom is from Eritrea. I was born here in the United States, but I think I’ve always had an international sense of the world.”

The New York-based director says as a youngster, he visited both countries.

“They gave me the opportunity to experience life outside of America and see what my own culture and heritage and lineage have to offer,” says Braithwaite.

Though he jokingly concludes that he is “hopelessly American,” he sees the value in how rich and complex his cultural heritage is.

“After a while, I think I just surrendered to what I have grown up to be. And there are great things about America. There are great things about our culture, and I tried to lean into that, but the idea that I could ever transcend — that I think I’ve actually lost hope in.”

His understanding of how affecting cultures can be is why he shares Parris-Bailey’s insistence in presenting the family’s Barbados’ experience accurately.

“What we were striving for was a really authentic experience,” says Brathwaite, adding that the play includes traditional dances and music from Barbados. “We were very deliberate, no matter how difficult it was, about making sure that the cast playing the characters from Barbados were from Barbados, and the U.S. characters are from the U.S.”

Parris-Bailey agrees that taking measures to ensure this was key.

“This whole project was built on partnering with Bajans and Americans and people who have this work in their heart.”

Parris-Bailey hopes that the play will spark discussions while ultimately causing audience members to look closely at their own heritage and how that translates into where they want to be.

“We have choices,” she says. “We have mobility. We have the ability to decide to be where we are. And I think that sometimes that is lost on many of us. That we think we’re kind of stuck where we are.

She wants audiences to be inspired and connect with their roots through her play.

“I hope that they see the spirit of Sankofa in that we are all connected in a very significant way, and that we should love and respect that. I hope that people will be inspired to make these exchanges happen.”

WHAT: “Yankee Bajan” by Linda Parris-Bailey

 WHERE: Lehman Theatre -MDC North Campus, 11380 NW 27th Ave., Room 1315, Miami

 WHEN: 8 p.m. Friday, Nov. 3 and Saturday, Nov. 4.

 COST:  $20 online in advance; $25, at the door

 INFORMATION: (305) 237-7750 or koubekcenter.org

ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music and more. Don’t miss a story at www.artburstmiami.com.

Immersive ‘G7: 2070’ Puts Audiences Inside a Global Summit at The Kampong

Anastasiia Perevozova as Russia’s Minister of Sport and former international figure skating star, left, and Amanda Ortega, President of the United States and Founding Sister of the new constitution, right, ponder the new world order in William Hector’s “G7: 2070” playing Thursday, Oct. 19, Friday, Oct. 20 and Saturday, Oct. 21 at The Kampong, Coconut Grove. (Photo courtesy of Ted Hartshorn)

Immersively performed in the nine-acre botanical garden The Kampong in Coconut Grove, William Hector’s theatrical summit “G7: 2070” puts audiences in Miami’s future. The year? 2070. The landscape? A post-sea-level rise Miami.

The playwright has imagined that audiences join the action as dignitaries of what are now the seven most powerful nations. Power has shifted and the nations aren’t what they used to be.

“Disney is now a nation,” says Hector. “You trade away your rights to the Mouse and you get a very good life. You may not have freedom of work or freedom of speech, but you have freedom of purpose. You have a story and isn’t that more important? According to them, ‘Yes’ ”,  he says with all the vigor of someone premiering a play that’s been five years in the making.

In 2018, Hector submitted his idea for the inaugural Knight New Work grant. It was an open call to artists, according to the Knight Foundation, “to celebrate innovative ideas that embodied the diverse essence of Miami.” His immersive theatrical summit set in a flooded Miami was awarded $75,000. He hopes this three-day premiere at The Kampong is only the beginning. He’d like “G7: 2070” to have a continuous run somewhere much like Miami’s “The Amparo Experience” did  — eight months in 2019.

For the first iteration, admission is “pay as you will” with no set charge. “I wanted the show to be accessible to students and other people new to immersive theater,” says Hector. And be prepared to walk the grounds, too, as the action takes advantage of the beautiful and historic The Kampong. Hector says theater attire here is comfortable clothes and shoes.

The cue for the play is taken from the real intergovernmental political forum, the G7 (Group of Seven). Initially, France, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States and West Germany formed the Group of Six in 1975. The next year, Canada joined the “World Economic Summit” as a global forum for the most powerful nations to discuss crises affecting the world economy. In 1997, Russia joined, creating the G8, but that country was suspended in 2014 after annexing Crimea from Ukraine.

Russia is, however, included in Hector’s futuristic G7 where the nations have met to decide the fate of the world amid a climate crisis. Hector’s explanation of Russia’s current status is that they are “surviving and thriving through hell and high water.”

Joining The Walt Disney Nation and Russia are the United States, China, Ethiopia, Uruguay and The European Papal Federation headed by 25-year-old Pope Joan II (played by Rachel Eddy).

“China is at the top of the world, but it’s not easy being there. There are challenges being the kingpin,” says Hector. China’s Paramount Leader is Song Xiaoyuan (played by Gwen Lai), a cautious pessimist along with Ning Baoshun, China’s premier (played by Helen Wu), the yin to Xiaoyuan’s yang, described as an enthusiastic optimist.

The U.S. has almost collapsed but it has been the underdog before, according to Hector. Uruguay is now the world’s financial capital. Ethiopia has humanity as its origin and it is the future in Hector’s reimagining of world order.

“Part of the inspiration (for the play) was the 1994 Summit of the Americas,” says Hector, born in Coconut Grove — the Ransom Everglades and University of Miami grad vows he never wants to leave the area.

In the 1994 summit, held in Miami and convoked by President Bill Clinton to engage with the countries of Latin America, leaders agreed to a series of initiatives in support of the four Summit themes — strengthening democracy, promoting economic prosperity, eradicating poverty and discrimination, and guaranteeing sustainable development.

Here in 2070 at The Kampong, just four miles away from where the 1994 Summit was held at Vizcaya, “the idea is that Miami is absolutely flooded and the countries have now returned. . . . now we’ve gone so far past the point of no return. If we’re doing this 50-plus years in the future then climate change is going to be the dominant theme,” says Hector.

Behind the scenes at this fictional 2070 conference, the heads of each country are jockeying for power, which is where the drama comes in.

“There are costs and consequences – who is going to choose for the good of the world or for the good of their own country,” says Hector.

Victoria Collado, the director behind Miami’s “The Amparo Experience,” which took its audiences back in time to 1958 Havana, says with “G7: 2070” she worked on creating the tension so prevalent in Hector’s play. “ . . .What these countries want and how they are going after getting it. Really giving the audience the experience that they have a say over the rest of the world,” she says.

Hector saw “The Amparo Experience” at least eight times, he says, to absorb that immersive play and figure out “what the different modes were that worked.” One of the most important, he says, was that the audience should always feel like they are a character in the play.

“You can be the fly on the wall or you can become totally immersed. If you are talkative, you will have an amazing time. If you are more on the shy side, you’ll still feel like ‘wow, I was included.’ ”

But he pulls no punches when he says it is a high-stakes game albeit with humor as two actors, each portraying the leader of a country, guide audiences through speeches, meetings, schemings and plottings.

The structure of the play puts 12 to 14 audience members, a.k.a. dignitaries, in each country’s group. There are 14 cast members in the play, two representatives for each country. The machinations are that each group is in a “segment” and they are split into four to five scenes happening simultaneously — so while the Uruguay group is being taken one way by its leaders, perhaps Ethiopia is gathering its delegates in another area. At times, the groups all converge, for instance, for speeches in the great hall. Dialogue may have the head of one country trying to convince the “delegate” of another why their country wield more power.

During the ticket process (there is no admission fee), participants pick which country they want to be included in or take the choice of “let the producer decide.”

“Disney was the most popular, then ‘let the producer decide’ came in second,” says Hector.

“It’s a gigantic undertaking,” admits Collado, who would know thanks to “Amparo.”

“Every writer has their own iambic pentameter,” she explains. “And William’s text is so specific and it is so fast so that it needs to be performed in a specific way.”

She says the play is firm on reality even though it is set in the future.

“It really is about making audiences be in love with what’s happening with the text. I want them to be invested in the summit. I want them to be on the edge of their seat.”

Or, in this case, on the edge of their feet.

WHAT: William Hector’s “G7: 2070”

WHERE: The Kampong, National Tropical Botanical Garden, 4013 Douglas Road, Miami

WHEN: 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 19, Friday, Oct. 20 and Saturday, Oct. 21

COST: Free (sold out, waitlist available)

INFORMATION: g72070.com. The production is also accommodating those who may not be able to stand or walk for long periods of time. Email: g72070@gmail.com.

ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music and more. Don’t miss a story at www.artburstmiami.com. 

Moisés Kaufman transforms bestseller ‘Juan Planchard’ into a Miami New Drama world premiere

The cast of Miami New Drama’s “Las Aventuras de Juan Planchard” in  Moisés Kaufman’s stage adaptation at Miami New Drama. The production runs at the Colony Theatre on Lincoln Road in Miami Beach through Sunday, Nov. 12. (Photo courtesy of FURIOSA Productions)

Not long after filmmaker-screenwriter Jonathan Jakubowicz published his debut novel in late 2016, Venezuelans at home and abroad began asking each other the same question: “Have you read it?”

“It” is the politically pointed, darkly comic and heart-wrenching “Las Aventuras de Juan Planchard” (“The Adventures of Juan Planchard”), and by February 2017 the book topped Amazon’s foreign fiction list.

Among the Spanish-language novel’s deeply affected readers were theatermakers Moisés Kaufman and Michel Hausmann.

The longtime friends, Jewish artists who left Venezuela (Kaufman in 1987, Hausmann in 2010) to forge careers in the United States, are the co-founders of Miami New Drama at the Colony Theatre on Miami Beach’s Lincoln Road. It’s there that Kaufman’s stage version of “Las Aventuras de Juan Planchard” will have its world premiere, with previews beginning Wednesday, Oct. 18 through Sunday, Oct. 22 and Thursday and Friday, Oct. 26 and 27. The sold-out gala opening is Saturday, Oct. 28. The co-production of Miami New Drama and the Tectonic Theater Project runs through Sunday, Nov. 12.

A Kaufman world premiere is a big deal in the world of theater – on Broadway, Off-Broadway, in regional or international theaters. After co-founding the Manhattan-based Tectonic Theater Project in 1991, Kaufman has amassed impressive and eclectic credits as a playwright, director or both, all the while serving as Tectonic’s artistic director.

Among his best-known projects are 1997’s “Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde,” 2000’s “The Laramie Project” (a piece about the hate crime murder of Matthew Shepard, devised by Kaufman and multiple members of Tectonic), 2004’s production of Doug Wright’s “I Am My Own Wife,” 2007’s “33 Variations” starring Jane Fonda, 2011’s Broadway production of Rajiv Joseph’s “Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo” starring Robin Williams, and the 2022 Broadway musical “Paradise Square.”

Hausmann thought Jakubowicz’s novel, set during the waning days of Hugo Chávez’s rule, was “a really great work of fiction. It unmasked the corrupt nature of the Chavista government. It was really a cultural punch we hadn’t been able to deliver . . . Moisés called me and asked if I’d read it, and when I said ‘of course,’ he said, ‘It’s a play.’ I thought he had lost his mind.”

Because the book is written like a screenplay, with dozens of characters and a story full of sex, violence, political intrigue and action set in multiple locations in the United States and Venezuela, a Hollywood movie version of the novel would cost $100 million, in Hausmann’s estimation. So how could Kaufman make a play of “Las Aventuras de Juan Planchard?”

“I forgot who I was talking to,” says Hausmann. “Moisés is a champion of theatricality.”

Kaufman left Venezuela 12 years before Chávez came to power in 1999.  Observing from afar as “my country was destroyed by a dictator, I felt like I was in a Chekhov play, watching the cherry orchard vanish.”

When he read Jakubowicz’s novel, he found it to be “exquisite literature with an unerring view of the situation in Venezuela.”  Although much of Kaufman’s work weaves together the personal and the political, he felt guilty that he hadn’t yet addressed the decline and destruction of his home country, once one of South America’s greatest and wealthiest democracies.

“When I read it, I thought, ‘This is my play. This is for Miami New Drama,’” Kaufman says.  “This is an act of defiance for me. The novel is brilliant. The play can only be as good as the novel. The characters literally leap off the page.  I felt a great deal of passion about the story. It was thrilling to adapt it.”

Kaufman wrote his adaptation in Spanish, his first time creating a script in his original language.  The play will be performed in Spanish with English supertitles, though several of the cast members play non-Latinx characters who speak in English.

As the adaptor of a Spanish-language novel, Kaufman felt the play should tell its story in Spanish too, and not just because of the vast Spanish-speaking population of Miami-Dade County. The creators hope that the stage version of “Las Aventuras de Juan Planchard” can have an ongoing life in other countries, as well as American regional theaters and in high-profile Manhattan.

Besides, Kaufman says, “During the pandemic, we became so adept at watching foreign films with subtitles. I think Americans are much more comfortable with that now.”

Watch the trailer for “Las Aventuras de Juan Planchard”

Seven of the nine actors are Venezuelan, several of them among that country’s best-known actors.  At one rehearsal, when Kaufman asked how many could not go back to Venezuela because of threats – including death threats – from supporters of President Nicolás Maduro, five actors raised their hands.

The story follows the adventures and many misadventures of Juan Planchard (Christian McGaffney), the handsome 29-year-old son of middle-class, anti-Chávez educators played by longtime Venezuelan stars Orlando Urdaneta and Elba Escobar.

Juan is a jet setter with his own plane and a $50 million fortune amassed through his business dealings with corrupt government officials.  Partying, recreational drugs and a succession of exquisite women are his real passions – until, one night at a pro poker table in Las Vegas, he spies a stunning blonde named Scarlet (Elysia Roorbach).

Instantly, Juan downsizes his priorities to one: wooing and winning Scarlet. What he doesn’t know is that she isn’t merely a UCLA psychology student. Her baggage includes a domineering long-term boyfriend, one who’s clueless about her lucrative side gig as a high-end call girl. Nonetheless, she decides to go with the flow of Juan’s dazzling courtship, which leads back to Caracas, his parents and a horrific reckoning.

The Los Angeles-based Jakubowicz, for one, says he was “blown away” when he came to Miami for a reading of Kaufman’s transformation of his novel into theater.

“The book is a thrill ride with nonstop action.  Nothing about it says ‘stage.’  But when I met Moisés, it made sense,” says Jakubowicz, who moved to the United States in 2006 after growing up in the same Caracas neighborhood and going to the same school some years after Kaufman did.

He adds that “Juan’s voice in the novel is a confessional. The story is a Shakespearean tragedy. I had no idea how Moisés would do it, but I know he can do anything.”

Jakubowicz jokes that “80 percent of Venezuelan Jews in the arts are involved in this play.”  But he’s serious when he talks about why he wrote the novel and why its continuing life as a play is so meaningful.

“My friend in Venezuela was kidnapped and shot in the head.  I was in Los Angeles, frustrated that I was unable to write a screenplay and shoot the movie in my home country.  So I wrote the novel knowing it would communicate what I knew was the real face of the revolution,” says the director, whose best-known movies are 2004’s “Sequestro Express,” 2016’s “Hands of Stone” (starring Édgar Ramírez as boxer Roberto Durán and Robert DeNiro as his trainer) and 2020’s “Resistance,” winner of the German Film Peace Prize, with Jesse Eisenberg as the not-yet-famous Marcel Marceau.

Jakubowicz is hopeful that “Las Aventuras de Juan Planchard” will be produced in many of the places that have become home to the Venezuelan diaspora, now numbering nearly 8 million worldwide and nearly 200,000 in South Florida, the largest concentration of Venezuelan expats in the United States.

“This can help lead to change.  The narrative is that Chávez was a good guy and Maduro destroyed everything. Especially now, there’s so much disinformation. People forget. It’s easy to romanticize Chávez. Maduro is a continuation of the original sin,” says Jakubowicz.

Kaufman calls making this particular play an act of defiance. He believes that “the Chávez phenomenon is being reenacted in so many different countries now, in all these places where authoritarian dictators are democratically elected, then take control of the country.”

In crafting his script, he has had an uncommon resource:  the actors, whom he calls artists-in-exile.

Throughout rehearsals, he has used a Tectonic technique called “moment work” to explore, refine and heighten the play’s 47 flowing scenes, incorporating those moments into the final version of the production.  Roorbach, who graduated from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts in May, is making her professional debut as Scarlet, and she found Kaufman’s “moment work” exhilarating.

“He uses the text, but he allows us to improvise – he calls it ‘making sketches.’ Then he sharpens and molds them.  He’s engineering a solid sense of reality but being soft to change, trying everything. It’s really collaborative and focused,” she says.

The performers’ sharing of memories and personal stories, their expressions of grief about events that occurred long after Kaufman had left Venezuela, unleashed intense emotions in everyone.

One example: McGaffney and Urdaneta were working on a difficult scene between Juan Planchard and his father.  Urdaneta, a famous actor, television personality and radio political commentator who had spent three hours a day on the air ribbing and criticizing the Chávez regime, escaped Venezuela 20 years ago after the assassination of two of his bodyguards and a clear death threat.

Some of the material in “Las Aventuras de Juan Planchard” was proving hard for him to handle emotionally. He cried more than once.

“I said to Moisés, ‘Today I’m going to open the tank, but I don’t know if I can close it again,’” says Urdaneta.  “But the scene was beautiful, tender and funny. We’d rehearse, then Moisés would come up with a box of Kleenex, and we’d all be laughing and crying.”

McGaffney, whose father is British and mother Venezuelan, first worked with Hausmann and Kaufman 14 years ago in a Venezuelan production of “Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde.” After starting in the ensemble, he stepped into the role of Wilde’s beloved Sir Alfred Douglas, aka Bosie.  Hausmann directed, but Kaufman came to Caracas to fine-tune the production.

“I was 20, the youngest cast member, and I didn’t know who Moisés Kaufman was.  He was working with us, and his cell phone rang. He said, ‘I have to take this,’ which I thought was strange. Afterwards, he told us it was Robin Williams,” say McGaffney.

The actor and playwright became friends, and Kaufman wrote McGaffney a letter of support when he applied for a Green Card. Kaufman reached out to the actor about “Juan Planchard” in 2019, and the transformation from novel to stage has been going on ever since.

“This guy is a freaking genius, that’s for sure.  It feels like a workshop, an exploration that goes very deep, like we are the storytellers instead of just following the guidelines,” McGaffney says.  “You need a head like the one Moisés has. I can’t imagine how he can rest his brain during rehearsals. He keeps grinding, looking for stuff.”

Perhaps ironically, McGaffney embodies a completely different kind of Venezuelan in director-screenwriter Diego Vicentini’s 2023 feature film debut “Simón.”

In the title role of the made-in-Miami movie, he plays a student leader/freedom fighter who escapes to Miami after being captured and tortured, only to face PTSD, survivor’s guilt and the prospect of building a new life if he isn’t deported.

“Juan Planchard is the other side…He is the consequence of so many decisions he didn’t take or make,” McGaffney says. “The story is so rich and deep, with so many layers – black, white and gray.”

Actor-singer Mariaca Semprún won South Florida’s 2022 Carbonell Award for her leading role in the Miami New Drama world premiere musical “Papá Cuatro.” In “Juan Planchard” she plays a trio of roles: a sexy model called La Brasileña, Scarlet’s wild BFF Francesca, and Vera Góldiger, a character inspired by the American writer-lawyer Eva Golinger, who specialized in international and immigration law and was an ardent Chávez supporter.

In “Papá Cuatro” Semprún, who can currently be seen in Telemundo’s “Malverde” and “Pálpito” on Netflix, shared parts of her Venezuelan past: the 2014 murder of her beauty queen friend Monica Spear and Spear’s husband by armed robbers during a Venezuelan vacation; a call from an airline employee warning Semprún and her writer-husband Leonardo Padrón not to come back to Caracas when they traveled to Miami to work on their Edith Piaf musical “Piaf, Voz y Delirio.”

“That was my first time telling my story onstage,” says Semprún. “I had always had a character as a shield…but I discovered that vulnerability is a superpower.”

Semprún became part of the “Juan Planchard” world premiere after Kaufman saw her in last summer’s return engagement of “Papá Cuatro.”  Although she usually plays leading roles onstage, she took the three parts because she wanted to work with Kaufman, a creative experience she calls an amazingly personal and moving gift.

When she read Jakubowicz’s novel, she says, “I felt so sad. I felt a pain in my chest.  Everything the book said was the truth.”

She adds of the play: “I think it’s my destiny to keep telling our story as a Venezuelan – the good, the bad, the horrible.”

Even before “Las Aventuras de Juan Planchard” opens, Kaufman feels changed by his work on it.

 

“It has been one of the most moving, epic and daunting experiences of my life in theater to be in that room with those artists…All of them gathered to make a point, a play against the government that exiled them,” he says.

“I got a feeling like I was in an underground meeting of the French resistance . . . I am so much in awe of the courage of these actors who are willing to revisit some of the worst episodes of their lives. It’s a kind of artistic revenge.”

WHAT: World premiere of “Las Aventuras de Juan Planchard” (“The Adventures of Juan Planchard”) by Moisés Kaufman (in Spanish with English supertitles)

WHERE: Miami New Drama production at the Colony Theatre, 1040 Lincoln Road, Miami Beach

WHEN: Previews 8 p.m. Oct. 18-21, 3 p.m. Oct. 22, 8 p.m. Oct. 26-27; sold-out opening 8 p.m. Oct. 28; regular performances 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, 3 p.m. Sunday, through Nov. 12

COST: $46.50, $66.50, $69.50, $76.50, $83.50

INFORMATION:  305-674-1040 or miaminewdrama.org

ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music and more. Don’t miss a story at www.artburstmiami.com. 

Review: GableStage’s ‘How I Learned’ may feature only one actor, but collaboration shows

Actor Melvin Huffnagle is August Wilson in the playwright’s “How I Learned What I Learned” now at GableStage through Sunday, Oct. 22 at the theater in the Biltmore Hotel, Coral Gables. (Photo courtesy of Magnus Stark)

August Wilson (well, the actor playing him) moves through his autobiographical solo show like a colossus, navigating a scaled-down version of Pittsburgh’s Hill District.

“How I Learned What I Learned” is the story of how a mixed-race kid who dropped out of high school at 15 became one of the country’s greatest playwrights.  It’s the dramatic rendering of the societal, political, cultural and artistic forces that shaped him, particularly during the 1950s and ‘60s.  It grants insight into how a creative giant’s mind works, because of what he learned and how he learned it.

Conceived in 2003 by Wilson and director Todd Kreidler, performed by Wilson at Seattle Repertory Theatre two years before he passed away in 2005, “How I Learned What I Learned” is launching GableStage’s 25th anniversary season at its home in the historic Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables.

Just one man, actor Melvin Huffnagle, appears onstage.  But make no mistake:  this “How I Learned What I Learned” is the result of an immensely creative collaboration.

Director/sound designer Carey Brianna Hart, set designer Frank J Oliva, lighting designer Ernesto Pinto, projection designer Joel Zishuk, stage manager/costume coordinator Marialexia Hernandez, dramaturg Karina Batchelor and Huffnagle all played their parts in the end result.  GableStage’s singular take on what is now a theatrical legend’s farewell proves yet again that a solo show is the result of creative alchemy.

On its surface, Huffnagle’s task is simple:  Playing the two-time Pulitzer Prize winner (for “Fences” and “The Piano Lesson”), he explains how an often-angry young man became the acclaimed artist who wrote the Pittsburgh Cycle, 10 deep, rich, poetic plays about Black life in each decade of the 20^th century.

Truth be told, “How I Learned What I Learned” isn’t simple. The script is a 47-page mountain beckoning Huffnagle to the top, and though the rehearsal period was abbreviated, he makes the ascent. Sure, on opening night you could feel his focus as he moved from anecdote to connective moment to tonal shift.  But Huffnagle is often a magnetic interpreter of Wilson’s work – and the playwright’s moods.

“How I Learned What I Learned” asks the actor to summon charm, outrage, passion, the dangers that can accompany a younger man’s romantic game.  From the jump, Wilson makes it clear that he’s going to be wry and real.

“My ancestors have been in America since the early 17^th century.  And for the first 244 years we never had trouble finding a job. But since 1863 it’s been hell,” he begins.  “It’s been hell because the ideas and attitudes that America had toward slaves followed them out of slavery and became entrenched in the nation’s psyche.”

Wilson, the son of a Black mother and a white father, fully embraced his Black identity.  The stories he tells in “How I Learned What I Learned” illustrate that the lessons he absorbed – about creativity, life, strength, values – were taught by his Black friends and family.  The creative spark that drove him to write the Pittsburgh Cycle, conveying the reality and complexities of being Black in America, was fashioned in the Hill District.

With Hart as his guide, Huffnagle uses the impressive tools in his actor’s arsenal – vocal and physical – to vary the segments in a piece that has him talking for almost two hours straight.

He becomes Wilson’s poet-junkie friend Chawley Williams, transforms into the troubled Cy Morocco, carries on both sides of a conversation between his mother Daisy and her friend Julie, who urged her to accept a used washing machine instead of the new Speed Queen she won in a radio station contest (the station, discovering Daisy was Black, wanted to give her a Salvation Army coupon for a used washer).

The actor is especially fierce when he relates the stories of Wilson walking away from different jobs – in a toy store, mowing suburban lawns, washing dishes.  Sure, the young writer who aspired to be a poet needed the money for the $25 rent he had to pay for his basement apartment every other week.

But principle – not accepting the implication that he might be a thief, that he shouldn’t be mowing a white person’s lawn, that he spent too much time poring over books at the Carnegie Library – mattered more.

Thanks in large part to Huffnagle’s creative collaborators, “How I Learned What I Learned” at GableStage becomes an other-worldly memory play, one grounded in clarity yet infused with delight.

Oliva’s sprawling set features scale models of Pittsburgh buildings, bridges, the Hill District.  Crafted mostly via laser printer, the buildings light up in different ways thanks to Pinto, whose work also varies the color of the plain horizontal backdrop.

Zishuk’s projections of words and imagery add immeasurably to the storytelling, particularly in the moment where the clearly brilliant Wilson is excitedly explaining how one fascinating book leads to another and another and so on.

Hart’s sound design varies from the subtle “tink” of a dime falling into a Mason jar to an effect that helps to convey an overarching theme:  During some of the projections, you hear a crackling fire as you watch subtle floating embers move over the images.  The message? Wilson’s creative spark was forged in the Hill District.

A new Wilson biography – “August Wilson: A Life” by former Boston Globe critic Patti Hartigan (531 pages, Simon & Schuster) – was published recently, painting a lengthy and detailed portrait of a great artist.

But “How I Learned What I Learned” makes you feel Wilson’s presence, his drive, his humor, his rage, his passion. That’s the power of theater.

WHAT: “How I Learned What I Learned” by August Wilson

WHERE: GableStage in the Biltmore Hotel, 1200 Anastasia Ave., Coral Gables

WHEN: 2 and 7 p.m. Wednesday, 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday (no performance Oct. 14, additional matinee Oct. 21), through Oct. 22; understudy Robert Strain will play Wilson Oct. 4, Oct. 11 and Oct. 18 at 2 p.m. and Oct. 12 at 10:30 a.m.

COST: $35-$65 (plus $10 in fees per ticket)

ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music and more. Don’t miss a story at www.artburstmiami.com.

GableStage’s August Wilson solo show details how a writer found his voice

Actor Melvin Huffnagle portrays playwright August Wilson in “How I Learned What I Learned” at GableStage running through Oct. 22 at the theater in the Biltmore Hotel, Coral Gables. (Photo courtesy of Magnus Stark)

Few people – maybe least of all the late and indisputably great August Wilson – could have foreseen the future he built for himself, word by word.

A 10th-grade high school dropout, he was a brilliant and bullied mixed-race kid who grew up in Pittsburgh’s Hill District, an area with a mostly Black population. Keeping his dropout status secret from his mother who had such faith in him, he became an autodidact, leaving home during school hours to devour hundreds of books at the city’s majestic Carnegie Library.

The fourth of six children born to Daisy Wilson, an African-American North Carolina native whose family was part of the Great Migration from south to north, and Frederick August Kittel Sr., a white German immigrant baker, the budding writer absorbed the sights and sounds of the Hill District, where family, neighbors, friends and the artists created a rich cultural stew in the mid-20th century.

The environment, the people and the Carnegie Library became his university. And from that creative crucible, a world-class playwright emerged.

Born Frederick August Kittel Jr., he wrote as August Wilson, honoring his adoring mother and distancing himself from his mostly absent father, a heavy drinker with an explosive temper.

Wilson, who died of liver cancer at 60 in 2005, poured his immense creativity, vivid memory and peerless ear for the vernacular of the Hill District into a towering achievement:  10 plays about the lives of African Americans, each set in a different decade of the 20^th century.  First called the Century Cycle, now known as the Pittsburgh Cycle, all 10 were produced on Broadway. Two of them – “Fences” and “The Piano Lesson” – won a Pulitzer Prize for drama.

In 2003, one of the country’s greatest playwrights pulled back the curtain on his formative years in the solo show “How I Learned What I Learned.” It was co-conceived by Wilson and director Todd Kreidler, written by Wilson and performed by him in its world premiere at Seattle Repertory Theatre.

The play has been performed in regional theaters around the country, often by actors like Ruben Santiago-Hudson and Eugene Lee, performers who had a history with Wilson’s work.  Now, following a Sept. 29 preview, GableStage will start its 2023-2024 season Sept. 30-Oct. 22 with a new production of “How I Learned What I Learned” starring Melvin Huffnagle as Wilson.

In this personal piece, Wilson’s voice – the way he expressed wisdom, tradition, spirit, history, outrage, joy, humor – shows clearly from whom the characters in the Pittsburgh Cycle got their mojo.  If you know the plays, you’ll gain an understanding of what shaped the man who created them.

But even if you’ve never seen “Gem of the Ocean,” “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone,” “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” “The Piano Lesson,” “Seven Guitars,” “Fences,” “Two Trains Running,” “Jitney,” “King Hedley II” or “Radio Golf,” “How I Learned What I Learned” provides an irresistible peek into the forging of an artist.

“I’ve loved this show for a very long time, then discovered it had never been done in Miami,” says Bari Newport, GableStage’s producing artistic director.  “It celebrates the creative spirit we all have inside of us: The act of creation is godly.  This has interesting metaphorical elements and autobiographical information. I’m interested in plays that celebrate Black joy and being a Black artist.”

Newport is directing two of her company’s plays this season:  Larissa FastHorse’s comedy “The Thanksgiving Play” Nov. 17-Dec. 19 (“Four well-meaning people are trying to tell an authentic version of the Thanksgiving story, which is hard without an indigenous person involved,” Newport says) and Ben Power’s adaptation of Stefano Massini’s “The Lehman Trilogy” March 15-April 14 (“It’s actually a very simple piece, but the story is epic,” she says of the three-actor, three-hour-plus play spanning 164 years).

To stage “How I Learned What I Learned,” Newport hired Carey Brianna Hart, a Miami actor, director, playwright, teacher, stage manager and radio host who does a weekly show on the arts at 9:30 a.m. Saturdays on WMBM-AM 1490. Hart has worked at numerous South Florida companies, including M Ensemble, a Black company that is the region’s oldest continuously producing professional theater.

There, Hart worked onstage and behind the scenes on a number of the Pittsburgh Cycle plays; M Ensemble is the only local company to have produced all 10, some more than once (a new production of “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone” will play at Miami’s Sandrell Rivers Theater April 11-28).

Hart remembers her ninth-grade class reading “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” about temperamental real-life blues singer Gertrude “Ma” Rainey. Set in a Chicago recording studio in 1927, it’s the only play in Wilson’s cycle that doesn’t take place in Pittsburgh.  The director particularly recalls the productions of “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone” and “The Piano Lesson” that she saw at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre when she was a student at DePaul University.

“Just seeing people like the ones I know represented onstage in such a wonderful manner, knowing those idiosyncrasies – it was tremendous,” she recalls.

Her subsequent work on multiple Wilson plays allowed her to appreciate the insight “How I Learned What I Learned” provides into the shaping of a masterful storyteller.

“It has a lot of concepts from his life that he used in all of his plays – him experiencing these circumstances, these people, how they resonated and caused him to create art. This background could have caused him to lash out. But it created a lexicon for his plays,” says Hart.

Huffnagle, whose most recent performance in a Wilson play was as the fiery diner owner Memphis in M Ensemble’s “Two Trains Running” in May, moved to Miami  from New York two years ago to become an assistant professor of acting in Florida International University’s Department of Theatre.

In New York, he appeared in numerous plays by Layon Gray, another M Ensemble favorite, whose work brings stories from black history to vibrant life (this season, Gray will stage the Feb. 8-25 regional premiere of “The Girls of Summer,” his play about a Black all-female baseball team in 1945).

Regarding Wilson, Huffnagle’s knowledge of and appreciation for the revered playwright’s work runs deep.

“I went to grad school at the University of Florida and played Herald Loomis in ‘Joe Turner’s Come and Gone’ – my favorite August Wilson play. I did my Master of Fine Arts dissertation on it,” Huffnagle says of the play, which is set in 1911, as Black men and women struggled to forge new lives in a nation forever stained by slavery.

Beyond Wilson’s ingenious notion of crafting 10 related plays that delve so deeply into a century of Black life in America, his distinctive writing and storytelling are what propelled him into the company of the country’s most revered playwrights, including Eugene O’Neill, Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller – whose work he hadn’t read or seen at the time he began his devoting himself to writing plays.

Wilson, whose first dream was to become a poet, writes in a style that is naturalistic yet poetic, almost musical.  The monologues he gives his characters may be meaty, but they soar like arias.

“He put real Black people, Black lives and their circumstances onstage. How he created these characters and their stories is poignant, important and necessary. As an artist, you crave and look for that,” says Huffnagle.

Huffnagle says he is not trying to imitate Wilson’s voice, though he has watched videos of the late playwright.

“The trap could be if you weren’t very good at it.  His spirit is in the words – you don’t have to embody him,” says the actor.

Huffnagle has been working with Hart at a frenzied pace since he and actor Robert Strain swapped performer and understudy roles (after a recent family loss, Strain will now perform at select matinees).

Beyond learning all the words in a 47-page script, Huffnagle has to navigate the production’s unusual, evocative set:  Designer Frank J Oliva, lighting designer Ernesto Pinto, projection designer Joel Zishuk have brought the Hill District of Wilson’s youth back to life, with scale-model buildings and bridges that light up when he’s talking about something that happened in a particular place.

Threading through those small streets might give some actors pause. Not Huffnagle.

“The set actually helps me remember my lines,” he says. “August is revisiting this place where he lived. And he’s the giant now.”

WHAT: “How I Learned What I Learned” by August Wilson

WHERE: GableStage in the Biltmore Hotel, 1200 Anastasia Ave., Coral Gables

WHEN: Preview 8 p.m. Friday, Sept. 29, opening 8 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 30; regular performances 2 and 7 p.m. Wednesday, 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday (no performance Oct. 14, additional matinee Oct. 21), through Oct. 22; understudy Robert Strain will play Wilson Oct. 4, Oct. 11 and Oct. 18 at 2 p.m. and Oct. 12 at 10:30 a.m.

COST: $35-$65 (plus $10 in fees per ticket)

INFORMATION:  305-445-1119 or gablestage.org

ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music and more. Don’t miss a story at www.artburstmiami.com.

New (and new to Miami) plays are just the ticket for the 2023-2024 theater season

Lindsey Corey will play the alluring Sally Bowles with Elijah Word as the provocative Emcee in Zoetic Stage’s immersive production of “Cabaret.” It’s part of a lively 2023-24 South Florida theater season. (Photo courtesy of Chris Headshots)

For anyone who savors the magic and power of theater, the start of a new season can be a lot like the approach of a favorite holiday.  Fueled by excitement and curiosity, we look at season preview stories and theater websites as we try to figure out which plays and musicals will speak to us, move us, entertain us or even slightly shift the way we see the world.

These are hard times for regional theaters, with many in COVID-weary (and COVID-wary) audiences deciding to buy tickets on a show-by-show basis instead of committing to a season subscription. Subscriptions have, for decades, been the financial backbone of America’s regional theater movement.

Layoffs and postponed seasons, some at major companies – Center Theatre Group’s Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, for instance, won’t present a 2023-2024 season – have happened throughout the country, though South Florida theaters seem to have weathered the artistic downturn so far. Still, you’d think the impulse for artistic directors might be to do what touring Broadway does:  program popular titles that can help provide a box office cushion.

What isn’t safe – and now feels downright daring –is an artistic director’s decision to produce world premieres and new-to-the-region works.

Brand-new or lesser-known plays and musicals ask a ticket buyer to roll the dice and have faith that trusted artists are going to present something startling or thought-provoking or entertaining. Homegrown playwrights can build careers, and audiences aren’t being asked to watch different productions of the same shows over and over again.

So, in that spirit, here’s a select look at some of the many premieres worth seeking out this season. ArtburstMiami.com is dedicated to covering the arts in Miami-Dade, so most are at theaters in Miami, Miami Beach, Coral Gables and so on, but we’ve also highlighted a few in Broward and Palm Beach that are worth a drive.  The shows are grouped thematically, though many fit into more than one category.

IDENTITY EXPLORATION

In Miami-Dade, myriad cultures mix, blend and clash, drawing from the past while fashioning a future. The exploration of identity has provided thematic fuel for several plays premiering in South Florida this season.

Poet Richard Blanco (who read his “One Morning” at President Barack Obama’s second inauguration) and playwright Vanessa Garcia (who wrote the immersive hit “The Amparo Experience”), are Cuban-Americans who grew up in Miami. The two collaborated on the commissioned “Sweet Goats and Blueberry Señoritas,” which had its world premiere at Maine’s Portland Stage last January. Actors’ Playhouse at the Miracle Theatre in Coral Gables will begin its new season Nov. 8-Dec. 3 with the regional premiere of Blanco and Garcia’s play about a Cuban-American baker torn between remaining in Maine or returning to Miami to deal with her estranged mother.

Garcia will also have a world premiere this season when New City Players, performing at Island City Stage in Wilton Manors, presents “1,000 Miles” in collaboration with Miami’s Abre Camino Collective March 7-24.  In the play about “survival, surveillance, nationalism and the nature of opportunity,” a woman tries to make a new life after she emigrates to a changing city in another country.

Carmen Rivera’s Obie Award-winning “La Gringa,” Off-Broadway’s longest-running Spanish-language play, will make its bilingual Miami debut Nov. 30-Dec. 17 in a City Theatre production at the Arsht Center’s Carnival Studio Theater in Miami.  A young woman whose extended family is from Puerto Rico makes her first visit to the island over the Christmas holidays, seeking connection with a culture she treasures, only to realize she’s regarded as a gringa, an “other” very different from her Puerto Rican relatives.

Another aspect of identity comes into play in the world premiere of David Rosenberg’s “Wicked Child” Jan. 11-28.  The Zoetic Stage production at the Arsht  Center’s Carnival Studio Theater focuses on a New York attorney who leaves his successful career behind to join the Israeli Defense Force, a decision that has repercussions within his secular Jewish family.

Linda Parris-Bailey’s “Yankee Bajan” Nov. 3-4 uses drama and music to explore a couple’s journey away from American violence and injustice back to Barbados, where they embrace their homeland and its legacy. Live Arts Miami is presenting the piece in the Lehman Theater at Miami Dade College’s North Campus.

Kazakh-American opera singer Timor Bekbosunov will perform the world premiere of his dark musical comedy “The Great Soviet Bucket” Feb. 23-24 in the Miami Light Project’s new home, the Light Box at Miami Theater Center in Miami Shores. Comrade Bucket, a puppet representing Russia in the disintegrating Soviet Union, ignites questions of identity and politics in an artist confronting a changing future.

SIT UP, TAKE NOTICE

When acclaimed playwrights like Moisés Kaufman (“The Laramie Project,” “Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde”) and Nilo Cruz (the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “Anna in the Tropics”) debut new work in your region, just go. And though he’s not as widely known, the same holds true for Christopher Demos-Brown, a cofounder of Miami’s Zoetic Stage, whose play “American Son” ran on Broadway in 2018-2019.

The New York-based Kaufman, who cofounded Miami New Drama with artistic director (and fellow Venezuelan) Michel Hausmann, has transformed Jonathan Jakubowicz’s bestseller “Las Aventuras de Juan Planchard” into a vivid theatrical exploration of the excesses and corruption that helped destroy Venezuela’s democracy.  Running Oct. 17-Dec. 17, “Juan Planchard” will be directed by Kaufman; his first play to be written and performed in Spanish will also feature English supertitles.

As playwright and director, Cruz crafted a stunning production of “Anna in the Tropics” for Miami New Drama last season. He’ll return to the company in early 2024 to direct his play “Two Sisters and a Piano,” which runs Jan. 18-Feb. 11. This version of the piece about sisters under house arrest in 1991 Havana will be performed in its original English version, though in 2019 Cruz directed a Spanish-language production for Miami’s Arca Images.

That smaller company, which performs at Miami-Dade County Auditorium’s On.Stage Black Box, will be doing not one but two Cruz plays this season, both directed by the playwright:  1995’s poetic “A Park in Our House” Nov. 9-12 and the world premiere of “The Night That Degas Visited Miami” March 14-17.

Demos-Brown hasn’t had a South Florida world premiere since 2018’s “Wrongful Death and Other Circus Acts” at Zoetic, which also did the regional premiere of “American Son” in 2020.  His newest work, “The Cancellation of Lauren Fein,” will take on cancel culture in its world premiere at Palm Beach Dramaworks Feb. 2-18.

In the play, Fein and her wife Paula Muñoz, professors at a prestigious university and parents to a 16-year-old black foster son, face losing everything when Fein’s actions and the school’s diversity, equity and inclusion policies come into conflict. Demos-Brown’s plays are timely, topical, steeped in questions of justice. His day job is as an attorney, but trust this: He’s an excellent, engaging playwright.

THAT’S SO MIAMI

As Miami’s community of playwrights grows, so does the body of work inspired by or reflective of the city.

Actor-professor-playwright Elena Maria Garcia and Zoetic Stage artistic director Stuart Meltzer found themselves with a resonant hit when they debuted “¡FUÁCATA! A Latina’s Guide to Surviving the Universe” at Zoetic in 2017 (it had a second Arsht Center run and another at Actors’ Playhouse after that). “Cuban Chicken Soup When There’s No More Café,” Garcia and Meltzer’s follow-up to their earlier multi-character solo show, will get its world premiere in the Adrienne Arsht Center’s Carnival Studio Theater May 2-19.

Former Miamian Alexis Scheer, whose “Laughs in Spanish” had its world premiere at the Denver Center Theatre in January, will get a regional production of the play in Coral Gables May 17-June 9 at GableStage in the Biltmore Hotel.  Victoria Collado, who staged “The Amparo  Experience,”  will direct the wild comedy set in a Wynwood gallery during Art Basel.

IMMERSIVE THEATER

Miami’s Area Stage Company has helped ignite a new love for immersive theater experiences thanks to the boundless creativity of its young artistic director, Giancarlo Rodaz. After a buzz-worthy “Annie” in its South Miami space and successful productions of Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast” and “The Little Mermaid” at the Arsht’s Carnival Studio Theater, Rodaz will immerse actors and audiences in the world of “The Addams Family” with Area’s production of the musical Feb. 7-25.

Zoetic Stage will also be entering the immersive realm with its production of the uber-popular musical “Cabaret” in the Carnival Studio Theater March 14-April 7.  Artistic director Meltzer will evoke the show’s decadent Kit Kat Klub in 1929-1930 Berlin, with Lindsey Corey starring as self-deluding chanteuse Sally Bowles and lanky Elijah Word as the always-provocative Emcee.

Thanks in part to a Knight Foundation New Work grant, Miami playwright William Hector’s long-brewing “G7: 2070” will get its world premiere Oct. 19-21 in the buildings and beautiful nine-acre botanical gardens of The Kampong in Coconut Grove. The 70 people who attend each performance will find themselves at an urgent climate summit, aligning themselves with representatives from seven nations vastly altered by sea level rise 50 years in the future.  Victoria Collado, who staged the immersive “Amparo Experience,” will direct.

EXAMINING ISSUES

Racism, a police coverup and world-class journalism collide in the Miami New Drama world premiere of “Dangerous Days,” the Nicholas Griffin play that will debut at Miami Beach’s Colony Theatre April 4-28.  Drawing from his book “The Year of Dangerous Days,” Griffin sets the play in Miami in wild 1980s and centers it around the Miami Herald’s Pulitzer Prize-winning police reporter, the legendary Edna Buchanan.

Hands down one of the most challenging and potentially dazzling productions of the season is GableStage’s regional premiere of “The Lehman Trilogy” March 15-April 14.  Artistic director Bari Newport will stage Ben Power’s adaptation of Stefano Massini’s play about the rise and fall of the global investment firm Lehman Brothers.  A trio of actors plays all the parts in the illuminating, cautionary American Dream saga that covers more than a century and a half. An epic takes time – this one runs three hours, 15 minutes – but Newport believes this particular American Dream (and nightmare) story flies by.

Dominique Morisseau’s “Pipeline” will make its regional debut in an M Ensemble production at the Sandrell Rivers Theater June 6-23.  One of the country’s hottest playwrights focuses on a Black inner city high school teacher who tries to build a better future for her only son by sending him off to prep school, only to have him return to an environment rife with risk.

Dedicated to new work, the professional Theatre Lab on the campus of Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton has a couldn’t-be-timelier world premiere in Idris Goodwin’s “What’s Best for the Children” April 10-28.  The comedy about the first Black chairman of a state school board committee pits wildly different interest groups against one another as they vie to swing his support their way.

PUSHING BOUNDARIES

As he demonstrated during the pandemic with “Seven Deadly Sins” – which put actors in Lincoln Road storefronts and audiences in small, safe, socially distanced groups outside – Miami New Drama’s Hausmann is an outside-the-box thinker.   In collaboration with Miami’s Rubell Museum, Hausmann has commissioned six writers – Edwidge Danticat, Marco Ramirez, Carmen Pelaez, Aurin Squire, Rogelio Martinez and Christopher Peña – to write short plays inspired by pieces of art that will be on display as the plays are performed. “The Museum Plays” begins an open-ended run at the Rubell, 1100 NW 23rd St., Miami,  starting Jan. 11.

In addition to its unusual name, LakehouseRanchDotPNG is devoting its second season of experimental and absurdist theater at Kendall’s Artistic Vibes exclusively to world premieres by women. Rachel Greene’s “XOXOLOLA,” about classics-loving students brought together by “Titus Andronicus” and something kinkier, runs through Oct. 1. Riley Elton McCarthy’s “rabbit” involves a runaway, a pack of rabbits and danger in the woods Nov. 10-19.

Running Dec. 1-10, Charisma Jolly’s “Grapefruit,” inspired by the life of the late Gilda Radner, looks at a comedian struggling to get back into the limelight as she battles illness and self-doubt. Mackenzie Raine’s “push”, playing Jan. 12-21, imagines a divorcing couple in mediation with a special asset:  Whenever one pushes a button, the other has to tell the truth.  For the March 1-10 slot, the entire company is devising a piece that asks, “Is the blue-collar worker the key to society?”

Fort Lauderdale’s bold Thinking Cap Theatre has a new home in the Broward Center’s Abdo New River Room for the season, where founding artistic director Nicole Stodard plans to continue the company’s dedication to theatrical experimentation, equity and diversity.  In addition to the pieces onstage, the company intends to immerse audiences in free additional programming that will allow them a deeper dive into the material.

First up Oct. 27-Nov. 3 is the early ‘60s “Tango Palace” by María Irene Fornés, a vastly influential, Obie Award-winning Cuban-American playwright who was also a mentor and teacher to other great playwrights, including Nilo Cruz. William Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew,” the comedic battle of the sexes as directed and reimagined by Stodard, will allow audiences and actors to chime in as the play is performed March 22-April 3.

BROADWAY COMES TO TOWN

For theater fans drawn to spectacle and recognizable titles, nothing beats touring Broadway shows.  In addition to the return of such past hit shows as “Hamilton” (March 13-24 at the Arsht, April 10-21 at the Kravis in West Palm Beach), “Les Misérables” (June 18-23 at the Arsht),  plus “Annie” (Oct. 10-22) and “The Book of Mormon” (Dec. 12-17) at the Broward Center in Fort Lauderdale, several new-to-the-region shows are headed our way.

At the Arsht, catch “The Cher Show” (Jan. 2-7) to experience a dazzling tribute to the ultimate timeless pop diva.  Also making its regional debut: a new treatment of “Peter Pan” (May 7-12) adapted by Native American playwright Larissa FastHorse and directed by Lonny Price.

The Broward Center has four South Florida premieres: “Funny Girl” (Nov. 14-26) starring Cuban-American Katerina McCrimmon, originally from Miami, the visually spectacular “Moulin Rouge! The Musical” (March 5-17), “Mrs. Doubtfire” (April 9-21) and “Clue” (June 11-16).

And if you’re an Alanis Morissette fan, you’ll have to travel to West Palm Beach to see the regional debut of “Jagged Little Pill” (Feb. 20-25) at the Kravis Center.

ECLECTIC CHOICES

This last category serves as a heads-up about additional world and regional premieres – this season is rich with them.

Zoetic Stage is kicking off its season with the regional premiere of Lynn Nottage’s “Clyde’s” Nov. 2-19 in the Arsht’s Carnival Studio Theater.  The dark comedy by the double Pulitzer winner features a group of ex-prisoners trying to restart their lives working in a truck stop diner run by the manipulative owner-manager from hell (to be played by Karen Stephens).

Another double Pulitzer winner, August Wilson, is the subject of the one-man show “How I Learned What I Learned.”  Opening the season at GableStage at the Biltmore Sept. 22-Oct. 29, the play stars Melvin Huffnagle as Wilson, illuminating the people, experiences and inner drive that made him one of the country’s greatest playwrights with a 10-play cycle about Black Americans in each decade of the 20th century. (And a side note: Miami’s M Ensemble will present the play Wilson said was his favorite, “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone,” April 11-28.)

Both True Mirage Theater and Main Street Players will stage world premieres this season.  True Mirage begins with Armando Santana’s tragicomedy “Hoo Hah!” Nov. 3-12 at Main Street Playhouse in Miami Lakes, then travels to Artefactus in south Miami Feb. 16-25 for Luis Roberto Herrera’s “SAA (not that one),” a dark comedy about a guy in an alien abduction support group.  Main Street Players debuts Vinecia Coleman’s “Christiana Lysistrata” Feb. 16-March 3, with the playwright bringing a modern sensibility to the story of women claiming their power, ala the Greek classic “Lysistrata.”

And a couple more for the road:  Slow Burn Theatre at the Broward Center’s Amaturo Theater will stage the regional premiere of “The SpongeBob Musical” June 7-23.

In Wilton Manors, neighboring theater companies Island City Stage and Ronnie Larsen’s Plays of Wilton (POW) at The Foundry have plenty of new-to-the-region shows mainly aimed at the companies’ LGBTQ+ theatergoers: Island City’s offerings include “Which Way to the Stage” Jan. 18-Feb. 21, “Pulp” April 11-May 5 and “Skintight” May 30-June 23; POW is doing the Florida premiere of the Dan Clancy-Lynn Portas musical “108 Waverly.”

MORE INFORMATION

Actors’ Playhouse:  “Sweet Goats and Blueberry Señoritas” (Nov. 8-Dec. 3), Vanessa Garcia and Richard Blanco regional premiere; “A Rock Sails By” (May 15-June 9), Sean Grennan regional premiere. www.actorsplayhouse.org

Adrienne Arsht Center:  “The Cher Show” (Jan.2-7), South Florida premiere; “Peter Pan” (May 7-12),  South Florida premiere. www.arshtcenter.org

Arca Images:  “The Night that Degas Visited Miami” (March 14-17), Nilo Cruz world premiere; Carlos Celdrán untitled work-in-progress (July 18-28) at Miami-Dade County Auditorium On.Stage Black Box. www.arcaimages.org

Area Stage Company: “The Addams Family Musical” (Feb. 7-25), immersive regional premiere at Arsht Center. www.areastage.org

City Theatre:  “La Gringa” (Nov. 30-Dec. 17), Carmen Rivera regional premiere; Summer Shorts (June 6-23), world and regional premieres by multiple playwrights, at Arsht Center. www.citytheatre.org

GableStage: “How I Learned What I Learned” (Sept. 29-Oct. 22), August Wilson Miami premiere; “The Thanksgiving Play” (Nov. 17-Dec. 19), Larissa FastHorse regional premiere; “Old Wicked Songs” (Jan. 12-Feb.  4), Jon Marans regional premiere; “The Lehman Trilogy” (March 15-April 14), Stefano Massini/Ben Power regional premiere; “Laughs in Spanish” (May 17-June 9), Alexis Scheer Miami premiere. www.gablestage.org

The Kampong:  “G7: 2070” (Oct. 19-21), William Hector world premiere. www.g72070.com

LakehouseRanchDotPNG: “XOXOLOLA” (through Oct. 1), Rachel Greene world premiere; “rabbit” (Nov. 10-19), Riley Elton McCarthy world premiere; “Enter, Grapefruit” (Dec. 1-10), Charisma Jolly world premiere; “push” (Jan. 12-21), Mackenzie Raine world premiere; “The Table” (March 1-10), Lakehouse company world premiere at Artistic Vibes in Kendall.  https://Lakehouseranch-png.webnode.page

Live Arts Miami:  “Yankee Bajan” (Nov. 3-4), Linda  Parris-Bailey United States premiere at Miami Dade College’s North Campus Lehman Theater. www.liveartsmiami.org

M Ensemble Company:  “The Girls of Summer” (Feb. 8-25), Layon Gray regional premiere; “Pipeline” (June 6-23), Dominique Morisseau regional premiere at Sandrell Rivers Theater. www.themensemble.com

Main Street Players: “Dr. Seward’s Dracula” (Oct. 20-29), Joseph Zettelmaier regional premiere; “Christiana Lysistrata” (Feb. 16-March 3), Vinecia Coleman world premiere. www.mainstreetplayers.com

Miami Light Project:  “The Great Soviet Bucket” (Feb. 23-24), Timur Bekbosunov world premiere at the Light Box at Miami Theater Center. www.miamilightproject.com

Miami New Drama:  “Las Aventuras de Juan Planchard” (Oct. 17-Dec. 17), Moisés Kaufman world premiere in Spanish with English supertitles; “The Museum Plays” (open-ended run begins Jan. 11), world premiere short plays by Edwidge Danticat, Marco Ramirez, Aurin Squire, Rogelio Martinez, Carmen Pelaez, Christopher Peña at Rubell Museum in Miami; “Two Sisters and a Piano” (Jan. 18-Feb. 11); “Dangerous Days” (April 4-28), Nicholas Griffin world premiere. www.miaminewdrama.org

True Mirage Theater:  “Hoo Hah!” (Nov. 3-12), Armando Santana world premiere at Main Street Playhouse; “SAA (not that one)” (Feb. 16-25), Luis Roberto Herrera world premiere at Artefactus. www.truemiragetheater.com

Zoetic Stage:  “Clyde’s” (Nov. 2-19), Lynn Nottage South Florida premiere at Arsht Center; “Wicked Child” (Jan.11-28), David Rosenberg world premiere at Arsht Center; “Cabaret” (Jan. 11-28), immersive regional premiere at Arsht Center; “Cuban Chicken Soup When There’s No More Café” (May 2-19), Elena Maria Garcia and Stuart Meltzer world premiere at Arsht Center.  www.zoeticstage.org

TO THE NORTH

Broward Center for the Performing Arts: “Funny Girl” (Nov. 14-26), South Florida premiere starring Miamian Katerina McCrimmon as Fanny Brice; and “Moulin Rouge! The Musical” (March 5-17), “Mrs. Doubtfire” (April 9-21) and “Clue” (June 11-16), all South Florida premieres. www.browardcenter.org

Island City Stage: “Which Way to the Stage (Jan. 18-Feb. 21), Ana Nogueira regional premiere; “Pulp” (April 11-May 5), Patricia Kane regional premiere musical; “Skintight” (May 30-June 23), Joshua Harmon regional premiere. www.islandcitystage.org

Kravis Center: “Jagged Little Pill” (Feb. 20-25). www.kravis.org

New City Players:  “1,000 Miles” (March 7-24), Vanessa Garcia world premiere at Island City Stage in Wilton Manors. www.newcityplayers.org

Palm Beach Dramaworks:  “The Messenger” (Dec. 8-24), Jenny Connell Davis world premiere; “The Cancellation of Lauren Fein” (Feb. 2-18), Christopher Demos-Brown world premiere. www.palmbeachdramaworks.org

Plays of Wilton:  “108 Waverly” (Nov. 2-Dec. 10), Dan Clancy-Lynn Portas Florida premiere musical at the Foundry. www.ronnielarsen.com

Slow Burn Theatre: “The SpongeBob Musical” (June 7-23), regional premiere. www.slowburntheatre.org

Theatre Lab: “The Many Wonders of Jasmine Starr-Kidd” (through Oct. 8), Stephen Brown Florida premiere; “The Berlin Diaries” (Nov. 18-Dec. 10), Andrea Stolowitz United States premiere; “Rooted” (Feb. 3-18), Deborah Zoe Laufer Florida premiere; “What’s Best for the Children”  (April 13-28), Idris Goodwin world premiere. www.fauevents.com

Thinking Cap Theatre:  “Tango Palace” (Oct. 27-Nov. 3) and interactive adaptation of “The Taming of the Shrew” (March 22-April 3) in the Abdo New River Room at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts. www.thinkingcaptheatre.org

ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music and more. Don’t miss a story at www.artburstmiami.com.

 

Expect the Unexpected with Lucky Bruno and his new show ‘Black Popcorn’

Luckner Bruno as Cab Calloway at the Eden Roc Hotel in 2023. His original creation, “Black Popcorn,” is at the Sandrell Rivers Theater in Miami for two performances on Saturday, Sept. 16 and Sunday, Sept. 17. (Photo courtesy of Les Annees Folles by French and Famous)

Miami-bred Luckner “Lucky” Bruno is a big man and larger-than-life character who’s always been at his best confounding expectations, usually in dazzling ways. Dancing exuberantly on stilts while extravagantly costumed as Marie Antoinette or Celia Cruz. Moving with a bold, liquid grace startling in such an unabashedly round and substantial figure.  Switching effortlessly from belting Cab Calloway tunes in glitzy corporate cabarets to commanding, charismatic actor in Miami Motel Stories to entrancing countless children as teacher and performer.

“Me and physics have a healthy disagreement,” says Bruno. “I fought this for a long time. But it is about falling into the magic of what happens onstage, and you transcend. I found things I could do that other people can’t. I can breakdance on three-foot stilts. I can sing opera on silks 30 feet in the air because I have a huge lung capacity.

“If someone says ‘we want Lucky’ and Lucky’s not available, they can’t say they want someone like Lucky. Cause there’s no one else like him.”

Certainly, no one else could have created “Black Popcorn,” a wild amalgamation of live singing, brash social satire, dance from Afro-Cuban to classical ballet, circus acrobatics, poetic theatrical fantasy, raw comedy and more that is Bruno’s most ambitious project yet. But the show, which runs Saturday, Sept. 16 and Sunday, Sept. 17 at the Sandrell Rivers Theater in Liberty City, aims to do much more than entertain and startle.

“Black Popcorn” celebrates Black musical giants like Robert Johnson and Tina Turner and the powerful legacy of Black music. It is also a fierce indictment of racism, the co-optation of Black culture, and a passionate tribute to Black resilience and empowerment at a fraught moment for both in Florida.

“Black people took the trauma of what was done to them and used music to filter that,” says Bruno. “Black stories are not only being denied and devalued, they’re being demonized. Another love of mine is history. And history says when there’s a denial of one people and pushing the triumph of one class over another, the next chapter is horrific.”

Bruno’s dizzying range was on display at a recent “Black Popcorn” rehearsal at the theater. He led several of the nine performers in a song to the Afro-Cuban Santeria deity Yemaya, which shifts to a rapid-fire rap solo, music he composed with Vinny Hamilton. He partnered his little sister Keiana Bruno, 16, in a ballet solo, coaxing and praising her. He directed Mikhael Mendoza, playing Blues legend Robert Johnson facing off with the Devil, played by a smarmily malevolent Zack Marquez on springy jump stilts.

Vanya Allen, an accomplished singer, actress and dancer, belts the gospel-rock Tina Turner classic “Nutbush City Limits” upside down, splayed in a giant hoop wheeled by two other performers.

“I never imagined I’d be doing half the things I’m doing in this production,” Allen says during a break. She spent months in a tiny park with Bruno coaching her in aerial silks, learning to gracefully pretzel her body around long hanging banners. (Allen documented the process on her Instagram, writing in May “Lucky saying, “You can let go.” And me thinking, “Ain’t no damn way.’”)

“It’s a lot of fun once you get past ‘I could break things’,” she says.

Allen’s faith in Bruno stems from 2017, when both performed in the first, Little Havana iteration of the immersive, site-specific theater project Miami Motel Stories, with Allen as Billie Holiday and Bruno as a mystical Afro-Cuban guide leading the audience through a rundown hotel. “He created this magical environment where people instantly believed and trusted him,” Allen says. “It is his sense of command and magic. He tells you something, you’re gonna believe it.”

“I’ve been trying to cast her forever,” says Bruno. “The stars finally aligned and now she’s eating it up. It’s like go mama, go!”

He fills his younger sister Keiana — a dance student at New World School of the Arts — performing solos in “Popcorn,” with the same kind of faith. “I saw him as brave,” she says. “I feel really honored he trusts me enough to put me in a spotlight.”

Bruno, 45, grew up in Miami Shores with a Haitian father and an African-American mother. Overflowing with energy, he and his younger sister Latrice used to put on shows for their parents. He spent years studying Tae Kwon Do, earning a black belt, and sang with a children’s choir, Children of the World, which performed for President Ronald Reagan’s National Prayer Breakfast in 1986. “All of us ethnic children in our ethnic garb,” remembers Bruno, who wore a straw hat and strummed madly on a straw guitar embroidered with the word “Haiti.”

“He was always full of ideas, always wanted to be the leader,” says Latrice Bruno, 43, an actress/dancer/singer and teaching artist, who is also in “Black Popcorn.” “He created a space for himself that gives him the freedom to use everything he’s passionate about.”

Bruno began finding that freedom in high school, getting up before dawn to take a bus to G. Holmes Braddock Senior on the western edge of Miami-Dade, as the county worked to desegregate schools with magnet programs. There he fell in love with the affirmation and liberation of performing. “Growing up chubby, Black, teased – and now being able to be what I want, I was like ‘Yes,’ ” he says. “It was the freedom of being who you are behind the mask. It doesn’t matter how big you are if you can make it intriguing and magical.”

Graduating with a BFA in musical theater at the University of Miami in 1999, he was the first man in his family to complete both high school and college. He added circus skills working with Fantasy Theater Factory (FTF), the longtime children’s theater group presenting “Popcorn,” and Caravan Stage Company, which stages shows on a tall sailing ship, performing on the Great Lakes and the Mississippi. He learned clowning, applying the same exacting approach he uses in every aspect of his art. “Comedy timing for clowns is like music,” he says. “You can hear when something is not funny.”

Bruno found a home for his unique mix of talents in the 2000s on Miami Beach with Circ X, a groundbreaking troupe using a provocative mix of cabaret, vaudeville, acrobatics, and surreal costuming for shows at clubs, corporate parties and events. Founded and directed by Diana Lozano, Circ X has been a profitable side gig for multitudes of Miami artists, including choreographer Rosie Herrera and playwright Rudi Goblen. Bruno and Natasha Tsakos, the brilliant multi-media performance artist, were longtime Circ X regulars and partners, continually inventing numbers that played her fierce, elfin presence against his powerful, comic one.

“Anything you gave him he could do – and he works fast,” says Lozano, who plays a cartoonish but viciously racist villain in “Black Popcorn.” Rehearsing, Bruno urged Lozano to make her character more extreme. “The bigger you are, the more grotesque, the funnier it’ll be,” he tells her. They share an instinctive understanding from years of collaboration, as well as a love of using comedy and satire to subvert theatrical and political expectations.

“Lucky really has a talent for making work that’s entertaining but subversive,” says Lozano. “I’m passionate about doing theater that provokes you and makes you think. That’s why I love this piece.”

But Bruno’s performances on the Beach also brought him a bitter experience with racism. In 2012, he was in costume and unloading his props for a regular gig at the Clevelander Hotel on Ocean Drive when someone called police complaining about a scary masked Black man. Bruno recalled how five cops suddenly descended, punching and handcuffing him, as he protested loudly, gathering a crowd before they released him, he says.

The experience gave him what he calls “Miami Beach PTSD,” and led him to stop performing on there for a decade. It also intensified his passion at injustice and racism; subjects on which he comments frequently on social media and in his art.

“As a Black artist with funding, I feel it is beyond paramount to say something,” says Bruno.

Bruno’s enthusiastically unbounded personality – coupled with his natural authority and deep knowledge of theatrical craft – have made him a popular teacher for children’s theater programs for more than 20 years, notably with FTF and Miami Theater Center, and, more recently, at New World School of the Arts and The Mandelstam School.

“Whenever I see the babies at MTC or New World it fills my heart,” says Bruno. “I love the aha moment, when the kid or adult gets it. When you see commonality and connection. When everyone in the room sees everyone else in the room.”

He’s created two children’s shows using entertaining spectacle imbued with serious messages. “The Legend of the Pink Elephant” for MTC in 2016 was inspired by his own experience with bullying and finding his place as an artist. It tells of a bright-colored, outcast baby pachyderm. Magical creatures teach him to value his uniqueness, and he returns to save the herd. “Pink Elephant” played for two runs at MTC with packed houses of Miami-Dade students, traveled to the Atlanta Fringe Festival, and became a children’s book.

In 2022, he followed with “Heroes in My House,” a Black History children’s show featuring figures such as Haitian-American Miami leader Viter Juste and Queer Black disco icon Sylvester. Produced and presented by FTF, “Heroes” played to 15,000 students at schools in Miami-Dade and Florida in 2022, and continues to tour with FTF.

In some ways “Black Popcorn” is an adult version of “Heroes.” With, Bruno explains, “more magic, more sugar. Just talking about history has become political, has caused a divide. So as an artist, you have to say something, because doing what you’ve always done is not possible anymore.”

Not that Bruno has ever made theater the way it’s always been done.

“Do something,” he says, “and be spectacular about it.”

WHAT: Luckner Bruno’s “Black Popcorn”

WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 16 and 2 p.m., Sunday Sept. 17

WHERE: Sandrell Rivers Theater, 6103 NW 7th Ave., Miami

COST: $20

INFORMATION: 305-284-8872 or sandrellriverstheater.com

ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music and more. Don’t miss a story at www.artburstmiami.com.

Young, theatrically different Miami company, presents world premiere of ‘Plague Play’

Ruki Etti and Lucy Lopez play the supportive women in the LakehouseRanch world premiere of Erin Proctor’s “Plague Play” running through Sunday, Aug. 27. (Photo courtesy of Juan Gamero)

Though the world is constantly evolving, the lessons of the past can have deep relevance to life as we live it today – if only we pay heed.

Listen carefully to the words in Erin Proctor’s world premiere “Plague Play,” and you’ll discover in her take on the 10 Biblical plagues of Egypt more than just a stinging examination of violence begetting violence. It is also a resonant contemplation of envy, love, family, fear, longing, PTSD and the piling on of disasters.

“Plague Play” opens the second season – all world premieres – for LakehouseRanchDotPNG.  The company’s name may be a little unwieldy (it evolved from a road trip artistic director Brandon Urrutia and set designer Indy Sulliero once took), but its purpose is clearly defined and something scarce in South Florida theater:  producing absurdist and experimental works.

LakehouseRanch presents its plays in the intimate Artistic Vibes space at 8846 SW 129^th Terrace, Suite B, Miami (located in an area full of warehouses and offices, Artistic Vibes is on the second floor of a two-story office building).  Proctor is one of the company’s three resident playwrights; the others are Riley Elton McCarthy, whose “rabbit” will premiere Nov. 10-19, and MacKenzie Raine, whose play “push.” premieres Jan. 12-21.

Staged by Urrutia, a Florida International University grad like most others in the company, “Plague Play” is Proctor’s retelling/interpretation of Chapters 7 to 11 in the Biblical Book of Exodus.

The New York-based playwright uses plenty of contemporary language (including f-bombs), particularly in scenes involving the shifting relationship of brothers Moses (Kyran Wright) and Aaron (Jedhi Weir). But she also summons beautiful imagery in the affectionate exchanges between Moses’s wife Tzipporah (Lucy Marie Lopez) and Aaron’s twin Miriam (Ruki Etti), and the loving memories shared by Moses and Tzipporah.  There are laughs, too, as improbable as that may seem in a play about plagues.

For anyone interested in “Plague Play,” it is helpful to do an internet refresher on the story of Moses and Aaron trying to convince the Pharoah, King Ramses II, to free the enslaved Israelites.  Prophet Moses predicts the increasingly horrific plagues visited on the hard-hearted Pharoah and his people, while God works through the increasingly agitated Aaron to deliver them one by one. Having the basic storyline, characters and place names in mind enables a deeper dive into Proctor’s play.

Urrutia and company meet the script’s creative demands in simple ways.  Turning water into blood is accomplished by Leonardo Urbina’s lighting.  Little plastic frogs emerge from Sulliero’s set; ditto, the later plague of locusts. Irritating gnats are evoked by the buzzing cast.  As Aaron, Weir delivers a vividly disturbing speech about the wild beasts emerging from his body.  Plagues of boils, fiery hail, darkness and the death of first-born children follow.

Running about 80 minutes, “Plague Play” is captivating throughout, even though you realize (thanks to projected words in Hebrew and English) that you’re going through a kind of countdown of the plagues.  Urrutia’s staging in the small space and the performances of the four actors take the audience on a journey that, against all odds, remains suspenseful.

Wright plays Moses as a man conflicted by his love for his seven-years-older siblings Aaron and Miriam, and his loyalty to Pharoah, with whom he was raised as a brother.  His sibling rivalry scenes with Weir’s Aaron and his tender ones with Lopez’s Tzipporah are among the most effective in the play.

Weir conveys many of the most intense emotional moments in “Plague Play,” and at times you can feel his Aaron is on the verge of imploding.  His speech about the horrors of war as he refuses to celebrate victory over Pharoah is shattering.

The play’s women are different too.

Lopez’s Tzipporah is a loving, worried stranger in a strange land who expresses her concerns but inevitably follows the lead of her beloved Moses.  Etti’s Miriam is more a salt of the earth type, a solid and sacrificing woman who is quietly vital to the other three.  Underlining their distinctiveness, costume (and sound) designer Maleeha Naseer clothes them in different styles and contrasting shades of orange and turquoise (the men wear simple red or yellow shirts, loose pants and sandals).

LakehouseRanch is a young company limited in budget (hence its two-weekend runs) but long on imagination.  The talent involved is obvious, and the kind of work Urrutia and his colleagues want to create can add to the rich mosaic of theater in South Florida.

WHAT: World premiere of “Plague Play” by Erin Proctor

WHERE: LakehouseRanchDotPNG production at Artistic Vibes, 8846 SW 129^th Terrace, Suite B (second floor), Miami

WHEN: 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday, through Aug. 27

COST:  $15 (discounts for students and artists)

INFORMATION: 786-427-4721 or lakehouseranchdotpng.com

ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music and more. Don’t miss a story at www.artburstmiami.com.