"The poetry of Cruz's writing is what those who love his work cite most often about his style, and [i]Sotto Voce has that. Yet it also contains passages that are realistic, whimsical, sensual and heartbreaking. Cruz may be that rarity, a poet of the stage, but he is first and foremost a dramatist."—[i]The Miami HeraldAriel Strauss, a Jewish Cuban man, strives to explore his cultural history when he encounters Bemadette Kahn, an older woman and famed novelist who seeks to...
Nilo Cruz is the most produced Cuban American playwright in the United States and was the first dramatist of Hispanic descent to receive the Pulitzer Prize. In his plays, Cruz almost always journeys back to Cuba, even when the play is not set there. Cruz is a sensualist, a conjurer of mysterious voyages and luxuriant landscapes. He is a poetic chronicler, a documentarian of the presence of Latin people in American life. He conveys the strength and persistence of the Cuban spirit through a wholly...
“In Beauty of the Father one of the American theater’s most promising voices rings true and strong.”—Lynn Jacobson, Variety “Cruz conducts arias with his pen. He is a writer of ideas, who fills the stage with a kind of lush dramatic literature . . . Beauty of the Father brings to mind the playwright Maria Irene Fornes. Like his artistic forebear, Cruz recognizes the magic in the everyday. And he has found an astonishing language with which to...
Winner of the 2003 Pulitizer Prize for Drama. . . there are many kinds of light.The light of fires. The light of stars.The light that reflects off rivers.Light that penetrates through cracks.Then there’s the type of light that reflects off the skin.—Nilo Cruz, Anna in the TropicsThis lush romantic drama depicts a family of cigar makers whose loves and lives are played out against the backdrop of America in the midst of the Depression. Set in Ybor City (Tampa) in 1930, Cruz...
"The words of Nilo Cruz waft from the stage like a scented breeze. They sparkle and prickle and swirl, enveloping those who listen in both specific place and time . . . and in timeless passions that touch us all."—The Miami Herald One of the United States' most-produced Cuban American writers, Nilo Cruz employs his signature poetic imagery and vivid language to tender and humorous effect in this pair of his newest works. The Color of Desire, set in 1960 Havana, revolves...
“Extraordinary and evocative, the stellar Anna in the Tropics is a work of art.”—Christine Dolen, Miami Herald This lush romantic drama depicts a family of cigar makers whose loves and lives are played out against the backdrop of America in the midst of the Depression. Set in Ybor City (Tampa) in 1930, Cruz imagines the catalytic effect of the arrival of a new “lector” (who reads Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina to the workers as they...
