A Miamian in Maine is a rarity while a Puerto Rican in New York is very commonplace, yet Cuban Americans Richard Blanco and Vanessa Garcia and Puerto Rican-born Carmen Rivera found common themes in their respective plays about the constant identity struggles Hispanics in this country often face.
Those themes are explored through very personal stories in Blanco and Garcia’s “Sweet Goats & Blueberry Señoritas” at Actors’ Playhouse at the Miracle Mile Theatre, opening Nov. 8, and Rivera’s “La Gringa,” presented by City Theatre Miami at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, starting Nov. 30. Both are Miami premieres.
(Courtesy of Actors’ Playhouse)
Nov. 10 to Dec. 3 at Actors’ Playhouse at the Miracle Theatre.
(Courtesy of City Theatre)
Nov. 30 to Dec. 17 at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts.
“La Gringa” is an OBIE Award-winning play that just celebrated its 27th anniversary in repertory at Repertorio Español in New York, making it the longest-running Spanish-language play in off-Broadway history, so it stands to reason why City Theatre wanted this to be its main production at the Arsht this upcoming season.
“We’re always looking for plays that are reflective of our community, and when Margaret Ledford, our artistic director, found this play and we realized it had never been produced in Miami, we knew this was the one,” said Gladys Ramirez, City Theatre’s executive director who is also directing “La Gringa.”
The decision was made that much easier due to Miami’s blend of Latin émigrés and first-generation Americans, and the play’s focus on the intersectionality of living in America but also staying true to one’s roots.
“What really excited Margaret and I was exploring this theme. In ‘La Gringa,’ Carmen is a fish out of water in both New York City and in Puerto Rico. And this actually happened to me,” said Ramirez. “I personally identified with her experience.”
Ramirez, whose father is Peruvian, recalls going to auditions early in her career where “people thought I was too white to play Latina.”
She took her desire to lean into the play’s personally resonant aspects by intentionally choosing production staff who could relate to the play’s theme, “like one of our set designers who is Puerto Rican-born and so many others on the team, the play totally resonated with them when we approached them,” she said.
(Courtesy of Carmen Rivera)
Carmen Rivera“La Gringa” Playwright
“La Gringa” will be an immersive bilingual experience, featuring dialogue and captioning in both English and Spanish.
Says Ramirez, “the play is fast and funny and identifiable; it doesn’t matter your heritage, we can all relate.”
The journey of “La Gringa” for Rivera began as a two-character, 10-minute play called “The Universe” based on a true incident in Rivera’s life where her identity and heritage were questioned and prevented her from getting a job. It was eventually produced by a small theater company in New York City.
(Chris Headshots & Matt Stagliano)
Vanessa Garcia and Richard Blanco are the playwrights behind “Sweet Goats & Blueberry Señoritas.”
( Alberto Romeu)
Melissa Ann Hubicsak and JL Rey in Sweet Goats & Blueberry Señoritas at Actors Playhouse at the Miracle Theatre.
“My husband, Candido, worked on the New York City production, and when he saw the audience’s response, he encouraged me to write a full-length play,” said Rivera. “I started writing on the reflection of that experience and how sometimes I felt like no one from nowhere, but on a good day I felt I belonged everywhere.”
It took her two years to write it, expanding it to a six-character play written in English called “La Gringa.”
Like Rivera’s real life at home, where she didn’t speak Spanish and her grandmother didn’t speak English, the main characters in “La Gringa,” Victor and Maria, mirror that relationship.
Playing Maria is Miami native Stephanie Vazquez, whose father is Puerto Rican. She said she’s ecstatic that she got the part. She last played a Cuban American in Zoetic Stage’s “Gringolandia: A Cuban Journey,” but this role is much more personal.
(Morgan Sophia Photography)
Gladys RamirezCity Theatre Miami Executive Director
Vazquez recalls how she was all set to audition for the play when tragedy struck and she was unable to make it. That’s when Ramirez reached out to her for the callback audition.
“I immersed myself in all things ‘La Gringa,’ researching the play, the background and talking to my dad extensively about life in Puerto Rico,” said Vazquez. “I also decided I’d be as truthful as I could during the audition.”
When she got that call she cried all day saying, “it was a very moving experience for me because thankfully, they gave me this chance. I’m so excited for my parents to see the Puerto Rican experience through this play.”
She recalls her Honduran mother and Puerto Rican father always saying they had to live the American way because “that’s why we’re here, but I realized that was actually a result of them being afraid to celebrate their own culture.”
Richard Blanco’s journey to writing “Sweet Goats & Blueberry Señoritas” began while he lived in Maine, but where he felt he wasn’t tapping into his Cuban heritage.
Having published nearly 20 books of poetry – and after serving as President Barack Obama’s inaugural poet in 2013 and being awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Joe Biden earlier this year – Blanco found himself in unfamiliar territory as a playwright.
But, he said, “it was magical and so serendipitous. I had a draft to a play on my own but my Cuban heritage wasn’t coming through.”
Then while in Miami he attended “The Amparo Experience,” a play about the Cuban revolution and exile experience under Fidel Castro, written by Vanessa Garcia.
“When I saw ‘Amparo’ I thought, we need to get to the Cuban message here, and I felt Vanessa was the person to help with that,” Blanco said. “Vanessa is such a pro but also so nonchalant, and she was very helpful with all the mechanics because it is my first play.”
So, the two briefly met when Blanco attended ‘Amparo,’ spoke about the play he’d been commissioned to write for Portland Stage in Maine, and decided to meet and discuss working together on it.
“This is the first time we work together on a play. I for sure knew of Richard and we circle around each other in the same circles, but ‘Amparo’ was when I first met him in person,” said Garcia. “Then when we met and talked about working together it was a great conversation.”
After that discussion and Blanco’s invitation to collaborate, the two decided to start from scratch with a brand-new story and because of the pandemic, all the characters were developed using Google Docs.
“We each contributed until we got a play,” Garcia said.
Many of the play’s characters are based on Blanco’s life experience in Maine and of course, Miami. The main character is a Miami girl who is a bit of a rebel, and there’s the uncle who is the good old Cuban “Tio” who is part of the journey here. One of the main characters represents the rough around the edges, salt of the earth Maine local, and there’s also Georgie, who represents Maine’s wealthier natives.
Developing these characters, Garcia said, “is like a ‘potaje’ (Spanish for stew), adding a little salt and then a potato. Creating these characters from both people we know and come across. It’s a conglomeration of people we know.”
She really got into developing the Tio character and eventually they lost their boundaries, “because you have to create one cohesive thing. However, Richard was definitely the pro on the Maine characters, which he knew so much better. Everybody is kind of from away, a different place, and that’s very much the same in Miami,” Garcia said.
All the characters share a struggle with identity, home, community, family. Blanco remembers growing up in Miami in the 1970s and ’80s that “there was a lot of support and sense of community and I was surprised to feel that in Maine; this play shows those similarities.”
He can especially relate “being the gay guy from Miami in Maine, but I realized that Maine also has a lot of different people from different backgrounds. One example of that is the most popular restaurant in my town in Maine is (run by someone) from Korea,” said Blanco.
Having debuted at the Portland Stage, Garcia and Blanco both relished and were overjoyed watching that production’s actors come together once the play had been completed.
“We were both very much interacting with the creating and producing of the play, and we couldn’t have asked for more from everyone in Maine and the first production of this piece,” said Garcia. “There was literally a moment when the Cubans were teaching the Maine locals all these Cuban dances. It was truly lovely.”
Creating the play over Zoom and having to work within those screens influenced the final product.
“We came together in these frames and squares while writing this play and those frames are very much a part of the play. All of this is in the play, and it very much comes from a symbolic but liberal level,” Garcia said.
The production contains frames that are scenes which symbolize the characters living on their own little islands and eventually coming together, something that is intentionally evident, even in the set design.
“The frames are a metaphor to who we frame ourselves and others and in essence judge each other,” said Blanco. “Also, Vanessa got to learn about Maine through this play and those two worlds came together.”
The result of all this work is a play that explores the life of Beatriz, a Cuban American baker in Maine, as she grapples with the decision of whether to remain within the close-knit community she’s built or to reunite with her estranged mother in Miami. Along the way, Beatriz rediscovers her sense of belonging, blending the city of her childhood with her new hometown.
Rivera, who also co-wrote with her husband “Celia: The Life and Music of Celia Cruz” about the iconic Cuban singer, echoes those sentiments and sees the similarities in “La Gringa” and “Sweet Goats & Blueberry Señoritas.”
“How does culture and identity exist in the diaspora? Whether it’s Maine, New York City or Florida, there are still issues of diaspora one has to deal with,” she said. “And when do you arrive? What does that even mean? Your heart has truth in it and there’s something very similar about the search.”
The team at Actors’ Playhouse is ecstatic to feature “Sweet Goats” as part of its upcoming season.
“We are thrilled to be producing the next step (second production) in the journey of this rich, moving and delightful new play,” said David Arisco, the artistic director for Actors’ Playhouse who will be directing his company’s production of the play. “The opportunity for our immensely talented cast and creative team to collaborate directly with co-authors Richard Blanco and Vanessa Garcia during this process promises to brilliantly illuminate the dialogue, experiences and heritage of the Cuban American themes explored throughout the play.”