Anna in the Tropics (TCG Edition) - Softcover

Cruz, Nilo

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1559362324 ISBN 13: 9781559362320

Publisher: Theatre Communications Group, 2003

Synopsis

Winner of the 2003 Pulitzer 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 Tropics

This lush romantic drama depicts a family of cigar makers whose loves and lives are played out against the backdrop of Depression-era America. Set in Ybor City (Tampa) in 1930, Cruz imagines the catalytic effect the arrival of a new "lector" (who reads Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina to the workers as they toil in the cigar factory) has on a Cuban-American family. Cruz celebrates the search for identity in a new land.

Reviews:
"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. In Anna in the Tropics, Cruz claims his place as a storyteller of intricate craftsmanship and poetic power." Miami Herald

Deeply engrossing.” Robert Hurwitt, San Francisco Chronicle

Earnestly poetic Mr. Cruz has created a work as wistful and affectingly ambitious as its characters. Anna in the Tropics reaches for the artistic heavens -- specifically, that corner of eternity occupied by the plays of Anton Chekhov, where yearning is an existential condition.” Ben Brantley, New York Times

Nilo Cruz is a young Cuban-American playwright whose work has been produced widely around the United States, including the Public Theater (New York, NY), South Coast Repertory (Costa Mesa, CA), Magic Theatre (San Francisco, CA), Oregon Shakespeare Festival, McCarter Theater (Princeton, NJ) and New Theatre (Coral Gables, FL). His other plays include Night Train to Bolina, Two Sisters and a Piano, Hortensia and the Museum of Dreams, and Anna in the Tropics (Winner of 2003 Pulitzer Prize). Mr. Cruz teaches playwriting at Yale University and lives in New York City.

About this title

Review

“Earnestly poetic. In evoking the lost Cuban-American world of a Florida cigar factory in 1929, Mr. Cruz has created a work as wistful and affectingly ambitious as its characters. ''Anna in the Tropics'' reaches for the artistic heavens -- specifically, that corner of eternity occupied by the plays of Anton Chekhov, where yearning is an existential condition.” – Ben Brantley, New York Times

“The first Pulitzer winner by a Latino playwright, Anna also does something common to many great works of art, new or old: It makes an unfamiliar place feel familiar. Anna in the Tropics makes a strong case for the transformative powers of literature. Willingly or not, all the characters absorb Anna Karenina, and their lives are changed by it. Cruz is also writing, however, about the importance of making time to savor the small things in life – ‘taking walks and sitting on park benches, smoking a cigar slowly and calmly,’ as the lector puts it.” – J. Wynn Rousuck, Baltimore Sun

“...In Anna in the Tropics, Cruz claims his place as a storyteller of intricate craftsmanship and poetic power ... [Cruz] has turned out many wonderful plays ― but none more shimmeringly beautiful ” – Miami Herald

“Deeply engrossing.” – Robert Hurwitt, San Francisco Chronicle




Earnestly poetic. In evoking the lost Cuban-American world of a Florida cigar factory in 1929, Mr. Cruz has created a work as wistful and affectingly ambitious as its characters. 'Anna in the Tropics' reaches for the artistic heavens -- specifically, that corner of eternity occupied by the plays of Anton Chekhov, where yearning is an existential condition.” Ben Brantley, New York Times

The first Pulitzer winner by a Latino playwright, Anna also does something common to many great works of art, new or old: It makes an unfamiliar place feel familiar. Anna in the Tropics makes a strong case for the transformative powers of literature. Willingly or not, all the characters absorb Anna Karenina, and their lives are changed by it. Cruz is also writing, however, about the importance of making time to savor the small things in life taking walks and sitting on park benches, smoking a cigar slowly and calmly,’ as the lector puts it.” J. Wynn Rousuck, Baltimore Sun

In Anna in the Tropics, Cruz claims his place as a storyteller of intricate craftsmanship and poetic power [Cruz] has turned out many wonderful plays but none more shimmeringly beautiful ” Miami Herald

Deeply engrossing.” Robert Hurwitt, San Francisco Chronicle

Synopsis

It is 1929 in the town of Tampa, Florida. In the run-down cigar factory, owned and operated by Cuban exiles, the cigars are still rolled by hand and 'lectors' are employed to read to the workforce while they roll. The arrival of a handsome new lector straight off the boat from Cuba is a cause for celebration - at least by the daughters of the owner. But when he begins to read aloud from his favourite novel, Anna Karenina, he unwittingly becomes a catalyst in the lives of his avid listeners, for whom Tolstoy, the tropical heat and the American dream prove a volatile combination...

About this edition

• Publisher: Theatre Communications Group
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 1559362324
• ISBN 13: 9781559362320
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 112