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Nilo
Cruz steals all the limelight
By Christine Dolen, cdolen@herald.com.
Posted on Sun, Dec. 21, 2003 in The
Miami Herald.
The biggest theater story of 2003, both
in South Florida and nationally, happened
in April.
Nilo Cruz, a Cuban-born, Miami-raised poet
of the stage, became the first Hispanic-American
playwright to win the Pulitzer Prize for
drama. His Anna in the Tropics, written
on commission for the 104-seat New Theatre
in Coral Gables, won drama's top prize without
anyone on the drama jury or Pulitzer board
having seen it.
Now at Broadway's Royale Theater with an
all-Latino cast headlined by Jimmy Smits,
Cruz's lyrical piece about Cuban cigar-makers
in Ybor City had a rougher time with New
York critics when it opened in November.
Still, Anna in the Tropics has made theater
history, and its journey began right here.
Several other shows in 2003 found the road
from South Florida to Broadway paved with
potholes. Best of the lot was the Coconut
Grove Playhouse's Romeo & Bernadette,
a time-traveling musical gem that went from
its January Grove run to New Jersey's Paper
Mill Playhouse, then stalled. Two other
Grove shows, the musical version of Urban
Cowboy and the two-character Six Dance Lessons
in Six Weeks, managed brief Broadway runs
before going belly up. And after Little
Shop of Horrors tested the creative waters
at Actors' Playhouse in May, everyone except
leading man Hunter Foster and the show's
spiffed-up plant puppets was replaced before
the musical made it to Broadway in the fall.
Locally, it was a great year for performances
by actors -- Bob Rogerson in The Goat at
GableStage, Meshaun Arnold in Medal of Honor
Rag at M Ensemble, John Felix in Fortune's
Fool at the Caldwell Theatre Company, Martin
Vidnovic in Heartbeats and Showtune at the
Caldwell, Paul Tei in Running With Scissors
at Florida Stage -- but none of the guys
had the kind of year that Laura Turnbull
did, with four terrific performances and
the Carbonell awards for best actress in
a play and a musical.
People who like their theater lightweight
and escapist had plenty of choices in 2003
but, happily, so did those who crave stimulation
and substance. Two challenging, difficult
musicals were done and done well: Adam Guettel's
Floyd Collins at Actors' Playhouse in March,
Jason Robert Brown's Parade at the Broward
Stage Door Theatre in January.
Though Cruz was the year's most celebrated
homegrown playwright, two others wrote strong
new plays in 2003. Davie playwright Michael
McKeever, prolific and dizzyingly versatile,
probed a killing like Matthew Shepard's
in A Town Like Irving at New Theatre in
April, then followed up with a luminous,
touching comedy about a doomed man in Running
With Scissors at Florida Stage in October.
McKeever lost the Carbonell for best new
work, however, to 25-year-old Ivonne Azurdia,
whose funny-edgy Tin Box Boomerang drew
loads of sought-after young theatergoers
to the Mad Cat Theatre Company production.
And, of course, we mourn the theater artists
who left us this year: the great New York
Times caricaturist Al Hirschfeld and actress
Nell Carter in January; actress Lynne Thigpen
and playwright Paul Zindel in March; actor
Michael Jeeter and playwright Peter Stone
in April; actress Wendy Hiller in May; actor
Hume Cronyn and director Joseph Chaikin
in June; actor-dancer Gregory Hines in August;
playwright Herb Gardner and director Elia
Kazan in September; actress Dorothy Loudon
in November.
Christine Dolen is The Herald's theater
critic.
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