REPERTORIO ESPAÑOL PRESENTS THE WORLD PREMIERE OF PULITZER PRIZE WINNING PLAYWRIGHT NILO CRUZ’S “EXQUISITA AGONÍA” (EXQUISITE AGONY).

Photo by Matt Pilsner

“Exquisite Agony” begins previews on Friday, May 25^th and premieres on Wednesday, May 30^th, 2018 at Repertorio Español’s historic Gramercy Arts Theater located at 138 East 27th Street in Manhattan, New York.

 The play will be directed by José Zayas. The cast includes Luz Nicolas, Germán Jaramillo, Gilberto Díaz, Pedro de León, Soraya Padrao, and Gonzalo Trigueros.

Repertorio Español announces the World Premiere in Spanish of Nilo Cruz’s “Exquisita agonía” (Exquisite Agony). This is Repertorio’s fourth premiere of a play by Nilo Cruz. The Company has proudly produced the World Premiere in Spanish of his Pulitzer Prize winning play “Anna in The Tropics” in 2004, and the World Premieres in Spanish of “Lorca in a Green Dress” in 2006 and “The Color of Desire” in 2011.

The New York Times raved about Repertorio’s production of “Anna in the Tropics” stating that “[the play] has found its natural language in Repertorio Español’s new production… It sounds and feels like a very different play in Spanish from the ‘Anna in the Tropics’ in English…its lyrical, poetic flights seem much more at home.”

More performances to be announced through 2018 & 2019

Performed in Spanish with English Subtitles. 

ABOUT THE PLAY

Exquisite Agony is a delicate but relentless story, which explores a middle-aged woman’s obsessive quest to find fragments of love in a young man who has received the gift of life when he receives a new heart. A moving play of great warmth about the survival of a modern family who must confront the past in order to move forward.

NILO CRUZ – PLAYWRIGHT

Nilo Cruz is a Cuban-American playwright whose work has been produced widely around the United States and Europe. His plays have been seen at McCarter Theatre, New York’s Shakespeare Festival’s Public Theatre, Manhattan Theatre Club, Arena Stage, Victory Gardens, Repertorio Español, South Coast Rep., Arena Stage, Mark Taper Forum, Victory Gardens, New York Theatre Workshop, Magic Theatre, Minneapolis Children’s Theatre, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Florida Stage and many others.  Internationally, his plays have been produced in Canada, England, France, Australia, Germany, Belarus, Costa Rica, Colombia, Panama, Japan, Russia, and in many cities throughout Spain.  In 2003 he won the Pulitzer Prize and the Steinberg Award for Drama for his play “Anna in the Tropics” and was nominated for a Tony award.  In 2009 he won The Helen Merrill and The Laura Pels Mid-Career Playwriting Award as well as the Fontanals-Cisneros USA Fellowship in literature. Cruz is a frequent collaborator with noted composer Gabriela Lena Frank.  He recently wrote a set of orchestral songs, “La Centinela y la paloma” (The Keeper and the Dove), for Dawn Upshaw and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, which was conducted by Joana Carneiro.  His monologue Farhad and the Secret of Being, composed by Jim Bauer, was performed as part of the New Voices Musical Festival.  He taught playwriting at University of Iowa, Brown University, NYU Gallatin School and Yale University.

JOSÉ ZAYAS- DIRECTOR

Resident Director Zayas began working with Repertorio in 2004 when he was selected as a fellow of the Van Lier Young Directors Project. Ever since, he has directed seven productions for the company and was named Resident Director in 2013. His production of Caridad Svich’s “The House of the Spirits”, based on Isabel Allende’s novel, at Repertorio Español, won multiple ACE and HOLA awards, including best production and director. Other credits with Repertorio include “Madre, el drama padre”; “Letters to a Mother”; “Nowhere on the Border”; “No Better Friend”, “No Worse Enemy”; “In the Time of the Butterflies”; “Love in the Time of Cholera”, “Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter”, “Burudanga”, “In the name of Salomé” and “Blind Spot”. Outside of Repertorio Español Zayas has participated as director and assistant for a number of productions.

This project was made possible with the support from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund as part of Repertorio’s 50th Anniversary.

TICKETS AND GENERAL INFORMATION >

By phone: 1-212.225.9999 | Online: repertorio.nyc

In person: 138 East 27th Street, New York, NY 10016

(Between Lexington and Third Avenues. Subway: # 6, N or R to 28th Street)

Monday 8:00am-6pm| Tuesday – Friday 8am-8pm|Saturday 10am-8pm|Sunday 10am-7:00pm

Tickets start at $17

Discounts available for people over 60 years of age and students with valid identification.

ABOUT REPERTORIO ESPAÑOL

Founded in 1968 by stage director René Buch and the late producer Gilberto Zaldívar, and joined by Robert Weber Federico in 1971, who now serves as Executive Producer, REPERTORIO has presented an unparalleled body of theater that promotes and divulges the rich heritage of Hispanic theater. Spanish masters like Calderón, Lope de Vega and García Lorca, renowned playwrights from Latin America and the growing body of American writers who capture the Latino experience in the U.S.—from Portland, LA, NYC, Washington DC, Texas, Washington Heights, Denver and Chicago– are all at home in REPERTORIO’s programming. As well, the company has presented acclaimed translations of plays by Edward Albee, Shakespeare, Tennessee Williams, Gian Carlo Menotti and Noel Coward.

The Company presents a rotating repertory of 13 different plays, musicals and dance concerts in over 300 performances every year. Its productions are seen by over 50,000 people annually at its home, the historic Gramercy Arts Theatre and on tour. Every year, approximately 20,000 students are introduced to the heritage of Spanish language theatre through its education program, ¡DIGNIDAD!