PULITZER PRIZE-WINNER NILO CRUZ WILL HAVE WORLD PREMIERE IN JULY AT OSF

Lorca in a Green Dress Opens July 12 in the New Theatre

Ashland, Ore.—Nilo Cruz, who was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for drama April 7, 2003, will have the world premiere of his play, Lorca in a Green Dress, at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, opening July 12.
     The 42-year-old Cuban-American playwright received the Pulitzer Prize in drama for his play, Anna in the Tropics, which was also awarded the 2003 American Theatre Critics/Steinberg New Play Award by the American Theatre Critics Association (ATCA) at Actors Theatre of Louisville during the 27th annual Humana Festival of New American Plays.
     “I got the news when I was at the New Haven railroad station,” he said from his home in New York, “and I thought I was taking the train to Paradise—which seems very appropriate for a play about Anna Karenina.”
      Mr. Cruz’s friends and colleagues at OSF are delighted with his success. “I am thrilled,” said OSF Artistic Director Libby Appel. “He is an outstanding playwright with an exquisite vision for the heart of human relationships. We are so proud to have a close association with him, which we hope will yield more collaborations for years to come.”
     OSF produced Mr. Cruz’s Two Sisters and a Piano in 2001 to great success, and a staged reading of Lorca in a Green Dress in 2002 at the Festival was enthusiastically received. The play is a surrealist vision of Spanish poet Federico García Lorca’s death. García Lorca died near Granada on August 19, 1936, executed by the Nationalists at the start of the Spanish civil war. He is one of Spain’s most deeply loved and highly revered poets and dramatists.
     Lorca in a Green Dress will open in July at the New Theatre under the direction of OSF Associate Artistic Director Penny Metropulos. Set design is by OSF Resident Scenic Designer William Bloodgood, whose recent set designs were selected for exhibition at the 2003 Prague Quadrennial Scenography Exhibition. OSF Resident Costume Designer Deborah M. Dryden will create the costumes. Ms. Dryden has received the Michael Merritt Award for Design (1999) and the USITT Distinguished Achievement Award (2000). She has also been nominated for a Helen Hayes Award for her work on costumes for The Misanthrope at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. in 2002.
     The cast of eight includes Armando Durán (Lorca with Blood), Terri McMahon (Guard), Ray Porter (General), Catherine Lynn Davis (Lorca as a Woman), Jonathan Haugen (Lorca in a White Suit), Cristofer Jean (Lorca in a Green Dress), Juan Rivera LeBron (Lorca in Bicycle Pants) and Conja Abdessalam (Dancer).
     Mr. Cruz was born in Cuba, grew up in Miami, Florida and received his Masters degree from Brown University in 1994 and subsequently taught there. His work has been developed and performed at numerous theaters, including the McCarter Theatre (Princeton, NJ), The Joseph Papp Public Theatre/NYSF, New York Theatre Workshop, South Coast Repertory (Costa Mesa, CA), Florida Stage and Coconut Grove Playhouse (Miami, FL). He is a member of the New Dramatists and is currently teaching at Yale University and writing a film script for Arena Pictures. His other plays include Beauty of the Father, Two Sisters and a Piano, A Park in Our House, Night Train to Bolina, A Bicycle Country, Dancing on Her Knees and Hortensia and the Museum of Dreams. He has also translated two Lorca plays, Doña Rosita and The House of Bernarda Alba. His other awards include TCG Artist in Residence Grant, Rockefeller Grant, recipient of the Alton Jones Award, Kesselring Prize, ATT Award, Barrie Stavis Award, Rockefeller Grant, Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays, Playwriting Fellowship from NYSCA and California Arts Council.
     Tickets for Lorca in a Green Dress are available by calling (541) 482-4331. Check ticket availability at http://www.osfashland.org/. Lorca in a Green Dress will run through November 2, 2003.