Goodman Theatre

For Immediate Release

CHICAGO (Thursday, July 23, 2009) - Collaboraction and Teatro Vista announced today the extension of their critically acclaimed co-production of El Grito del Bronx by Migdalia Cruz through Sunday, Aug. 9 in the Goodman's Owen Theatre. The play is produced in association with Goodman Theatre.

Directed by Collaboraction Executive Artistic Director Anthony Moseley and starring Collaboraction and Teatro Vista member Sandra Delgado, Teatro Vista Artistic Director Eddie Torres and others, this powerful new work explores the recurring cycle of violence, the universality of suffering and the power of the human spirit to soar again.

"Highly recommended" by Hedy Weiss of the Chicago Sun-Times, she raves, "It sidesteps melodrama to capture the almost hallucinatory, grittily mythic quality of Cruz's vision. A take-no-prisoners cast under the direction of Anthony Moseley."

An "intense and unstinting drama…I am a longtime admirer of Cruz's richly toned writing," hails Chris Jones of the Chicago Tribune. "[You] find yourself identifying quite strongly with Lulu, played with warmth and honesty by Delgado." Kris Vire of Time Out Chicago called it a "gorgeous production….captivates with an adept 15-person cast."

El Grito del Bronx now runs in the Goodman's Owen Theatre, 170 N. Dearborn St. now through Aug. 9. A complete performance schedule including ticket information appears at the end of this release. This is an English language production.

On her wedding day, Lulu must confront her brother Papo's legacy of violence before she can feel entitled to happiness. Set in a poetic memoryscape that travels between the 1970s and 1990s-from childhood to death row, from white dresses to orange jumpsuits, from murder to redemption-Lulu and Papo discover that what binds them is not only the haunted darkness, but also the freedom to turn on the light.

The Driehaus Foundation Money Back Guarantee
The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation chose the world premiere of El Grito del Bronx to be the first production to offer patrons The Driehaus Foundation Money Back Guarantee. Since the show opened, only four theatergoers have asked for their money back.

Created in order to encourage audiences and theater companies to take a chance on new, controversial work by removing the financial risk, the program gives any audience member who was unsatisfied with the production a full refund of his or her ticket price. A $10,000 allotment has been designated for ticket refunds. After every performance a post-show announcement about the offer is made, and Collaboraction and Teatro Vista representatives are in the theater lobby to distribute cash refunds on site. Theatergoers must fill out a form, available in the theater lobby, with their name, email address and reasons why they were unsatisfied with the production in order to receive the cash refund.

"The Driehaus Foundation has such confidence in the artistic integrity and entertainment value of Collaboraction and Teatro Vista, we selected this world premiere production for our pilot program," said Richard Cahan of the Driehaus Foundation. "We are excited to be a part of this important collaboration and production. We hope this initiative continues to increase awareness of this superior theatrical undertaking and encourages more people to experience it with us through the extension."

This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts, which believes that a great nation deserves great art.

El Grito del Bronx was commissioned by The Public Theatre in New York and has received subsequent workshops at The Mark Taper Forum, South Coast Repertory and Goodman Theatre's Latino Theatre Festival in conjunction with Teatro Vista. Prior to that, Anthony Moseley directed the staged reading of El Grito del Bronx at Teatro Vista's Tapas Reading Series in 2005.

"This co-production has been in development for four years," said Eddie Torres, Teatro Vista Artistic Director. "That time allowed our companies time to cultivate this incredible partnership and collaborate with Migdalia Cruz on the development on the script.

"Using beautiful and lyrical language, Cruz has created vivid imagery to explore difficult yet pertinent themes of cultural fusion, the humanization of a mass murderer and the effects of domestic abuse," added Anthony Moseley, Executive Artistic Director of Collaboraction.

About the Playwright
Migdalia Cruz is one of the foremost contemporary Latina writers of plays and musical theater. Cruz draws deeply from her experience of life in the South Bronx, especially her experience of pain and her search for identity and meaning. Cruz's work has been produced across the U.S. and abroad at various venues including: Classic Stage Company, Playwrights Horizons, INTAR, Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York Shakespeare Festival's Festival Latino, National Theater of Greece (Athens), Foro Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (Mexico City), Old Red Lion (London, England), Latino Chicago Theater Company, where she was playwright-in-residence from 1991 to 1998 and had eight world premieres produced, Houston Grand Opera (Houston), American Repertory Theatre (Cambridge), Théâtre d'aujourd hui (Montreal), Intersection for the Arts/LATA (San Francisco) and Cornerstone Theater Company (Los Angeles), among others. She has been nurtured by Maria Irene Fornes' Playwrights' Laboratory at INTAR, Royal Court Theatre/New Dramatists Exchange '94 (London), Steppenwolf Theatre's New PlaysLab, Bay Area Playwrights' Festival '94, Festival Latino'93 at Teatro Mision (San Francisco), the Sundance Institute; Midwest PlayLabs; Mark Taper Forum's New Play Festival and many more. Several of her plays and monologues have been published. She has taught playwriting at University of Iowa/Playwrights' Workshop, New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, Princeton University and Amherst College.

A recipient of numerous honors and awards, Cruz received the Kennedy Center's Fund for New American Plays award in 1996 for Another Part of the House. She won a 2005 Massachusetts Cultural Council grant, and a 1994 Connecticut Commission on The Arts grant for playwriting. At Classic Stage Company, she was a 1994 PEW/TCG National Artist in Residence. Migdalia was a 1997-98 Sackler Fellow at Connecticut Rep/UConn, a 1991 and 1995 NEA Playwriting Fellow, a 1988 McKnight Fellow, received her MFA degree from Columbia University and is an alumna of New Dramatists.

About the Cast and Crew
El Grito del Bronx cast features Collaboraction and Teatro Vista company member Sandra Delgado as Lulu, Teatro Vista Artistic Director Eddie Torres as Jose, Teatro Vista company member Juan Villa as Papo, Diane Herrera as Maria, Josh Odor as Ed, Remigio Ortiz as Jesus Colon, Rinska Prestinary as Magdalena, Molly Reynolds as Elizabeth, Warren Levon as Guy Next Door, Patrese McClain as Sarah and Greg Hardigan, John Wilson, Max Lesser, Patrick Zielinski and Jeremy Oase as Gas Station Attendants.

The design team includes Regina Garcia, set designer and recipient of prestigious TCG Design Fellowship; Sam Porretta, creative director; Jeremy Getz, lighting design; Mikhail Fiksel, original music; Miles Polaski, sound design; Elsa Hiltner, costume design; Sarah Moeller, production manager; and Sarah Gitenstein, assistant director/casting director.

Anthony Moseley has been the Executive Artistic Director of Collaboraction since 1999, where he has led the company through a period of remarkable growth from an annual budget of $19,000 to more than $600,000. During this period he has developed a Board of Directors, strategic planning process, operations staff and a for-hire division called Experience Design, which offers Collaboraction's creative and production services to private clients and has produced more than 100 productions and events. Since Moseley's appointment, Collaboraction has produced critically acclaimed productions including Jon; The Life and Times of Tulsa Lovechild; Guinea Pig Solo and The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow. Moseley is the co-creator and Festival Director of the annual SKETCHBOOK Festival, a blend of theater, music and art which has been hailed as the "premier short play festival in the Midwest."

Moseley's numerous Collaboraction directing credits include Mud by Maria Irene Fornes, the Chicago premiere of Refuge by Jessica Goldberg (2000 Jeff Citation nomination for Best Direction), To Kill a Mockingbird by Christopher Sergel, the Chicago premiere of The Cosmonaut's Last Message to the Woman He Once Loved in the Former Soviet Union by David Greig, the Chicago premiere of Guinea Pig Solo by Brett C. Leonard, the world premiere of The Pull Toy (and His Pasian) by Robert McEwen, the world premiere of Heroes and Villains by Dan Janoff and numerous world premiere short plays at SKETCHBOOK. Moseley produced, directed and wrote Nightlight (Independent Film Channel) and The Bee (winner of Audience Choice Award - Short Film, 2002 N.Y. Int'l Independent Film Festival). He was the 2007 Michael Maggio Fellow for early-career directors at Goodman Theatre. He graduated in 1995 from the University of Notre Dame with a BA in Finance before having his quarter-life crisis and pursuing a career in theater and arts.

Eddie Torres is Co-Founder and Artistic Director of Teatro Vista. Torres most recently appeared as Tybalt in the Spanish language reading of Romeo & Juliet with Chicago Shakespeare Theater. Recent Chicago credits include: Carlos in The Cook, Electricidad, Zoot Suit(Goodman Theatre); Massacre Sing to your Children (Teatro Vista/Goodman Theatre); Elliot, A Soldier's Fugue (Teatro Vista/Rivendell/Steppenwolf); The Crossing, Broken Eggs, Santos y Santos, El Paso Blue (Teatro Vista) and Anna in the Tropics (Victory Gardens). Directorial credits for Teatro Vista include: The Show Host, Ambrosio, Broken Eggs (Theatre on the Lake), The Boiler Room and Aurora's Motive. Torres holds a BA in Theatre from Roosevelt University and an MFA in Film from Columbia College. He has served on panels for the Illinois Arts Council, National Endowment for the Arts and the MAP Fund.

Ticket Information
Tickets are $18 - $30. Tickets may be purchased at the Goodman Theatre Box Office, 170 N. Dearborn St., by phone at 312.443.3800 or online at online at GoodmanTheatre.org. Discounted tickets available for groups by calling 312-443-3815.

Performance Schedule
El Grito del Bronx runs now through Aug. 9. The performance schedule is as follows: Thurs. at 7:30 p.m.; Fri. at 8 p.m.; Sat. at 2 & 8 p.m.; and Sun. at 2 p.m. An online program is available at www.collaboraction.org or www.goodmantheatre.org.

About Teatro Vista
Teatro Vista…Theatre With a View was founded in 1989 by Chicago theater artists Edward Torres and Henry Godinez along with a group of Equity and non-Equity actors. They had become aware first hand of the absence of Latino theatrical productions and artists as well as a lack of mission to develop and nurture Latino audiences by producing theater that speaks directly to their experiences. Teatro Vista is firmly committed to sharing and celebrating the riches of Latino culture with all Chicago theatre audiences. This commitment stems from the belief that there are as many similarities as there are differences, and that perhaps the answer to breaking down the walls of prejudice and stereotypes lies in understanding these differences. Ultimately, it is through this "view" that Teatro Vista intends to bridge the gap between Latino and non-Latino cultures in Chicago. Teatro Vista recently concluded the critically acclaimed production of Tanya Saracho's Our Lady of the Underpass.

About Collaboraction
Collaboraction celebrates its 13th year as a Chicago-based arts organization and remains focused on becoming a national leader of contemporary theater. By incorporating innovative artists and inter-disciplinary collaboration, Collaboraction audiences are sure to experience groundbreaking theatrical and art-based events. Collaboraction recently received a "Hopie" award from the Lester and Hope Abelson Foundation for recognition in creativity and innovation. Presenting such smash hits as 2008's Jon, by George Saunders, adapted and directed by Seth Bockley and 2007's critically acclaimed production of The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow: an instant message with excitable music and the annual SKETCHBOOK Festival, Collaboraction has worked with more than 2,500 artists to bring more than 60 productions and events to more than 50,000 audience members. For more information, visit www.collaboraction.org.

About Goodman Theatre
Named the country's Best Regional Theatre by Time magazine (2003), Goodman Theatre is Chicago's largest not-for-profit theater, internationally recognized for its artists, productions and educational programs since 1925. Artistic Director Robert Falls and Executive Director Roche Schulfer's leadership has earned unparalleled artistic distinction and garnered hundreds of awards-including the Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre (1992) and Pulitzer Prizes for Ruined by Lynn Nottage and Glengarry Glen Ross by David Mamet. The Goodman has moved dozens of plays from Chicago to stages in New York and abroad. Central to its commitment to the reinvestigation of classics and new play development is the Goodman's Artistic Collective, including Brian Dennehy, Frank Galati, Henry Godinez, Steve Scott, Chuck Smith, Regina Taylor and Mary Zimmerman.

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