No costumes, no sets, no fancy lights. Just the actors and the audience. That’s the vision 11 USC School of Dramatic Arts students and acclaimed director and professor Luis Alfaro have realized with the staging of “Anna in the Tropics.” The show will open Thursday night at 7:30 p.m. at 24th Street Theatre.
“It doesn’t look like there’s much, but we’re focusing just on human emotion and the body on stage,” Alfaro said. “The virtuosity of the show is that it’s only the actor and their voice. They don’t have anything to hide behind.”
It’s a challenge that produces inspiration, according to cast member Natasha Nutkiewicz, a senior studying theater and cinematic arts. In creating art with very little, the actors are inspired to approach the story in innovative ways.
“I said at the first meeting, ‘There’s no sound cues. Who plays an instrument?’” Alfaro said. “We have somebody playing guitar, we have someone playing violin. So we’ve created this really beautiful natural thing.”
“It’s very bare bones, so we can really explore the poetry that Nilo Cruz, the author, has given us,” Nutkiewicz said.
The Pulitzer Prize winning show created by Cuban American playwright Nilo Cruz, follows the emotional trials of a Cuban family during the Prohibition Era. The show, whose namesake comes from several scenes that parallel Totlsy’s Anna Karenina, has gotten much critical acclaim and even had a stint on Broadway.
It’s a story “about a world that is changing very much like ours,” Nutkiewicz said. It’s rich with themes about generational trauma and healing, tradition, machismo and the resilience of love and family.
“It’s a Latine story by Latine actors,” she said.
With a short rehearsal time frame, the majority Latine cast has been practicing for multiple hours a day over the last few weeks. It has been up to the cast and Alfaro to promote the show, which Alfaro has been doing from his personal Instagram.
Their show will be the first performance of a new community engagement performance program piloted by the USC School of Dramatic Arts.
“We have an almost entirely Latino cast getting to perform in Los Angeles, a predominantly Latino city in the U.S.,” cast member Javi Casanova said. “It’s a huge honor because we’re representatives of that community. And our stories aren’t heard that often. It’s special that we have a chance to be able to put our voices out there, let them be heard outside of the extremely small, white, wealthy bubble that USC tends to cultivate.”
The 24th Street Theatre is nestled within the neighborhood surrounding USC, several blocks away from campus. The theater is a destination for community gatherings aimed at engaging and educating young people and their families with theater and arts, according to their mission statement.
“We wanted to be able to celebrate and honor the different stories and experiences that are present in the diverse landscape of Los Angeles,” said Anita Dashiell-Sparks, SDA associate dean of equity, diversity and inclusion. “And to give our students an opportunity to share and celebrate diverse experiences in partnership with community theaters, cultural centers and nonprofit organizations.”
One logistical concern that arose from a limited rehearsal timeframe, however, was the level of community engagement.
“It’s great that the play is free, so it’s accessible, but it’s all in English and our surrounding community is primarily Spanish-speaking,” Nutkiewicz said.
Though future projects may cater to a Spanish-speaking audience, Alfaro took on the project knowing that he would have to devote their attention to what could be accomplished in the timeframe.
According to Alfaro, the focus was put on choosing material that could be meaningful to the community and engaging a diverse body of actors to tell those stories. Alfaro said that building deeper connections with the community takes time.
Moving forward with the community engagement program, Alfaro emphasized the importance of intentionally getting to know the community.
According to freshman and cast member Pedro Coelho, community engagement is what counts.
“Without the community there is no theater, there is no arts. It’s important to have these opportunities where theater and the arts are made by the people to give back to the people,” Coelho said. “It’s really important to go out into the community rather than have the community come to us.”
On the eve of opening night, Nutkiewicz says the show will not be complete until the addition of one final character. According to the actress, that is the audience.
“We need the final character, we need the audience,” she said. “Their adrenaline is going to fuel our curiosity, our aura, our energy and our presence.”
The show will be running from Thursday, April 13 until Sunday, April 16, with a total of five shows. The tickets are free and can be found here.