Nilo Cruz, Cuban-American author of ANNA IN THE TROPICS is the recipient of this year’s Steinberg Award. The $15,000 cash prize is awarded each year by members of The American Theatre Critics Association, to a playwright who has authored a notable play in the course of the prior year.

The Steinberg Award is widely considered one of the highest honors bestowed on a playwright in this country. Two other awards were given to two other nominated playwrights, each in the amount of $5000, during the awards presentation, which this year took place in Louisville, Kentucky, during The Humana Play Festival at Actors’ Theatre of Louisville. This year’s other nominees included playwrights Craig Wright and Arthur Miller.

ANNA IN THE TROPICS was commissioned, developed and then produced in its world premiere at New Theatre in Coral Gables in October-November of 2002, during the company’s current Season 2002-2003 (17th Anniversary) with the support of grants from Theatre Communications Group, The National Endowment for the Arts, Vivendi Universal, Jay Harris, and The Ruthy and Manny Cohen Foundation. The play was developed during the period of one year during which playwright Nilo Cruz was in residence at Coral Gables’ New Theatre.

Nilo Cruz’s work has been widely produced in America, notably in South Florida by Coconut Grove Playhouse, and Florida Stage. Other theatres that have produced Cruz’s work include New York Shakespeare Festival, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Magic Theatre (San Francisco), The Studio Theatre (Washington, D.C.), New York Theatre Workshop, McCarter Theater, Sotuh Coast Rep and Minneapolis’ Children’s Theatre Company.

New Theatre has also produced Nilo Cruz’s Hortensia and the Museum of Dreams, nominated for a Carbonell award in 2001. During its Season 2003-2004 (18th Anniversary) New Theatre will produce the world premiere of Nilo Cruz’s Beauty of the Father.

Future productions of Anna in the Tropics have been announced by Chicago’s Tony Award winner Victory Gardens Theater, New Jersey’s McCarter Theater, and California’s South Coast Rep. At present Nilo Cruz is working on a commission from Washington, D.C.’s prestigious Arena Stage

In receiving the news of Nilo Cruz’s nomination, New Theatre’s Artistic Director Rafael de Acha commented: “New Theatre is immensely proud to have Miami-bred Nilo Cruz as a member of our family of playwrights. Nilo Cruz is one of a crop of exceptionally gifted dramatists who are giving our theatre and, by extension, the South Florida theatre community an ever-increasing reputation as a breeding ground for great writers for the theatre. New Theatre is very grateful to all the generous supporters of its work with early and mid-career playwrights, such as Nilo Cruz, John Strand, John O’Keefe, Mario Diament, Michael McKeever, many of them South Florida-based. The generosity and vision of individuals such as Jay Harris and Mel Morgenstern, and that of institutions such as The National Endowment for the Arts, Theatre Communications Group, and Vivendi Universal creates the necessary support system by way of which a theatre can undertake the enormous risks inherent in producing primarily new work, such as New Theatre does. New Theatre thanks as well the Harold and Mimi Steinberg Foundation, which has been supporting the work of American playwrights since the early 1990’s through these annual awards.”

Playwright Nilo Cruz added the following words of his own:
”By honoring my play Anna in the Tropics, the first Latino play to win the Steinberg Award, the American Theatre Critics Association is not only embracing my work as an artist, but is actually acknowledging and securing a place for Latino plays in the North American theatre. This play
would not have been possible without the generous grant from TCG and the assistance of New Theatre. For his early encouragement and his remarkable generosity, I would first like to express my gratitude to Rafael de Acha, who brought me back to the fertile grounds of my hometown, to my roots, to the beautiful banyon trees of Miami. Thank you for your trust in my work, for your tenacity and artistic vision, for announcing my play in your theatre¹s season before I had actually written it. I want to acknowledge the artistic staff who worked on the play and the fine cast of actors who brought it to life: Ken Clement, Ursula Freundlich, Deborah L. Sherman, Carlos Orizondo, Gonzalo Madurga, David Perez Ribalda and Edna Schwab. I am also indebted to Jay Harris, Mel and Nancy Morgenstern and The Manny and Ruthy Cohen Foundation for their generous support in making the play come to life. Que viva el teatro!”

Anna in the Tropics tells the story of a Cuban émigré family of cigar makers in Ybor City, Florida, in the early years of this century. In her review of the play in its New Theatre production the Miami Herald’s theatre critic Christine Dolen summed up her thoughts about Anna in the Tropics thus: “The words of Nilo Cruz waft from a stage like a scented breeze. They sparkle and prickle and swirl, enveloping those who listen in both a specific place and time…and in timeless passions that touch us all. In Anna in the Tropics…Cruz claims his place as a storyteller of intricate craftsmanship and poetic power.” In his Miami New Times review of the play, Ron Mangravite wrote “With rich poetic language and dark sexual power, Anna in the Tropics echoes the Spanish master Federico Garcia Lorca… as well as Tennessee Williams. It is not hyperbole to link Cruz with such company. Redolent with seductive imagery and intriguing ideas, this is a play to be savored now and in later productions.”

The finalists and winners of the Steinberg Award are selected by a committee of 11 theater critics from several publications around the United States, and chaired by Alec Harvey of the Birmingham News. They evaluate scripts of plays premiered outside New York City during the previous year, as recommended by ATCA members. Past honorees since the inception of the ATCA New Play Award in 1977 include Lanford Wilson, Marsha Norman, August Wilson, Jane Martin, Arthur Miller, Mac Wellman, Adrienne Kennedy, Donald Margulies, Horton Foote, and Lee Blessing. Created in 1986 by Harold Steinberg on behalf of himself and his late wife, the primary mission of the Steinberg Charitable Trust is to support the American theater. Since its start the Trust has awarded countless grants to theaters around the country in support of new productions of American plays. The American Theatre Critics Association works to raise public awareness of the theatre critic's function as well as critical standards among its several hundred members

New Theatre’s production of Anna in the Tropics was directed by the company’s artistic director Rafael de Acha. The cast included Ursula Freundlich, Deborah L. Sherman, Edna Schwab, Carlos Orizondo, Gonzalo Madurga, David Perez-Ribada, and Ken Clement. Original music and sound design were by Anthony M. Reimer. Estella Vrancovich designed the costumes and Michelle Cumming was the set designer. Anna in the Tropics will be published later this year in The Best Plays of 2002-2003. Nilo Cruz is represented by The Peregrine Whittlesey Agency. Ms. Whittlesey can be contacted at (212) 737 0153 or at pwwagy@aol.com

Abril 2003