Follow-Up: Three Theatre Sensations Keep Going
and Going and Going, with a lot of Help from Their Friends
By Robert Waddell, September 28, 2009
In Latino Flavored Productions, Linda Nieves Powell, Jenny Saldana and Antonia Marrero comprise a triptych of electric creativity.
To be sure, Powell and Saldana are dynamic playwrights who give audiences new, fresh perspectives on the Latino experience. For Hispanic Heritage Month, Powell presents her collaborative show Epistles on line and her highly popular “Yo Soy Latina” will travel the college circuit. Saldana, a clever and energetic talent continues to raise money for breast cancer awareness and act. In this class of classy thespians, Saldana may be a very serious class clown.
In this group of very talented actors, directors and writers Marrero emerges as an acting and directing dynamo.
After the successful run this year of the Ultimate Latina Theatre Festival, where Marrero directed and starred in “Sexy Shakespeare,” her own creation and collaboration with the Bard, she continues to pound the pavement for work on shows like “Law and Order,” will star in Saldana’s “Pink: The Life of B.C. Jenny” and will direct Powell’s “Yo Soy Latina” this October 29th and October 30th in a two night presentation called “Cupcakes and Drama” at the Nuyorican Poets Café. In February of 2010, her production of “Sexy Shakespeare” will have a longer run at the NPC.
Marrero, who grew up in Brooklyn and the Bronx, and for a time was homeless, is a bright beacon on the off-off Broadway stage. With tight curly ringlets, a beaming smile and loads of talent, Marrero tirelessly works her theatrical magic. Grease paint isn’t just in her blood, it’s in her DNA.
In the independent film “Life is Passing Me By,” Marrero plays Myra, the feisty best friend of the lead. In scene after scene Marrero is bright and perky while wearing pink. Marrero is such an effective actress and funny comedian that in one scene she makes big pink abuela rollers look fashionable.
Writer and director of “Life is Passing Me By,” Mark Cabaroy said that he was looking to cast an actress who had the strong feisty quality that Marrero brought to the role. The character Myra, he said, was an amalgam of many strong willed Latina women he has known in his life. And he found his ideal in Marrero.
“Antonia jumped with it,” said Cabaroy, “…took the character and blew it up. Antonia made it seem like her own….She made the character likeable.”
Powell agrees.
“Antonia is not only obviously gorgeous but she is one of the most talented actors I know and am privileged to work with…She has a great work ethic….incredible focus on stage,” said Linda Nieves-Powell in an article that appeared this past spring on Virtual Boricua.org.
This reporter also wrote, “…on stage Marrero is dynamite. Sporting long curly hair and a wide smile, Marrero has the devil’s twinkle in her bright eyes. Personally, she’s up beat and positive about everything. As an actress, she possesses a formidable edgy stage presence, and maybe it’s just acting, but an innocent and tough blend of Marilyn Monroe, Pamela Anderson and Iris Chacon. Antonia Marrero is the Boricua Bettie Page with a reminiscent dash of cult film star Kitten Natavidad.”
Saldana continues to be a resilient spokesperson in her fight against breast cancer. In her play “Pink: The Life of B.C. Jenny,” Saldana uses humor to explore her diagnosis and breast cancer treatment. Saldana works to raise money and awareness to “save the boobie.” She is one of the finest, most up beat actors around.
As for rating theatre or cancer awareness, Saldana can’t put one over the other.
“They’re both equally important,” said Saldana, “one’s a vehicle for the other.”
Linda Nieves-Powell, the theatrical mother maven and madrina, creates venues and opportunities for theatre people especially with her creation of the Ultimate Latino Theatre Festival and her Latino Flavored Productions. This October audience members will have the treat and opportunity to see Nieves-Powell’s “Yo Soy Latina,” the college version, which has received nothing but raves from audience members. Her work is insightful, determined and empowering.
Nieves-Powell lords over this ensemble of talented individuals who create their own. It is her vision that has been the engine behind so many positive and talented thespians. In her own right, she does for Latino theatre what Joseph Papp, Miriam Colon and Repertorio Espanol have done for decades. She is worthy of her own theatre.
“The more I do this I find out I’m not a follower in any way,” said Nieves-Powell. “I try to find the most truthful path for myself. In this business of so much negativity, desperation and selling out, I’ve had to develop my own sense of being. I had to stop getting on that train.
“I try to set an example to new comers….I try to do something right. There isn’t just one way to do this.”
Of the cupcakes, Nieves-Powell said that in the recession, while so much is unaffordable, a cupcake is not only priced right but is also a comfort food. To be sure, Nieves-Powell’s theatre and efforts are not just comforting but filling and thought provoking as well.
“Cupcakes and Drama” will take place October 29th and 30th at the Nuyorican Poets Café at 236 East 3rd Street both at 7 p.m.
This story was developed through the Education Beat Writing Fellowship at the New York Community Alliance. |
