Behind The Scenes

Welcome to Behind the Scenes!
This section of the guide shows all the hard work put into a mainstage performance - before a single audience member has taken their seat.

Please use the menu at the top to navigate the site. All photos in Behind the Scenes were taken by Micheal Eddy unless otherwise stated.

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Director's Thoughts - Mary Hausch

Nilo Cruz is an incredible story teller and in Anna in the Tropics he spins his most intriguing tale. Cruz takes us to a very unique time in history. It is 1929 and we are in a world that is on the brink of extinction. The cigar industry is on the decline: it is facing increasing industrialization, workers are being replaced by machines, and lectors are losing their jobs because workers cannot hear them above the din of the machines. America is on the eve of the Great Depression, the cinema glamorizes cigarettes, the world is speeding up and smoking a cigarette is much faster and sexier than savoring a cigar. The tradition of the cigar workers setting aside a portion of their wages to pay lectors to read and educate them is to coming to an end. Change is imminent.
It is how Cruz brings about this change that made me fall in love with Anna in the Tropics. The story begins with the arrival of a new lector who has been hired by the workers to read to them while they roll cigars in their Ybor City factory. He decides to read Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. Although the novel takes place in Russia, far from the tropics, this story of agonizing love, jealousy, revenge and social responsibility strikes a nerve. The story is a lightening bolt that awakens the spirit of the workers, opening new worlds of possibilities and dreams. Here Nilo Cruz interweaves the tale of Anna Karenina with the story of his characters with such mastery that there is no wonder that he won the Pulitzer Prize for this play. Cruz believes that Anna Karenina opens the window to the soul of the play. “Once I discovered the book that was being read by the lector, the whole play came to me. I started to read Anna Karenina through the eyes of the characters.” Anna Karenina becomes a catalyst for incredible changes in the lives of the workers and shows us the transformational power of art. Anna in the Tropics leaves us with the conviction that art has an astonishing power to change our lives.

Photo: The Cast of Anna in the Tropics with director Mary Hausch, Stage Manager Lizz Nehls and Assistant Stage Manager Amber Wilkerson.