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We're thrilled to announce our 2023/24 30th Anniversary Season! CHECK IT OUT

Two River Theater

In the Know

Tickets: FREE (tickets to show sold separately)

Victoria J. Mastrobuono Library

 free rsvp

Artistic Director Justin Waldman hosts an intimate conversation with Nilo Cruz, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and director of Two Sisters and a Piano! Coffee and cookies will be available starting at 5:45 PM, with the discussion set to start at 6:00 PM. Follow up this free event with a ticket to our 7:00 PM performance of Two Sisters and a Piano!

Free RSVP for IN THE KNOW, Two Sisters and a Piano tickets sold separately (link below!)

MEET THE GUEST

Nilo Cruz

NILO CRUZ (he/him) (PLAYWRIGHT), a Cuban-American, gained national prominence in 2003 when he won the Pulitzer Prize for drama for his play Anna in the Tropics, a Depression-era tale about migrant Cubans working in a Tampa, Fla., cigar factory, for which he also received a Steinberg Award and Tony Award nomination. He has become known for his ability to successfully weave strains of magic realism and other literary traditions into his works.

His plays include A Park in Our House; Two Sisters and a Piano; A Bicycle CountryHortensia and the Museum of DreamsLorca in a Green Dress; Hurricane; Sotto Voce; Bathing in Moonlight and Hotel Desiderium.  His work has been seen at numerous theaters around the country and around the world in Canada, England, France, Australia, Germany, Belarus, Russia, Costa Rica, Colombia, Japan and Spain.

As a lyricist, he is a frequent collaborator with composer Gabriela Lena Frank. He has written the libretti for The Conquest requiem and The Last Dream of Frida and Diego, which just premiered in San Diego. Cruz also adapted Ann Patchett’s 2001 novel Bel Canto for the Lyric Opera of Chicago, with Peruvian composer Jimmy López and recently premiered the Dreamers oratorio by López at Cal Performance in Berkeley, Calif.  His musical endeavors inspired his play Exquisite Agony, about a grieving opera singer, who had performed in countless operas, but now engages in a transgressive endeavor to find fragments of her late husband, who was a composer killed in a car accident.

In the world of film, he co-wrote the screenplay Castro’s Daughter with Oscar winner Bobby Moresco and adapted his play Anna in the Tropics for Mankind Entertainment.

Cruz, who received an M.F.A. from Brown University and an honorary doctorate degree from Whittier College, has thrice previously served as a playwright-in-residence: In 2000, for the McCarter Theatre, in Princeton, N.J., in 2001 for the New Theatre in Coral Gables, Fla., which commissioned Anna in the Tropics, and 2021 at UCLA through a Hearst Foundation Grant.  Cruz has also taught drama at Yale, Brown, the University of Iowa and the University of Miami. He is a member of the New Dramatists.

TWO SISTERS AND A PIANO

Featured Production

TWO SISTERS AND A PIANO

JUNE 3 – 25 / 2023

FF
Fragrance Free

We ask audience members to refrain from wearing colognes, perfumes or scented oils to select performances for the safety and comfort of all audience members.

ASL
American Sign Language Interpreted

American Sign Language Interpreted Performances for patrons with hearing loss, and fluency in ASL. Theatrical interpreters stand near the stage translating the dialogue into ASL.

AD
Audio Described

Audio Description is available for patrons with vision loss. Using a lightweight headset, with no wires or cables, that operates with a FM system, patrons can hear a live, objective and concise description of the action on stage.

OC
Open Captioned

Open Captioning is available for patrons with hearing loss. This service is useful to those who may not fully benefit from the FM amplification system, or who need help catching particular words. A screen, which projects dialogue as the action occurs live on stage, is placed to the side of the stage.

Although trapped under house arrest, novelist Maria Celia and her sister Sofia can still hear the rumors of shifting global politics growing in 1990s Havana. Written by Pulitzer Prize winner Nilo Cruz.

TWO SISTERS AND A PIANO

Dates and tickets

Two River Theater