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TWO SISTERS AND A PIANO

Rechnitz Theater

Written & Directed by Nilo Cruz

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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. As they await changes for Cuba as well as changes to their situation, it’s uncertain whether freedom will come through government regime change, Maria Celia’s far-off husband, or the charismatic military officer who has begun insinuating himself into the sisters’ lives. A passionate tale of revolution, art and dreams written by Pulitzer Prize-winner Nilo Cruz (Anna in the Tropics).

This production contains strong language, adult situations and haze effects.

WATCH

Official Trailer

The Cast Interview Each Other

this show is for you if...

  • You’re excited to see Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Nilo Cruz direct his own work.
  • You’re an Eden Espinosa (Wicked, Rent) fan and want to see her breathtaking performance as the determined Maria Celia.
  • You’re eager for depictions of how art, dreams and love can liberate the human spirit.
  • You’re inspired by stories of the political made personal and the many forms resistance can take.

PHOTOS

NEWS & UPDATES

MEET THE ARTISTS

The Cast

Helen Cespedes

Helen Cespedes (she/her) is a New York-based actor, writer, and teacher. Acting credits include Broadway: The Cripple of Inishmaan. Off-Broadway: Fefu and Her Friends and Timon of Athens(TFANA), Paul Swan is Dead and Gone (Civilians), The School For Scandal (Red Bull) as well as numerous regional credits. Film/TV: Law & Order; The Knick; Search Party; The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel; O Horizon (upcoming). Podcasts: Isolated Incidents and Twits in Love. Helen trained at The Juilliard School where she received the John Houseman Prize.

Hiram Delgado

HIRAM DELGADO is an actor from Carolina, Puerto Rico. He made his Broadway debut in the Tony-winning revival of Take Me Out at Second Stage and the Schoenfeld Theatre. Off-Broadway: Agnes (59E59). Regional: Williamstown Theatre Festival. TV: New Amsterdam (NBC); Prodigal Son (FOX); The Code (CBS); Madam Secretary (CBS). Film: Ties; Homesick; The Vessel. Member of Society Theatre Company. Education: MFA, NYU Graduate Acting. www.hiramdelgado.com

Eden Espinosa

EDEN ESPINOSA is recognized for her critically acclaimed portrayal of Elphaba in Wicked on Broadway, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Other Broadway credits include originating the title role in Brooklyn the Musical, and Maureen Johnson in the closing company of Rent. Her regional credits include Eva Peron in Evita, Sadie Thompson in Rain, Emma Borden in Lizzie, Daniela in In the Heights and Mary in Merrily We Roll Along. Mama in The Gardens of Anuncia and most recently starring as Tamara De Lempicka in Lempicka directed by Tony Award winner Rachel Chavkin. Her television appearances include Law and Order, Ugly Betty, and Elementary. Voiceover credits include Cassandra in Tangled the Series, Robot Chicken, MAD TV, Elena of Avalor, and Titan Maximum and she received an Emmy Nomination for The Queen of Hearts in Alice’s Wonderland Bakery. Eden’s albums Look Around and Revelation, her album of original music, can be found on all streaming platforms and available at www.edenespinosa.com Instagram @edenespinosa

Jason Manuel Olazábal

JASON MANUEL OLAZÁBAL (he/him) With TRT: Debut Broadway: Julius Caesar, Anna in the Tropics OFF-Broadway: Massacre(Sing to your Children), Guinea Pig Solo(The Public Theater/The LAByrinth Theatre Co.), Where’s My Money?(Manhattan Theater Club), The Phantom Lady(The Pearl Theater) Regional Theaters: The Arena Stage, Utah Shakespearean Festival, The Kirk Douglas Theater, South Coast Rep, A Noise Within.  Film: Jason recently wrapped Skin Care, a feature film opposite Elizabeth Banks. Coming this summer Black Maria a film whose story is one of Brotherhood, Bloodshed and Honor will make its Premiere playing various Film Festivals. Past films include: I Don’t feel at Home in the World Anymore(Sundance 2017 Grand Jury Award Winner Dir. Macon Blair) Inside Man (Dir. Spike Lee) Bad Boys II (Dir. Michael Bay) TV:  Numerous credits but some favorites include recurring roles on DEXTER(SAG Award Nomination), Fear the Walking Dead, Stumptown, Make It or Break It, the NCIS and Law and Order universes and many more.  Jason holds an MFA from UMKC and is a member of The LAByrinth Theatre Company.

The Creatives

Playwright / Director

Nilo Cruz
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.

Scenic Designer

Paul Tate Depoo III
Paul Tate Depoo III

Paul Tate Depoo III (Scenic and Projection Design) is a scenic, projection, and production designer based in New York. His designs with Kennedy Center’s Broadway Center Stage include: Guys and Dolls, 50 Years of Broadway, The Music Man, The Who’s Tommy, Footloose, and Next to Normal. He recently was the production designer for Usher’s Las Vegas residency, and Turandot in Vienna, Austria on the world’s largest opera stage. In 2020, he received the Helen Hayes award for ‘Outstanding Scenic Design’ for his production of Grand Hotel at Signature Theatre where he also designed Titanic, A Little Night Music, Blackbeard, and Crazy for You. DePoo served as the Creative Director for The Great Work Begins: Scenes from Angels in America, benefiting amfAR’s Fund to Fight COVID-19 which was listed as The New York Times’s top production of the year. He recently worked on Dear World with New York City Center Encores, the Dancing with the Stars National Tour, and Sunset Boulevard at The Kennedy Center. He will make his Broadway debut this summer TBA. www.pauldepoo.com. 

Costume Designer

Anita Yavich
Anita Yavich

ANITA YAVICH (Costume Designer) Broadway: Fool for Love, Venus in Fur, Chinglish, and Anna in the Tropics. New York design credits include Signature: Letters from Max, Thom Pain, Big Love, Kung Fu, Golden Child and Iphigenia 2.0; Public: Soft Power, Oedipus El Rey; Lynn Redgrave Theatre: The View Upstairs ; Classic Stage: Nathan the Wise, Caucasian Chalk Circle, Orlando, New Jerusalem and Texts for Nothing ; MCC: Only Gold, The Legend of Georgia McBride, The Submission, Coraline the Musical, The Wooden Breeks; MTC: The Best We Could, The Explorer’s Club. Opera:  Aida at San Francisco Opera; Cyrano De Bergerac at La Scala, Met Opera; Les Troyens Met Opera.  Film: Puppet and Mask designer: Megalopolis; Puppet and Costume designer: The Sound Of Music at Salzburger Marionetten Theater. Awards: Obie, Lucille Lortel, Drama Desk, and the Irene Shariff Young Master Award.  Her upcoming project is designing costumes for Der Ring Des Nibelungen for Opera Australia in Brisbane.

Lighting Designer

Lucrecia Briceno
Lucrecia Briceno

Lucrecia Briceno is a Peruvian artist currently based in Brooklyn. Much of her work has been in association with artists developing innovative and original pieces. Her work includes theatre, opera, puppetry & dance, as well as collaborations in several non-performance projects. Her designs have been presented at such venues as Spoleto USA, The Public Theater, Oxford Playhouse (UK), Arena Stage, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Dallas Theatre Center, BAM (Fischer), Kennedy Center, Atlas Performing Arts (DC), Berlind Theatre, Chicago Shakespeare Theater, La Mama ETC, Birmingham Repertory (UK), Culture Project, Pregones Theatre/PRTT, Intar, HERE Arts Center, Soho Rep, Ohio Theatre, Irondale Center, among many others. Internationally her work has been seen in Caracas, Peru, Turkey, Scotland, Seoul, Bogota, Norway, and England. Her design work for “Crime and Punishment” was part of the Venezuelan delegation for the 2015 Prague Quadrennial. She is an associate artist with The Civilians, co-artistic director of Anonymous Ensemble, and resident designer with Pregones Theatre/PRTT and La Micro; she has also been a guest artist/lecturer at NYU, Princeton University, Hunter College, the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú and JMU. MFA: NYU Tisch School of the Arts. Member of 829.

Sound Designer/Composer

Salomon Lerner
Salomon Lerner

SALOMON LERNER (Sound designer & Composer) is originally from Caracas, Venezuela and lives in New York City. Holds an M.F.A. from NYU’s Tisch Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program and majored in Film Scoring at the Berklee College of Music. His music has been performed at various theater venues including The Public Theater’s Newman Stage and La Mama’s Ellen Stewart Theater (New York, NY), Barrington Stage Company (Pittsfield, MA), and the Colony Theatre (Miami Beach, FL); at various dance spaces including The Alchemical Laboratory, Martha Graham Studios, Bryant Park, The Brooklyn Botanic Garden; and on several Films and TV shows. www.salomonlerner.com

Intimacy/Fight Coordinator

Cha Ramos
Cha Ramos

CHA RAMOS (she/ella) (INTIMACY CONSULTANT) is a bilingual, multidisciplinary theatre artist with a metric montón of books, swords, and altars in her NYC apartment. As an artist, Cha is invested in telling underrepresented stories with a focus on the power of movement, and inviting fellow artists into deep self-listening, consensual collaboration, and practiced autonomy. Current projects include: associate intimacy direction for Company and Jagged Little Pill on Broadway, dramaturgy for a new queer adaptation of Anna Karenina, performing with the Vixens en Garde, teaching and developing curriculum with Intimacy Directors and Coordinators, and ongoing workshops of her own original plays Fire Burn Them and Like to the Gods. More info at www.CallMeCha.com.

Hair & Wig Designer

Tom Watson
Tom Watson

Tom Watson is head of the wig and makeup department at the Metropolitan Opera. He has designed wigs for more than 55 Broadway productions. Current and recent Broadway designs include Annie, The Big Knife, The Assembled Parties, An Enemy of the People, Picnic, A Christmas Story, Harvey, Million Dollar Quartet, Rock of Ages, Wicked, How to Succeed…, The Addams Family, Promises, Promises, South Pacific, Sondheim on Sondheim, A View from the Bridge, and Sunday in the Park with George.

Production Stage Manager

Kate Croasdale
Kate Croasdale

Kate Croasdale (Production Stage Manager) is delighted to return to Two River, after stage managing Guadalupe in the Guest Room, The Tricky Part and All The Rage. Broadway: Sea Wall/A Life, Sunday in the Park with George, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Ghost The Musical, Dead Accounts and Relatively Speaking. Other New York Credits include: Mud/Drowning at Mabou Mines, Drift at New World Stages and Veil Widow Conspiracy with NAATCO. Kate has also worked with: City Center Encores!, The Public Theater, New York Stage and Film, Bay Street Theater, Kaimera Productions and New York Theatre Ballet. She is proud to be a core teacher for the Peridance Certificate Program.

Assistant Stage Manager

Alex Murphy
Alex Murphy

Alex Murphy returns to Two River Theater after Assistant Stage Managing their production of Two Sisters and a Piano. Regional: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer The Musical, Justice At War(Coterie Theatre);  A Christmas Carol, Still Ready(Actors Theatre of Louisville), Wine in the Wilderness(Two River Theater), American Prophet (Arena Stage). National Tour: The Prom. Off-Broadway: The Harder They Come, Romeo and Bernadette, Two’s a Crowd.Alex was the Resident Stage Manager for Kansas City Actors Theatre in Kansas City, MO,  for three seasons, working on such productions asDeath and the Maiden, And Then There Were None, and Skylight. 

Casting Director

Kelly Gillespie, CSA
Kelly Gillespie, CSA

Casting Director

Associate Casting Director

Marina Zurita
Marina Zurita

Associate Casting Director

INSIDE TWO RIVER EVENTS

BEFORE PLAY WITH HIRAM DELGADO

Restaurant Partner

Dates and tickets

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