So I’m sure you want to know how the shows have been going for me, well I’m happy to report a lot of good things.  I have the opportunity to play two characters in this show. I play Jose and Celia Cruz’s father Simon. Jose is a HS student who has just completed his HS journey and is about to embark on the new challenges of college. Jose’s teacher, Mr. C., recognizes that Jose has no real plan in life and he is trying to help him out and put him on the right track to succeed in his future endeavours. Mr. C. uses examples of 3 famous Latinos in history to help Jose see that he can be whatever he wants to be and that no one can keep him from his dreams. The story starts off in the classroom where Jose is basically saying goodbye to his former HS and classroom and is a bit taken back as he is about to leave what is known and comfortable for him and embark on journey that will change his life.
Mr. C. guides Jose by teaching him about a Nationally recognized talk show host Geraldo Rivera, who learned about his roots and identity through his struggles to make it as a journalist. He then speaks about Celia Cruz, one of the most recognized music legends who came out of Cuba and concludes with discussing Antonia Novello, the first Puerto Rican Female Surgeon General of the United States.
On Oct. 13th we performed the first show of the season for a group of middle school kids in a school in south Jersey. We had 2 shows to perform and as expected we were all a bit nervous. Just before the show started there was a bit of drama, one of the main characters and my co-star didn’t show up for the show. So the understudy John had to prepare for the show in a hurry as we were about to start our first of two performances in under an hour.Â
As they say in showbiz the show must go on and so it did. John being the professional that he is got up to speed and we ended up having a great first performance and the crowd loved us. Great teamwork on our parts also led towards a great show. There were a few moments in the show that John didn’t remember his lines and we worked through it and the audience had no idea what was missing, let alone that we were missing the main actor that had worked with me on the scene.
This marked for me, only my second live performance in my acting career and I was greeted at the end by the audience with loud cheers and applauds. That gave me a good boost of confidence and a boost of energy leading into our our second show which ended up being superb.
Stay tuned for our next show and pics of the performance…