Marga Gomez Stars in Los Big Names, Opening April 9

By: Jan. 19, 2006
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Marga Gomez, the versatile Latina playwright/performer, will star in Los Big Names, opening Sunday, April 9th at 7PM at the 47th Street Theatre (304 West 47th Street, between 8th & 9th Avenues). Directed by David Schweizer, Los Big Names will be produced by Tony Award-winning producer Jonathan Reinis and co-produced by The Puerto Rican Traveling Theatre /Miriam Colon Valle in association with Jamie Cesa for a limited 6-week engagement with preview performances starting on Saturday, April 1st.

The show will play the 47th Street Theatre while usual tenant Forbidden Broadway plays the San Diego's Theatre in Old Town from March 31st through June 4th. The producers of the hit satiric revue signed a contract for the off-Broadway theatre with the understanding that 10 weeks would be dedicated to The Puerto Rican Traveling Theatre.

The show is "a new play showcasing her signature blend of hilarious storytelling, spirited physicality, and emotional muscle ," according to press notes. "Los Big Names is an autobiographical play set in two eras: the New York Latin show business world of the '60s and Hollywood of the '90s. It follows the lives of an unconventional Latino family of three pursuing their dreams of fame and fortune. Ms. Gomez's fate was sealed at a young age when her parents, Cuban comedian Willy Chevalier and Puerto-Rican dancer Margarita, gave her a bit part on the stage of one of New York's legendary Teatros. The author uses her later misadventures on the set of Barry Levinson's science-fiction flop Sphere of 1998 as a counterpoint to the aspirations and lives of her parents. Ms. Gomez portrays her mom, dad, the bodega busybody, Queen Latifah, Kathleen Turner and all of the vivid characters in this wild but true tale interweaving a moving family saga with an all-out skewering of celebrity."

Gomez was born in Manhattan and lives in Brooklyn. She tours nationally as one of the first openly gay comedians in the country as well Laughing Mattersas the writer/performer of six other solo plays: A Line Around The Block, Memory Tricks, Marga Gomez is Pretty, Witty & Gay, Jaywalker, The Twelve Days of Cochina and Marga Gomez's Intimate Details. Gomez also co-wrote Single Wet Female with Carmelita Tropicana. Her plays have been produced nationally, internationally and in New York at The Public Theater, Performance Space 122, Dixon Place and La Mama ETC. Ms. Gomez is the recipient of the 2004 GLAAD Award for Off-Off Broadway theater, and the 1994 Theatre LA's Ovation Award for her performance with Culture Clash at the Mark Taper Forum.

Her acting credits include The Vagina Monologues at the Westside Theater, HBO's "Tracy Takes on...," "Guiding Light," Batman Forever, Sphere, Rosa Negra and The D Word. Gomez was one of four gay comedians profiled in the 2003 documentary Laughing Matters (Here Network.) She has appeared on HBO's Comic Relief, Showtime's Latino Laugh Festival, Comedy Central's Out There and the PBS series "In the Life." Her comedy recording, "Hung Like a Fly," is available on Uproar Records. Selections from her work have been published in several anthologies including "Extreme Exposure," "Out, Loud & Laughing," "Contemporary Plays by American Women of Color" and "Out of Character and When I Knew." She was one of eight playwrights to be commissioned by the Mark Taper Forum's Latino Theater Initiative as part of the 2004 Amor Eterno project. 

Los Big Names will feature scenery & lights designed by Alexander V. Nichols and sound by Mark O'Brien.

Los Big Names was produced last season at San Francisco's Magic Theatre after earlier workshops at The Marsh, Dixon Place, and a presentation by Woolly Mammoth Theater at The Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.

Los Big Names will be play through Sunday, May 14th with performances scheduled as follows: Monday & Wednesdays through Fridays at 8PM, Saturdays at 2 & 8PM, and Sundays at 3 & 7PM. The running time of the performance is 90 minutes with no intermission. Preview tickets through April 9th are $30 and beginning April 10th all tickets are $45. Tickets may be purchased by phoning Telecharge at 212-239-6200. Running time 90 minutes/ log onto: www.losbignames.com. For more on Gomez, visit www.margagomez.com.


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