Bronx Latino Gay Holiday Play Opens Tonight at BAAD

BAAD! The Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance proudly presents Los Nutcrackers: A Christmas Carajo, written by Charles Rice-González and directed by Luis Caballero. This marks the first year that the award-winning director of Off-Broadway hits La Lupe: My life and My Destiny and DC-7 The Roberto Clemente Story steps in to helm the work. The play interweaves two holiday classics, The Nutcracker and A Christmas Carol, and creates a queer, Latino play about a gay couple who go on a psychedelic trip through their lives one Christmas Eve. The play will be presented today, December 4, 5, 11, 12, 16, 18 and 19 at 8pm and Saturday, December 12 at 3pm at BAAD!, 2474 Westchester Avenue in the Westchester Square section of the Bronx. Tickets are $25 with discounts offered for seniors, groups and Bronx residents and members of BAAD!, BCA and NALAC. For reservations, information and to purchase tickets visit www.BAADBronx.org or call 718-918-2110. BAAD! can be reached by the #6 train to Westchester Square.

This gay, Latino comedic play centers around a couple, Carlos and Gabriel, who have been together for 15 years. Their arguing and fighting has reached the queer heavens from which comes a ghetto thug/diva spirit who guides them on a trip through their lives. They travel to the first time they met back in 1986 at a white party at the Palladium dancing to Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam to a catastrophic trip to City Center to see The Nutcracker, to a dinner party with Martha Stewart fanatics, and more.

The play also features a talented and sexy cast of Latino actors with Johnathan Cedano (returning to the play for his 11th consecutive year), and a new group of actors performing in it for the first time: Justin Crowley, Jonathan Cruz, Arnold Godoy and Adriel Muñoz. Los Nutcrackers spent three years in development at BAAD!, then had its premiere production in 2004.

Charles Rice-Gonzalez has written several plays including Pink Jesus, The Artist and I Just Love Andy Gibb set to be published in Blacktino Queer Performance: A Critical Anthology in 2016. His lauded debut novel, Chulito, is about a 16 year old, Latino thug coming out in the South Bronx and he co-edited the anthology From Macho to Mariposa: New Gay Latino Fiction. He has won several awards, including the 2014 Emerging Writers Award from the Lambda Literary Foundation. He received an MFA in Creative Writing from Goddard College.

Helen Hayes Award nominee Luis Caballero, the acclaimed writer, actor and film and theater director of Off-Broadway hits La Lupe: My life and My Destiny and DC-7 The Roberto Clemente Story, in addition to dozens of other plays, directs this year's production of Los Nutcrackers: A Christmas Carajo. He has directed extensively in his native Puerto Rico, New York City, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, and his credits as a film director includes La Gringa: A Tale of a Town, with Sully Diaz, the award-winning El Color de la Guayaba, and his upcoming film Romeo y Romeo, a gay twist on the Romeo and Juliet classic tale. He obtained a B.A. in Philosophy from the University of Puerto Rico and a Master of Arts in Theater and Education from New York University.

Crowned "a funky and welcoming performance space" by The New York Times, BAAD! is a 70 seat workshop and performance space that presents cutting-edge and challenging works that are empowering to women, people of color and/or from the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. BAAD! is home to Arthur Aviles Typical Theatre and the Bronx Dance Coalition. In 2013 BAAD! moved from Hunts Point to Westchester Square and recently celebrated 15 years of being BAAD!