Aurora Theatre Stages Pulitzer Prize Winning Playwright Nilo Cruz's PAIS DE BICICLETA, 4/7- 30

Aurora Theatre's Teatro Aurora series presents Pais de Bicicleta, from playwright Nilo Cruz (last season's Sotto Voce, a Pulitzer Prize winner for Anna in the Tropics) also part of the celebrated GGC Harvel Lab Series in the intimate Aurora Studio. Audiences will be immersed in the lives of three refugees with a lust for freedom, finally trying to make a successful journey across the sea from Havana to Miami. The play's magical realism comes with whip-fast dialogue that stings with vitality and is stitched with the Latin love of music and dance. The play is performed in Spanish with English supertitles.

"As the son of Cuban immigrants, presenting Nilo Cruz's Pais de Bicicleta is very personal to me," said Producing Artistic Director Anthony Rodriguez. "This beautiful piece, set in the early 90s, captures the struggle of a people caught between their dream for freedom and the reality of their circumstances in the downward spiral of an oppressive government; feelings my parents undoubtedly experienced before they left their homeland. Cruz's poetic language paints the world of the three characters in brilliant strokes, and I'm excited to introduce the colors of this story into the lives of our Gwinnett County patrons."

Cuban-American playwright Nilo Cruz's A Bicycle County premiered at Florida Stage in 1999, but the themes of immigration and freedom at all costs remains incredibly resonant. In his Spanish translation, the poetry in his use of language is perhaps even more enrapturing as we chart the struggles of the three characters as they each come to the decision to abandon their homeland for a better life in the North.

Georgina Escobar, playwright of the theater's recent Harvel Lab production SWEEP, returns to Aurora to direct Pais de Bicicleta. Georgina is a New York-based playwright/deviser and creator of hyper-sensical, ridiculous, and sometimes impossible narratives for the stage. With Pais de Bicicleta she has infused the very real experiences of the characters with the surrealistic and sometimes magical touches that make Latinx theatre so vibrant and engaging. Inhabiting the three dreamers in this production are Limara Meneses Jimenez (Ines), Anthony P. Rodriguez (Julio), and Juan Carlos Unzueta (Pepe). Patrons are invited to watch as the dreamers realize the real cost of turning a dream into reality.

Pais de Bicicleta is presented at Aurora Theatre, April 7 -30. Tickets can be purchased for $20-$30 online at tickets.auroratheatre.com or by calling the Box Office at 678-226-6222.

Show times are as follows:

• Thursday - Saturday: 8 p.m.
• Sunday: 2:30 p.m.
• No performance Thursday, April 27

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