Photos: Latino Company Presents GHOST WALTZ By Oliver Mayer

Latino Theater Company opens its Spring 2024 season this weekend with the world premiere of an innovative and daring new play with music. Featuring a cast of exceptional actor/musicians under the eyes of director Alberto Barboza and music director Alberto López, “Ghost Waltz” by Oliver Mayer (“Blade to the Heat,” “Members Only”) is currently in previews. Opening night is set for this Saturday, May 4.

See photos from the production!

Commissioned by Latino Theater Company and developed in the company’s Circle of Imaginistas playwriting group, Ghost Waltz is a boldly original recovery of Juventino Rosas, one of Mexico’s most significant classical composers — an Indigenous musician whose life story has gone untold and whose works have been attributed to Europeans. Following Rosas from his father’s early death to his friendship with ragtime genius Scott Joplin, Mayer mixes music, magic, drama, passion, spirituality and dance in a celebration that explores the lives of people of color during the emerging Americas of the late 19th century, and their ghost-like impact on our own lives today.

Actor, multi-instrumentalist and composer Quetzal Guerrero, best known as QVLN and a classically trained violinist, stars as Rosas. Pianist extraordinaire and Steinway artist Ric’key Pageot, who has toured with Madonna, Christina Aguilera, Cher and Cirque du Soleil, takes on the role of Scott Joplin. And Latin Grammy nominee rising star soprano Nathalie Peña-Comas plays Ángela Peralta, the “Mexican Nightingale,” who was the first Mexican to sing at the La Scala opera house in Milan. Fictional characters include Rosas’ father, Don Jesus, portrayed by actor and composer Eduardo Robledo, known for his work with El Teatro Campesino and the San Francisco Mime Troupe; Professor Zeiss, a music teacher at the Mexican conservatory, played by Cástulo Guerra (Terminator 2, The Mexican, and Star Trek: The Next Generation); Joplin’s young companion, Bethena (actor, dancer and violinist Ariel Brown); and Creole clairvoyant Marie Leveau (Monte Escalante, Robey Theatre Company’s The Talented Tenth).

Performances of “Ghost Waltz” continue through June 2 at The Los Angeles Theatre Center in downtown Los Angeles.  For more information and to purchase tickets, go to www.latinotheaterco.org.

 

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