Cast Set For GIVE ME CARMELITA TROPICANA! ​​​​​​​Off-Broadway

The cast has been announced for Give Me Carmelita Tropicana!, running off-Broadway at Soho Rep, and written by Alina Troyano (a.k.a. Carmelita Tropicana) and Branden Jacobs-Jenkins.

Joining Troyano in the cast will be Octavia Chavez-Richmond, Ugo Chukwu, Will Dagger, and Keren Lugo. Directed by Eric Ting, performances will run October 23-December 1 with an opening night set for November 10.

Give Me Carmelita Tropicana! is described as part love letter to an iconic performance artist, part intergenerational debate about the legacy of “downtown” New York, part theatrical interrogation of the uses/abuses of nostalgia, real estate, “representation”, and the “avant-garde,” 100% fantastical journey in which Branden Jacobs-Jenkins attempts to buy Carmelita Tropicana from her creator… but at what cost?

Carmelita Tropicana

Alina Troyano, aka Carmelita Tropicana is a Cuban born, New York based writer, performer and educator. Tropicana uses irreverent humor to challenge cultural stereotypes, performing feminine and masculine personas, animals, insects, cyborgs, and hybrid fantasy creatures. She’s currently working on Live Memoir, (2025). She’s received a Latinx Artist Fellowship (2022); United States Artists Fellowship (2021); John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship (2017); and awards from Creative Capital (2016); Anonymous Was a Woman (2005); New York Foundation for the Arts (1987, 1991, 2006) and an Obie (1999). Her writing appears in her book I, Carmelita Tropicana, Performing Between Cultures (2000), a collection of scripts, short stories, essays and she is an editor on Memories of the Revolution: The First Ten Years of the Wow Café Theater (2015). She serves on the New York Foundation for the Arts Board of Directors, Soho Rep Board of Directors, and is a member of the Dramatist Guild.

Octavia Chavez-Richmond

Octavia Chavez-Richmond (she/her) is an actor/writer/storyteller who uses theater and film to disrupt colonialism, racism, and misogyny. Selected Theater: Mary Gets Hers, The Playwrights Realm; Fuente Ovejuna, Theatre for a New Audience; Pride and Prejudice, Long Wharf Theatre; Between Riverside and Crazy, SpeakEasy Stage Company; Yoga Play, Syracuse Stage/Geva Theatre; Last Ship to Proxima Centauri (world premiere), Portland Stage Company; Marisol, Trinity Repertory Company. Selected Film: Free Guy, Knives Out, From Nowhere (SXSW). Training: Brown/Trinity MFA Acting.

Ugo Chukwu

Ugo Chukwu (he/him) is a NYC based actor from the Bronx. Theater credits: Broadway National Tour of Oklahoma!, USUS (Clubbed Thumb) Lunch Bunch(Play Company/Clubbed Thumb), Primary Trust(Roundabout), What To Send Up When It Goes Down(Movement Theater/Under the Radar/Playwrights Horizon), House Plant (NYTW: Next Door), Do You Feel Anger (Vineyard) Today is my Birthday (Page73) and Porto (WP Theater/New Georges/Bushwick Starr). Regional Theater: Ripcord (Huntington) and Adventure Quest (Edinburgh Fringe/Dutch Kills). Film/TV: Driven (Tribeca Film Festival), The Path, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Inventing Anna. Ugo can also be seen in the Emmy nominated “Agent State Farm” commercial starring Arnold Schwarzenegger which premiered during this year’s Super Bowl, as well as commercials for Spectrum Mobile and Apple Pay. Ugo is a teaching artist with the New Victory Theater. www.ugochukwuactor.com

Will Dagger

Will Dagger (he/him) reveres this team! He has helped develop new work with Ars Nova, Audible, The Civilians, Clubbed Thumb, Colt Couer, EST, New Dramatists, The New Group, NYTW, Primary Stages, and Second Stage. Theatre: CORSICANA (Playwrights Horizons), UNCLE VANYA (O’Henry Productions), YOU DON’T HAVE TO DO ANYTHING (Here), MACBETH(Double Feature), THE ANTELOPE PARTY (Dutch Kills), AMONG THE DEAD (Ma-Yi). TV: LAW & ORDER: SVU (NBC), FBI: MOST WANTED (CBS), THE BLACKLIST (NBC), and DECEPTION (ABC). Thanks Dave and A&R, love you M. willdagger.com

Keren Lugo

Keren Lugo (she/her) Off-Broadway: Comedy of Errors, Privacy, Romeo y Julieta-radio play (The Public Theater); Stargazers (Page 73), At the Wedding(LCT3); Actually, We’re F*cked (Cherry Lane); Two Mile Hollow (WP Theater). Regional: Girls, Scenes From Court Life (Yale Rep); Water by The Spoonful(Mark Taper Forum); Men on Boats (Baltimore Center Stage); Women of Padilla (Two River Theater); qHenry V, Our Town (Chautauqua Theater Festival). TV: “New Amsterdam” (NBC), “Orange is the New Black” (Netflix), “The Americans” (FX). Education: The University of Puerto Rico, NYU Graduate Acting.

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