Nuyorican Poets Cafe Presents Online Performances of ROUGH MAGIC

The Nuyorican Poets Café recently partnered with Blended City, LLC to bring a dynamic online rendition of Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa's 2009 play Rough Magic to audiences around the world. This is the first of many online productions to come from the acclaimed multicultural arts center on the Lower East Side.

Directed by Ashley L. Calderón, with technical expertise from Miguel Flores and Saima Huq, this production seamlessly blended live theatre with its online venue to bring an engrossing magical story to life.

Rough Magic transports the characters from Shakespeare's The Tempest to modern-day New York City, where the evil Prospero (portrayed by Executive Producer Nick Luis) will stop at nothing to get back his stolen Book of Destiny. He enlists two of his children, twins Ariel (Maurice J. McPherson) and Sasia (Melissa Denize) to chase after their brother Caliban (Jaime Pineiro), despite the cries of his daughter Miranda (Maritza Renae) to find a small spark of goodness in him to stop all the terror he wages. Caliban escapes to New York City in search of "the raven-haired maiden with owl eyes", who has the power to stop Prospero, if only she were willing to do so.

Meanwhile, in New York City, a thirty-something dramaturg named Melanie Porter (Sabrina Zara) is in denial of her magical ability to set characters free from literature. She is leading an obscure life of temping at a major bank when she agrees to a blind date with 17-year-old Coney Island lifeguard Chet Baxter (JB Chen), set up by her sister Tracy (Emily Cordes). When Caliban seeks Melanie's help, it is up to her and Chet to round up a motley crew of characters, such as Jacob Shylock (Ja'Qwan Turner), Caius Marcius (Shawn Jain), Tisiphone (Matthew Preston) and her sister Furies Megaera (Emily Cordes) and Alecto (Arelis Torres), to battle Prospero.

The entire cast is diverse, talented and impressive, flawlessly self-managing by necessity their costumes, props and backgrounds while staying in character at all times. They raise the bar on what an online performance can be in this day and age.