Queer Latino Holiday Play 'LOS NUTCRACKERS' Returns to BAAD! Tonight

BAAD! The Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance presents Los Nutcrackers: A Christmas Carajo, written by Charles Rice-González and directed by Luis Caballero.

This marks the third 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 tonight, December 1, and December 2, 7, 8, 9, 15 and 16 at 8pm; Saturday, December 9 at 3pm at BAAD!, 2474 Westchester Avenue in the Westchester Square section of the Bronx. Tickets are $25 with discounts offered for seniors and students. For reservations call 718-918-2110 or visit www.BAADBronx.org. 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 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 the legendary cabaret performer Barbra Herr along with a talented and sexy cast of actors. Returning for their third year are actors Justin Crowley, Jonathan Cruz, Arnold Godoy, Adriel Muñoz and joining the cast is Jomil Luna. Los Nutcrackers spent three years in development at BAAD!, then had its premiere production in 2004.

Charles Rice-González has written several plays including Pink Jesus, The Artist and I Just Love Andy Gibb published in Blacktino Queer Performance: A Critical Anthology (Duke Press). 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 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 the LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer) 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 in December celebrates 18 years of being BAAD!

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