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The Play

Anna in the Tropics (PRINT AND EBOOK AVAILABLE) by Nilo Cruz
Publication Date: 2009
Winner of the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Drama
"This lush romantic drama depicts a family of cigar makers whose loves and lives are played out against the backdrop of Depression-era America. Set in Ybor City (Tampa) in 1930, Cruz imagines the catalytic effect the arrival of a new "lector" (who reads Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina to the workers as they toil in the cigar factory) has on a Cuban-American family. Cruz celebrates the search for identity in a new land."

Anna in the Tropics (audio recording, 1 hour 36 minutes)
An L.A. Theatre Works production recorded before a live audience at the Skirball Cultural Center, Los Angeles in June of 2005. Directed by Jose Luis Valenzuela and starringJimmy Smits as Juan Julian. Note: Use the "Send to Mobile" option to listen to this recording on a mobile device.

VIDEOS

ARTICLES

Art Talk with Playwright Nilo Cruz
Interview for National Endowment of the Arts. October 20, 2016.

Playwright finds the heritage is the thing
Persaud, Babita. "Playwright Finds the Heritage is the Thing: [SOUTH PINELLAS Edition]." St.Petersburg Times, Apr 20, 2003
The Ybor of His Mind
Fleming, John. "The Ybor of His Mind: [SOUTH PINELLAS Edition]." St.Petersburg Times, Dec 21 2003.

Articles in Spanish

The historic role of El Lector in educating cigar factory workers (article and video)
Peñate, Jennifer. News 19. September 24, 2020.
Lectors of Ybor City
Kylan Cameron and the Tampa Historical Team, “Lectors of Ybor City ,” Tampa Historical.
The Reader and the Worker: "Los Lectores" and the Culture of Cigarmaking in Cuba and Florida
Pozzetta, George E., and Gary R. Mormino. “The Reader and the Worker: ‘Los Lectores’ and the Culture of Cigarmaking in Cuba and Florida.” International Labor and Working-Class History, no. 54, 1998, pp. 1–18. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/27672498.
Anna Karenina
Brief summary of novel from Britannica Online.
The Cigar Industry Changes Florida
Photos, documents, video and histories from the Florida Memory Project.