LOOKING's Raul Castillo to Lead INTAR's ADORATION OF THE OLD WOMAN Off-Broadway

INTAR today announced the cast for the next production of its 2013-14 season: Adoration of the Old Woman, by Academy Award-nominated and Obie Award winning Jose Rivera and directed by Patricia McGregor will star Raul Castillo (HBO's "Looking"), Danielle Davenport, Jose Joaquin Perez, Socorro Santiago and Carmen Zilles. This limited Off-Broadway engagement begins March 13th and continues through April 6th only. Opening Night is set for Wednesday March 19th.

An ancient woman. A haunted bed. An angry teen. A sexy ghost. Political turmoil. Will Puerto Rico really become the 51st state or will it fight for its freedom. And all the coquis are dying. Welcome to the world of Adoration of the Old Woman.

Adoration of the Old Woman will have scenic design by Ryan Howell, lighting design by Miguel Angel Valderrama, and costume design by Dede Ayite.

"INTAR exists to promote and support Latino voices in the American theater. Jose Rivera is an extraordinary example of power in the Latino theater community. Jose represents the emergence of the contemporary Latino voice in the American theatre, a movement which has reached many artists and audiences regardless of personal background. Bringing Jose to to INTAR, having him work with next generation actors as well as stalwarts like Socorro Santiago is exactly what INTAR should be doing - showcasing the vastness of the Latino Theater community." said INTAR Artistic Director Lou Moreno.

Raul Castillo can currently be seen in the HBO series Looking in the role of Richie. He is a proud member of LAByrinth Theater Company. Theater credits include Fish Men (Goodman), A Lifetime Burning (Primary Stages), Contigo (Signature), and Jose Rivera's School of the Americas (Public Theater/Labyrinth), Flowers (E.S.T.) and Reference's to Salvador Dalí Make Me Hot (Abroad). Film credits include Bless Me, Ultima, Cold Weather, My Best Day, and the Student Academy Award-winning short Narcocorrido.

Danielle Davenport has performed in productions, workshops and readings at/with The Public Theater, Playwrights Horizons, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, Ensemble Studio Theatre, INTAR, Target Margin, The Civilians and others. Her film and television credits include HBO's Boardwalk Empire and a number of short films. She is an alumna of the Public Theater's Shakespeare Lab, was a semifinalist for the 2012 Eugene O'Neill National Playwrights Conference and graduated summa cum laude from Barnard College, Columbia University.

Jose Joaquin Perez is a graduate of the Conservatory of Theatre Arts at Webster University. Selected NY Theater: Basilica (U/S) for Rattlestick Playwrights Theater at The Cherry Lane, so go the ghosts of mexcio at La Mama Etc., Fit by Neil Koneigsberg at 59e59 Theaters as part of the Summer Shorts 4 Festival, American Jornalero at The Working Theater and INTAR, Drawn and Quartered at INTAR, Mariela en el Desierto at Repetorio Espanol, and Sangre as part of NY Summer Stage. Regional Theater: Take Me Out at The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis and Hartford Stage, Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure at The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, Oedipus El Rey (Helen Hayes Award Nomination) and The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity (Helen Hayes Award Nomination) at Woolly Mammoth Theater Company. Selected film/TV credits are We Need to Talk About Kevin, Adam Shaw, Turtle Hill: Brooklyn, Cruzando, and Unforgettable.

Socorro Santiago is delighted to be working at INTAR again. She just returned from Goodman theatre (Chicago) where she worked on Jose Rivera's Another Word for Beauty. She has performed on Broadway in The Bacchae (Circle in the Square) and off-Broadway at the 59E59, Ensemble Studio Theatre, NY Theatre Workshop, The Public Theater, Naked Angels. She just completed the World Premiere of Luis Alfaro's play Mojada (director: Chay Yew) at Victory Gardens Theatre in Chicago. Other Regional credits include Long Wharf Theatre: Eric Ting's adaptation of Macbeth 1969 and John Patrick Shanley's Italian American Reconciliation (directed by Eric Ting). She has also worked with 2012 Pulitzer Prize winner Quiara Alegria Hudes on Like Water for Chocolate (Sundance Theatre Lab) and the world premiere of 26 Miles (Alliance Theatre). Socorro also earned an Independent Reviewers of New England actress nomination for her role in Boleros for the Disenchanted by Jose Rivera at Huntington Theatre. Film credits include Butterflies of Bill Baker, Ornament of Faith, All Good Things, Devil's Advocate, Heaven's Prisoners and Freedomland, among many. Numerous television appearances include "The Good Wife," "Unforgettable," "Bored To Death," and all the "Law & Orders." She received an American Latino Media Arts (ALMA) Award for her work as Isabella Santos on "All My Children."

Carmen Zilles. Off-Broadway: Chimichangas and Zoloft (Atlantic Theater Company) and Game Play (Ars Nova). Carmen recently graduated from the Yale School of Drama, where some favorite credits include Caryl Churchill's Fen, Wallace Shawn's A Thought in Three Parts, and Sunday in the Park with George. She's done workshops with New York Stage and Film, LAByrinth Theater, the Public, New York Theatre Workshop, Signature Theater, Page 73, and more.

José Rivera's screenplay for The Motorcycle Diaries was nominated for a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar in 2005 making him the first Puerto Rican writer to be nominated for an Academy Award. Also nominated for a BAFTA and a Writers Guild Award, The Motorcycle Diaries, won top writing awards in Spain and Argentina. His screenplay based on Jack Kerouac's On the Road, premiered at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival and was distributed nationally in the winter of 2013. His film Trade was the first film to premiere at the United Nations. For Showtime he's written "The Conquest," a pilot for a one-hour series based on the conquest of the Aztecs by Hernán Cortés. Feature films in the works include Vincent, about the painter Vincent Van Gogh, and Patriotic Treason about abolitionist John Brown. The 33, a film about the 2010 rescue of 33 trapped miners in Chile is in production. Rivera has won two Obie Awards for playwriting for Marisol and References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot. His plays Cloud Tectonics, Boleros for the Disenchanted, Sueño, Sonnets for an Old Century, School of the Americas, Massacre (Sing to Your Children), Brainpeople, and The House of Ramon Iglesia have been produced in theatres across the country and around the world. Plays in the works include The Last Book of Homer, Human Emotional Process, The Hours are Feminine, a new translation of Kiss of the Spiderwoman, and Another Word for Beauty, a musical. His one-acts The Garden of Tears and Kisses and Sermon for the Senses is part of The Mysteries Plays at the Flea. Celestina, based on his play Cloud Tectonics, will mark his debut as a feature film director. Rivera is currently developing a one-hour HBO series about a Shakespeare company with Tom Hanks producing. Rivera is a former member of the Board of Directors of the Sundance Institute and has been a creative advisor for the Screenwriting Lab in Utah, Jordan, and India. He leads a weekly writing workshop in Brooklyn, where he lives. In the works is his first novel, Love Makes the City Crumble.

Patricia McGregor is a Harlem based director, writer, and deviser of new work. Recent credits include Marcus Gardley's The House That Will Not Stand (Berkeley Rep), Spunk and Winter's Tale (Cal Shakes), Becky Shaw (Roundhouse), The Mountaintop (Philadelphia Theatre Company), and the world premier of Hurt Village (Signature Theatre Center). Other directing credits include Fela! (Associate Director, Broadway), Holding it Down and Blood Dazzler (Harlem Stage), and In The Cypher (Nuyorican Poet's Cafe). Patricia has worked at venues including BAM, Second Stage, The Public Theater, The Kitchen, The O'Neill, and Lincoln Center Institute. She is the co-founder of Angela's Pulse, which creates choreoplays and fosters collaboration among diverse communities in order to illuminate under told stories, infuse meaning into the audience experience and animate progress through the arts. Patricia attended the Yale School of Drama where she was a Paul and Daisy Soros Fellow and Artistic Director of the Yale Cabaret.

Performances will be Wednesday evenings at 6pm, Thursday through Saturday evenings at 8pm and Sunday evenings at 5pm. Special added performance Monday March 17th at 8pm. Tickets, which are only $28, may be purchased at www.intartheatre.org or by calling 212/352-3101. All performances will take place at INTAR's theater space (500 West 52nd Street, at Tenth Avenue, on the 4th Floor).

Photo by Walter McBride