Marga Gomez and Carmelita Tropicana at Joe's Pub 6/9

On Monday, June 9 (9:30pm), the 2nd annual TeatroStageFest will present Marga Gomez and Carmelita Tropicana at Joe's Pub (425 Lafayette Street at Astor Place). The evening features two short new works from the GLAAD Media Award nominated Latina comics.

 In Marga Gomez's Talkin' Funny, the culturally confused comic confesses to being Latina from Long Island who can't speak Spanish, struggles with a Salsa disorder, and looks at JLo's film Gigli for the meaning of life. In ¡Olé!, Wanderlust in Sevilla, Carmelita Tropicana tells tall tales of love with an apparition by St. Teresa in the Monastery of the Cartuja and reveals why Latinos make the best lovers.

Marga Gomez is one of America's first openly gay comedians. She has performed all over the US, Canada, and Europe. Marga won the GLAAD award in 2004 and has been featured on HBO, VH-1, Comedy Central, Showtime and seen most recently Logo Network's comedy series "Wisecrack" and in the documentary "Laughing Matters." Marga's acting credits include Off-Broadway roles in The Vagina Monologues, HBO's "Tracy Ullman Show," "Guiding Light," the Warner Brother's film Sphere and independent film The D Word.  Her one-woman plays include Los Big Names, A Line Around The Block; Memory Tricks; Marga Gomez is Pretty, Witty & Gay; Jaywalker; The Twelve Days of Cochina, and Marga Gomez's Intimate Details, which have been produced at numerous venues including The Public Theater,  Whitney Museum, PS 122,  Kennedy Center, Boston Center for the Arts, San Diego Repertory Theater,  Mark Taper Forum, Theater Rhinoceros,  Montreal Comedy Festival, Edinburgh Fringe Festival, London ICA and Amsterdam's Triple X Festival.

Cuban-born writer/performance artist Carmelita Tropicana received an Obie award in 1999 for "Sustained Excellence" and was named "One of the Most Notable Women of 1998" by El Diario newspaper. She and director Ela Troyano won Best Short at the 1994 Berlin Film Festival for Carmelita Tropicana: Your Kunst is Your Waffen. Her collaboration with Marga Gomez, Single Wet Female, earned a 2002 GLAAD Media Award nomination. In 2000, Beacon Press published a comprehensive collection of her plays and scripts I, Carmelita Tropicana -- Performing Between Cultures, a Lambda Award nominee. INTAR Theatre produced  the solo With What Ass Does a Cockroach Sit? in 2004 Her work has been presented at venues including the ICA in London, Centre de Cultura Contemporanea in Barcelona, Thalia Theater in Hamburg, PS 122 in New York, Walker Arts Center in Minneapolis, and Brava Theater in San Francisco. Tropicana has received numerous writing and performance awards from groups including the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the Mark Taper Forum's Latino Initiative.

TeatroStageFest (June 2-15, 2008) is an annual two-week artistic and cultural festival that celebrates great theater from New York, Latin America, the Caribbean and Spain.  Presented by The Latino International Theater Festival of New York, Inc., it showcases groundbreaking productions, concerts and comedy series, children's theater, artist panels, and a citywide playwriting competition for high school students.  For the entire schedule of events visit www.teatrostagefest.org .

INTAR, one of the United States' longest running Latino theatres producing in English, works to:

    * Nurture the professional development of Latino theater artists.
    * Produce bold, innovative, artistically significant plays that reflect diverse perspectives.
    * Make accessible the diversity inherent in America's cultural heritage.

Through an integrated program of workshops, productions of works in progress, and mainstage productions, INTAR continues to raise standards of the theater arts. INTAR brings to the public vital and energetic voices of both promising and accomplished Latino theater professionals, replacing stereotypes while giving expression to the diversity and depth of today's Latino-American community.

Tickets are $20 available at 212-967-7555 or www.joespub.com.

This special one-night-only event is an INTAR production.