#GRACED World Premiere Set For May at the Arsht Center

Zoetic Stage and the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County present the world premiere of #GRACED by Vanessa Garcia, in collaboration with Abre Camino Collective. #GRACED runs from May 4-21, 2023 and is part of the Arsht Center's Theater Up Close series presented by PNC Bank.

Tickets to #GRACED are $55 and $60*. Tickets may be purchased at the Adrienne Arsht Center box office by calling (305) 949-6722, or online at arshtcenter.org.

Catherine is searching for something authentic as she embarks on a "Lewis-and-Clark-esque" trip across America sponsored by Monteverde Moonshine with her new lover and colleague, Lewis. Along the way, they pick up a wayward nun named Rosalie who has just gone through deep loss, meet a queer homeschooled teenager named Blake and rummage through the layers of migration and gender inequity that make up America. As Catherine travels, she comes to more questions than answers about "the real America," her own identity and what authenticity even means anymore.

PNC Bank is the presenting sponsor of the 2022-2023 THEATER UP CLOSE series and WLRN is the media sponsor. The Arsht Center's THEATER UP CLOSE series gratefully acknowledges the founding support of Adrianne and Jerry L. Cohen. Funding Arts Network is a supporter of Zoetic Stage.

#GRACED was developed with Thinking Cap Theatre, WP Theater, South Florida Theater League, and the Playwright Development program of Miami Dade Cultural Affairs. Thanks to a grant from BOLD Ventures, development toward the production culminated in NYC in December 2022 at WP Theater.

"America (prior to the 2016 election) and my life felt like it was both going through a breaking point that could either tear it up for good or lead to a new light," says playwright Vanessa Garcia. "Even the Nobel Prize Committee was leery of what American art had to offer," she continued. "What the world sees as America isn't the real America, or rather, only just a part of it," she concluded.

"Vanessa Garcia is a playwright of this moment and tomorrow. She is unafraid of colliding worlds & styles to create something abundantly fresh, vivid and intrinsically her own. #Graced is a beautiful example of Garcia's muscular approach in creating a play dynamic in reach, funny in approach and deeply relatable in result. Zoetic Stage is very honored to present Vanessa's world premiere of #Graced to the community of South Florida," says Stuart Meltzer, Founding Artistic Director of Zoetic Stage.