Zoetic Stage and the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County Present #GRACED

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.

Cast and additional information about #GRACED will be shared at a later date.

ABOUT THE WRITER AND CO-DIRECTORS

Vanessa Garcia (Writer/Producer) is a Cuban-American multidisciplinary writer -- screenwriter, playwright, novelist, and journalist/essayist -- who has written and worked for Sesame Street, Caillou, We Are Family, and Dora the Explorer. She's the author of the novel, White Light, which won an International Latino Book Award and was one of NPRs best books of 2015. Her first Picture Book for children, What the Bread Says, launched October 2022. Theatrically, her work has been produced around the world. She's the author of The Amparo Experience, an immersive hit that People en Español called "Miami's Hottest Ticket." Other plays include: Sweet Goats & Blueberry Señoritas, which she co-wrote with Richard Blanco, and #Graced. As well as her radio play, Ich Bin Ein Berliner, about the fall of the Berlin Wall and what it meant to her. Her journalism, essays and thought pieces have appeared in The LA Times, The Guardian, The Washington Post, National Review, ESPN, The Hill, Catapult, Narrativel.ly, and numerous other publications. www.vanessagarcia.org

Victoria Collado (Co-Director/Producer) is a Cuban-American director creating exciting and adventurous storytelling experiences on-stage, on-screen, and in your ears! Named Best Director of 2020 by the Miami New Times, Collado is well-known for her direction of the hit immersive theatre piece, The Amparo Experience written by Vanessa Garcia, which had a sold out 8-month run and named "Miami's Hottest Ticket" by People en Español. She also directed the Inaugural Anthem Award-winning digital piece Black Feminist Video Game written by Darrel Alejandro Holnes. Most recently in her film, Victoria directed the Social Media version of The Amparo Experience (@theamparoexperience) which was an honoree of the Webby Awards in 2021 and is currently working on multiple documentaries; one of which is based on the life of legendary actor, Ruben Rabasa. Victoria has directed for Repertorio Español, GableStage, WP Theatre, The Civilians, Miami New Drama, MCC Youth Company, Sheen Center, IATI theatre, Microteatro Miami, Columbia University and others. Her production El Burlador de Sevilla received various nominations from the ACE awards, and won for Outstanding Ensemble. She was a Van Lier Directing Fellow with Repertorio Español, part of the Directing Corps in the Williamstown Theatre Festival, and a recipient of the SDCF Observership. She was also a fellow a fellow of the WP Theater's 2018-2020 Lab. Victoria was the assistant director to Tony Taccone in the Tony-Award Nominated Latin History For Morons on Broadway by John Leguizamo. www.victoriacollado.com

Sarah Hughes (Co-Director) is a director and producer of theater and new media. Her work embraces limitation, values accidental discoveries, and is deeply collaborative, employing unexpected choices in casting, staging, and tone to create medium-specific, inclusive, sustainable, shared experiences that aim at truth rather than at the effect of reality. Sarah has collaborated as a director on new plays, performance art pieces and devised works with Eliza Bent, Julia May Jonas / Nellie Tinder, MJ Kaufman, McFeely Sam Goodman / Limited Liability Theater Company, Chana Porter, Deepali Gupta, Julia Izumi, Zarina Shea, Eli Nixon, Pablo Helguera, Corinne Donly, Cara Scarmack, Alaina Ferris, Superhero Clubhouse, and more. Her work has been presented throughout NYC with Clubbed Thumb, New Georges, Abrons Arts Center, BAM Next Wave, The Bushwick Starr, New Ohio, Japan Society, The Tank, Caveat, The Segal Center, Columbia University, The Brick, Prelude, and CATCH, among others. www.sarahcameronhughes.com