A SPECIAL BENEFIT EVENT
The Hispanic Organization of Latin Actors (HOLA)
presents
A special benefit staged reading of the play
BUSTED
Written by FLORENCIA LOZANO*
Directed by FELIX SOLIS*
When four fabulous female friends reunite, the $#@% hits the proverbial fan: Gigi is pissed, Lucía is about to let her have it, Jesse has a secret she doesn't want her friends to know-- or does she?-- and Melanie's announcement is about to change EVERYTHING. A tale in which friends cling to each other for dear life and tear each other to shreds in the process. An inexplicable hole, a mysterious visitation, a cosmic happening... with dance breaks: BUSTED.
with (in alphabetical order)
VANESSA ASPILLAGA*, AUDREY ESPARZA*,
SARAH NINA HAYON*, GABE HERNÁNDEZ*,
FLORENCIA LOZANO*, KELLEY RAE O’DONNELL*
and AARON ROMAN WEINER*
Proceeds from ticket sales will go toward furthering
HOLA's much needed advocacy efforts on behalf of the
Latino/Hispanic entertainment community.
Saturday, April 7, 2012 at 8pm
PUERTO RICAN TRAVELING THEATRE
304 West 47th Street (off of Eighth Avenue), NYC
ADMISSION: $25
Light refreshments will be served after the reading.
To get tickets, call (212) 253-1015.
* Permission of the performers and the director to appear in this staged play reading granted by Theatre Authority, Inc.
About the Hispanic Organization of Latin Actors (HOLA)
The Hispanic Organization of Latin Actors (HOLA) is an arts service and advocacy organization dedicated to expanding the Hispanic artists in entertainment and media through the cultivation, education and recognition of emerging artists. Founded in 1975 by a group of Hispanic actors concerned with the images of Latinos in the media, HOLA now functions as a leading advocacy group in the industry for such actors working on stage, on television and in films. Most recently, HOLA made national headlines when it questioned the casting practices of a regional theater who was producing Stephen Adly Guirgis' play The Mother#@$%er With The Hat. Ultimately, HOLA strives for an accurate, informed and non-stereotyped portrayal of the full spectrum of Latino culture and heritage in all entertainment and media industries. For more information, click here or here.
About The Playwright
Florencia Lozano was born in Princeton, New Jersey and raised in
Newton, Massachusetts and earned degrees from Brown University and New York University, where she studied under Ron Van Lieu, Jim Calder and Paul Walker. She is best known for her portrayal of the tough-as-nails attorney Téa Delgado on the daytime television drama “One Life To Live.” Her other television credits include “Blue Bloods,” "Royal Pains," “Law & Order: Criminal Intent,” “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” “Gossip Girl,” “Lipstick Jungle” and “Ugly Betty.” She has also appeared in numerous films. She played opposite Halle Berry and Bruce Willis in Perfect Stranger and recently starred in Franc. Reyes’ The Ministers with Harvey Keitel and John Leguizamo. Some of her other film credits include Bittersweet Place, Deception, Transbeman and Veronika Decides to Die. In addition to her film and television work, she is also an accomplished stage actress and playwright. Her stage credits as an actress include Where’s My Money? (LAB, MTC), Dirty Story (LAB), Macbeth (Delacorte), Last Easter (MCC), Privilege (Second Stage) and Right You Are... (National Actors Theatre). She has worked at New York Theatre Workshop, 52nd Street Project, Williamstown Theatre Festival, and at the Eugene O’Neill Playwright’s Conference. Her first full-length play, entitled Under Her Breath, was written while she was at Brown. BUSTED was commissioned by Daniel Talbot and the Rising Phoenix Theatre Company for the CINO Nites series and subsequently developed at LAByrinth's Summer Theatre Intensive and at the Rattlestick Playwrights' Theatre. Her second full-length play, girl in window, has been developed at LAByrinth, Rattlestick and New York Theater Workshop. Two of her ten-minute plays, Bitch and Charlie Go Back to Charlie’s House and Sheila, Jack, Claire Danes and The Man On My Roof were given staged readings at the LAByrinth Theater Company where she has been a member since 1992 and where she served as both literary manager and associate artistic director. In October 2009, Ms. Lozano wrote, directed and conceived a site-specific, guerrilla theater piece called Chez Moi in and around her old stomping grounds on East 25th Street and Third Avenue in Manhattan. Her second full-length play, underneathmybed, was produced by Rattlestick Playwrights' Theatre under the direction of Pedro Pascal and earned her a 2011 HOLA Award for Outstanding Achievement in Playwriting. Vanessa Aspillaga, who played Daisy in underneathmybed, won a 2011 HOLA Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor. She will next act in the television pilot “Guilty” (starring Cuba Gooding, Jr.). She wishes to thank all the artists who worked on the development of BUSTED, without whose feedback she could not have written this play as well as Rattlestick for having produced her first play, and, most especially, LAByrinth, which has provided her with an artistic home, a family of artistic collaborators and without whom she probably never would have written a play.
About The Director
Felix Solis is currently a series regular on “NYC 22” produced by Robert
DeNiro and Jane Rosenthal on CBS, premiering April 15, 2012. He has also had a recurring role on “The Good Wife,” on the same network. His other television credits include the series “Criminal Minds,” on the Network, “Army Wives,” “Law & Order,” “Law & Order: SVU,” “Law & Order: Criminal Intent,” “Fringe,” “Damages,” “The Sopranos” and “The West Wing.” His feature film credits include Nicholas Jarecki’s Arbitrage, Asger Leth’s Man On A Ledge, John Leguizamo’s Fugly, Wes Craven’s My Soul To Take, Tom Twyker’s The International, Taking Chances (opposite Kevin Bacon), The Forgotten (opposite Alfre Woodard) and Rashaad Ernesto Green’s Gun Hill Road. A member of New York City’s LAByrinth Theatre Company since 1999, he originated roles in Our Lady of 121st Street and In Arabia, We’d All Be Kings, both written by Stephen Adly Guirgis and directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman, and in the LAB’s Barn Series. At the Cherry Lane Theater, he appeared in Dramatis Personae (the Playwright’s Realm) and Eduardo Machado’s Havana is Waiting, in addition to many others at the INTAR theater. As a director, he directed Raúl Castillo’s Knives and Other Sharp Objects at the Public Theater. For the last eight years, he has worked with children at the 52nd Street Project, a non-profit group that matches inner city kids with professional theatre artists to the business and craft of theatre production. He was born and raised to Puerto Rican parents in Chelsea and Greenwich Village in New York City. For more information, click here.
