COSTA MESA, CA.— Swap glass slippers for basketball high-tops and join South Coast Repertory (Artistic Director David Ivers and Managing Director Suzanne Appel) for Cinderella: A Salsa Fairy Tale, book and lyrics by Karen Zacarias, music by Deborah Wicks La Puma. Sara Guerrero directs this vibrant, bilingual reimagining of the timeless fairy tale, which runs Feb. 20-March 8 on the Julianne Argyros Stage.
Tickets to the Theatre for Young Audiences and Families production are available at scr.org. Cinderella: A Salsa Fairy Tale is suitable for ages 4 and up.
“This incarnation of Cinderella delivers a message which reverberates across our season. Two young women contend with their own sense of place and identity, and wow, are they competitive,” Ivers said. “Told from two perspectives, this take on the timeless story is theatrical, musical and inevitably touching. It’s just so meaningful that SCR family members Sara Guerrero, Karen Zacarias and Deborah Wicks LaPuma will once again be represented on our stages.”
Through a special SCR program designed to bring third graders in Orange County public schools to live theatre —often for the first time—the theatre is offering 16 student matinees, serving approximately 4,800 Orange County children including students from the Newport-Mesa, Santa Ana and Capistrano Unified districts. Through a grant from the Segerstrom Family Foundation, SCR provides free bus transportation and tickets to all Title I schools in Orange County districts. Paid tickets for student matinees are subsidized and cost just $9 each. The school-time performances are nearly full.
Managing director Suzanne Appel said, “For so many of these young people, the opportunity to see someone who looks like them on stage is so powerful. Cinderella will open up new ways of understanding their experiences, and even who they might become. These students are our future audiences, and perhaps our future artists or even Board members.”
The Musical
What happens to Cinderella at the ball … game? The classic fairy tale gets a modern makeover as a bouncy, bilingual musical. Sweet Cenicienta, a.k.a. Cinderella, speaks only Spanish. Rosa, the coolest, most self-centered basketball player in school, speaks only English—and she’s making things extra difficult for Cinderella. Who will Coach Prince choose to play in the Super Dooper Eastern Western Division Basketball Game?
Cinderella: A Salsa Fairy Tale blends the eternal magic of Cinderella with Latin music and basketball in a family-friendly, joyful celebration that teaches respect and sportsmanship.
Jane Horowitz of The Washington Post wrote that Zacarias “uses humor expertly … creating a recognizable everyday situation to reel in her young audience … Songs by La Puma add grace notes and drive the message home in cheerful bursts.”
The Playwright and Composer
One of the nation’s most versatile playwrights, Zacarias has entertained audiences across the country with her socially relevant, culturally rich and witty plays that seamlessly cross historical periods and genres. This is her fourth play for SCR, following Destiny of Desire (2016) and the Theatre for Young Audiences and Families productions of Jane of the Jungle (2012) and Ella Enchanted (2017), which were two of her six collaborations with Wicks La Puma.
Zacarias’ award-winning plays include The Book Club, Just Like Us, Legacy of Light, Mariela in the Desert, The Sins of Sor Juana, Native Gardens and the adaptation of Julia Alvarez’s How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents. Her plays have been produced at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Goodman Theater, Round House Theater, The Denver Center, Alliance Theatre, Berkshire Theater Festival, Imagination Stage, La Jolla Playhouse and Arena Stage, where she was the theatre’s first playwright-in-residence, among many others.
Zacarias accepted an invitation from the White House Historical Association and the Kennedy Center to write a family play about the White House that became the musical Chasing George Washington. After a national tour, the script was published as a book with a forward by First Lady Michelle Obama.
Wicks La Puma (@dwlapuma) is one of the most prolific musical directors in the theatre’s 62-year history, with 15 Theatre for Young Audiences and Families productions, most recently the Outside SCR offering of You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown in 2021. She was the composer for four plays at SCR: Jane of the Jungle (2012), Ella Enchanted: The Musical (2017), Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed: The Rock Experience (2019) and Where the Mountain Meets the Moon (2020). And Wicks LaPuma arranged music for two others: A Year With Frog & Toad (2009) and Junie B. Jones (2009).
Wicks La Puma’s works have featured all over the country, including The Kennedy Center, La Jolla Playhouse, the Alliance Theatre, Olney Theatre, Bay Area Children’s Theatre and Imagination Stage, among others. She created three musicals with bestselling children’s author Mo Willems and worked with him on the HBO Max adaptation of “Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed: The Underground Rock Experience.”
The Director
Guerrero is a versatile theatre director, writer, actor and producer whose mission is to model, share and create theatre-making opportunities for and with the community. Cinderella: A Salsa Fairy Tale marks Guerrero’s SCR debut. She has directed productions for Center Theatre Group, The Geffen Playhouse, Latino Theatre Company, Chance Theater, Abingdon Theatre, Creede Repertory Theatre, Queens Theatre and UC Irvine’s Claire Trevor School of the Arts, among others.
Along with being a teaching artist in SCR’s award-winning Conservatory, Guerrero is the founding artistic director of Breath of Fire Latina Theater Ensemble in Santa Ana, which provides free programming and guidance in the art of storytelling to historically underrepresented voices. She and the ensemble are artists-in-residence of Cal State Fullerton’s Grand Central Arts Center in downtown Santa Ana.
The Cast
Cinderella: A Salsa Fairy Tale features Sophia Barajas (Rosa Perez), Joslynn Cortes (Cinderella/Cenicienta), Oscar Fabela (Fairy Godffather/Padrino), Jessenia Michei Ingram (Ensemble 2), Adam Leiva (Ensemble 1), and Ryan Nebreja (Joey/Narrator).
Barajas (Instagram handle @sophiabarajas) makes her SCR debut. She is an Orange County native who attended Orange County School of the Arts and Cypress College, where she studied Musical Theatre and Dance. She appeared in the Chance Theater’s 2022 production of Green Day’s American Idiot.
Cortes (@joslynn_cortes) returns to SCR for the third time in two seasons, having appeared as Crystal in Little Shop of Horrors and as Mom, Ms. Penny and The Artist in last season’s Theatre for Young Audiences and Families production of The Incredible Book Eating Boy. Her previous acting credits include Junie B. Jones in Junie B. Jones the Musical, Arlene in Garfield the Musical with Cattitude at Walnut Street Theatre, Anita in West Side Story at Glow Lyric Theatre and Claire in Ordinary Days at The Wayward Artist.
A recent recipient of the Golden Globes Acting Fellowship, Fabela (@oefabela) makes his SCR debut after recently appearing in his original play, Don Carlos: Prince of Asturias at Off-Broadway’s Theatre Row as part of the United Solo Festival, earning him the Best Emerging Actor Award. Fabela previously worked with Francis Ford Coppola on Distant Vision and has appeared at The Guthrie Theater, Anne Bogart’s SITI Company, La Jolla Playhouse, A Noise Within and the Grotowski Institute in Wroclaw, Poland. A graduate of UCLA’s School of Theater, Film & Television and The British American Drama Academy at Oxford, Fabela is also a Resident Artist at PCPA and a voice-over dubbing producer for Netflix International’s features and series.
Cinderella: A Salsa Fairy Tale marks Ingram’s (@jesseniamichei) SCR debut. The Spelman College graduate has appeared at the Aurora Theatre, Alliance Theatre, Bay Area Children’s Theatre and Synchronicity Theatre. Her film credits include From the Ashes and Mezzo Piano.
Leiva (@adamleiva) was last seen at SCR as Henry, the incredible book eating boy from the play of the same name. His previous roles include Tobias Ragg in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, and Angel in Rent, both at Chance Theater.
Nebreja (@ryannebreja) began his career as a professional B-boy, competing in breakdancing competitions across the country. After earning advertising and psychology degrees from Cal State Fullerton and an MFA in Acting from CalArts, he segued into acting, appearing at East-West Players, La Jolla Playhouse, Los Angeles Theatre Center, CalArts and on the national tour of The Hip Hop Nutcracker. This is his SCR debut.
The Creative Team
The design and creative team includes Christopher Scott Murillo, scenic design; Elena Flores, costume design; Nita Mendoza, lighting design, and Melanie Falcón, sound design. Marissa Herrera is the choreographer, Maisie Chan is the production manager, and Talia Krispel is the stage manager.
Cinderella: A Salsa Fairy Tale received generous support from lead sponsor The Segerstrom Family Foundation, and Season Honorary Producers Apriem Advisors, along with Honorary Producers The Office of Orange County Supervisor Katrina Foley, Samuel & Tammy Tang and Socorro & Ernesto Vasquez.
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