Anna in the Tropics

This poignant and poetic play, by Pulitzer Prize-winner Nilo Cruz, captures 1929 Florida at a time when cigars were still rolled by hand and “lectors” were employed to educate and entertain the workers. The arrival of a new lector is cause for celebration, but when he reads aloud from Anna Karenina, he unwittingly becomes a catalyst in the lives of his avid listeners, for whom Tolstoy, the tropics and the American dream prove a volatile combination.