“Anna in the Tropics”

Nilo Cruz’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, “Anna in the Tropics,” comes to the Colony Theatre on Miami Beach Nov. 22-24.

The play is presented by FUNDarte and Teatro El Público, in collaboration with the Cuban Theater Digital Archive and University of Miami’s Departments of Theatre Arts and Modern Languages and Literatures and its Center for Latin American Studies.

Directed and adapted by Carlos Díaz of Teatro El Público, his “Anna in the Tropics” updates and complicates the original play, making it relevant to the diverse immigrant population in Miami. As Cuban cigar rollers work, a lector reads Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina,” and, from there, the human drama unfolds. “Anna in the Tropics” references a time when literature played an important and powerful role in culture-building. All of that changed with the advent of industrialization when machines replaced workers and the need for a lector.

The cast of “Anna in the Tropics” includes Cuban guest artists Osvaldo Doimeadios, Fernando Hechavarria, and Alexis Diaz de Villegas, and Miami performing artists Carlos Caballero, Lili Rentería, Mabel Roch and Elizabeth Doud. The diverse cast brings Nilo Cruz’s Anna to life. As she wanders around a cigar factory in Ybor City, Fla., a world populated by characters and seemingly archaic traditions emerges. Through Teatro El Público’s adaptation of “Anna in the Tropics,” we can experience this (almost) lost world’s rescued history.

“Anna in the Tropics,” by Nilo Cruz, Nov. 22 and 23 at 8:30 p.m., Nov. 24 at 5 p.m. Colony Theatre, 1040 Lincoln Rd., Miami Beach. Tickets: www.fundarte.us, www.ticketmaster.com, 1-800-745-3000 or at the Colony Theatre box office, Monday through Friday 12 noon to 5 p.m. For more information, call (305) 674-1040. Cost: $35, $30 general admission. $5 off for students (18 and younger) and seniors (65 and older).