Musicabana will mark the largest gathering of Cuban artists in a generation, featuring performances by music legends and some of today’s hottest acts, including Pablo Milanés, Carlos Varela, Los Van Van, Orquesta Aragón, Havana d’Primera, Ibeyi, Pedrito Martinez, Yoruba Andabo, Juana Bacallao & Tiembla Tierra, Interactivo, Kelvis Ochoa, and Adonis & Osain del Monte, among others. International superstars Sean Paul and Carlinhos Brown will also perform. Ibeyi, the French-Cuban duo who have taken the music world by storm over the past year, will be the ambassadors of the festival, signaling Musicabana’s commitment to connecting Cuba’s musical past with its promising future.
Olney, MD – January 8, 2016 – Olney Theatre Center, a Mid-Atlantic destination for extraordinary theater performance and education, in co-production with New York’s Tectonic Theater Project, welcomes legendary director and Tectonic Artistic Director Moisés Kaufman, Grammy-winner Arturo O’Farrill, and Broadway phenomenon Sergio Trujillo for the world premiere of Carmen: An Afro-Cuban Jazz Musical. The production runs February 10 through March 6 on the Mainstage. Directed and co-written by Tony® Award-nominee Moisés Kaufman (33 Variations, Gross Indecency, The Laramie Project Cycle), with heralded Cuban-American playwright Eduardo Machado, and music adapted from Bizet’s opera by two-time Grammy Award-winner Arturo O’Farrill, this Carmen brings the action of one of the most sensual stories of all time to Cuba on the verge of revolution in 1958. The star-studded creative team, along with Kaufman at the helm as director and Broadway’s Sergio Trujillo as choreographer (Jersey Boys, Memphis, On Your Feet), turns Bizet’s passion-fueled opera into a sexy, swinging Afro-Cuban Jazz musical. Kaufman’s Carmen is a gun-runner for the rebels, who falls fiercely in love with José, a Batista loyalist. When Cuba’s boxing legend Camilo returns to Havana, Carmen and José’s love falls tragically apart. “When Moisés called me about his dream of bringing Carmen to 1950s Cuba, I jumped at the idea, which was so prescient and fascinating,” said Olney Theatre Center Artistic Director Jason Loewith. “Little did I know he’d be working with Grammy-winner Arturo O’Farrill, whose Afro-Latin jazz-infused score has completely reimagined Bizet’s famous opera with everything from meringue and salsa to Cuban be-bop, traditional Cuban son, and the driving percussion of congas and bongos, and Sergio Trujillo, one of Broadway’s busiest choreographers, whose recent smash On Your Feet is taking New York by storm. These are some true theater geniuses at work.”
Yoruba Andabo 