Miami Stories Turns Local Celebrities
into Playwrights
New Theatre Fundraiser Set for March 9 on Key
Biscayne
By Mary Damiano
New Theatre is working a little magic for their March 9
fundraiser “Miami Stories”: turning a flutist, a senator and a bookseller into
playwrights.
Based on a concept from Chicago, “Miami Stories” debuted last year as a
fundraiser for New Theatre, featuring three local celebrities writing short
plays, which are then performed by professional actors at a gala dinner. This
year’s “Miami Stories” playwrights are flutist Nestor Torres, Senator Gwen
Margolis and Miami Book Fair International co-founder Mitchell Kaplan.
A committee from the New Theatre’s board of directors selects the
playwrights. According to Ricky J. Martinez, artistic director of New Theatre,
criteria for participating celebrities includes a commitment to the arts, the
ability to tell a good story and having the time to commit to the project.
Diversity is also important.
“We try to get a multi-cultural mix,” says Martinez.
Torres, a jazz flutist and Latin Grammy Award winner, was born in Puerto Rico
but moved to New York as a teenager, settling in Miami in the early 1980s.
Torres has become internationally known for his distinctive mix of Latin, jazz
and pop and has cultivated a devoted following and established a new genre of
popular music. Torres will appear in his play, which revisits a turning point
in his life.
Senator Margolis was raised and educated in Philadelphia, moving to Florida
in the early 1960s. In the early 1970s, she was elected to the State House of
Representatives. In 1980, she was elected to the State Senate and was the first
woman president of the Florida Senate from 1990-1992. A vital force on the
Miami-Dade County, Senator Margolis returned to the Senate in 2002. Margolis’s
play will be a celebration of her life and accomplishments by her daughter and
niece.
Kaplan, a Miami Beach native, founded Books & Books in 1982, expanding to
Lincoln Road in 1989 and Bal Harbour in 2005. Kaplan is a co-founder of Miami
Book Fair International and serves as the chairperson of its Board of
Directors. Known as a champion of local writers and of independent bookstores,
Kaplan serves on the steering committee of the Florida Center for the Literary
Arts, Miami-Dade College's new literary center. He previously served as
president of the American Booksellers Association (ABA) and served on the Board
of the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression. Rather than
examining a part of his life, Kaplan’s play will ask a philosophical question.
“The audience can expect some fun, some laughs and some history,” says
Martinez, who will be directing all three plays.
The evening, which will take place at the Grand Bay Club on Key Biscayne,
also includes a cocktail reception, three-course gourmet dinner, silent auction
and music by Marc Berner and Peter Betan. Lonnie Quinn, meteorologist for WTVJ
will serve as master of ceremonies.
Proceeds from “Miami Stories” will benefit New Theatre, the Coral Gables
theatre that focuses on the development of new plays. Over their past two
decades, New Theatre has brought to South Florida the national premieres of more
than 30 plays by many American playwrights, including Nilo Cruz’s Anna in the
Tropics, which won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
“Miami Stories” takes place on Friday, March 9 at 6:30 p.m. at the Grand Bay
Club, 425 Grand Bay Drive North, Key Biscayne. Tickets are $200 per person, or
$2,500 for an Inner Circle Table of 10. For tickets or further information,
please call Pauline Goldsmith at 305-774-7390. Information on New Theatre is
available at new-theatre.org.
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