Advertisement

Miami’s poet Richard Blanco just made a surprise announcement. It got a standing ovation

Big names tossed about at opening night of the Steve Martin and Edie Brickell Broadway musical “Bright Star” at Actors’ Playhouse at the Miracle Theatre.

But a hometown star earned the evening’s first standing ovation.

Richard Blanco, Barack Obama’s inaugural poet and Miami-Dade County’s first poet laureate, will see the Florida premiere of his first play, “Sweet Goats & Blueberry Señoritas,” at Actors’ Playhouse in Coral Gables as the regional theater’s 36th season opening show in November.

After the theater’s founding executive producing director Barbara Stein made the announcement from the stage, a beaming Blanco, taking a mock bite out of the National Humanities Medal hanging from his neck that he received from President Joe Biden in March, said “Sweet Goats & Blueberry Señoritas” should resonate with Miami’s audiences.

KNOW MORE: From Westchester to the White House: The ‘poet of the people’ wins National Humanities Medal

Miami-Dade poet laureate Richard Blanco, wearing the National Humanities Medal he received from President Joe Biden in March, with Actors’ Playhouse founding executive producing director Barbara Stein shares that his first play, “Sweet Goats & Blueberry Señoritas,” will open Actors’ Playhouse at the Miracle Theatre’s 36th season on Nov. 8-Dec. 3, 2023. Blanco, a Columbus High grad, told the opening night audience for “Bright Star” that the story should resonate with hometown audiences.

The play, written with journalist and playwright Vanessa Garcia, who earned her masters of fine arts at the University of Miami, had its U.S. debut at Maine’s Portland Stage on Jan. 1-Feb. 12, 2023.

“Sweet Goats & Blueberry Señoritas” tells the story of Beatriz, a Cuban-American baker living in Maine, the circle of friends she calls family, and the complicated relationship she has with her mother. The play is set in past and present Maine and Miami.

“Sweet Goats” is scheduled to run Nov. 8-Dec. 3 at Actors’ Playhouse. Other shows for the 2023-2024 season include “A Rock Sails By,” “Hundred Days,” “Caroline or Change” and a featured musical whose title can’t be announced until May 23, Stein said.

In 2013, Blanco, a Class of ‘86 graduate of Westchester’s Christopher Columbus High School, read his poem “One Today” at President Obama’s second inauguration. He was the nation’s fifth inaugural poet and first Latino and gay man to have that honor.

“Sometimes you look at your life and almost feel like it was scripted,” Blanco told the Miami Herald during a video call in March.

“Bright Star,” directed by David Arisco, runs through April 16 at Actors’ Playhouse.

Kimberly Doreen Burns and violinist Margaret Dudasik in a scene from Actors’ Playhouse’s production of “Bright Star” at the Miracle Theatre, Coral Gables.
Kimberly Doreen Burns and violinist Margaret Dudasik in a scene from Actors’ Playhouse’s production of “Bright Star” at the Miracle Theatre, Coral Gables.
Richard Blanco, here at his home in Miami Beach, has been named Miami-Dade’s first poet laureate by Mayor Daniella Levine Cava.
Richard Blanco, here at his home in Miami Beach, has been named Miami-Dade’s first poet laureate by Mayor Daniella Levine Cava.