Teatro Vista up for New York and Chicago honors

Teatro Vista up for New York and Chicago honors
Teatro Vista up for New York and Chicago honors

Teatro Vista up for New York and Chicago honors

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You just can’t get away from Teatro Vista these days, the little Off-Loop Latino theater troupe that could. It’s not enough that Teatro Vista has a new co-production at the Goodman Theatre right now (the world premiere of Tanya Saracho’s “El Nogalar,” running through April 24), but just today (April 1, but it’s no joke) the Off Broadway League in New York announced that four Teatro Vista artists have been nominated for the 2011 Lucille Lortel Award for their work on “The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity,” the Victory Gardens Theater/Teatro Vista hit from 2009 that moved Off-Broadway to the Second Stage Theatre and took the Big Apple by storm. Nominated for Lortel Awards are playwright Kristoffer Diaz, Teatro Vista Ensemble member Desmin Borges (the lead actor in “Chad Deity” both here and in New York) and Teatro Vista Resident Artists Mikhail Fiksel (sound designer) and Jesse Klug (lighting designer). The Lortel Awards will be announced on May 1.

But there’s even more going on for Teatro Vista and Diaz. The company is picking up the Artistic Leadership Award at the May 16 annual gala of the League of Chicago Theatres, and then Teatro Vista will conclude its 20th anniversary season with the world premiere of “Freedom, NY” by Jennifer Barclay and starring—who else?—Desmin Borges. The show (also featuring Chicago veteran actor Cheryl Lynn Bruce) will run May 8-June 12 at Theater Wit, 1229 W. Belmont. As for Diaz, he’ll see “The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity” staged next Jan. 3-Feb. 4 at the prestigious Actor’s Theatre of Louisville.