A sold-out run at The Public Theater. A record-breaking engagement at Berkeley Repertory Theatre. Universal critical and audience acclaim. Chalk it all up to the mad genius of Emmy Award winner John Leguizamo.
When his son gets a school assignment on heroes, John seizes the chance to teach him all about the great figures of the Latino world. But once he sets out on his irreverent crash course across three continents and 3000 years of history - from conquistadores to cumbia, Montezuma to Menudo, and taking on the characters in all of it - he uncovers provocative truths that shock even him.
JOHN LEGUIZAMO - LATIN HISTORY FOR MORONS.
That sets the show, directed by Tony Taccone in near-nonstop motion. Leguizamo zips around the stage of Studio 54, where books are stacked and a two-sided blackboard stands ready for a workout. When the chalk dust settles 95 minutes later, Leguizamo has cannily surveyed the Aztecs, Mayans, Incas, plus the role of Hispanic soldiers the Revolutionary War - and a lot more.
There couldn't be a better time, in other words, for Latin History for Morons to get a Broadway upgrade. Leguizamo's one-man show features the performer as a version of himself, revising the way American history is typically taught to elevate the heroes of his own ethnic background, and to give his son the chance to feel pride in where and what he comes from. Leguizamo, who was born in Colombia, has long been a wild stage presence, an actor of enough range to keep an entire theater enraptured through his own musings, impressions, and literal pratfalls. (Previous one-man shows have netted him Obie and Drama Desk awards.) Yet while Latin History doesn't exactly depart from that script - Leguizamo is hardly subdued here - this production is a sobering expression of political urgency that reflects its star's maturation as a Latino public figure.
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