EastLine Theatre’s Production of “Anna in the Tropics” at Westbury Arts

Winner of the 2003 Pulitzer Prize, set in Ybor City, Florida, in 1929. Here, a cadre of Cuban-Americans, primarily female cigar factory laborers who hand roll each cigar await the arrival of their new lector, Juan Julian. The lector serves to entertain the workers by reading great stories. Most of the group is overjoyed by the presence of this new, handsome lector, but when he starts reading from the Russian classic, Anna Karenina, the scandalous lives of Tolstoy’s characters start to intertwine with the lives of his listeners. As Juan Julian reads, the hot, humid Florida summer strangely starts to resemble the cold Russian winter of Tolstoy. Infidelity, money problems, and violence spring to the surface as the owners and workers grapple with their newfound understanding of life, love and business.