John Leguizamo fine-tunes his new musical '~Kiss My Aztec!'
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) - During an afternoon rehearsal of John Leguizamo's 'œKiss My Aztec!,'ť actor Joel Perez bursts into laughter during a raunchy scene with co-star Krystina Alabado. They have probably done it hundreds of times. They know it by heart. But the scene is still so funny that Perez loses it for a minute, making the whole cast and crew laugh.
'œKeep going,'ť directs Tony Taccone from his seat. And after a couple deep breaths, things move on.
With a book by Leguizamo and Taccone, 'œKiss My Aztec!'ť begins previews on Wednesday at Hartford Stage before opening on June 10. This is its third stop after previous engagements at Berkeley Repertory Theatre and La Jolla Playhouse in California, and Broadway-veteran Leguizamo hopes it soon takes 'œthe B way'ť and makes it home to New York.
'œI think it's so funny," Leguizamo tells The Associated Press right before rehearsal. 'œYou're gonna laugh your ass off and, at the same time, you're going to be educated.'ť
The show travels back to the 16th century, as a group of Aztecs lead the resistance against Spanish invaders. With a fierce female warrior at the helm and a not-so-fierce clown in tow, they mount a scrappy attack, and get entangled with royalty, colonizers, pop stars, even puppets.
The music by Benjamin Velez - with lyrics by Velez, David Kamp and Leguizamo - fuse salsa, gospel, hip-hop, funk and merengue, as well as some flamenco and paso doble for the Spaniards. The choreography is by Mayte Natalio.
Like 'œLatin History for Morons,'ť Leguizamo's last one-man play on Broadway, 'œKiss My Aztec!'ť is a hilarious celebration of Hispanic and Latin culture. But unlike the others, it is his first full-scale musical and the comedian stays behind the scenes this time around.
'œI can't sing like that, or dance like that,'ť the Tony Award-winner explains, noting that he's managed to do some musical work - including Disney's animated film 'œEncanto,'ť where he voiced Bruno - with a lot of help, patience and auto-tune. 'œI mean, like, for '~Encanto', poor (song-writer) Lin-Manuel (Miranda) had to spend hours trying to get me in that pocket. He got me, though, he got me in the pocket,'ť he adds with a laugh.
Besides Perez and Alabado, the cast includes Chad Carstarphen, Eddie Cooper, Richard Ruiz Henry, Z Infante, Jesús E. MartÃnez, Maria-Christina Oliveras, Desireé Rodriguez, Matt Saldivar and Brittany Williams. Angelica Beliard, KC Dela Cruz, Nicholas Caycedo and Geena Quintos.
'œThese actors are ridiculously talented,'ť says Leguizamo, calling them a 'œquadruple threat" who can act, sing, dance and are funny.
The Colombian American actor and playwright, whose Broadway credits include 'œFreak'ť and 'œGhetto Klown,'ť says he started working on the musical years ago, when he was doing research for 'œLatin History for Morons.'ť
'œIt's interesting because obviously, '~Latin History for Morons' opened up the world of our great, incredible contributions to the world - there wouldn't be an Industrial Revolution without our corn, without our potatoes," says Leguizamo. "Our gold that was stolen from us created the Enlightenment era, and the Renaissance was helped by the wealth that was stolen from us. So I learned so much, and I wanted to go back and start telling our history. This musical is the birth of Latin man, which is the conquest.'ť
Going from doing monologues to a full-blown musical was a 'œbig challenge,'ť Leguizamo admits. "All I had to do before is check with myself: '~What's your schedule?' '~Oh, I am available.' '~Oh, great. Let's start tomorrow!''ť he laughs. 'œThis is different, this is a lot of moving parts.'ť
With its bawdy humor, adult themes and some salty language, the show may not be suited for all audiences. But Leguizamo hopes it to be the next big thing in musical comedies.
'œI want it to be like '~The Book of Mormon,' like '~Spamalot,'" he says. "I want it to be one of the funniest shows ever written.'ť
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Sigal Ratner-Arias is on Twitter at https://twitter.com/sigalratner.