George C Wolfe has come on board to direct Mankind Entertainment’s adaptation of playwright Nilo Cruz’s Broadway hit Anna In The Tropics.
The play had its Broadway berth in 2003, and starred Jimmy Smits, Daphne Rubin-Vega, Priscilla Lopez, John Ortiz, Vanessa Aspillaga, Victor Argo and David Zayas.
Playwright Cruz’s play is set in a Cuban-American cigar factory in 1929. The factory employs “lectors” to entertain and educate the factory workers, and a new lector who reads aloud from Anna Karenina becomes “a catalyst in the lives of his avid listeners, for whom Tolstoy, the tropics, and the American dream prove a volatile combination.”
No casting yet but filming is scheduled for early 2015 in Puerto Rico.
“We are very excited at the opportunity to work with Nilo again on our next project,” said Mankind Entertainment’s John Martinez O’Felan. “As the first Hispanic to win the Pulitzer Prize for drama, he’s proven to crack the cross-culture code on the live theatre platform and we are very honored to work with him to take his one-of-a-kind play to the next level.”
George C. Wolfe, maybe best known for his stage directing work – from Jelly’s Last Jam, to Bring in ‘Da Noise, Bring in ‘Da Funk, to Topdog / Underdog, A Free Man Of Color, and more, will next direct Samuel L. Jackson and Michael Caine in the dramedy Harry and the Butler for Spirit Films and Playground Entertainment.
His feature film credits include the 2008 drama/romance Nights In Rodanthe, which starred Richard Gere and Diane Lane. Before that, he directed the TV movie, Lackawanna Blues in 2005, which starred S. Epatha Merkerson.
Recently, he signed up to direct Hilary Swank in a drama titled You’re Not You.
On Broadway, earlier this year, he directed Tom Hanks and Courtney B. Vance in a Nora Ephron play called Lucky Guy.
