Renowned playwright and award-winning director Odalys Nanin returns to the stage this February 2020 starring again as controversial Mexican artist and painter Frida Kahlo in the EDDON Award-winning play for Best Performance & Production: Frida: Stroke of Passion –  an original play with live music and iconic songs: Paloma Negra, La Llorona, Piensa en mi,  Estas Son Las Mananitas, Maria Bonita and a Tango Song Una Cabeza.

Back by popular demand and with a grant from LA County Arts, DAC and CAC, Frida: Stroke of Passion opens in February 7, 2020 at Casa 0101 Theater in Boyle Heights for six shows during the month of love.

The play explores Kahlo’s mental, emotional and physical condition during the last week of her life – exposing her love affair with famous Mexican singer Chavela Vargas, Josephine Baker, Trotsky, a Cuban spy and her complex passionate love for Diego.

Frida Kahlo was born July 6, 1907 and died July 13, 1954. Her death certificate alleges cause of death as “pulmonary embolism” but no autopsy was allowed and she was immediately cremated.

While many movies, television dramas and stage productions have been made on Kahlo, none zoomed in on the last week of the woman’s life. Her death has been an open-ended and unanswered question mark. In fact many believe that there was a cover up.

After considerable research, Nanin masterfully recaptures the days leading up to Kahlo’s death, and offers an answer to what has long been rumored.

” The Reason I wrote the play was because I wanted to show a part of Frida that no one knows about – her mental, emotional and physical state of mind the week before she dies. I explored her pain, fears, and lovers-her bisexuality, her fervor for Diego and her paintings. But most of all I explored and reveal the cover up behind her death ” comments Odalys Nanin.

A MUST-SEE performance that sheds light on the incredible life of one of the biggest Latina icon.

Kahlo lived in a chauvinistic male dominated society but learned how to navigate it by not following the norms of the times.                              Proud of her LatinX root, she not only wore it, she painted it,  She was a crippled who knew how to conceal her imperfections under her Oaxaca outfits and crown braided hair.   She had bushy eyebrows and even a visible mustache, which instead of hiding, she accentuated. She smoke cigars and drank tequila not a lady like style for her time.

Kahlo created her own image by defying fashion and protocol and as a result became a World Legend for it.

Frida: Stroke of Passion is a magical musical journey into the real Frida that no one knew!

Serving the LA Theater community for decades, Nanin is not only one of the most influential faces of Los Angeles Arts & Theater community but also one of the most singular voices in LGBTQ theater. Nanin’s work is a very important contribution to both the LGBTQ+ and LatinX communities,

A go- getter, who has been the author of her own destiny since the beginning– well before LGBTQ+ stories and characters were applauded by the mainstream, Nanin has made it her mission to tell authentic Lesbian stories for the female gaze with a feminist point of view.

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