New York, NY (Top40 Charts) The official cast album for The
Guava Tree / El Guayabo, a new bilingual musical for young audiences, will be available digitally on all platforms on May 20, 2023. With book and lyrics by Diana Grisanti and music by Emiliano Messiez, the musical premiered at the renowned Creede Repertory Theatre in Colorado in 2021. It toured across the Southwest and was seen by more than 40,000 students. The album features Ilda
Mason (Steven Spielberg's West Side Story) and
Pablo Torres (¡Americano! The Musical).
Alongside
Mason and Torres, the recording features Ramón Ponce on guitarrón, vihuela, and guitars;
Diego Urcola on trumpets and trombone;
Mario Gusso on percussion; Luis Bacqué on electric and classical guitars; and Emiliano Messiez on piano and keyboards. The album The
Guava Tree / El Guayabo (Official Cast Recording) was recorded at Bacqué Recording Studios in New Jersey.
Educators have praised the show as "amazing," "energetic," "layered," and "inclusive." One teacher noted that her students "LOVED it. They were rapt with attention." Grisanti and Messiez are very appreciative of the enthusiastic response and believe there is enormous potential for productions throughout the United States and beyond. Grisanti says, "TYA [Theatre for Young Audiences] is a field full of dreamers and risktakers. We want to tell stories that are as beautiful, diverse, surprising, and hilarious as their intended audience." Messiez agrees, "It's been an absolute joy watching young people engage with The
Guava Tree, singing and dancing to our songs. I can't wait to see where the show goes next."
The
Guava Tree / El Guayabo is a story about a boy named Emiliano who is all grown up now, but he has a story to share about the hardest year of his life: the 3rd grade. This was the year he moved from Mexico to Colorado - from one tiny mountain town to another, uprooting everything he had ever loved. The
Guava Tree / El Guayabo is a bilingual tale of displacement and resilience, of thinking back on the bullies who hurt us and the friends who saved us.
The album includes a variety of Latin American rhythms such as salsa, tango, rancheras as well as rock and roll and pop. The instrumental versions of the songs from the musical are included so children can sing along.
Diana Grisanti is a playwright and educator whose work has been produced across the country. Her plays include
Vanessa in Bed (Audible Emerging Playwrights Fund); Enter Ghost, an immersive haunted HAMLET experience (co-written with Steve Moulds, for Kentucky Shakespeare); Bowling for Beginners (Vanderbilt University); The Patron Saint of Losing Sleep (Actor's Theatre of Charlotte); River City (National New Play Network); The Starkweather-South High School Physics Club First Annual End-of-Year Lock-In, or
Ghost Party (Cleveland Play House); and the musicals Casa Alfonsa and The
Guava Tree/El Guayabo (co-written with composer Emiliano Messiez, for Creede Repertory Theatre). Diana has been a Michener Fellow, a Kentucky Arts Council Fellow, and a Writer in Residence at the New Harmony Project. She teaches dramatic writing at Ball
State University.
Emiliano Messiez is a composer and pianist from Argentina who relocated to New York City in 2016. He is the composer of Bordello the Musical (co-written with
Barbara Bellman and Joan Sorkin), When Broadway is Back (co-written with
Barbara Bellman), and Casa Alfonsa (co-written with Diana Grisanti). He is the orchestrator and co-composer of
Ghost in the Machine (co-written with Janine Robledo). As a pianist and music director, he is highly respected as one of America's foremost tango pianists. He founded and conducts his own Tango orchestra (Típica Messiez) and he is a member of the Romo-Agri-Messiez Tango Trio (Ahora, Aliud Records).
