City Lit announces a three-year residency for The VIVERO - a playwrights’ group founded by multi-hyphenated theatre artists Esteban Andres Cruz, Kidany Camilo, and Nelson A. Rodriguez. “Vivero” is the Spanish word for “nursery,” and as the name suggests, The VIVERO is a greenhouse incubator space dedicated to cultivating voices and harvesting new plays celebrating stories of the Latiné diaspora. Its initial public performances at City Lit Theater will be THREE QUEENS BOUQUET, a “queernucopia” of works in progress by The VIVERO Founders. The plays include AY SAN PLUTO by Kidany Camilo, CHARLIE FOXTROT by Nelson A. Rodriguez, and a special presentation of Esteban Andres Cruz’s new solo work CATARACTOR or CROSS-EYED! AND SEXY AF!. This presentation is made possible in part by support from the 3Arts Foundation Bodies of Work Residency. Performances will be at 7:30pm on Saturday, January 10th and 3:00pm on Sunday, January 11th at City Lit Theater. Tickets are Pay-What-You-Can and available on the City Lit website: https://www.citylit.org/thevivero .
The VIVERO began as a call for a community, named the Queer Writing Artists’ Collectivé (QWAC) which started writing together in August of 2024. One and a half years later, The VIVERO has ushered in several new scripts, two full drafts of plays, two workshops, and a workshop production of Abuela’s Follies by Kidany Camilo coming in August 2026 at A Red Orchid as part of their Incubator series. The VIVERO holds bi-weekly virtual sessions on an ongoing basis with the founders and invited playwrights. During the sessions, playwrights share their new writings and cultivate and curate each other’s stories.
In addition to public presentations and ongoing labs, The VIVERO plans to use this residency to create a hub for theatre artists within the Latiné diaspora. They plan to offer labs for other affinity groups, such as Afro-Latiné, female bodied folx, trans masc folx, Latiné people with disabilities, and student writers. In the three years of the residency, The VIVERO hopes to grow their database of artists. They plan to host workshops for professional playwrights, community members, and students.
City Lit has a long history of creating or collaborating with autonomous affinity groups. In the mid-1980s, founding artistic director Arnold Aprill gathered Chicago artists to form the City Lit Women’s Collective and the African American Collective, designed to bring new, diverse work to the City Lit stage and to the many audiences the company served. City Lit is thrilled to be providing planter boxes and soil for The VIVERO to till and nurture the next and future generations of Latiné playwrights in Chicago and beyond. Additional offerings from The VIVERO at City Lit will be announced.
BIOS
Esteban Andres Cruz was born in Berwyn and raised in Cicero, IL and is a blind, queer, latiné, trans-nonbinary theatre artist (actor, director, choreographer, composer & playwright), teaching artist and former dancer. They made their directorial debut at City Lit with JESUS HOPPED THE A TRAIN by Stephen Adly Guirgis Fall 2025. Esteban won the Jeff Award in 2008 for their performance in the same play. Esteban has acted at many theatres in Chicago and regionally. Off-Broadway: HALFWAY BITCHES GO STRAIGHT TO HEAVEN (Best Featured Actor Drama Desk Award nomination), the musical CORNELIA STREET, BATHHOUSE.PPTX and THE POTLUCK at Lincoln Center, directed by Sarah Benson. Select Film: SPA NIGHT (Cassavetti Best Feature), VALLEY OF BONES, THE THIN LINE, A VERY HAROLD & KUMAR 3D CHRISTMAS and RATTLED. TV: CHICAGO FIRE, AWKWARD, EASY, IDIOT SITTER, THE BRIDGE, YOU'RE THE WORST and SOUTH SIDE. Esteban is an ensemble member with A Red Orchid Theatre in Chicago. They are a 2018 TCG National Fox Acting Fellow Award Winner and received the After Dark Award for Best Choreography. Esteban has danced many ballets and is a “third generation Graham dancer”. Esteban is co-founder of VIVERO; an incubator for cultivation of new plays within the latiné diaspora, currently in residence at City Lit Theatre.
Nelson A. Rodriguez is an actor, playwright, and co-founder of The Vivero. As a playwright, his credits include NEW PERSONALIDAD (CLATA’s Inicios winner and DCASE Residency, 2023), ESTRELLAZO (Lit Play Lab, 2024), ROPA VIEJA (Bechdel Fest, 2017), SNAPSHOTS (Spartan Workshop, 2016), and THE NEW WORLD (The Vivero, 2024). As an actor he’s been nominated for two Joseph Jefferson Awards for Best Ensemble in THAT MUST BE THE ENTRANCE TO HEAVEN and for Best Solo Performance in MEN ON THE VERGE OF A HIS-PANIC BREAKDOWN. His stage credits include Visión Latino Theatre Company, Subtext Studio Theatre, Teatro Vista, The Story Theatre, A Red Orchid Theatre, Raven Theatre, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Lookingglass Theatre Company, Oak Park Festival Theatre, 16th Street Theatre, and many more. His on-camera credits include the feature films EN ALGUN LUGAR (TLA Releasing) for which he received a Best Supporting Actor nomination at the International Film Festival and SOUL SESSIONS (Gravitas Ventures). Mr. Rodriguez is represented by Grossman & Jack Talent. @nelstar_rodriguez
Kidany Camilo [pronounced /’kidani’kamilɔ/] (pronouns any and all) is a multi-hyphenate theatre artist (Actor, Singer, Dancer, Director, Teacher, Deviser, and Playwright) residing in Chicago, IL. Originally from Bayamón, Puerto Rico, this chameleon-like artist is a graduate from the University of South Florida with a BA in Theatre Arts, and Purdue University with an MFA in Acting. Their work is often haunted: by history, by family, by diaspora—but it’s never hopeless. Their stories fight erasure with softness, make space for breath, for mess, and for a future that hasn’t been written yet. Most often, their inspiration comes from longing, queerness, ancestors, and the ghosts that we chase, but also followus. kidanycamilo.com. Follow them at @kidanycamilo
Brian Pastor (they/them, Executive Artiirector) is a trans/non-binary director, actor, playwright, and Jeff Award-winning producer (AUGUST WILSON’S SEVEN GUITARS), and the Executive Artistic Director of City Lit Theater. Brian previously spent ten and a half years on staff at City Lit, including nine as Managing Director. From 2019 to 2024, Brian served as City Lit’s Resident Director, where they directed THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER, THE PLAYBOY OF THE WESTERN WORLD, ARMS AND THE MAN, J.B., and their own acclaimed adaptation of Robert Kennedy’s THIRTEEN DAYS. Most recently, Brian directed the World Premiere of Bo List’s R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots) and the Chicago Premiere of Reina Hardy's GLASSHEART. Brian is a founder and Emeritus Artistic Director of Chicago’s Promethean Theatre Ensemble, where they directed THE LION IN WINTER, THE WINTER’S TALE, and GROSS INDECENCY: THE THREE TRIALS OF OSCAR WILDE (all Broadway World Award Nominated- Best Director), as well as HENRY V and THE DARK SIDE OF THE BARD. Brian also directed the world premiere of THE BLACK KNIGHT by Angeli Primlani, the inaugural show for Lifeboat Productions. As an actor, Brian has worked with Strawdog, Raven, WildClaw, Promethean, Accomplice, and City Lit, among others. Brian is the former Executive Director of Sideshow Theatre and the former Executive Director of Raven Theatre. They also served as a board and company member of The Mime Company and as a founding company member of Chicago dell’Arte. A Pittsburgh native, Brian has called Chicago home since their graduation from Northwestern University in 2003.
ABOUT CITY LIT THEATER COMPANY:
City Lit is the eighth oldest continuously operating theatre company in Chicago, behind only Goodman, Court, Northlight, Oak Park Festival, Black Ensemble Theatre, Steppenwolf, and Pegasus theatres. It was founded in 1979 with $210 pooled by Arnold Aprill, David Dillon, and Lorell Wyatt. For its current season, its 45th, it operates with a budget around $250,000. It was the first theatre in the nation devoted to stage adaptations of literary material. There were so few theatres in Chicago at the time of its founding that at City Lit’s launch event, the founders were able to read a congratulatory letter they had received from Tennessee Williams.
For four decades and counting, City Lit has explored fiction, non-fiction, poetry, memoirs, songs, essays and drama in performance. A theatre that specializes in literary work communicates a commitment to certain civilizing influences—tradition imaginatively explored, a life of the mind, trust in an audience’s intelligence—that not every cultural outlet shares.
City Lit is in the historic Edgewater Presbyterian Church building at 1020 West Bryn Mawr Avenue. Its work is supported in part by the Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation, the Illinois Arts Council Agency, and the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events CityArts program. An Illinois not-for-profit corporation and a 501(c)(3) federal tax-exempt organization, City Lit keeps ticket prices below the actual cost of producing plays and depends on the support of those who share its belief in the beauty and power of the spoken written word.