Kidany Camilo

City Lit is very excited to announce a new initiative, a playwrights’ group in residence, The VIVERO. 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.

The VIVERO, which means “nursery” in Spanish.  Founded by Esteban Andres Cruz, Kidany Camilo, and Nelson A. Rodriguez, The VIVERO is a foundation dedicated to excellence in Latiné dramatic literature.  They are a group of multi-hyphenated theatre artists who have created a greenhouse-incubator space for cultivating voices and harvestiving new plays celebrating stories of the Latiné diaspora.  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.  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.

This coming January, City Lit Theatre will present 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! & Sexy AF!, 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: citylit.org  

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

folx 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 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.  Stay tuned for more offerings from The VIVERO at City Lit.