ICONS 100: Celia Cruz

Migguel Anggelo is breaking barriers on the American stage, creating unique works that are reflective of the multicultural, multi-lingual, changing demographics of our country and times. The Brooklyn based, Venezuelan born artist began his career at 13 as Pinocchio in a South American touring production of the Broadway musical. He trained for a dozen years in classical ballet, studied voice at the Conservatory of Music in Cologne, Germany, has written music throughout all of his journeys as an immigrant in several countries, and has released two albums, the most recent being La Casa Azul.

In addition to performing on many of the world’s greatest stages – including Teatro Teresa Carreño in Caracas; Teatro Insurgentes in Mexico City; Teatro Lola Membrives and Teatro Gran Rex in Buenos Aires; and The New World Center in Miami, Florida – Migguel performs regularly at Joe’s Pub at The Public Theater in New York City where he was recently awarded a residency as part of the 2019 Joe’s Pub Working Group. His newest creation premiered this January: LatinXoxo: An Unrequited Serenata, a musical exploration of love and Latino stereotypes seen through a queer lens. Previous shows created for Joe’s Pub were So Close: Love & Hate, Another Son of Venezuela, and I, Inmigrante, which which he developed with Obie Award winner David Drake.

Anggelo and Drake have been awarded a Joe’s Pub residency at The Kimmel Center in Philadelphia where they developed Another Son of Venezuela as well as a BRIClab residency at BRIC (Brooklyn, NY) to develop a new, music-theater work called The Suitcase Project, exploring issues of immigration and assimilation into the United States of today through original music, characters and theatrical storytelling.

Anggelo and Drake are currently developing Welcome to La Misa, Baby, a new play, inspired by the shooting at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando which was featured in The Clemente Soto’s Fearless Festival as well as in the Provincetown Theater’s 4-Star Solo Festival this past June. Migguel also just returned from his second 10-city tour of Russia as a cultural attaché under the auspices of the U.S. State Department, performing a mash-up of the Great American Songbook and their Latin American counterparts with Broadway’s Grace McLean. In The Songbooks of the Americas, Anggelo and McLean were accompanied by Russia’s leading chamber orchestras, playing major concert halls and cabaret venues across the country.