Garbo's Cuban Lover

MACHA Theatre/Films will present the critically acclaimed play Garbo’s Cuban Lover. First produced in 2001, the new mounting will be a “reimagined production” of the show, with more music, dance and multimedia.
The lover of the title is Mercedes de Acosta (1893-1968), a contract screenwriter for MGM who was also a playwright, poet and costume designer. She had affairs with some of the most illustrious actresses and writers in America, including Edith Wharton, Adele Astaire, Katherine Cornell, Pola Negri, Alla Nazimova, ballerina Tamara Karsavina, a young Tallulah Bankhead, Eva La Gallienne, dancer Isadora Duncan, Marlene Dietrich, and the love of her life, Greta Garbo.
Born to a Cuban father and Spanish mother, de Acosta’s ability to move in social circles and her position as a writer for MGM put her in contact with many of the most beautiful and important women in Hollywood. Garbo’s Cuban Lover focuses on two of the most important relationships of her life---with Marlene Dietrich and Greta Garbo, professional adversaries who become rivals for de Acosta’s love.
Garbo holds an erotic power over de Acosta that the Cuban cannot resist nor control. She returns to Garbo no matter how often she is betrayed.
But Garbo and Dietrich both have secrets from de Acosta. It will be many years before she learns the whole truth about her two greatest loves.
Odalys Nanin is playwright. Angela Nicholas directs.