{"id":284245,"date":"2026-07-01T22:49:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-01T22:49:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/284245\/"},"modified":"2026-07-01T22:49:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T22:49:10","slug":"joe-ortiz-returns-to-roots-with-new-version-of-2012-musical-escaping-queens-santa-cruz-sentinel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/284245\/","title":{"rendered":"Joe Ortiz returns to roots with new version of 2012 musical \u2018Escaping Queens\u2019 \u2013 Santa Cruz Sentinel"},"content":{"rendered":"

SANTA CRUZ \u2014 When Joe Ortiz premiered his semi-autobiographical musical \u201cEscaping Queens\u201d at Cabrillo Stage in the summer of 2012, it was an immediate hit, quickly selling out and prompting additional performances that season<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Naturally, that meant the play would return to the stage in different venues over the next decade, but audiences have not gotten the same version every time. Based on his childhood in Queens, Ortiz has workshopped the story over the years, which has culminated in a new version, bearing a new subtitle, different ending and an emphasis on the character of Mama. \u201cEscaping Queens \u2014 Over the Roof\u201d premieres at Santa Cruz Actors\u2019 Theatre for a monthlong run Friday.<\/p>\n

During a talkback after a performance at Queens Theatre in New York, Ortiz said a question came up of whose story was the heart of \u201cEscaping Queens.\u201d At the time, his answer was that it was an ensemble piece, but it got him thinking.<\/p>\n

\u201cThrough years of study and story and hearing that question, I started to think a little more and realized it has to be Mama,\u201d he said. \u201cThe mother has to be the hero of the story.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ortiz is a well-known local restaurateur and raconteur. He co-owns Gayle\u2019s Bakery & Rosticceria in Capitola \u2014 which has served pastries, sandwiches, pastas and more to customers since 1978 \u2014 and has published everything from poetry anthologies <\/a>to plays such as \u201cBread! \u2014 The Musical,\u201d \u201cSmoke,\u201d \u201cKitchen Kabaret\u201d and \u201cCircus.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEscaping Queens\u201d is the most deeply personal of Ortiz\u2019s works. It is the story of his upbringing in the Long Island City neighborhood of the New York City borough of Queens, in which he and his older sister were raised by an Italian mother who cooked sumptuous meals and a Puerto Rican father who worked as a shoemaker. Ortiz said his father was not a positive role model, describing him as a narcissist who frequently drank and gambled, threatened to beat his children and was regularly absent, prompting his mother to eventually throw him out.<\/p>\n

Ortiz initially envisioned the story as a memoir, but other projects and the pain of reliving that period prevented him from getting it published.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had to go through therapy, and I had to search my past,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The memoir was finally published in 2025 as \u201cPastina: My Father\u2019s Misfortune, My Mother\u2019s Good Soup<\/a>,\u201d but Ortiz got to share bits of the story over time, including excerpts in the Santa Cruz Sun in the \u201990s and as a column in the Capitola Soquel Times. The biggest showcase during that intervening period, however, was \u201cEscaping Queens,\u201d which was so successful during its premiere at Cabrillo Stage in 2012 that it returned to the venue a year later with some new cast members.<\/p>\n

\"FromFrom left to right, Ariel Buck, Josiah Frampton, Lori Rivera, Darin Dailey, Adam Stanton, Wyatt Bernard and Nadia DeLeye Lewis perform in the world premiere of Joe Ortiz’s “Escaping Queens” in 2012. Rivera will return to portray Mama for most of the show’s new run at Santa Cruz Actors’ Theatre this summer, with Brissa Ibarra playing the role July 18-19 and July 23-26. (Contributed Jana Marcus)<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause a lot of people wanted to see it (in 2012) and didn\u2019t have a chance, we decided to do it again the next year,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In 2015, Ortiz took the play to the theatrical haven that is New York City for a run-through reading with a cast assembled by one of the musical\u2019s team members who lived on the East Coast.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole idea was to get people interested and find out how it was working, if the story was coming across,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

After being asked the question of whose story was at the center, Ortiz did additional readings at Hillbarn Theatre and Conservatory in Foster City and Shelton Theater in San Francisco, and felt the story was becoming more solidified.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe feel the story\u2019s stronger now,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Specifically, Ortiz said the story is about his mother overcoming years of abuse and finally having enough, which is reflected in the song \u201cAnthem\u201d sung by Mama.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe finally decides the husband has to be let go of,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of her triumph and the triumph of the story itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ortiz wanted to rename the musical \u201cOver the Roof,\u201d after one of the songs, but his wife Gayle told him people would think it was a completely different musical, so he made it the subtitle instead. The name has a symbolic meeting as Ortiz\u2019s apartment below the Queensboro Bridge had a roof that acted as a form of escapism for his family during hot days and the need to escape their father \u2014 who also used the roof as an escape route from a bookie he had not paid. Ortiz was not allowed to go on the roof, but it had a lot of meaning to him.<\/p>\n

\"JoeJoe Ortiz. (Santa Cruz Sentinel file)<\/p>\n

\u201cI heard about it,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen I went back to New York, I finally said, \u2018OK, I\u2019m going to go up there.\u2019 I had a chance to go up there, take some photographs, see what it was like. For all those years before that, I never knew what it looked like.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ortiz is pleased with the cast. Local theater legend Lori Rivera returns as Mama, having also acted in Ortiz\u2019s one-woman show \u201cSmoke,\u201d for most of the run. Brissa Ibarra will play Mama on select dates. Taking on the role of father Herman is Adam Saucedo, who played the title role in Cabrillo Stage\u2019s production of \u201cSweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street\u201d<\/a> last summer, and played Herman in the performances in Foster City and San Francisco.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s familiar with the part,\u201d he said. \u201c(He\u2019s) a very, very strong actor, great singer, very dynamic on stage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ortiz also praised the young actors Ryan Stallings and William Calden, portraying Joey and Manny, respectively. Both have been involved with several local theater companies, including as Javert and Jean Valjean in All About Theater\u2019s production of \u201cLes Miserables.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have two young teens that are very, very accomplished,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The directors consist of Ortiz\u2019s longtime collaborator Greg Fritsch and former longtime Harbor High School theater director Cathy Warner. Max Bennett-Parker, who has worked on musicals ranging from \u201c42nd Street\u201d to \u201cLittle Shop of Horrors\u201d and was an arranger and orchestrator for the Cabrillo run of \u201cEscaping Queens,\u201d will return as music director.<\/p>\n

Over the years that Ortiz has put on \u201cEscaping Queens,\u201d he said people have come up to him and said the experience depicted in the play mirrored their own upbringing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a universality what the experience was like,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Ortiz hopes audiences who might have someone like Herman in their lives can feel inspired on how to deal with that level of narcissism.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do think that some people are able to get lucky, and they\u2019re able to conquer it, but other people go the opposite way, and it takes over their lives,\u201d he said. \u201cI feel like I was one of the fortunate ones, maybe because I\u2019ve been willing to keep looking.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEscaping Queens \u2014 Over the Roof\u201d premieres Friday and runs through Aug. 2 at Santa Cruz Actors\u2019 Theatre, 1001 Center St., Santa Cruz. Performances are 7 p.m. Thursdays through Fridays and 2 p.m. Sundays. There will be no show Saturday in observance of Independence Day.\u00a0General admission is $35 and $32 for seniors and students. Thursday tickets are 2-for-1 (use code 2for1). For tickets and information, go to SantaCruzActorsTheatre.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SANTA CRUZ \u2014 When Joe Ortiz premiered his semi-autobiographical musical \u201cEscaping Queens\u201d at Cabrillo Stage in the summer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":284246,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4982,2136,109050,157,85,267,9,24,12,370,63,122,124,123,109051,107765,905,904],"class_list":["post-284245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-arts","tag-california","tag-capitola","tag-entertainment","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-news","tag-newsletter","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news","tag-santa-cruz","tag-santa-cruz-county","tag-theater","tag-things-to-do"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284245\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}