“You want me to hold it?” Cedric Leiba asks and everyone laughs at the possibility of him holding the pocket recorder as if it were a microphone that he points at his mouth in search of confessions.
The phrase, which alludes to the familiarity of the artifact in the hands of two experienced artists, triumphs in the air of the cozy and cool Fangio Restaurant, of the Claxon Boutique Hotel, in El Vedado, an exclusivity of the thriving private initiative in Cuba.
Cedric has plenty of grace. “Wait there, I have to call Biden and then I’ll tell you” he responds, taking his cell phone when asked his date of birth. “There is reason to hide it,” he adds with throat clearing, grimaces, and muttered words preceding a raucous laugh.
Ancestors
His humor is coded in his genetics. Puerto Rican, for more details. He was born in 1981 in Santurce, a neighborhood/district of the municipality of San Juan renamed a century ago (Cangrejos was its original name due to the profusion of crustaceans) and whose population then was made up, for the most part, of blacks, browns, and mulattoes, all free.
“My dad is from the Bronx and my mom was born in Puerto Rico, but she moved to Brooklyn when she was a child. After [the couple] they moved to Puerto Rico because they had money problems in New York,” says the actor.
Cedric is an identity that reverberates behind his foul language. He seasons it with ethnic lucidity and an almost electroshock mimicry, like a character straight out of Pixar or a stand-up comedy comedian. And although the gags may have been seen in others, his authenticity renews them. There is talent.
That’s why the guarantees provided by his casualness make it possible to ask whatever you want and point blank.
Born for the second time
Is it difficult to come out in the United States right now?
We couldn’t speak for the entire community. It’s never going to be easy, it depends on a case-by-case basis, but I think it’s difficult when people are religious, or when they come from communities that are not so progressive, but I have friends who were born in progressive places and it’s still difficult. I always say it’s like being born again.
Being freed!
The world changes completely when you come out of the closet and it’s not easy for anyone, because you have to navigate the world differently.
Deltona and the awareness of Puerto Ricanness
How many years did you live in Puerto Rico?
Twelve years. In 1993 we moved to Florida.
To what city?
To Deltona. The joke is that that place is like a small Puerto Rico, because everyone who lives there, or the majority, is Puerto Rican.
Did you miss the island?
When I lived there I always wanted to be American and asked why we lived there; I wanted to be in the United States; at Disney World; I want to appear on American television shows. I was not happy on the island, because in our house the atmosphere was very American. My own name Cedric, is Anglo-Saxon. (From Old English Cerdic, name of a Saxon king; the name is believed to have been invented by the writer Walter Scott in his 1819 novel, Ivanhoe.)
And your parents, from a cultural perspective were.…
My parents learned Spanish when they moved to Puerto Rico. Their mothers spoke Spanish with them, but in the United States, you have to improve your English to be able to improve and survive. And that’s why they couldn’t perfect and improve their Spanish. My environment was always strongly American.
So, living in Deltona was a gift…
It was curious, because when I moved to Florida I felt for the first time the pride of being Puerto Rican, because it was the first time I had an experience with racism and how Puerto Ricans all came together to support each other to survive in America. Now I feel very Puerto Rican, and looking back at my childhood, I remember that school teaches you to have a deep pride for the island and your ancestors.
It’s a tremendous pride. I remember when Dayanara Torres won the Miss Universe pageant. It was tremendous. The island closed completely. I lived in front of the airport and I gave my grandmother a treat, because I went to see Dayanara land and there was a big parade, and it was like that with everything that was Puerto Rican.
“Bad hair”
Tell me about your father.
My father is Jamaican, Cuban, and Puerto Rican; but he grew up with his mother, who is Puerto Rican. My grandfather was Cuban and Jamaican. Dad is black-black, and I remember sometimes, when I was a child, that I didn’t want him to be near me. One day I told him: “Oh, dad, I wish you had straight hair.”
I wondered why I had a black father and saying all that now as an adult and especially after how I have been received in New York and the audiences for my work, how the industry forced me to take more pride in my blackness, to do activism. for my dad, for the ancestors, for my friends who suffer for being black, for having, as the phrase says, “bad hair”…. All of this makes me feel super proud of my blackness and I identify as Afro-Puerto Rican, and I don’t deny the Spanish and the indigenous blood that flows through my veins, but it’s to give more focus to that black community that suffers so much throughout all of America.
Curriculum vitae
Cedric Leiba Jr. has never had it easy. Building a reputable career on the U.S. scene has been brick by brick.
Theater, film and television actor, singer, poet, dancer, writer, producer and civil rights advocate, Cedric was nominated for the 2024 Tony Awards for Best Musical for his work as co-producer of Hell’s Kitchen, about the singer, songwriter, music producer and actress Alicia Keys.
The play received the most Tony nominations this year with 13, tied with the play Stereophonic.
Cedric has toured the United States and Canada with theater productions of Rent and Miss Saigon, as well as performed at the prestigious Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris in a production of Carmen la cubana, in which Cuban singer Luna Manzanares takes on the leading role.
The Hispanic Organization of Latino Actors recognized Cedric with the HOLA Award for Excellence in Theater for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in the New Haarlem Arts Theatre’s production of Caridad/Sweet Charity.
His most recent theater engagement was at The Muny in the role of Chino in the classic West Side Story.
He also participated as a dialect coach for the production, ensuring the authenticity of the interpretation of the Puerto Rican characters.
His relationship with the iconic musical includes his appearance on the soundtrack of Steven Spielberg’s film West Side Story.
Co-founder of DominiRican Productions with his fiancé, Pierre Jean González, Cedric appeared with said production company in the revival of The Wiz on Broadway. The couple was also an investor in the Tony Award-winning revival of Topdog/Underdog.
Most recently, the Hispanic Federation recognized Cedric and Pierre with its Visibility Award to recognize their work as actors, producers, advocates and co-founders of DominiRican Productions.
Good Morning America included Cedric and Pierre on its Inspiration List of people making history within the LGBTQ+ community, nominated by U.S. actor, dancer and choreographer Nicco Annan.
“They remain collaborative visionaries who continue to create for those not often seen on stage or the big screen. Their projects illuminate a part of our community that deserves more light. Two promising pioneers bringing healing and much-needed conversations,” Annan wrote.
For its part, the mainstream press, represented in The New York Times, has given very positive reviews about his acting performance in La Cage Aux Folles, by Goodspeed, Sweet Charity, by New Haarlem Arts and Yellow Brick Road, by Lucille Lortel.
Artistic streak
I have read that you make music, compose, and sing under the pseudonym Ceddy and that you are a featured poet in the Latino Book Review magazine… Where does your artistic streak come from?
My family says that first I sang and then I spoke. My parents met dancing salsa. Dad used to take the train for about an hour and a half to go salsa dancing with Mom and I grew up in a family of salsa dancers.
A lot of music…
There was always music, always dancing, singing, watching MTV in Puerto Rico; wanting to be an artist.
Where did you take your first steps?
My first experience in singing professionally was in the San Juan children’s choir. I was there for two years, but being in that choir has to come from a space of privilege. Dad and Mom had to pay, and I stopped because there was no more money and I always sang at school, they used to tell me: Oh, Cedric, sing, sing!
Was it a religious choir?
No, not at all. Every Puerto Rican city has its choir. There is one in Ponce, another in Mayagüez, another in Arecibo and so on; but the San Juan children’s choir is known internationally. I also auditioned for the group Menudo, because they saw me at a town show and asked me to audition. But what changed my life was moving to Florida. Art was part of my school curriculum there and I’m here because someone saw my talent and put all their energy into me. It was my seventh-grade teacher, Sheryl K. Wait.
She let me choreograph for the choir, she let me be a soloist, she taught me to read music on the staff. Because of all that, she changed my life. She also allowed me to sing in church. I made the Sunday musical program. I even learned to play the piano and then I started taking singing classes with a teacher at a university near my house. He was a doctor, Robert Rich. He gave me the classes for free. That’s why I say we’re on Broadway because of those people because we don’t come from rich families.
After earning a BA in Music from Stetson University and a Masters Degree in Fine Arts from the Boston Conservatory, Cedric considered himself ready to take the biggest, most daring leap of his life: New York and its vibrant theater and music scene.
Goodbye to Grandma. Welcome love
Jumping, jumping and jumping, in 2016 they gave me the role of Tato in the play Carmen, la cubana, which was in Paris. I met Luna Manzaneras. All the lead dancers were Cuban and about ten or fifteen dancers were from New York because the tour in Europe was going to be in English and Spanish.
One of the girls in the cast, my friend Nicely Vega — who is now on Broadway with the play Hell’s Kitchen, of which we are producers — told me: “Look, I have a friend named Pierre and I want you to meet him, because you are very similar, the energy, the history, the background.” Pierre was in NY and I was in Paris and we met through WhatsApp and Facetime. He picked me up from the airport in May 2016. We started going out and formed the company during the pandemic, when everything stopped and there was a need to be artistic and creative to get rid of depression. From there, DominiRican Productions was born, because of our origins — he was Dominican and I was Puerto Rican — and since that moment our lives have changed a lot.
And the world too?
Also. And the theater too. There were people with a lot of sensitivity who weren’t there before, who are now aware of making spaces for people like us, black people, gay people.
What do you owe to luck and what do you owe to work, if the former exists?
I’m very spiritual; I believe in God. My grandmother prayed for two hours every day to protect the whole family and I believe I’m here because of her.
She still lives?
No.
And her name?
Her name was Herminia Ruiz, and she had five daughters. She couldn’t write or read in Spanish or English and she moved to NY and with her faith and her work as a seamstress she supported the entire family. I always had her life as an example that anything is possible, if you believe and work hard. She passed away in January 2016 and Pierre came into my life two months later. That’s why I always say that she brought me Pierre.
A recipe for resilience: 10 yes x 1 no
Cedric can barely continue talking. Sobs drown out his words. He barely recovers from the emotion; he praises the work culture transmitted by his elders; a pact with resilience and the conviction that there are no dead ends.
“I’m so proud of my spirit of winning, of not stopping; because of how I see myself in life I’m forced to be successful, because I’m short, because I’m black, because I’m Puerto Rican, because I’m gay. They are all brands, but always with the spirit of for every no, there are ten yeses. For every negative thing, there are ten positive things.
You’re quite a warrior.
Yes, I’m a warrior and there are times when I’m weak, depressed, but now I give myself like one day, two days, no more and I tell myself what we are going to do next. That is the spirit of the warrior.
Pierre
Point-blank questions continue this time to Pierre Jean González. More reserved than his partner; perhaps more analytical and conceptual, but no less passionate and entrepreneurial.
Is being born in the Bronx a curse, a danger, an opportunity for misfortune, or is that a cliché like almost everything in life?
I was born in 1988 in Manhattan, but I was raised in the Bronx, in a part known as The Projects, which is kind of a ghetto, and a lot of my experience growing up there was realizing that I was different and to fit in I had to pretend to be very macho, very aggressive….
Like playing a character, right?
To be honest, a lot of my life was already planned in advance for me.
Were you predestined for a specific role?
In some ways yes. It was predestined for a role. And I was convinced for a long time that I had to do it, that I had to abide by what they had organized for me, because coming from a family where there were predominantly women, I had to be the man of the house. So until I got to college I didn’t have the opportunity to experience and begin to understand who I was.
When I was in high school, I met Nicole Annan. He became my mentor in music, and it was the moment when I was able, while I pretended to be something I wasn’t, to really be the person I was my authentic self. So I can say that art and theater were what saved my life because I don’t think I would have been able to continue if I had had to live that lie.
The mother’s dream
Did you have an artistic background in your family?
No, although my mother did have inclinations. My mother’s life was very hard, because when she was a child her dream was to dance and dance, but my grandmother at that time couldn’t please her and made it very clear that that was not going to be possible for her. So the moment I became an artist, she started living through me and became one of my biggest supporters. I do everything in life for my mom, who protected me all the time. I had everything I wanted and she lived a life with many restrictions, always looking over her shoulder.
How do you manage your identity, how do you define yourself when faced with a concept like raciality?
Living in NY, showing my Dominican-Puerto Rican identity was always the main thing, it was always in front of me, whether it was parading with flags, through food, through artistic expressions…, showing my roots was always the important thing. While that was happening, I knew that it was very dangerous and that it could turn against me and even in the moments when I knew I was different; although I didn’t use the word gay yet — that word hadn’t even entered my mind at the time.
Success and identity
Success in art has been a factor in validating your identity in a society that we know is very competitive and commits discrimination on a daily basis.
To be honest, I’m also dyslexic and my whole life has been a constant struggle to translate my feelings into words in an effective way. That’s why I consider that my art and theater mentor, Nicole Annan, through the roles she gave me, through acting, made it possible for me to unfold myself and be able to live my life and be able to be myself.
Even in these times, living off the success of accomplished goals, I feel like I’m still fighting all the time against my perception of whether I’m really doing well, and even with the success of Hamilton, with all the people looking at me, I still ask myself: “Is what I’m doing good, how well am I doing it, do I deserve to have this success?”
I think that in that moment Cedric’s presence gives me all the courage that keeps me grounded. I always make the joke that I’m the balloon and he is the hand that keeps me tied to the world.
I feel like all that stress and anger I went through is what makes me good at my job.
Hamilton and reversed roles
Actor, singer, and theater, film, and television producer, Pierre Jean González touched the skies on the New York scene with the role of President Alexander Hamilton (1757-1804).
Among the so-called founding fathers of the United States, Hamilton was recreated in a musical written and performed by the successful Lin-Manuel Miranda, a U.S. composer, lyricist, actor, singer, playwright, and producer of Puerto Rican origin.
According to the BroadwayWorld website, “Pierre Jean González as Alexander Hamilton brought confidence and intensity to the role, often a solid stage presence as the controlled chaos of the ensemble swirled around him.”
A 2020 winner of Best Actor on NBC’s second annual Nosotros Ya Tu Sabes, Pierre’s television credits include the series NCIS: NOLA, FBI, Gotham, The Mysteries of Laura, The Detour and P.O.S.E. For his part, some of Pierre’s favorite theater credits include the role of Usnavi de la Vega in In The Heights and Mace in The Elaborate Entry of Chad Deity.
The Advocate selected Cedric and Pierre as 2021 Pride Champions in recognition of their mission with DominiRican Productions to create opportunities for Afro-Latinx and Indigenous Latinx representation in television and film in the casting, script, and director selection processes.
Pierre also produced and starred in the second narrative short film American Made, alongside his co-star Jared Dixon in Hamilton.
With Rhythm Is Gonna Get Who? the artist won the Best LGBTQ+ Short Film award at the Uruvatti International Film Festival.
For its part, Release, co-directed by González, won the Best New York Film award at the New York Central Film Festival, the Gold Award at the Hollywood Gold Awards, the Fargo Moorhead Best Experimental LGBTQ+ Short Film at the New York Film Festival and Best Experimental Short Film at the Uruvatti International Film Festival.
How to assume a president of the United States, one of the founding fathers of the republic, and in some way responsible for what we have as a neighbor, for better and for worse. In other words, what does it give you to put yourself in the shoes of someone who could have been your master in the past…?
One of the most powerful things about how the show Hamilton works is that you have black and brown people playing white characters. I think it’s a way of telling them: “What you did was not made for people like us.” It’s a way of putting into perspective that the Constitution that was written by them was not written for us, gay people, people of African descent…and it’s a way of subverting it by putting all these people of African descent in the spotlight.
It’s a very enjoyable work, a work that people adore and it’s a way of giving a hands-free slap to all those who have built this society that is not made for us.
And the public? Whites, mestizos…, does it represent the melting pot?
The public is often white. Many times, when I go to places like in the Midwest or Saint Louis, Oklahoma, I see a lot of white people in the audience, but I notice something more important than that: there are a lot of people who have money and access. Generationally you have people who have usually looked at theater performers as poor people; and now you have them in these spaces, in this work. It sounds like satire, literally.
One of the main reasons why I feel so good in the role is because the music speaks to me, the rhythm speaks to me, and it comes naturally to me.
I suppose that Hamilton’s performances have been a revelation for many people, a kind of poetic justice, at least; but it’s not even the average on Broadway to put this type of work on stage….
There aren’t many works for people who look like us. Reality is difficult, because also many people who have money, many white people who are there in the theater, see the play six or seven times…. Then I see how a Puerto Rican boy has been waiting for like five years to see you once in his life. And I wonder what we are doing and I answer that thanks to our production company, which was born because we put the money we saved for the wedding and put it into the company, we can do these things and put people like us in front of and behind the cameras.
Is DominiRican Productions sustainable?
Cedric: For us, yes, but the life of an artist is not easy either.
Are you at risk of bankruptcy?
Cedric: Sometimes yes. Now we have about three contracts with NY organizations that are supporting us and we are actors trying to be on television and in the theater. The goal is to have a mass media company, like Ryan Murphy, who made Glee, or like Shonda Rhimes, who have very large companies. The dream is to have something like this and that we are always supporting our friends and doing business with organizations that want to be more inclusive.
Broadway. Before and now
Is Broadway still a closed circuit for solvent and white people or is it open to other stage experiences and other pockets?
Cedric: A lot has changed, especially after the pandemic, and thank God that Lin-Manuel Miranda exists. He has changed the lives of thousands of actors because he writes characters for black people, or Latino people or women or marginalized people.
Before the pandemic, there was a lot of competition for a role, but the pandemic forced the entire theater and its companies in NY to have that conversation about change and offer more opportunities to more actors, directors, the people who write the stories, playwrights. Right now we need a company to produce audiovisuals that are about gay people or Latino people.
Is a more representative diversity noticed in the works?
Cedric: Now there is more awareness of giving more people the opportunity, the roles for auditions are more diverse, they are no longer stereotypes like before. Now they want to see Latino people who are black, Indigenous, Chinese, Cuban…whatever. And there is awareness of what we have done wrong for many years.
Pierre: I also think that the George Floyd case was a very important turning point because, after Floyd and the hundreds of black people who have been murdered by the police in the United States, society began to question what we are doing wrong and why, and they began a review process.
Has the United States become more inclusive?
Cedric: Well, only 2% of the producers on Broadway are Latino, and we want to be part of the change, so we tried to bring more than a dozen generally black, Latino, and gay investors to Broadway.
Pierre: The United States is changing. But every day is different. One day we are being good to the gay community, but one day the trans people are not and the blacks are, but the Latinos are not, and so on. It’s not a coherent trend.
Cedric: We are at a time when it’s difficult to answer the question because it’s complicated; but we have to focus on hope, focus on our communities that have always fought, that we are warriors.
In our travels around the United States, Pierre and I always find a gay place, in every city, and that is an example that we will always overcome the moment. We will see what happens this year with the elections, but no matter what happens we will continue to fight and support each other.
What has been your unforgettable moment as an LGBTIQ+ activist?
For me, the best moment, being gay, was when Obama won and I felt seen, recognized, not only because of the black image, but because he was supporting my community. I keep that moment as mine and it gives me strength in difficult times. And thank God we live in NY, which is very progressive. We know that not everyone has that privilege.
Program on the island
Pierre and Cedric traveled to Havana from June 24 to 29 as part of the Pride Month program sponsored by the United States Embassy in Cuba.
For the occasion, they brought a couple of short films produced by them: Como eres, As you are, and The Odd Year.
Each event was attended by U.S. creators, who exchanged with the public, who also enjoyed a show with Vogue dancers, a stylized and modern form of house dance originating in the 1980s that evolved from the Harlem ball culture.
Now the LGBTQ+ community is so inclusive that it does not suffer from prejudice towards the rest of the dissident sexual communities or straight people…
Cedric: Each community has its things. We are not perfect, and self-discrimination does exist. Especially against trans women, and against black people, in different places. We notice it. But youth is changing all that. It gives me hope that young people don’t see color, orientation, and I hope that there will be a world that includes us all and it doesn’t matter.
Pierre: I think that as a community we are not doing everything we should for our trans brothers and sisters and it may be difficult information to digest. But trans people are the most affected right now. We, for example, have the privilege of not being discriminated against if we approach more masculine behavior.
In the production of art, is there a sensitivity dissociated from the heterosexual that allows it to be distinguished, or is this another of the cultural lies of the genre?
Pierre: I don’t think so. I think a lot of gay people use that experience to feel self-recognized, but nothing more.
Cedric: For a long time our art was based on trauma, but it’s changing, we have other topics that we want to talk about and debate: our love, our joy, our illusions.
Pierre: We are a little crazy, but we can be very intelligent as lawyers, as computer scientists. I’m tired of seeing ourselves in stories of people dying of AIDS, of sad stories, they are important things, but we are much more than that.
Havana, New York and queer: family resemblance
Have you seen anything of the queer scene in Havana?
Cedric: It’s very similar to that of the United States. We have a lot of empathy as a community, they are good people, the family always comes to us when there are problems to help because we have had so many difficult moments that it makes us different human beings; we can overcome anything. We felt it when we also went to Colombia, to Santo Domingo, and they recommended to me: “Look, take off your nail polish,” and in Santo Domingo I said to myself: “But what is happening?” We saw everything: gay, trans, pansex, at the after parties. And the same in Puerto Rico, where it was horrible to be gay. When Pierre and I went as a couple to San Juan in 2022 I was so excited because I had never seen Puerto Rico so open to gay people, to LGBTQ+ people. So it’s my superpower to be gay.
What did you think of the Cuban experience?
Pierre: People here are 100% or nothing. And I notice that they have a lot of love and a lot of pride. But they are zero or one hundred.
You can see the desire to live and the joy, but behind that is the daily struggle to survive.
Cedric: We have so much in common, no matter where you’re from. We are Latinos and we have in common the music, the food, the dancing, the vibe, and being here we feel as if we were with family in Puerto Rico. There is much love.
Pierre: The smell inside the places is from Puerto Rico and the street is like Santo Domingo. And I look like this and feel that this is my country too. It’s a privilege.
Cedric: And a pleasure too.
Postscript
Hours after this interview, on the night of Thursday, June 27, the first presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump took place. The consensus established that the Republican won not because of his political brilliance, but because of the cognitive ailments of his Democratic opponent.
Many are asking the president, among them an editorial in the NYT, to responsibly step down and give way to a candidacy with possibilities in the face of the colossal danger posed by the return of the convicted Trump to the Oval Office.
Just one year ago, on the occasion of Pride Month, on the White House lawn, Biden announced initiatives designed to protect LGBTQ+ communities from attacks, help youth with mental health issues and homelessness, and counteract book bans.
For Cedric and Pierre and millions like them and not, November 5, 2024 will be anything but an ordinary Tuesday.new
Author
Angel Marqués Dolz
