John Leguizamo’s ‘Latin History for Morons’ Heads to Broadway

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John Leguizamo is returning to Broadway once again.

His critically acclaimed one-man show “Latin History for Morons,” which opened Off Broadway in March at the Public Theater, will move to Studio 54 starting in October, its producers announced Wednesday. In the play, Mr. Leguizamo delivers a satirical history lesson about Latino contributions to society over the years. The New York Times critic Ben Brantley wrote in his review that it is “harshly funny” and “surprisingly poignant.”

In a phone interview, Mr. Leguizamo said that the show resulted from what he perceived to be “aggression” toward Latinos.

“People feel like they can disrespect us,” Mr. Leguizamo said. “Mostly because our contributions aren’t in history books and they aren’t being taught, and that’s why I started wanting to do a lot of research. I started finding out about all the amazing things that we did to build America. And I’m like: ‘Wait a minute. There’s a real aggressive effort to erase our contributions and to keep us out of history textbooks because we have been the contributor to the making of America since the beginning of time.’”

Mr. Leguizamo has a long and storied history in theater. He played seven characters in his Off Broadway debut in 1991, “Mambo Mouth,” which received an Obie Award. He was nominated for multiple Tony Awards for another one-man show, 1998’s “Freak,” which Mr. Brantley said was “more crowded with characters than any other production on Broadway, including ‘Ragtime,’” and was “scathingly funny.”

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