A Night of Comedy with Elizardi Castro's MADE IN AMERICA with @EdnaGarcia67

Last evening, Edna Garcia invited Beauty Makinta and I to a beautiful dinner in Bridgeport followed by a performance at the Klein Auditorium starring Elizardi Castro. Sponsored by Bridgeport City Schools, his humor was brilliant and his antics on stage, his physical performance, and his ability to move a flexible body was hysterical, especially as he played a little boy wanting to go home when his mother was visiting relatives. He greeted the audience as BridgePuerto Ricans.

In truth, I've said for some time how I want to dedicate a year to comedy: reading memoirs, watching performances, understanding timing, working with improvisation, and thinking about it as an English Educator and writer. I've made a claim that Howard Gardner missed a major intelligence with his multiple intelligences when he overlooked the Whimsical/Comedic learner...the kid who is brilliant with humor, slapstick, wit,
parody, impersonations, and one liners. I've had a number of them in my classrooms and they easily became my favorites. For other teachers these kids were the discipline problems, but for me, they were sidekicks. I'm serious - I want to spend a year thinking about humor and writing...and mark my words, I will.

It was a tremendous blessing to have an invitation from Edna and to, afterwards, get photographs with her, Beauty, and the performer. By day, Elizardi Castro is a lawyer. At night, he celebrates heritage with music, dance, pride, and tongue-in-cheek observations of the world. Without a doubt, this was one of the best nights I've had since I've moved to Connecticut.  I am forever thankful to have Edna in this summer's institute and even more so to have her share a part of her life, culture, and pizazz with me. We laughed hysterically and if anyone was looking, I'm sure our hips could be seen moving, salsa style, in our seats, too.

Pictured with Elizardi above are two incredible women with amazing stories. Wow.