For Iraisa Ann Reilly, a 36-year-old Egg Harbor City native, the path from bodega to off-Broadway began nine years ago, while the writer/performer was involved in a storytelling event in Philadelphia.
“The theme was ‘Holiday Celebrations and Culture,’” she remembered. “I told the story of an event that happened every year in my hometown on January 6, and one year in particular: 1998.”
At that time, the then-third grader at the former Saint Nicholas School had a solo in the Catholic school’s celebration of Three Kings Day, or El Día de los Reyes Magos, which brought together its Latino community in the cafeteria.
As a young Catholic, with Cuban roots on her mother’s side and an Irish background on her father’s, Reilly recalled fondly her town’s immigrant community that understood “the importance of passing on traditions, and the importance of caring for one another.”
“The audience laughed at references to Don Francisco and Easy Bake Ovens, and I realized that my town’s celebration was unique and universal,” she said.
Now she brings this “true and joyful story” to New York, as “A Bodega Princess Remembers La Fiesta de los Reyes Magos, 1998,” which is running at Ensemble Studio Theatre until Dec. 14. Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish in Galloway, of which Saint Nicholas School was once a part, is sponsoring a bus to the show on Nov. 30 to support Reilly. The bus will depart at noon from Saint Nicholas Church and 12:30 p.m. from Assumption Church in Galloway. The show begins at 5 p.m.
Directed by Estefanía Fadul and presented with the Lucille Lortel Theatre and the Latinx Playwrights Circle, the one-woman show includes storytelling, music, and audience participation, and the epiphany that changed her life.
“This play is about being grateful for the community that was around me then, and still is,” Reilly said.
Her show takes part of its name from the local bodega of her Egg Harbor City childhood, “Casa Pepe,” owned by her maternal grandfather, Jose Orihuela, a Cuban-born immigrant who made his way to the United States in 1959.
“My grandfather was kind and generous, and everybody [in town] knew him,” she recalled.
Here, and around her small town, she recalled a place “where we celebrated holidays with food and parrandas, going house-to-house singing Christmas carols … a place where when a family member died, your neighbors would come just to sit with you so you didn’t have to mourn alone.”
Graduating from Saint Nicholas in 2003, she moved on to Holy Spirit High School in Absecon, where she graduated in 2007.
Next came the University of Notre Dame, where she double-majored in theater and English; she graduated in 2011. In 2021, she graduated from New York University with a master of fine arts in dramatic writing.
Reilly has been recognized for her writing and performing: She was a recipient of the 2023 Latinx Playwright’s Circle Mentorship, and earlier this year, the workshop production of “Bodega Princess” at Simpatico Theatre Company in Philadelphia was nominated for a Barrymore Award for excellence in professional theater.
With her new production, Reilly feels her memories and lessons of the past are just as relevant today.
“In a world where immigrants are being denied basic rights and people who can’t afford a gallon of milk will go without, when in the last five years we’ve witnessed plague and genocide and famine, it seems natural to believe that our world is a dark one,” she said. “It is natural to feel despair.”
Raised by a family and community that “faced these things firsthand,” she was inspired by those “who, in the darkest of circumstances, looked at what they did have to offer to one another.”
Reilly hopes those who see her show will experience the joy and love she felt many years ago in her Catholic elementary school cafeteria. As well, she wants to keep alive the faith, kindness and traditions “that always made me feel loved and welcomed.”
“‘Bodega Princess’ … is about people who taught me that in darkness, we can help each other find the light.”
“A Bodega Princess Remembers La Fiesta de los Reyes Magos, 1998” is running now until Dec. 14 at the Ensemble Studio Theatre, 545 West 52nd St., New York City. For tickets, visit ensemblestudiotheatre.org.
For more information on the bus trip being sponsored by Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish, email Josephpicardi@comcast.net or parishoffice@olphparish-nj.org, or call the parish office at 609-652-0008, ext. 205.
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