Latest news with #Candela
Yahoo
23-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Sapiens to buy automation service provider Candela
Israel-headquartered insurtech company Sapiens International has agreed to acquire Candela, an intelligent automation service provider to insurance companies in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region, for $22m (NIS80.83m) in cash. This move is intended to augment Sapiens' life insurance product suite and extend its market reach in APAC. The deal is due to be finalised in the second quarter of 2025 (Q2 2025), contingent on the fulfilment of standard closing conditions. Upon deal completion, Candela will be fully owned by Sapiens. The acquisition is projected to be profit accretive for Sapiens from Q4 2025. Candela generated non-GAAP revenues of $8m (Rs884.03m) in 2024. The company's product offering, which encompasses an end-to-end insurance automation platform, digital services and solutions, serves 23 clients, mainly across Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong and South Africa. The company's workforce, which exceeds 100 employees, is predominantly located in Bangalore, India. Currently, Candela operates as a part of Azentio, a company headquartered in Singapore. The acquisition will see Candela's business process modelling and case management tools incorporated into the Sapiens insurance platform, with a focus on life insurance. This integration is expected to enable Sapiens to replace external legacy systems with standardised processes. Sapiens CEO and president Roni Al-Dor said: 'I am pleased to welcome the Candela team and customers as part of our strategy to continue to expand our presence in the APAC region and enhance our sophisticated life insurance platform. We will continue to support Candela's customers and products, increasing value across the entire insurance life cycle and supporting insurers' digital transformations with a comprehensive product proposition and a diverse range of service capabilities.' Candela business head Amitabh Poddar stated: 'Joining the Sapiens organisation opens up a wealth of resources and a global network of relationships for the Candela team and our clients. Integrating our intelligent automation solutions into Sapiens' leading insurance software platform will enhance our capabilities and provide even greater value to our customers. We are committed to ensuring a smooth transition and maintaining uninterrupted service for all our clients.' In February, Sapiens released an updated version of its automated underwriting and new business case management system targeted at life and annuities insurers. "Sapiens to buy automation service provider Candela " was originally created and published by Life Insurance International, a GlobalData owned brand. The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site. Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
22-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Sapiens Acquires Candela to Expand its Footprint in APAC and Enhance its Life Product Portfolio
A Strategic Move to Strengthen Sapiens' Position in the APAC Market and Strengthen our Life Position Globally ROCHELLE PARK, N.J., April 22, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Sapiens International Corporation (NASDAQ: SPNS) (TASE: SPNS), a global leader in intelligent insurance software solutions today announced the acquisition of Candela, a leading intelligent automation company servicing blue-chip, APAC-based insurance clients. This strategic move aims to enhance Sapiens' life product portfolio and expand its presence in the APAC region. The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions and expected to close during the second quarter of 2025. Candela offers an end-to-end insurance automation platform along with digital services and solutions. Candela has 23 customers, primarily in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong and South Africa. The Candela team of over 100 employees is mainly in Bangalore, India. Candela is currently part of Azentio, a Singapore-based company. With nearly 30 years of deep industry expertise, Candela is well-positioned to support Sapiens' vision and strategy for growth in the APAC market in addition to providing innovative new capabilities to Sapiens global customers. Candela's solutions are complementary to Sapiens Insurance Platform and Policy Administration Systems for Life. By leveraging Candela's Business Process Modelling (BPM) and Case Management capabilities, Sapiens aims to enhance its Insurance Platform for life offerings. This acquisition also enables the implementation of standardized processes over external legacy solutions, ensuring a consistent and enhanced experience for agents, customers, and administrators. "I am pleased to welcome the Candela team and customers as part of our strategy to continue to expand our presence in the APAC region and enhance our sophisticated life insurance platform" said Roni Al-Dor, CEO and President at Sapiens. "We will continue to support Candela's customers and products, increasing value across the entire insurance lifecycle and supporting insurers' digital transformations with a comprehensive product proposition and a diverse range of service capabilities." "Joining the Sapiens organization opens up a wealth of resources and a global network of relationships for the Candela team and our clients," said Amitabh Poddar, Business Head, Candela. "Integrating our intelligent automation solutions into Sapiens' leading insurance software platform will enhance our capabilities and provide even greater value to our customers. We are committed to ensuring a smooth transition and maintaining uninterrupted service for all our clients." The acquisition of Candela is structured as a cash transaction. Candela non-GAAP full year 2024 revenues were $8 million USD. Sapiens will pay an aggregate cash consideration of $22 Million dollar. The acquisition will be accretive to profit starting from the fourth quarter of 2025. The transaction is expected to be completed during the second quarter of 2025. Upon completion, Candela will become wholly owned by Sapiens. About Sapiens Sapiens International Corporation (NASDAQ and TASE: SPNS) is a global leader in intelligent insurance SaaS software solutions. With Sapiens' robust platform, customer-driven partnerships, and rich ecosystem, insurers are empowered to future-proof their organizations with operational excellence in a rapidly changing marketplace. Our SaaS based solutions help insurers harness the power of AI and advanced automation to support core solutions for property and casualty, workers' compensation, and life insurance, including reinsurance, financial & compliance, data & analytics, digital, and decision management. Sapiens boasts a longtime global presence, serving over 600 customers in more than 30 countries with its innovative offerings. Recognized by industry experts and selected for the Microsoft Top 100 Partner program, Sapiens is committed to partnering with our customers for their entire transformation journey and is continuously innovating to ensure their success. For more information visit or follow us on LinkedIn. About Candela Candela Labs is an IP-led technology focused on smart automation and digital solutions for insurers. We work on the cutting edge of InsureTech/FinTech, creating products and point solutions in our IP Labs that enable our clients to truly transform themselves for enriched digital adoption, enhanced customer & channel experience and exceptional operational efficiency. About Azentio Azentio Software incorporated in 2020 at Singapore, has been carved out of 3i Infotech, Candela Labs, Beyontec Technologies and Path Solutions. Azentio Software provides mission critical, vertical-specific software products for customers in banking, financial services and insurance verticals. Azentio has over 800 customers in more than 60 countries, with a team of over 2,300 employees across offices in 12 countries (and growing) globally and is wholly owned by Funds advised by Apax Partners. Visit: Investor and Media Contact Yaffa Cohen-Ifrah Sapiens Chief Marketing Officer and Head of Investor RelationsEmail: Forward Looking Statements Certain matters discussed in this press release that are incorporated herein and therein by reference are forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act, Section 21E of the Exchange Act and the safe harbor provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, that are based on our beliefs, assumptions and expectations, as well as information currently available to us. Such forward-looking statements may be identified by the use of the words "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "expect," "may," "will," "plan" and similar expressions. Such statements reflect our current views with respect to future events and are subject to certain risks and uncertainties. There are important factors that could cause our actual results, levels of activity, performance or achievements to differ materially from the results, levels of activity, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to: the degree of our success in our plans to leverage our global footprint to grow our sales; the degree of our success in integrating the companies that we have acquired through the implementation of our M&A growth strategy; the lengthy development cycles for our solutions, which may frustrate our ability to realize revenues and/or profits from our potential new solutions; our lengthy and complex sales cycles, which do not always result in the realization of revenues; the degree of our success in retaining our existing customers or competing effectively for greater market share; the global macroeconomic environment, including headwinds caused by inflation, relatively high interest rates, potentially unfavorable currency exchange rate movements, and uncertain economic conditions, and their impact on our revenues, profitability and cash flows; difficulties in successfully planning and managing changes in the size of our operations; the frequency of the long-term, large, complex projects that we perform that involve complex estimates of project costs and profit margins, which sometimes change mid-stream; the challenges and potential liability that heightened privacy laws and regulations pose to our business; occasional disputes with clients, which may adversely impact our results of operations and our reputation; various intellectual property issues related to our business; potential unanticipated product vulnerabilities or cybersecurity breaches of our or our customers' systems; risks related to the insurance industry in which our clients operate; risks associated with our global sales and operations, such as changes in regulatory requirements, wide-spread viruses and epidemics like the coronavirus epidemic, and fluctuations in currency exchange rates; and risks related to our principal location in Israel and our status as a Cayman Islands company. While we believe such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, should one or more of the underlying assumptions prove incorrect, or these risks or uncertainties materialize, our actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Please read the risks discussed under the heading "Risk Factors" in our Annual Report on Form 20-F for the year ended December 31, 2024, to be filed in the near future, in order to review conditions that we believe could cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated by the forward-looking statements. You should not rely upon forward-looking statements as predictions of future events. Although we believe that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, we cannot guarantee that future results, levels of activity, performance and events and circumstances reflected in the forward-looking statements will be achieved or will occur. Except as required by law, we undertake no obligation to update publicly any forward-looking statements for any reason, to conform these statements to actual results or to changes in our expectations. Logo: View original content: SOURCE Sapiens International Corporation
Yahoo
18-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Electric ferries are becoming the next big environmental trend
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. With the green energy trend of electric vehicles plateauing, one form of transportation is taking hold: electric ferries. While this industry has been on the uptick for a while, there are now cities throughout the globe that are using battery-powered vessels to shuttle passengers. The concept of an electric vehicle is not new, but there are certain companies innovating within the electric ferry space. This includes one city in Sweden where the ferries are not only electric — they also fly. Many cities are implementing e-ferries, given that "destinations the world over are clamoring for cleaner forms of energy," said Condé Nast Traveler. Locations using electric ferries include Hong Kong, Singapore and Dubai. Stockholm recently unveiled a fleet of electric ferries made by the company Candela that "rises above the waves on a set of underwater wings known as hydrofoils," said The Washington Post, allowing the ship to "travel faster than the diesel ferries that ply Stockholm's waterways while using much less energy." Sydney also announced that its ferry fleet will be all "locally built electric or hydrogen ferries by 2035," according to The Sydney Morning Herald. American cities using electric ferries include San Francisco and Seattle, and the same company that built Stockholm's flying electric ferries plans to "launch a 30-passenger ferry" in Lake Tahoe, said the Reno Gazette-Journal, with service to "begin by late 2025 or early 2026." And in 2023, New York officials "introduced New York City's first public, hybrid-electric ferry," which was "equipped with a hybrid propulsion system that will reduce air pollution," according to a press release. These ferries went into commission in 2024. It's in large part due to the transportation sector's strain on the environment. Transportation "accounts for about a quarter of annual global greenhouse gas emissions; ships alone are responsible for nearly 3% of that, or about a billion metric tons of CO2 each year," said Condé Nast Traveler. Beyond this, putting more ferries into service "can help ease congestion on roads and existing public transit routes, while making transit cleaner, faster or more direct." Electric ferries "won't solve everything, but for short journeys they can significantly cut emissions and improve local air quality," Valentin Simon, a data analyst for the European nonprofit Transport & Environment, told the Post. Electric ferries are a "zero-emission option for commuters who may instead have to take a car across a bridge in gridlocked traffic," Elise Sturrup, a marine researcher at the nonprofit International Council on Clean Transportation, said to Condé Nast Traveler. Electric ferries are also getting bigger and more fuel-efficient: The world's soon-to-be-largest electric ferry is currently being built in Tasmania. It will hold 2,100 people and will "carry passengers across the Río de la Plata, between Argentina's capital Buenos Aires and Uruguay," said ABC. The ferry will reportedly save 41,386 tons of carbon dioxide, the "equivalent of taking around 8,750 [gasoline] cars off the road." Still, most of the cities using electric ferries were previously using traditional ferries, and "examples of cities introducing a ferry service where there previously was none are relatively rare," said Forbes. But "cities with extensive waterways, such as Stockholm, need to start viewing water as something that connects the city rather than divides it," Michaela Haga, chair of the Maritime Public Transport Committee in Region Stockholm, told Forbes. Through "innovation and collaboration with the private sector, public transport can be made both faster and more climate-friendly."
Forbes
10-04-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Can Candela Get Commuters Out Of Cars And Onboard With Electric Ferries?
Candela P-12 Nova, flying at 25 knots on its way from the suburb of Ekerö to Stockholm's city ... More center. Would you ditch your car-borne commute for a boat? It's perhaps an easier ask in Stockholm, where locals are used to travelling by ferry — outside of winter, at least. There, the city has trialled electric ferries by Candela, with its P-12 slashing emissions versus traditional vessels as well as reducing travel time. According to the company's own figures collected last autumn, the Nova emits 95% less CO₂ than diesel-powered boats operating the same route, with Nova's emissions 23g/pkm versus the 439 g/pkm of traditional vessels. That's a big deal in Sweden, where the city's traditional fleet of 60 diesel vessels accounted for 8% of shipping emissions in the city as of 2022. "We have seen highly encouraging emission figures from the pilot project with Nova," Michaela Haga, Chair of Maritime Public Transport Committee in Region Stockholm, told me via email. "This demonstrates that, through innovation and collaboration with the private sector, public transport can be made both faster and more climate-friendly. It also takes just half an hour between key points on route 89 — Tappström (Ekerö center) and Stockholm City Hall — where the ship has a speed exemption and can travel at 22 knots. That compares to 45-55 minutes by traditional boats, and more than an hour by car or bus. "What excites me most is that people riding on Candela P-12 save one hour per day. That's a game changer for workers, families that frees up people's time," Gustav Hasselskog, CEO and founder of Candela, told me via email. No wonder then that route has seen ridership climb by 30%, with transport operator Region Stockholm saying it will boost service from five days a week to daily as of next month. STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN - NOVEMBER 19: Locals queue to board onto "Nova", the world's first electric ... More hydrofoil ferry as it begins operating its service for public transportation in Stockholm, Sweden on November 19, 2024. Nova is the new P-12 model developed by Swedish Manufacturer Candela using computer-controlled hydrofoil wings to lift its hull and fly one meter above the water, reducing energy consumption by 80% compared to traditional vessels by cutting water friction. Accordingly with the company, hydrofoil technology makes it the fastest electric ferry in the world and the fastest in Stockholm's public transport fleet. (Photo by Narciso Contreras/Anadolu via Getty Images) "Nova is drawing commuters to the other vessels as well. That's especially exciting, since one of our goals is to show that with fast, comfortable waterborne transport, we can get car commuters to switch to waterborne transport," says Hasselskog said in a statement. But that's Stockholm, where — as the company notes — everyone used to commute by waterways 120 years ago. So can Candela do more than replace polluting ferries with electric vessels? Will cities be able to shift significant road traffic back to waterways? Candela thinks so. "We see that waterways in most cities have enormous potential for fast, low-cost, and emission-free transport that can relieve road networks and connect communities," says Hasselskog in a satement. "This is just the beginning." Candela has announced sales to Saudi Arabia, while the P-12 started operations in Berlin, Germany last year and is expected to go into use in Lake Tahoe, USA, this year or next. Beyond Candela, Sydney, Australia, plans to shift its ferry network to electric, while Candela rival Vessev last year launched an electric hydrofoil ferry in Auckland, New Zealand, and the city has wider plans to electrify its fleet. Similar fleet electrification efforts are underway in San Francisco and Seattle, while Dubai is considering similar technologies. That said, for the most part, those are all cities with existing ferry networks. Examples of cities introducing a ferry service where there previously was none are relatively rare. Belfast, Northern Ireland, plans to start an entirely new ferry service to nearby Bangor using the Artemis EF-24 Passenger electric hydrofoiling ferry, but that was postponed until later this year. More cities should consider the idea, says Region Stockholm's Haga. "I believe that cities with extensive waterways, such as Stockholm, need to start viewing water as something that connects the city rather than divides it," she told me. 'If new technology and innovation can reduce both travel times and emissions, then waterborne transport undoubtedly has a key role to play in the future of urban mobility.' But can boats operate frequently enough to act as buses in a public transport network? Candela believes so. Beyond emissions and slower speeds, traditional ferries tend to be larger than the Nova — it seats 31 passengers at most, while rival ferries have space for as many as 250. That's a problem, as they rarely reach that capacity, with Candela saying they tend to run just 15% full on a yearly average. Candela believes it makes more sense to run smaller boats with more frequent departures across a wider network — it would be cheaper, offer a better service, and reduce pollution and wake damage, after all. And it would extend where people could live. Some islands in the Stockholm region receive just one or two departures a day. By running more frequent services — a bus system on the water, the company suggests — more people could enjoy island life and still commute to the city easily, outside winter at least. "We've now seen that the technology works in demanding public transport service," Hasselskog tells me. 'There are so many exciting possibilities ahead — ways we can knit Stockholm and other cities closer together and connect new neighbourhoods.' Unveiled in 2023, the Candela P-12 shuttle runs on electric power, but it has a few other differences versus traditional ferries. This photo taken on June 3, 2024 shows the Candela P-12 electric ferry, which is planned to be run ... More as a shuttle boat, in Stockholm, Sweden. One metre above the surface, a fully electric ferry is speeding across the waters of Stockholm as a Swedish company prepares to start taking its first regular passengers. Equipped with three vertical wings, or hydrofoils, the craft is "able to fly out of water when it's going fast enough," Andrea Meschini, head of R&D testing for the Candela P-12, told AFP. (Photo by Henrik MONTGOMERY / TT News Agency / AFP) / Sweden OUT (Photo by HENRIK MONTGOMERY/TT News Agency/AFP via Getty Images) The biggest difference is the use of hydrofoils. At higher speeds, the computer-controlled hydrofoils pop the bulk boat out of the water to reduce friction and wake. And that means it can run faster in urban areas, as traditional boats face speed limitations to avoid wake generation, and the smooth ride means you're less likely to get seasick. The P-12 is powered by dual submerged motors that are cheap to maintain and power, but can offer serious speeds, the company says. The design cuts energy use by 80%. The P-12 can seat 31 people and top speeds of 25 knots with a range of 40 nautical miles at top speed.
Yahoo
23-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
'Buena Vista Social Club,' writer Marco Ramirez ushers Broadway into the golden age of Cuban music
Officially, playwright and screenwriter Marco Ramirez began working on the Broadway musical 'Buena Vista Social Club' a little more than six years ago. But if you start the clock when the Cuban supergroup's music first seeped into his soul, he's been penning it for decades. Like many Cubans and Cuban Americans, the silky crooning of band member Ibrahim Ferrer and the insatiable rhythm of 'Candela' wafted through his grandparents' living room and into his teenage ears. For him, the album represented a bond not just to Cuba, but to each other: 'My grandfather is as much of a music nerd as I was,' says Ramirez. 'We connected the same way two teenagers would, opening the liner notes and saying, 'Look at these lyrics, look at this stuff.' ' The electrifying new musical began an open-ended run at Broadway's Schoenfeld Theatre on March 19 and traces the origins of the Cuban music supergroup that rose to international fame after the success of their eponymous Grammy-winning 1997 album and the 1999 Wim Wenders documentary of the same name. The show's creative team boasts a pedigree on par with the band itself, including Tony-nominated director Saheem Ali, two-time Tony-winner Justin Peck ( ("Illinoise," "Carousel") and his co-choreographer Patricia Delgado and Tony-winning producer Orin Wolf ('The Band's Visit,' 'Once'). Unfolding across two timelines, the show follows the golden age Cuban musicians as they navigate Havana's segregated social scene at the onset of the Cuban Revolution, and 40 years later during their twilight years as they hurtle toward the Carnegie Hall concert depicted in the documentary. While all of the songs are performed in their original Spanish, the dialogue is completely in English. 'Right now, you and I are a thousand miles away, speaking very different tongues, on a very different island,' explains character Juan de Marcos, inspired by his real-life counterpart. 'But a sound like this? It tends to travel.' Like the 'Buena Vista' musicians, Ramirez also followed his dream thousands of miles from home, his artistic pursuits carrying the first-generation son of Cuban immigrants from his Hialeah hometown to New York, where he studied playwriting at NYU and Juilliard. Before he could even accept his master's degree from the latter, he was off again, this time to Los Angeles, where he joined the staffs of award-winning television series, including 'Sons of Anarchy' and 'Orange Is the New Black.' More recently, he served as showrunner on 'Daredevil' and 'La Máquina,' and judging by the multiple projects he's contractually-forbidden from discussing, he's cemented his status as one of Hollywood's most in-demand scribes. Right now, though, Ramirez and I are thousands of miles away from L.A. in a very different metropolis: New York City,, where we break bread at Margon, a counter serve Cuban restaurant two blocks from the show's theater on 45th Street. Our conversation lasted just 15 minutes before Ramirez was called back to the theater for a last-minute creative discussion about his Broadway debut. So, like the 'Buena Vista' band members, we too took our show on the road, through Times Square, finally concluding at a nearby bar. After all, a conversation like this, occurring just days before opening night? It tends to travel. You grew up with this music. What does this music mean to you now? I think it's entirely about honoring what came before us and also — we live in a world that is fascinated with what's new and what's young. Music is the only place where they really respect when an instrument ages. When a laptop ages, it gets thrown away. But in the world of music, it's like, 'This violin is 100 years old. This piano is 200 years old.' Age is seen as a sign of quality because it has endured. I'm Cuban. You're Cuban. We grew up with this music. As you started working on this show, did you feel any anxiety or nervousness about holding up the mantle of — I don't know — our entire Cuban identity? I felt a responsibility to the music. As a kid having been born and raised in Miami — to me, Cuba was a place where music came from. That was my first real relationship to the island and that culture. And so I have felt like a protector to some degree of the music throughout this process. ... I've felt a little bit like Indiana Jones running through a temple where tons of things are being thrown at you and you're just trying to save the one beautiful thing because you're like, 'This belongs in a museum.' That's me. And I feel that way about this music really passionately. Can you take us through the early days? How did you feel when you first heard about [the project]? It was an immediate yes. It was like I was on 'Family Feud' and they asked the question and I was like, WHAM, on the buzzer. A commercial producer named Orin Wolf approached me, and he had done a show called 'The Band's Visit' on Broadway, which was a very successful, very beautiful and very moving musical. He said, 'I love this music. I don't speak Spanish, but I think there's a theater project here. Can we start talking about it?' And my response was 'YES' in all caps. And from that point on, we were in lockstep and walking together on this journey. We went to Cuba several times. We met with a lot of the musicians. We went to Mexico to meet with some of the musicians' families who lived there. We've been kind of globetrotting and we really feel protective over this music. And we've been doing it together. One of the lines that jumped out at me is when Young Haydee tells her sister Omara [Portuondo], basically, 'We have this potential deal with Capitol Records, and we need to leave the island. There's this whole future ahead of us if we just leap and say yes to this.' When you — (Laughs) That's actually better than the line. Ha, thanks. When you were in undergrad, before you had booked a single professional job as a writer, what did you see as your future? What did you hope would unfold? Broadway was not anywhere in the picture, but I thought, 'I want to write plays. I want to get them produced or produce them myself,' which we did. And for some weird, arbitrary reason, I told myself, 'And when I'm 40, I can write TV.' It was like a weird rule. Like, '[writing for television] is something 40-year-old people do.' But at the age of 18, 19, 20, all I was trying to do was get a couple productions of my plays done anywhere that would do them. … I got to write for TV before I was 30, which was nice. What do you have left to do? I guess that means it's all over for you. I'm really hoping that next year I'll get traded to the Miami Heat. Early on in the play, when Juan de Marcos is trying to get [legendary Cuban singer] Omara [Portuondo] to record the album, he delivers this pretty stunning monologue: 'This record, the one you did after it, and the one after that ... they changed my life. They're the reason I went to conservatory. They're the reason I got two PhDs.' Who was your Omara Portuondo? In a way, that's me talking to the ['Buena Vista Social Club'] record, to the legacy of this record. This record for me was the high watermark of what music could do … and proof that Cuban compositions belonged right next to Beethoven. In some ways, that became kind of the rallying cry of the whole piece: We just want to fight for some space and some respect …. Like, when did the Mount Rushmore just suddenly become Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, Rachmaninoff — all the other names that we know? Who's to say that there aren't other people from other places, from other continents who deserve to be considered canonically among the best music ever made? … I really do genuinely feel that way about some of these compositions. They are all-timers. The melodies are all up there with the most beautiful melodies ever made. Toward the end of the play, as Compay [Segundo], you write: 'These songs you like so much. They're all about heartbreak, about longing … But they're not beautiful because we wrote them that way … They're beautiful … because we lived them.' As a Cuban American from Miami myself, as you are, there is a distance, both geographic and chronological, between the life that you lived, born and raised in Miami, and the life that they lived, born in and dying in Cuba. How did you close that distance? I think the first step was acknowledging my privilege, but also that my lived experience was never going to be the experience of somebody who was born and raised and lived in Cuba. I identify as Cuban American, I identify as Cuban culturally, but I do not have the same lived experience as people who have lived both the joys and the sorrows of it. Part of that is what made visiting [Cuba] so, so insightful. Just being there and interacting with a lot of people who had never left the island. But really just trying to inhabit the point of view of these artists who were born and raised and died there and what that must have felt like for them, for the outside world to keep looking at their music and saying, 'Oh my God, it's so lovely. It's so beautiful. Everything is so filled with exotic flavor and it's just so romantic.' But for them to not fully comprehend the level of suffering that went into the songwriting, the level of suffering that went into the performance, even just the agony of practice to be able to play like Leo [Reyna], our pianist, or Renesito [Avich], our tres player — the hours spent alone in a room with an instrument to be able to solo in a huge way and like be the Jimi Hendrix of the tres. That's a lot of work and heartache and sacrifice. There were a lot of parties those guys didn't go to so that today they could be the party. On that note, heartbreak and hardship is now unfortunately so part and parcel to the Cuban condition, but the show is also really funny. So many laughs come out of some of the most heartbreaking moments of the show. Was that intentional? I don't think it was an active choice. I just don't think I would have been capable of doing it without comedy. I think my experience of Cuban culture has largely been an experience of Cuban comedy. Whether or not that's the storytelling tradition of my uncle telling a joke at the table or my aunt or my mother, or my grandmother telling a joke. And especially, I think, when the songs are so heavy and so about heartbreak. Not all of them, but many of them are so heavy and about heartbreak. It's like they're either about heartbreak or they're about sex. It was about the counterbalance. What drives you to write? Oh, God. I'm not good at anything else, Nick. I'm not even sure I'm good at this … What was the question? 'What drives you to write?' I don't know … I do fundamentally believe in the power of storytelling and stories, whether or not that's theater or movies or books. It is a way that we make sense of the world, and I believe in that as an art form. Like one believes in Santa Claus. What's it like to finally get to this point where you can't touch it anymore? It's out of your hands and this is the script that's going to go in black and white forever? A lot of therapy and a lot of meditation are going to help me get through the next week. ... I genuinely hope that people like it. I'm proud of it. Most importantly, it's been a lot of fun to make. Thank you for your time. My dad's coming to see it with me tonight for the second time. Thank you for bringing the old spirits back for him. Thank you for the Margon chicken thighs. They were delicious. Get notified when the biggest stories in Hollywood, culture and entertainment go live. Sign up for L.A. Times entertainment alerts. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
