A beautiful young girl who rises her parent's ballroom dancing act to film stardom. Inspired by the life of Rita Hayworth. "DIOSA is a naked look back to the era of the casting couch ... [The play] leads the audience into feeling the raw desperation, humiliation and inner chaos of Josefa's life. [It] reminds us of the glitz and glitter of Rita Hayworth's Hollywood. However playwright Edwin Sanchez does not fail to convey that life for women in this profession, in the 1930s, was both ugly and glamorous, bitter as well as sweet." -Christine LeFoll, The Chronicle "Although DIOSA at the Hartford Stage Company utilizes the backstage of a movie set, this is not your upbeat 'makin it big' kind OF 42ND STREET or SINGIN IN THE RAIN. Edwin Sanchez's play that is roughly akin to the life of Rita Hayworth is punctuated with Latin dancing that makes it a kind of Strictly Ballroom for the stage, with a dark edge ... Sanchez's play explores the underbelly of the Golden Age of Hollywood ... is at once a charming and alarming examination of family life, and stardom. The play is most engaging when mocking Hollywood's stock stereotyping." -T E Gilchrist, Metroline "What price Hollywood stardom? For Josefa, a teenage Latina dance, it is nothing less that the surrender of body, identity and psyche. Modeled loosely on film goddess Rita Hayworth, Josefa is the protagonist of Edwin Sanchez's DIOSA, which is infused with Latina dance and set against the backdrop of the tawdry glitter of 1930's Hollywood." -Ellen Pfeiffer, Boston Globe
