BOTIQUÍN DE BOLEROS
Valeria Cossu created an interactive cabaret style version of this new musical that embraces the timeless melodies of old boleros.. She helped develop the new script adaptation, and her directorial original vision brought the audience inside the individual journey of the character with a deep reflection of our society. Valeria’s choreography reflects the relationships, heartbreaking feelings and loneliness of some old boleros, but also some exhilarating moments with salsa rhythms and flamenco style. The production was well acclaimed by the audience, and received enthusiastic reviews.
The show is recommended for the 2026 Helen Hayes Awards nominations.
“Bolero is more than music. It is an emotional language. A cultural ritual. It is the sound of heartbreak and longing, of memory and hope. It aches with everything we’ve lost — and pulses with everything we still desire. In El Botiquín de Boleros de Columbia Heights, we enter a sanctuary — a space where every person has the right to be, to feel, to express, to rebuild. This space holds our stories, our wounds, our laughter, our survival. It is a journey of self-love, the kind that makes space for others to shine without needing to change them.”
- Valeria Cossu
Director/Choreographer: Valeria Cossu
Music Director: Walter Bobby McCoy
Venue: GALA Hispanic Theatre Washington DC
Photos: Daniel Martinez, Stan Weinstein
Year: 2025
REVIEWS
The Washington Post
“The bantering dialogue in “Botiquín de Boleros de Columbia Heights (Columbia Heights Bolero Bar)” mentions martinis and the caipirinha, the lime-jolted drink that’s an institution in Brazil. The production as a whole is a distinctive cocktail too: laid-back comedy shaken into soulful music, with political references as bitters and audience participation spritzed in for extra kick. That might seem a risky kind of mixology: Cutup humor, especially, wouldn’t seem a natural match for boleros, the deeply emotional ballads, often about love and heartbreak, that constitute a doted-on musical genre across Latin America and beyond. And yet, in this GALA Hispanic Theatre world premiere adaptation, directed and choreographed by Valeria Cossu, the quirky concoction goes down smooth.”
MD Theatre Guide
“…captivating…aches with rhythm and romance. It is more than a performance. It’s a ritual of remembering. It is a cabaret of the soul.”
DC Theater Arts
“In Botiquin de Boleros, Columbia Heights, magic abounds in a visually stunning and passionately performed new musical… It’s intimate yet expansive, with passionate, powerful, and vibrant performances with big conflicts that reach high peaks in small moments. Even for someone who might know some Spanish but isn’t fluent, this storytelling is perfectly understandable. Director and choreographer Valeria Cossu guides the company on these journeys with great stage pictures in dance numbers and an overall look and feel to its design that’s simultaneously reminiscent of a twisted cabaret, an intimate bar, a jam session in its band’s small onstage platform, and a theater utilizing its entire house all in one… This production had moments of exquisite magic and rollicking fun, balanced with serious moments…it has all the ingredients to be exactly what this city needs right now, with these performances, this heart, this look and feel.”