LOSADA COLADA!
Looking at photos of Euriamis Losada, it’s no wonder the female (and some part of the male) populace goes gaga at his looks on his muscular 6’ frame. Cuban-born and USA-raised since age six, this talented actor and singer has been performing since his teenhood in Miami, Florida.
After years of singing in church choirs (his father is a retired Methodist minister), he discovered his full voice in high school and college where, as he acknowledges, “I was cast in leading roles before I was a senior, which got me into trouble with others students.” Years later, he starred in the 2014-15 national tour of the I Love Lucy: Live on Stage musical as Ricky Ricardo (hired by the highly-respected casting director, Michael Donovan).
Now in his mid-thirties (although he can play half-a-decade younger), he understands enough about the craft of acting to “know how to age up and age down, depending on the needs of the role.”
He plays his age in a new drama, Wink, about an androgynous, homeless, gender-questioning teenager of the same name, his family, and the gay social worker who befriends him (pictured above is Losada with Adam Cordon.) It opens Dec. 8 and plays until January 13, 2019, at Hollywood’s Zephyr Theatre.
Losada has performed in a wide variety of styles, including Shakespeare (Romeo & Juliet) and Eugene O’Neill (Long Day’s Journey into Night). He appeared as the monster in Frankenstein, and in the musicals Bat Boy and Jekyll & Hyde. On camera, he can be seen in Steven Soderbergh’s Che (Part 1), NBC’s Cold Case, ABC’s Trophy Wife, and NBC’s Powerless, and the web-series How to Be a Vampire, from 2016.
Single for now, with no kids (that he knows of), he acknowledges much Latin Pride. “Having been born between two worlds, that of my Cuban heritage and my adopted American life, as an actor it has worked well for me to allow myself to be a blank canvas — as non-specific as possible at the start until the character makes me dig for specificity. That goes for my ability to do accents, as well. My character in Wink, for instance, has an accent not my own, which has inhibited easy communications on my part. I developed a British lower-class accent for the Monster, and a Cuban accent for Ricky Ricardo.” His American speech is melodic and deep.
Tanned as he is, his Cuban looks and American sounds mean folk don’t automatically know where he’s from. “I’m called in, often, for exotic roles: Brazilian, sometimes; Middle-Eastern other times.” Now that the Entertainment Industry is finally changing in its attitudes about minorities, he’s getting auditions that used to only go to white guys. “We still have a ways to go, but it’s allowing Latinx actors to break from the stereotypes we used to be offered: maids, gardeners, chauffeurs, etc.”
But he is adamant about one other thing for Hispanic actors: “Why should we limit ourselves? African-American actors started out [a century ago] as buffoons, something for white audiences to laugh at. But they’ve advanced into more serious leading roles that test their talents. Same with Latinx characters at the beginning, but now we’re being seen in real shows about real people. Take Natalie Morales, for example, in [the NBC sit-com] Abby’s, a modern-day Cheers, in which she stars as a sexually-fluid character, in addition to her breaking through in other shows, as well as directing.”
As to his careers as actor and singer, “They’re going where the opportunistic flows are. I love the varied demands of television and theater. Right now, I’m recording an EP with a producer, Peitor Angel. My training was in musical theater, but also in classical style. The new EP [to be released early next year] is a late-1960s pop sound: Beach Boys, Beatles, The Bee Gees — harmonies and some falsetto. We have three of the projected seven songs recorded, one co-written by me, the others by my producer.”
As for Wink, Losada says that today is an important time for this play. “The white character doesn’t get the situation the lad is struggling through. My character, Manuel Ortiz, a gay man, does understand. The playwright [Neil Koenigsberg] is insistent that being ignorant to this struggle is no longer an option. The outside of the norm isn’t going away — that is, that “normal” is about being honest and open about oneself. There really is a place for everyone in this new world.”
production photo by Ed Krieger
all other photos from Losada’s Myspace
Wink
Zephyr Theatre, 7456 Melrose Ave.
Sat and Mon at 8; Sun at 3
ends on January 13, 2019 (dark on Dec. 24 & 31)
for tickets, visit Plays411