Performer, director, choreographer, playwright, librettist: Paige Hernandez’s skillset is all over the map. Fittingly, her work has taken her all over the map to a roster of its most acclaimed stages—but also to some of its most humble.
And that’s perfectly okay with her. “I’m not this rich and famous person because that’s never been the goal for me,” says the resident of Baltimore, who’ll perform Havana Hop, her bilingual one-woman show, on Thursday and Friday, September 17 and 18, at Orlando Family Stage. Showtimes will be 10:30 a.m. and noon both days.
Havana Hop, the theater’s 2026–27 season opener, is an energetic interactive production that combines hip-hop and salsa music with audience participation and invites young audiences to follow Yeila, the main character, as she gains confidence and embraces her Cuban heritage.
Hernandez—whose mother is a Black Chinese visual artist and father is an Afro-Cuban musician—attended high school at the Baltimore School for the Arts. She first took the stage in Little Shop of Horrors at Arena Players, also in Baltimore, which is thought to be the nation’s oldest continuously operating Black community theater.
Hernandez went on to the University of Maryland to study theater and broadcast journalism—but theater won that bout. She first earned acclaim for Paige in Full, a 2010 one-woman autobiographical show that blends poetry, dance, media and music to tell her coming-of-age story. It toured for more than a decade.
Indeed, her original hip-hop-infused productions—including 2017’s Stomping Grounds, which she describes as her “hip-hopera”—have been performed just about everywhere. Each show is a fusion of theater, dance, music and, for many students, healing in a time of uncertainty.
Reviewers at DC Theatre Scene recently noted that Hernandez “represents the truest voice of what hip-hop theater can be for our generation.”
Named among the Top 5 Most Produced Artists for Theatre for Young Audiences and a Rising Leader of Color, Hernandez has 15 original productions to her credit. But Havana Hop, which she has been bringing to audiences since 2008, is “the one that’s taken me all over the world.”
The story—in which Hernandez portrays the central character as well as her mother and grandmother—features hip-hop music written by her brother, Nick, who performs as “Nick tha 1da;” riffs performed by her father, Angelo, a funk-influenced Afro-Cuban guitarist; and salsa written by her husband, Kris Funn, a jazz musician who plays bass.
The show will be her second at Orlando Family Stage. The first, Tiara’s Hat Parade, was co-commissioned by the theater and staged earlier this year. “I’m so excited,” says Hernandez about performing in Orlando.
Orlando Family Stage is located at 1001 East Princeton Street, Orlando, in Loch Haven Cultural Park. For more information, call 407.896.7365 or visit orlandofamilystage.com.
