The reading is part of the annual "New Works Now!" series. Cruz himself will direct. No cast has been announced.

The Public Theater is the New York City company with the closest relationship to Cruz. The nonprofit has produced Cruz's Dancing on Her Knees and Two Sisters and a Piano.

Anna in the Tropics was an extremely dark horse in the Pulitzer contest. The other finalists were Take Me Out by Richard Greenberg and The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? by Edward Albee. Both were heavy favorites for the award.

Anna is also the first play since Robert Schenkkan's The Kentucky Cycle to win the Pulitzer without having had a production in New York.

The play was commissioned by the New Theatre in Coral Gables, FL. Cruz was playwright-in-residence there during the 2001-2002 season. Anna premiered at the New Theatre during the 2002-03 season. The story is set Ybor City (Tampa), Florida, in 1930, and deals with "a family of cigar makers whose loves and lives are played out against the backdrop of America in the midst of the Depression."