i eventually through my relationship with danny glover pulled it out of my drawers -- out of the drawer, desk drawer, and read it and danny was instrumental in saying, let's do this. let's just do this. but, again, it was me working with some african american actors and i actually had it vetted by august wilson, read it and checked it out for me and there's another fellow who wrote soldier's story, charles fuller, took a look at it for me. i wanted to make sure my bases were covered. but this new play, what i did was, i feel comfortable writing the characters, but you are never sure. one thing that happened was steven anthony jones helped me a great deal with the african american character. we took it to sundance and what happens when you go to sundance is you bring some actors and some are given to you. i hadn't worked with the actors who we teamed up with at sundance, both excellent actors but people we didn't know so we didn't have a working relationship. there were moments where we worked where i could tell that the fellow, in particular, wasn't happy with his character because i ha

send our prayers to rudy and his family, and lastly but not least we -- leastly, but dannty -- danny gloveras agreed to be one of our grand marshals this year. we are very pleased to have danny. so without further ado, i want to introduce isabelle barassa. isabelle? >> sorry, i just got lipstick on him. he is all pissed now. i am not been with microphones, but i do want to give a shout out. everybody works very, very hard, and they are getting ready for a beautiful carnaval parade. pass the word around. it is the best show on the west coast. i also want to say hello to the mission cultural center, which is the contingent's i will be dancing with. without further ado, we have a wonderful king and queen of the carnaval contest, and i want to introduce them. one has been dancing hula professionally for five years. i am sorry, i will pronounced this as best as i can. under the direction of patrick. he has been practicing yoga for six years and is a certified massage therapist. he participated in his first carnaval with latin dance grooves at the mission cultural center. a dancer and teacher in