Smile

What makes Ka’Lena Cuevas smile? “Only the worst cliches come to mind when trying to answer this question, but it reminds me of one of my favorite Shakespeare plays: ‘The robbed that smiles, steals something from the thief,’” said the Fishers resident, who is often found producing local community theater productions. On Monday, she earned Encore Association’s award for Best Production of a Drama for Main Street Productions’ “August: Osage County,” directed by Brent Wooldridge, at Basile Westfield Playhouse, during the 54th annual Encore Awards at The Toby Theatre in Indianapolis. In 2022, she earned Encore Association’s 2022 Awards for Best Production of a Comedy for the playhouse’s “Rumors” and Best Production of a Drama for the Playhouse’s “Mice and Men.” Before that, she earned Best Production of a Comedy for the Playhouse’s 2019 “Lie, Cheat and Genuflect.” She recently was producer of Main Street Productions’ “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street,” directed by Andrea Odle. She was also recently co-producer with Joni Corbett of Noblesville Cultural Arts Commission’s Noblesville Shakespeare in the Park comedy, “As You Like It,” in September. Cuevas, who recently gave birth to a baby boy, was born and raised in New York City (Chelsea, Manhattan) and when she was a teenager moved with her family to Oahu, Hawaii, until she left for college, “which is what brought me here (to Indiana),” said Cuevas, who graduated from DePauw University. After finishing grad school on the East Coast, she moved to Indianapolis, then Fishers. Why theater? “I’ve always loved theater. My parents would take my siblings and me to Broadway and Off-Broadway shows growing up in NYC, and I still remember those,” said Cuevas, who took acting and playwriting classes in college and majored in English. Read more about the Encore Awards in the Betsy Reason column in today’s edition of The Times.