Class Is In Session! Go Inside Opening Night of LATIN HISTORY FOR MORONS

Hello, I'm Richard Ridge for Broadway World

Emmy Award winner John Leguizamo is back on Broadway with this new one-man show called Latin History for Morons

and I caught up with John just minutes after his opening night curtain rang down

So, yo, tonight's lesson is Latin History for Morons. And that's you

What do we got? Mayans, right, at 1,000 BC. And what is this

The age of pit bull? Who would have thought that colonization could be so much fun

For 50 years, my mom's been serving leftovers, and to this day, no one's ever found the original meal

Attackers! We is all the same blood. I'm not going to risk my life in this perfect hairdo just to be a corporal, right

So now I'm a self-profess ghetto. Scala, halla, hoooo! Congratulations, it is your Broadway opening tonight

How does it feel? Wow, it feels like, well, it's so shocking that you've made it here again

because you don't know if you're going to make it again. You know, you just hope. And then here we are, and so much planning, so much work

And you're like, and you're there, and it just comes over you, like a wave. And I'm here with my family, my friends, loved ones

people that, my comrades who worked really hard with me to get here. And you just feel like, wow, we did it, man, we did it

I met your wife and your daughter on the carpet tonight. What a gorgeous family you have

And I was asking them, what was it like living at home when you were working on this show

What was it like for you? Well you know I kept it secret from them for four years which is really tough But I wanted to make sure it was perfect before they saw it I didn want him to you know be offended by it or take it the wrong way So I waited So I was very secretive about it So I was like I don know I was like a spy living

at home. You're the smartest man in the room because not only do you laugh at your shows

through the humor, but you learn so much about so many things, family, humanity. What do you look

forward to when you're putting a show together? What do you want to achieve when an audience comes to

Well, I always want to move my audience. I want him to laugh a lot, obviously

but I definitely want him to feel something and to leave, I want to leave the world a better place somehow

Like when they come to see my plays, that they're better somehow, that they're more evolved

more elevated. I want to elevate. I want to evolve people, you know, so kind of my shows are that

I want you to come here and deal with emotions that you're not comfortable with

thoughts, premises you're not comfortable with, and I want you to look at yourself

and examine yourself. What have you enjoyed the most about working on this show

Well, I think dealing with the Latin history was incredible, man. It was mind-opening and knowledge is power

And I always thought that that was corny when I was a kid, but now I know it's so true

And also the people I was working with Tony Toconi, was a brilliant director, Oscar Eustis from the public

who's such an incredible mentor. I mean, I've had amazing people to work with

and just to be surrounded by these incredible, legendary folk is really shocking to me, man

It just makes you feel so honored to be around them. My final question was when you took your bow tonight, back on Broadway

with this beautiful show, do you remember what you were thinking? I was thinking, I'm sure my hair looks like shit

because I got so much chalk in it. I would look like an old troll

That's what I thought. We're glad to have you back, John. Good to see you, sir, as always