Cuenca's expat theatre scene has a habit of punching above its weight, and Azuay Community Theater's new production of Driving Miss Daisy is a good example. The Pulitzer Prize-winning play — later an Oscar-winning film — runs from October 23 to November 1 at ACT's theatre at 14-46 Antonio Vega Muñoz, directed by founding member Deana Culp.

The play needs a strong trio, and this one has it. Cody Hamilton, who takes on Daisy, has been performing for five decades: trained as a dancer, she moved into acting in New Mexico and Denver, joined SAG and AFTRA in 1986, and picked up TV credits including Perry Mason and Father Dowling Mysteries alongside some 30 stage lead roles. A career as a high school counsellor later took her to Bahrain, Taipei, Prague, Cyprus and Bangkok — and she kept acting everywhere. She and her husband settled in Cuenca in 2011, and she's since appeared in 16 ACT productions, with roles in Harvey, It Had to Be You and The Prisoner of Second Avenue among her favourites.

Ernest Whaley, playing chauffeur Hoke, arrives via a less conventional route: Motown and Top 40 bands in New England and Southern California in the 1960s and '70s — with a brush against the early Van Halen brothers — then opera roles in Porgy and Bess and Così fan tutte, followed by a corporate stint training aerospace engineers that he now jokes was useful acting practice. In Cuenca he fronts the band Synergy, mixing pop, blues and Ray Charles at venues like Bistro Yaku.

The third lead, Larry Bilsky, is the late bloomer of the bunch. He retired to Cuenca in 2023, auditioned for ACT's Harvey after years of Toastmasters public speaking, and has since racked up six roles in two years — fittingly, since his character Boolie runs a company and Bilsky once managed a printing business.

For visitors and residents alike, it's a chance to see a genuinely accomplished English-language production in a UNESCO World Heritage city better known for colonial churches and café culture than community theatre. Show times are 3 p.m. on October 23-25 and October 31-November 1, with a 7 p.m. performance on October 30. Tickets are at actseats.com, the theatre sits between Coronel Talbot and Estevez de Toral, and parking nearby is free — easy to pair with a stroll through the historic centre afterwards.