Pregones/PRTT And The SOL Project Announce SOLFEST 2023

Pregones/Puerto Rican Traveling Theater (Pregones/PRTT) in partnership with The Sol Project announces the full details for the sixth annual SolFest: A Latiné Theatre Festival. The five-day program runs August 27-31 with both online and in-person events including four evenings of live programming at PRTT in Manhattan (304 W 47th Street, New York, NY 10036). Admission is free with RSVP at solproject.org or pregonesprtt.org.

The festival will kick off with the second annual SolFest Picnic in the Park on Sunday, August 27, followed by four days of Latiné work, including works in progress, short pieces, solo and ensemble work, panels and screenings. The festival's readings will take place in the heart of the theater district at Pregones/PRTT theater. 

“SolFest has consistently brightened the NYC summer arts calendar with standout talent, multigenerational perspectives, and the giddy joys of theater makers and theater lovers coming together. The feel is welcoming, familiar, and celebratory, and programs are always bold and ambitious in the range of voices, themes, and aesthetics represented,” said Arnaldo J. López, Pregones/PRTT's Managing Director. “Year six is no exception, harboring readings from brand new plays, film screenings, artist panels and public conversations, and more. We are proud to partner with The Sol Project and North Star Projects to continue bringing true Latiné know-how to our Times Square/Broadway neighborhood.” 

“We are honored to partner with Pregones/Puerto Rican Traveling Theater and North Star Projects to continue bringing bold and exciting new Latiné work to our vibrant community and to continue working with community partners like PlayPenn to help amplify the work of Latiné playwrights,” shared Co-Artistic Director of The Sol Project and SolFest Producer Adriana Gaviria. “Each year, SolFest brings us all together in community, dialogue and celebration of Latiné work. Curated within a culture of care framework, this year's programming explores calling upon our ancestors and to our own inner self to find healing, nourishment and forward momentum."

The five-day program is also realized in collaboration with North Star Projects, a community partner since 2020. This year's festival will also feature the Sol Project's first collaboration with the Philadelphia-based organization, PlayPenn, an artist-driven organization dedicated to the development of new plays and playwrights. Additionally, SolFest will welcome the inaugural cohort of playwrights from the Latinx Playwrights Circle Summer Jam and will include the inaugural North Star Projects Latiné ShortsFest, an in-person screening of short films featuring Latiné filmmakers.

The programming for SolFest 2023 will include the following:

Sunday, August 27 at 3 p.m. ET

SolFest Picnic in the Park

The second SolFest Picnic in the Park kicks off this year's festival. Join this community and celebration in Central Park which marks the sixth year of SolFest, and meet some of the artists participating in this year's festival.

RSVP is required at solproject.org

Monday, August 28

North Star Projects: Art Share Evening 

In-person at PRTT (Manhattan)

Watch on northstarprojects.org

Monday, August 28 at 7 p.m. ET

MONOLOGUES AND SHORT WORKS

Written by the 2023 LPC Summer Jam Playwright Fellows: 

Peggy Robles-Alvarado, Phillip Gregory Burke, Adrian Costa, Diego Lanao, Tanya Perez, Nilsa Reyna, Jaymes Sanchez, Daniela Thome, Rebbekah Vega-Romero and Andrew Aaron Valdez.

Directed by: Karina Batchelor, Kathleen Capdesuñer, Adriana Gaviria, Katherine George, and Mino Lora.

An evening of monologues and short scenes featuring the work of the inaugural cohort of playwrights from the Latinx Playwrights Circle Summer Jam, a week-long writers' workshop led by program director Darrel Alejandro Holnes (SolFest 2019 Playwright) which provides fellows with an opportunity to delve into the business of playwriting and elevate their craft. The readings will be followed by a post show panel with the playwrights. The LPC Summer Jam was presented in partnership with the Dramatists Guild of America this past month, July 23-28.

Monday, August 28 at 8:30 p.m. ET

NSP Latiné ShortsFest (NSPLSF) 

Presented by North Star Projects

Curated By Andrés Nicolás Chaves and Adriana Gaviria

In-person at Quad Cinema (34 W 13th St, New York, NY 10011)

RSVP is required at solproject.org 

Join us for our inaugural NSP Latiné ShortsFest during SolFest! The evening will include seven short films featuring Latiné filmmakers Andrés Nicolás Chaves, Emma Cuba, Andrew Garcia, Eunis Levis, Juan Pablo Palacios Zuñiga, Emilio Subía, and Melina Valdez followed by a short conversation with the artists.

Tuesday, August 29

In-person at PRTT (Manhattan) 

Tuesday, August 29 at 7 p.m.

READING: Publik Private

Written by eppchez yo-sí yes

Directed by Santiago Iacinti

Some private things have to be made public if we want to live—in the way that our bodies become public when we go outside, where we will be perceived. Publik Private grapples with the past, as the protagonist attempts to reconcile their ancestors' own gender expansiveness with the roles those same ancestors played in erasing queerness through colonization and genocide.

Wednesday, August 30

In-person at PRTT (Manhattan) 

 
Wednesday, August 30 at 7 p.m.

READING: Excerpt of bala.fruta./bullet.fruit.

Written and performed by Jesús I. Valles 

My first bullet burrowed through the head of a would-be Mexican president, a seed, stretched root-systems of street blocks, through a school hallway, a dance club, a Wal-Mart, killing grounds made sapling's feast, made soil of my head and bloomed there, into these words, into my living.” A harvest of bullets and the fruits they yield, bala.fruta./bullet.fruit. is a meditation on what it means to make life possible in the shadow of the gun, to ask, “What is the opposite of a bullet?”

READING: Red Eyes

Written by Michael León

Directed by Estefanía Fadul

For Carlos, sexual desires come with terrifying results—the visions of a haunting Red-Eyed figure. After a surprising blowout at the grocery store prompts his fiance to put their wedding on hold, Carlos unwillingly seeks help for his volatile outburst. As he takes a journey backward, Carlos unlocks repressed memories of toxic masculinity, childhood trauma, and insurmountable grief.

SPECIAL EVENT: 

Post-Show Aftercare Discussion With Poet and Facilitator Paul LaTorre in collaboration with Robleswrites Productions Inc.

Paul LaTorre, known on stages as Paul con Queso, is a professor, publisher, performing poet, host, facilitator of workshops and healing spaces, activist and advocate from Newark, NJ. His work as a poet and facilitator centers healing, especially for masculine identities. He believes in trauma-informed teaching and much of his work centers around the intersection of survivorship and mental health. 

Robleswrites Productions Inc. is a 501c3 organization that creates literary events that foster intergenerational communal healing, literacy, creativity, and equity for the Bronx and beyond by supporting and publishing writers of color with a special focus on women writers. Learn more at robleswritesproductions.com.

Thursday, August 31

In-person at PRTT (Manhattan)

Thursday, August 31 at 7 p.m.

READING: Excerpt of Picked Up

Written by Alexis Elisa Macedo

Directed by Adriana Gaviria

As a mom too young and taken too soon, Maricela's been twisted by her mother-in-law into a blueprint of what mistakes not to make for her daughter Cynthia. But, when their not-so-little girl returns home from her first semester away at college, and with her boyfriend, “Jorge,” on her arm…her father Juan is worried that Cynthia is paying the price of his unwillingness to stand up to his mother, and defend the love of his life.

READING: Excerpt of Lottery Boy

Written by Edwin Sanchez

Directed by Jorge B. Merced

To quote Cyndi Lauper

Money changes everything

I said money, money changes everything

We think we know what we're doin'

We don't know a thing

It's all in the past now

Money changes everything

You're a 15-year-old boy living in a trailer.  Overnight you become a multimillionaire, but you have to keep it a secret or risk losing it.  What do you do? of the American theater. Rosalba Rolón, Artistic Director. Alvan Colón Lespier and Jorge B. Merced, Associate Artistic Directors. www.pregonesprtt.org

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