The Sol Project Unveils Complete Programming for SOLFEST 2023

 The Sol Project has revealed full details for the sixth annual SolFest: A Latiné Theatre Festival, produced in partnership withPregones/Puerto Rican Traveling Theater (Pregones/PRTT). 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 to all events is free with RSVP at  solproject.org or pregonesprtt.org.

“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 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.

 

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.

 

“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.”

 

The programming for SolFest 2023 will include the following:

Sunday August 27 at 3 p.m. ET

SolFest Picnic in the Park

SolFest kicks off the festival with our second SolFest Picnic in the Park. Come join us in community and celebration in Central Park for our sixth year of SolFest, and meet some of the artists participating in this year's festival.

RSVP 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-Alavarado, 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.

 

Join us for 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 Street, New York, NY 10011)

RSVP 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 atrobleswritesproductions.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?

 

To RSVP for in-person events and for the most up to date  information on SolFest, visit the Sol Project’s website at www.solproject.org. Events are free and open to the general public. All online events will be viewable at northstarprojects.org with certain segments available to watch on Facebook Live and YouTube.

 

ABOUT PREGONES/PUERTO RICAN TRAVELING THEATER

Pregones/Puerto Rican Traveling Theater (Pregones/PRTT) is a multigenerational performing ensemble, multidiscipline arts presenter, and owner/steward of bilingual arts facilities in The Bronx and Manhattan. Our mission is to champion a Puerto Rican/Latinx cultural legacy of universal value through creation and performance of original plays and musicals, exchange and partnership with other artists of merit, and engagement of diverse audiences. Pregones was founded in 1979 when a group of artists led by Rosalba Rolón set out to create and tour new works in the style of Caribbean and Latin American colectivos or performing ensembles. Established as a Bronx resident company five years later, Pregones remains in the vanguard of an arts renaissance radiating throughout and beyond The Bronx today. Spurred by stage and film icon Miriam Colón, PRTT was founded in 1967 as one of the first bilingual theater companies in all the U.S. It is credited for nurturing the development of hundreds of Latinx theater artists, legitimating creative connections throughout the Spanish-speaking world, and pioneering models for genuine and lasting community engagement. Following the merger in 2014, our New York season plays a decisive role in empowering underrepresented artists and audiences to claim a place at the front of the American theater. Rosalba Rolón, Artistic Director. Alvan Colón Lespier and Jorge B. Merced, Associate Artistic Directors. www.pregonesprtt.org

ABOUT NORTH STAR PROJECTS

North Star Projects is a new arts initiative whose mission is to create a better world, one project at a time, by engendering experiences that empower, inspire, and build community through various platforms including live events and digital media. Founded by Producing Artistic Director Adriana Gaviria, North Star Projects works in partnership with artists, cultural leaders, organizations and leading theaters around the country to make a positive social impact in our communities on a local, regional and national level. www.northstarprojects.org

 

ABOUT PLAYPENN

PlayPenn is a Philadelphia artist-driven organization dedicated to the development of new plays and playwrights. PlayPenn fully supports the needs of the writer and the demands of the play in an ever-evolving process within which playwrights can engage in risk taking, boundary-pushing work. (https://www.playpenn.org)

 

ABOUT THE SOL PROJECT

 

The Sol Project is an Obie-award winning national theater initiative dedicated to amplifying the voices of Latiné playwrights in NYC and beyond. Founded by Jacob G. Padrón and driven by an artistic collective, The Sol Project works in partnership with leading theaters to center Latiné dramatists and nurture a growing community of Latiné theater artists. With the writers they champion, The Sol Project aspires to create a bold, timeless, and kaleidoscopic body of work for the new American theater.

 

The Sol Project launched in 2016 with the world premiere of Alligator by Hilary Bettis in collaboration with New Georges, followed by the New York premieres of Seven Spots on the Sun by Martín Zimmerman (Rattlestick Playwrights Theater) and Oedipus El Rey by LuisAlfaro (The Public Theater). In the fall of 2018, The Sol Project collaborated with Yale Repertory Theatre to produce the world premiere of El Huracán by Charise Castro Smith and in early 2020 partnered with Baltimore Center Stage and The Playwrights Realm to produce the world premiere of Richard & Jane & Dick & Sally by Noah Diaz. In 2022, The Sol Project partnered with Soho Rep for the world premiere of Notes on Killing Seven Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Board Members by Mara Vélez Meléndez. In the spring of 2023, The Sol Project partnered with MCC Theater for the world premiere of Bees & Honey by Guadalís Del Carmen, as well as WP  Theater and Latinx Playwrights Circle for the Off-Broadway premiere of Sancocho by Christin Eve Cato. In addition to productions, The Sol Project advances its mission by producing a yearly new play festival, SolFest, in partnership with Pregones/Puerto Rican Traveling Theater, while also supporting writers through readings, workshops, a podcast (SolTalk), and ongoing symposia. In 2023, The Sol Project was awarded an Obie Grant, Off-Broadway's highest honor, for their unprecedented championing and support of Latiné voices in the theater and in recognition of outstanding achievement in Off-Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway theater during the 2020-2022 season.

 

The artistic collective includes Adriana Gaviria (Co-Artistic Director, SolFest Producer), Rebecca Martínez, David Mendizábal, Jacob G. Padrón (Co-Artistic Director), Julian Ramirez, and Laurie Woolery. George Strus is the Artistic Producer. Isabel Pask is the Producing Associate. Brian Herrera is the Resident Scholar. Stephanie Ybarra is the Resident Dramaturg. Kaelani Burja is our Student Intern and SolFest Dramaturg, and John Venegas Juarez is the 2023 Sol Summer Intern. Karina Batchelor is the visiting 2023 SolFest Dramaturg.

 

FOR MORE INFORMATION, VISIT

WWW.SOLPROJECT.ORG

   

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