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Field NotesMarch 2001 Founded as a touring company in 1979, Pregones Theater became a resident company in the Bronx in 1982. A historically significant Puerto Rican community is the theater’s first target audience.
The company is named after a Spanish word for "street vendors’ chants." The image of immigrants peddling their goods in el barrio, rhyming in the playful declamatory style of el pregón, makes the new urban landscape a little more like home. This image, more than any other, captures the early spirit of the ensemble. Founding members Rosalba Rolón, Luis Meléndez and David Crommett recruited a smart group of artists to develop a touring repertory and to conduct theater workshops in churches, cultural centers, schools, trade unions and other community-based organizations in the Tri-State area. In 1986, after nearly seven years on the road, Pregones Theater was invited to occupy the old parish hall at St. Ann’s Episcopal Church in the then-embattled Morrisania neighborhood of the South Bronx. With help from countless local volunteers — businesses, seniors, parents and children alike — the space was converted into a fully equipped 120-seat theater and inaugurated with the original production of "Migrants! Cantata a los emigrantes." A nine-year tenure at St. Ann’s cemented Pregones’ reputation as a leading Latino arts producing and presenting organization. Twelve new stage works were premiered; the company’s Main Stage, Visiting Artists and Teatro Matinee programs were formalized; and two installments of the international Teatro Festival were also hosted. Special projects addressed AIDS, adult literacy and the arts needs of urban youth. Pregones championed the cause of accessible arts and culture programs and is still cited as an important contributor to the neighborhood’s ongoing revitalization. In 1994, a change in leadership at St. Ann’s prompted a strategic relocation. Confident in their growing community base — both local and regional — the company moved its operations just two miles west of Morrisania. As a way to avoid interruptions in the production calendar, the artists also secured a two-year interim residency at the Repertory Theater of the Hostos Center for the Arts and Culture. The 367-seat venue, an integral part of Hostos Community College, yielded Pregones Theater an impressive 40% increase at the box office and helped create a buzz about their soon-to-be-opened studio. Centrally located at 700 Grand Concourse, just south of Yankee Stadium and north of the Hostos complex, Pregones Studio opened in 1997. For more than four years, the 2,500 sq. ft., 50-seat facility — complete with dressing room, concessions area and adjacent administrative offices — was known as the city’s most intimate stage, devoted to all manner of Latino performing arts. The walls were lined with numerous awards, honors, still photographs, posters, stage props and works of art. The place had a distinct and familiar air. Touring works premiered there first. Performances were followed by open dialogue receptions, offering a unique opportunity for audiences and artists to mingle. The studio doubled as the de facto repository of a 22-year history in Latino theater, and became a place to which ever-growing audiences turned for a variety of culturally relevant programs and orientation. Recently relocated to 571-575 Walton Avenue, just two blocks southwest from its former address, Pregones Theater continues to run a full range of artistic and administrative programs. A new capital campaign toward the purchase of the property and the construction of a 200-seat theater is underway. On the whole, Pregones Theater works to:
Arts-centered Community Outreach Pregones Theater is an advocate for arts-centered community outreach. The ensemble emphatically states that there is no substitute for the contributions made to a community by professional artists and arts organizations. As illustrated in the company’s mission statement, arts-centered outreach obeys the twin rigors of artistic vocation and commitment to community. Gross media characterizations and an ever-encroaching urban development (with its concomitant displacement of ethnic-minority and working-class populations) make arts-centered outreach a real and urgent concern for Latino artists in New York. Arts-centered outreach also means earning the trust of a community by integrating them actively into an audience and addressing their lives intelligently on stage. A strong, intimate bond between the artists and the community/audience is required. For this bond to emerge, the ensemble believes, both artists and community must share a common cultural history. Exhuming, questioning and interpreting a shared history is part of what arts-centered outreach sets out to do. To this end, Pregones Theater hosts post-performance forums, receptions and moderated discussions; conducts performing-arts workshops and master classes; and participates in local civic forums. These and other related activities are designed to engage the community in a lasting dialogue about the arts, culture and society. Community/Audience Since its earliest days, Pregones Theater has been sensitive to a rapidly diversifying Latino demographic in the New York metro area. Pregones’ multinational and multiethnic Latino ensemble is representative of the rapid growth of U.S. Latino and new immigrant populations. A mix of seasoned and younger professionals ensures artistic renovation and organizational continuity. The company also maintains close ties with schools, senior centers, business bureaus, community boards, youth clubs, sports/recreation centers and other arts/civic organizations. The Latino artists of Pregones Theater do not make formal distinctions between community and home audience. Statistically, 85% of all company patrons are Latino — mostly Puerto Ricans, Dominicans and Central Americans, ranging from middle- to low-income. Many of them travel to, send money to and/or have close family in the country of origin. Of the remainder, 15% are Anglo- and African-American; 55% live in the Bronx and 45% come from Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens and adjacent areas. Touring residencies reach upstate New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and nationwide. Gender breakdown is roughly 60% female and 40% male. Youths (ages 12-25) make up 25% of all audiences. It is worth noting that Latino communities in the U.S. define themselves in largely cultural terms, and that Latinos will often travel outside their immediate geography for relevant arts and cultural events. A Latino community convenes at Pregones because the ensemble’s work helps, in turn, to make sense of their Latino lives. The scarcity of quality arts programs "by Latinos, for Latinos" is still painfully evident. The ensemble believes that Latinos are tired of rampant stereotyping, and stunned by the cultural myopia of all but a handful of performing-arts programs. Pregones Theater was for a long time the only Latino professional theater company in the Bronx. They were invited to settle in the Morrisania neighborhood of the South Bronx on the merits of a seven-year professional trajectory. The residency at St. Ann’s meant creating a theater audience where there was none, cultivating a sense of community among people who had been denied it for a long time. The ensemble partnered with the church under the progressive rectorship of Father Roberto Morales in 1986. The ensemble says that when it moved again, in 1994, the audiences followed. Today’s Latinos move between home cultures and geographical points much in the same way they move between English and Spanish — sometimes with ease, sometimes with apprehension. Opportunities to test the meanings of bilingualism, citizenship and fair employment, to name the obvious, are more important than ever. The artists of Pregones Theater want their work to be such an opportunity. Not, as they emphatically point out, because art is a solution to a problem, but because the people demand arts programs as a laboratory for their own ideas. Programs and Projects Together with the company’s mission statement, the programs and projects listed below nicely underscore the arts-centered community outreach framework.
Artistic Methodologies The work of Pregones Theater is rooted in a long and distinguished tradition of Latin American theater. The founding members of the company were professionally trained in Puerto Rico. They were among the second wave of professional theater artists leaving the island for New York in the 1960s and 1970s.
In its formative years, the ensemble sought professional enrichment opportunities in Cuba, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico and Europe. Its methodological framework belongs with the Brechtian-socialist aesthetics of Augusto Boal (Brazil), Enrique Buenaventura (Colombia) and Osvaldo Dragún (Argentina). Dragún’s early theses on theater and community, dating from the 1960s, are an important antecedent. The collective, politically charged, experimental works of Latin American teatro popular and nuevo teatro are equally influential. These two movements also spawned a vital, ongoing network of regional and international theater festivals in which Pregones Theater continues to participate. The touchstone of Pregones’ methodology, the element that first distinguishes its work, is arts-centered community outreach. Once the company obtained residence in the Bronx, once the artists got in tune with the exigencies of Latino New York, the theoretical basis and training come to fruition. Schools, churches, union halls and sports/recreation centers were among the places where Pregones initially sought a public, luring them with familiar Spanish accents and shocking them, perhaps, with sometimes melancholy, sometimes uproarious theater. Members of the company participated actively in all aspects of Latino life. At this time, a series of workshops was designed to incorporate diverse Latino audiences in the Tri-State area. Pantomime, movement and voice exercises were mixed with elementary testimonial and improvisational performance. These bilingual workshops also served as a method for the ensemble to begin collecting the unofficial documents of Puerto Rican/Latino migration and settlement in the U.S. Gossip and grapevine, poems and literary fragments quoted by heart, old popular songs and many a love letter surfaced in the process. Together with the more traditional record-keeping of the U.S. government and the national press, these would become the backbone of Pregones’ original repertory. "Adaptaciones/Adaptations" is Pregones Theater’s signature methodological workshop, a primer of the company's approach to literary adaptations. The workshop was conceived as an exercise in collective pedagogy. Addressing questions of fidelity to the original source, collage and improvisation, the original workshop focused on narrative prose. Subsequent installments have grown to include poetry, historical and popular sources, and the role of movement and music in Latino theater. The company’s repertory comprises more than 40 works, including original scripts, adaptations and new stagings. The centrality of musical and choreographic elements in Pregones’ stage work has also led to the design of original exercises to help unfold a production’s visual and rhythmic character. Actors, dancers and musicians will prepare or sometimes improvise a melody or a dance sequence. The ensemble’s talents will be put to the test across the disciplines. More keenly aware of each other’s abilities, the artists will then go on to fuse textual and extra-textual materials. Pregones’ brand of musical theater is drawn out of that collective process. For this reason, a play by Pregones Theater is always much more than a printed script and a matching score. The Creative Process Step-by-step 1. The ensemble makes all major programming decisions collectively. An idea for a new play is often presented by one ensemble member, who collects supporting materials and gives an informal presentation. The period immediately following a presentation is rich in dialogue. How does the proposal fit in the current repertory? What artistic challenges and innovations does it present? Directors, actors, musicians, designers and technicians consult jointly. If the company does not decide within a three-week period, the project is set aside. If a production deadline is imminent, the company falls back on current repertory. 2. Once a proposal is approved the artistic and associate directors propose a cast/auditions protocol and a production team (including dramaturgy). Copies of the script and/or project proposal are distributed. A general meeting follows in two weeks. The ensemble discusses the mood of the piece. Each artist leaves the meeting with an outline for independent research. 3. The ensemble and collaborating artists agree (a) to review initial set, costumes and light design; (b) to audition the composer’s first musical setting; and (c) to assign a production schedule to the script. 4. A rehearsal schedule is announced, including developmental exercises, open rehearsals/discussions (if applicable), and opening date. Formal presentations from the designers and musicians are due on the second full day of rehearsal. Administrative Structure and Activity Pregones Theater is led by a full-time artistic team that consists of an artistic director and two associate directors. Support staff includes a full-time general manager, a full-time administrative assistant, a part-time financial manager, a part-time development associate, and two part-time custodians. The company has a board of directors that may be characterized as community-based; members are active in the educational, artistic and service sectors. Volunteers are recruited by the board and office staff for special events, mailings and as ushers and attendants. The artistic director supervises all fundraising efforts. The current organizational budget (2001) is $700,000 plus a supplementary cash reserve fund. The reserve helps Pregones anchor its operations in the face of irregular funding patterns (both public and private), rapidly growing audiences, expanded seasonal programs, growing touring repertory and ongoing collaborations (both regional and national). Escalating administrative responsibilities are a pressing concern for the artistic leadership. The directors spend a considerable amount of time in grant writing, program coordination and marketing, among other things. Although the ensemble has found a way to safeguard its artistic productivity, the directors worry that artistic growth inevitably aggravates the administrative loads. In 1999, Pregones Theater hired a part-time development Associate in grant writing as a way to alleviate the administrative bottleneck and also increase the fundraising output. Other management solutions have included the redistribution of administrative duties among support staff, the contracting of professional services such as publications design and printing, and the appointment of a part-time project manager. Associations Pregones is a member/partner of the National Performance Network (NPN), The Association of Performing Arts Presenters (APAP) and the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture (NALAC). Rosalba Rolón is chair of the board for NALAC. She sits on decision-making panels for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). Alvan Colón Lespier sits on panels for the Arts Partners Program. Jorge B. Merced sits on panels for the New York State Council for the Arts (NYSCA). The directors also sit on panels for Arts International. The company maintains long standing associations with GALA Theater (Washington, D.C.), AMLA-Asociación de Músicos Latino Americanos, Painted Bride Arts Center and Taller Puertorriqueño (Philadelphia), IBA-Arts and Culture Program of Inquilinos Boricuas en Acción (Boston), Junebug Productions (New Orleans), Roadside Theater and Appalshop (Whitesburg, Ky.), Hostos Center for the Arts and The Point CDC (Bronx), The Puerto Rican Traveling Theater, Repertorio Español and LATEA (Manhattan). Personal Reflections 1. Two modest signs announce Pregones Studio above the Nationwide Furniture Warehouse on the Grand Concourse. A long stretch of residential buildings fades to the north and an odd cluster of garages, restaurants and schools spills south. The ground is slick with morning rain and motor oil. To reach the main entrance, I must wind my way around two 18-wheelers parked over the sidewalk and wait for heavy traffic to let up. A woman pushes a baby carriage ahead of me while two teenage boys wait their turn on the other side. I will later think of it as a snapshot of urban obstacles and courtesies common to the neighborhood. Home to Yankee Stadium, the County Courthouse, Lincoln Hospital and Hostos College, this stretch of the Grand Concourse stays open nearly 24-7. The steady transit makes the vicinity dear to the entrepreneurial hope of the Bronx Empowerment Zone. Borough officials envision a booming commercial district fueled by local residents, professionals and community-based organizations. Unlike Mayor Giuliani’s megastore strategy, the plan calls for a programmatic effort to help incubate and develop local enterprise. In the South Bronx, that means Blacks and Latinos getting a fair share of the prize. It entails lending a helping hand to established merchants and recruiting upstarts locally. Besides the ubiquitous McDonald’s and Staples, I see a growing network of shops, schools and local service providers boosting the Empowerment Zone economy. Together with professional arts and culture organizations, they are key players in a new Bronx Renaissance. Pregones Associate Director Alvan Colón Lespier was among the first group of artists to address the cultural interests of Empowerment Zone residents. Brought on board by the Bronx Council for the Arts, he and other advocates rallied for a fully integrated arts-and-humanities component for the EZ blueprint. They proposed integrating the borough’s diverse cultural capital, making space for the arts in the zone’s priority list. Artists sought to establish mechanisms that would allow them to keep up with the projected growth. With increased jobs, services and housing, the borough should expect a rise in demand for relevant arts and culture programs. How, for instance, would it meet the growing arts needs of 650,000 Bronx Latinos? With half these thoughts in tow, I step into a short corridor and peer through a glass door to my left. Two chairs, a broom and three big rolls of purple fabric sit in the middle of an otherwise empty room. The floor and walls are stripped bare. I put my hand to the glass to confirm the space is not heated. I will later learn that the room serves as an alternate rehearsal space when productions are too big for the studio upstairs. An hourly rental fee makes it inconvenient, but the extra room is indispensable when dealing with large sets. Down the hall, I find a door emblazoned with the Teatro Pregones logo and press the button captioned "Ring Me." Once buzzed into the theater there are two flights of red carpet. Posters and production pictures, awards and announcements, take up nearly all the wall space. Postcards and newspapers are neatly stacked on a table. The words "Join Our Mailing List" identify a boxful of paper and pencils. On show dates, this tiny hallway will be congested and abuzz with laughter. Today it’s quiet and the box-office window remains closed. I'm ushered into the main office by Administrative Assistant Priscilla Aguilar. Pregones’ business operations occupy two large and rather crowded rooms. There is some formality to the place, but not a studied sort. Stacks of paper are witness to tireless activity. The staff greets me affectionately. They know I'm wearing my documentor hat today and we get to joke about it a bit. It’s been nearly four years since my first visit to Teatro Pregones. I was first seduced with their stage adaptation of a story by Puerto Rican gay writer Manuel Ramos Otero. "El bolero fue mi ruina" is rapturous theater. Passionate, funny and meticulously staged, it had all the features of what I would later recognize as the company’s style. I must have purchased five consecutive admissions. That was in the spring of 1997, when the company inaugurated the 50-seat performance studio. I remember my sense of discovery at what seemed then, and seems now, the liveliest of audiences. Here I have met New Yorkers and out of towners, adults and teenagers, artists, theater buffs and folks whose only experience of theater is Teatro Pregones. Many of them are bilingual or, if not, then eager to immerse themselves in a language nearly synonymous with Latino culture. They are quick to laugh and applaud and sing along with little beckoning. Other times, they are solemn. None of the ritual of theater is wasted on them. Before and after a performance, they fill the room with excited voices, cluster around Pregones’ make-believe bar, El Susurro, and wait for the artists to come out. On a really good night, they drink wine and beer and soda pop and threaten never to leave. What drives them? What brings them together? What makes them return? 2. In order to understand the audience that supports Teatro Pregones, it helps to think of the company’s 22-year trajectory as a Puerto Rican arts organization. During this period the ensemble builds an artistic repertory concerned with questions of self-determination, identity, displacement, continuity and belonging. At a time when the preoccupations of many social movements starts to look quaint from a distance, a band of boricua theater poets takes to the streets with a message of cultural affirmation. Others did the same. They wished to counter the widening yawn of indifference with their own stories. The artists of Teatro Pregones spent their first four years together (1979-1982) touring the Northeast region with a clever theatrical review compiled from more than 100 years of Puerto Rican drama. The work mixed the serious with the humorous, the traditional with the contemporary, the laudatory with the irreverent. Simply titled "La colección" ("The Collection") it proved instantly popular with largely Puerto Rican audiences in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania. Promoted by word of mouth, the show found its way into churches, trade unions, schools and community stages. It is there, in the scattered geography of the Latino Northeast, somewhere in between the home and the workplace, that Pregones first found a loyal public. The early touring phase extended through 1986. New stage productions and an innovative series of theater workshops sustained Pregones’ professional promise and growing regional popularity. Wherever the ensemble went, they were the welcome ambassadors of Puerto Rican culture. Audiences greeted them like family, knowingly poised between the near-mythical island and the urban reality of diaspora. The ensemble returned the kindness with works that presented diverse, real-life experiences and a fertile imagination. A growing list of engagements with local partners, sponsors and presenters confirmed the notion that a professional theater can and should develop in close dialogue with community. Pregones’ identity as a grassroots theater comes out of a cultural identity and a history shared in common with its core audiences. Working in the tradition of Latin American popular theater, the ensemble elaborated its own arts-centered community outreach and advocacy. The nine years spent in the South Bronx neighborhood of Morrisania are fundamental in this regard. The ensemble had decided to take permanent residence in the Bronx as early as 1981. Artistic Director Rosalba Rolón cites a successful partnership with United Bronx Parents as one catalyst for the decision. Keenly aware of the vigor of the Puerto Rican community in the borough, the artists felt that the place was right for a professional arts enterprise such as Teatro Pregones. A year later the Bronx Council of the Arts asked the company to join the Longwood Arts Project. The artists obtained studio space at a vital arts facility and access to a diverse cross-section of the South Bronx population. Much of their early touring repertory was developed there. By the time Father Roberto Morales invited Teatro Pregones to St. Ann’s Episcopal Church in Morrisania, the ensemble was regarded as a Bronx institution. They had earned the trust of a sizeable Latino community and were well aware of the obstacles faced by many poor families in the area. The South Bronx was then emerging from years of arson and neglect. Inadequate housing, deficient schools, unemployment, gang violence, drugs, AIDS, culturally insensitive service agencies and irresponsible coverage from the national press painted a dismal picture. While absentee landlords and excitable commentators foamed at the mouth, Pregones went to work at St. Ann’s. It was the winter of 1986. Associate Director Jorge Merced joined the ensemble that same year. He recalls the excitement stirred by Pregones’ arrival at St. Ann’s. "I remember children and adults stopping by to say hello, to lend a helping hand, or simply to find out who the newcomers were. There was a great deal of curiosity and not a lot of shyness about getting involved. It did not take long for the neighborhood to adopt us. It felt like a homecoming." With help from the community and in-kind support from Hudson Scenic Studios proprietors Gene O’Donovan and Neill Mozella, Pregones turned the church’s old parish hall into a 120-seat theater. Fully rigged with professional lighting fixtures and sporting a vintage stage curtain retired from the set of "Cats," the house opened in November of 1987. Starting with the inaugural run of "Migrants!", the theater at St. Ann’s proved a hit. Audiences were tiny at first, but the word of mouth spread fast. Seats started to fill, the box office pulled a steady return. "Audiences were reluctant to take our tickets for free," recalls Rolón. "They demanded the formality of a financial transaction. We kept admissions affordable, but admired people’s proud determination to sponsor Pregones. It was a significant accomplishment for the both of us ... and we were awed." One has but to think of the scarcity of cultural resources available in the South Bronx to understand why residents would care so much about Teatro Pregones. Better yet, one ought to consider the role played by community in many of the programs conducted at St. Ann’s. In 1987, Pregones launched its Adult Literacy Theater Project, done in collaboration with the Bronx Office of Educational Services. The project consisted of a year-long theater workshop for adult students, culminating in the creation of an original play dealing with issues of literacy at home and in the workplace. The multiracial and multiethnic cast played to capacity audiences and was movingly captured in Diana Coryat’s short documentary video "Working a Dream." Pregones’ Youth Ensemble ran from 1987 to 1991, enlisting some 40 Latino children ages 12 to 18. Biweekly workshops surveyed the fundamentals of music, movement and gesture in the Latin American theater tradition. The Youth Ensemble produced four original plays based on the young actors’ personal experience and interests. Many of the participants went on to pursue formal schooling in the performing arts. In 1988, Pregones built a series of workshops based on "reminiscence theory" as part of an Elders Share the Arts initiative. For the next four years, the artists conducted on- and off-site classes for elderly Latinos and facilitated the creation of three original plays. Teatro Pregones at St. Ann’s also hosted two consecutive installments of ESA’s Living History Theater Festival, featuring the collaborative works of artists and elderly of diverse racial and ethnic background. "The Embrace" is another of Pregones’ celebrated theater and community projects. Conceived under the guidelines of Augusto Boal’s forum theater, it grew into a long catalogue of dramatic vignettes about AIDS among Latinos. An audience participation component yielded a new episode of the project with each showing. Underwritten by the Magic Johnson Foundation, the Ropoport Foundation, and the Borinquen Neighborhood Health Center in Spanish Harlem, "The Embrace" toured nontheatrical spaces in the Tri-State area from 1983 to 1994. Talking frankly about AIDS and tracing the contours of the crisis as it hit Latinos, the project made a novel contribution to the region’s AIDS prevention and education efforts. In 1990, and again in 1993, Teatro Pregones assembled a rich sampling of national and international stagecraft into Teatro Festival. Based on a Latin American theater festival model, the project featured multidisciplinary performances, workshops and scholarly symposia. Unlike other festival offerings in New York City, Teatro Festival gave center stage to Latino-U.S. artists and audiences. More than 20 renowned Latino artists and companies appeared in Teatro Festival. In addition to Teatro Pregones at St. Ann’s, festival venues included the Ollantay Center for the Arts, the Latin American Theater Experiment Associated (LATEA), Hostos College, INTAR Hispanic American Arts Center, Repertorio Español, and the Puerto Rican Traveling Theater. The success of Teatro Festival underscored a need to connect Latinos in New York with their brothers and sisters across the U.S. and abroad. Since the mid 1980s, when the nation still flinched at census projections for the year 2000 and well before the media cashed in on the so-called Latino Boom, Pregones sought to acknowledge the growth and diversification of Latino communities in the U.S. At St. Ann’s, they soon announced a Visiting Artists Series. Showcasing the cultural production of all Latinos, the program would give audiences a chance to interact with artists they may not otherwise travel to see. It would also give urban Latinos broader vistas about their heritage, about their talents, about their future. These and other programs promoted the cultural enrichment of the Bronx. In particular, plays, concerts, readings, workshops and many informal occasions to talk and make art gave Latino audiences new avenues for expression. An ongoing dialogue about the history, transit, and uses of art has since been a big part of Pregones’ work. 3. Experts use the term "translocal" to describe the unfixed geography of Latinos in the United States. Latino communities, they say, are never altogether of one place. The ties that bind will draw them in many different directions, pull them towards more than one home. Making community will often entail travel. It does not mean an inability or an unwillingness to stay put. Rather, it means drawing from significant sources near and far. I asked audience members where they came from and confirmed that it is not uncommon for people to travel a distance to visit Teatro Pregones. Upstate and out-of-state families make the trip regularly. Locals may wind their way from the far reaches of Queens or Brooklyn or Staten Island. In the Bronx alone, audiences are rarely limited to one vicinity. It is not so much where they live but where they meet, and why they meet, that matters. In New York, Puerto Ricans once clustered in El Barrio and Loisaida and the South Bronx. History gives these neighborhoods a mark of distinction. For longtime area residents, there’s pride in that history; for newcomers and visitors there’s awe, and gratitude, and inspiration. Because they define themselves in largely cultural terms, Latinos will include the cultural mecca in their imaginary geography of home. For Latinos in the Northeast, Teatro Pregones is one signal landmark. The ensemble has bridged distances between San Juan and New York, between local and regional, between boricua and Latino, for 22 years. "Years ago," said Abbe Torres, "ballet, theater and other fine cultural affairs were out of reach for the majority of the Spanish-speaking community. High prices and scarce information made people afraid of them. But thanks to Rosalba, Alvan, Jorge and the many others who dared to dream a theater for the so-called pobres — with affordable prices and close to home — we now have our own professional troupe dedicated to bringing us the best programs in words that we can understand." A similar sentiment was echoed by other members of the audience. People spoke of Pregones as an organization they can trust. Programming was repeatedly described as "genuine," "honest" and "true." Pressed to explain what those terms meant, individuals often referred me to false representations of Latino culture in mainstream media. With genuine fondness for a growing list of Latino pop icons, audiences were still quick to point out that Teatro Pregones was somehow closer to their own reality than most Hollywood or MTV fare. "They are more interested in real people like me," said a smiling 20-something from Jersey City. The "real people" of Teatro Pregones are folks with regular jobs, a modest income and an interest in Latino culture. These men and women see themselves as part of a Latino community that exceeds the geography of their day-to-day. More than once, I was assured that the immediate neighborhood is too literal a confine for the Latino community (it is bigger than the sum of its parts). This, in fact, is one of the reasons why they come to the theater. "I trust Pregones because they speak my language," offered one patron, "because I know they like to eat their tostones con mojito. That’s why I think people will come in here with their guards down — it’s safe. But it’s not just about that, it’s not like at the bodega or at the [Puerto Rican Day] parade. You’re not gonna leave the same way you came in." Audiences talked about the ensemble, and about its work, with an equal measure of respect and familiarity. Coming to Pregones for the first time was often described as "an awakening," "a discovery" or "a revelation." Some expressed interest in the theater because "it’s our culture;" "porque son del patio" [because they are homegrown], because "they have supertitles" or because "it takes me back to the days when I was younger and knew all the music and all the new dances." Many of them had seen Pregones at different venues and were familiar with the organization’s early history. Some worked as volunteers at the theater, participated in workshops, had children in Pregones classrooms at P.S./M.S. 95 in the Bronx, had seen Pregones outdoors in the summer, or had some other memory of the company. Several people reported watching Pregones on the local BronxNet television network, and one person remembered the company’s involvement in activism on behalf of Puerto Rican political prisoners. Many expressed fondness for the informal get-togethers following each performance at Pregones, and permitting audiences to talk directly with the artists and with each other. Lost in animated conversation is how they best like to remember their time at Pregones. "After a performance, I’m more likely to talk about the big picture," said Christina Rosado. "I prefer live theater to the movies because it is sure to address issues of relevance to me, issues that would otherwise go unnoticed. Live theater lets us see things as a community that we do not otherwise see." The notion that live theater connects audiences to a community different than is found on the streets intrigues me. At an audience reception held at the Hostos Art Gallery, I asked for the qualities of Pregones’ work that would best illustrate this other, seemingly greater Latino community. I learned that the houses, the streets, the familiar accents, the well-known rhythms, the aroma of fresh coriander and garlic, all these may be found at Pregones. Heartfelt stories of loss, frustration, discrimination, these may be found there too. Heroes and heroines, hope and retribution, love, faith and laughter, all these things called home, they’re at Pregones. Everyone seemed eager to share an opinion. They talked to me without embarrassment and drifted off with equal ease. I remember being struck by the elegance of the exchange. We talked, we questioned, we studied the art on exhibit (a retrospective of whimsical, sometimes alarming installations by Puerto Rican artist Anaida Hernández). Toward evening’s close, and with an arm paternally nested on my shoulder, one cheery patron offered to sum it all up. "I’ll tell you what I get from Pregones," he said, "some truth and a lot of good yarn." 4. Despite ample evidence of their belonging to community, the artists of Teatro Pregones voice a strong concern over the terms "grassroots" and "community-based." Specifically, they worry about the fundamental formulation of the grassroots theater matrix as struggle. They question the language of war and opposition often summoned to explain the grassroots. They are weary of its seemingly inflexible calls to resistance. Whom does resistance serve? What about other cultural alternatives, styles, currents, histories? Pregones proposes a theater practice that is informed by art and community experiments in Latin America and the Spanish-speaking Caribbean, that is not always defensive or aggressive or confrontational, that refuses to play out fantasies of access to racialized or poor others, that denounces the script of victimization, and that always portrays its own cultural traditions as central to the nation. They propose a theater that welcomes convergence with the political but is not exclusively or primarily political — a theater that honors a civil-rights legacy but has other, equally rich inheritance to uphold. Is it out of the question to distinguish between theater and advocacy? Would such a distinction invalidate the social relevance of theater? In an effort to rethink the category of the grassroots and community-based theater, the artists of Teatro Pregones would also like to question the fetish of minority status. Why are so-called artists of color (and poor artists regardless of color) encouraged to stay in the minority, grassroots or community box, away from professional theater identity? A mainstream theater industry has adopted these categories all too happily and, they argue, as a way to contain the work of artists whose trajectory and contributions it rarely understands or wants to acknowledge. 5. To quote Alvan Colón Lespier from "An Inter-American Dialogue" at the International Hispanic Theater Festival in New York City, July 24, 2001: "[The] same mainstream culture that brought us the private prison industry, the weapons industry, and a slew of other unnecessary and pernicious industries, has had to deal with the art industry. "And in its dealings the mainstream culture has come up with a variety of classifications in which we are placed. For example, Broadway, Off-Broadway, Off-Off-Broadway, and many more categories within the non-profit sector that end with something called community theater or community-based theater at the bottom of the rung. I say bottom because these categories are a hierarchy that responds to the dominant cultural view. "At one point in time, we at Pregones didn’t much mind the community label, after all we were doing theater from the particular perspective of a specific community, our audiences were primarily from the Latino communities, [they] supported us, and there were funders especially interested in supporting arts initiatives within 'community.' "Our work then, just as now, was informed by our experiences, history, memories and desires. With our work then, just as now, we were developing a particular theatrical language un lenguaje propio, a language of our own, a synergy between form and content that leads our artistic expression. Our work then, just as now, is deeply concerned with issues of social and economic justice and self-determination. "But now we argue a distance from the concept. Community theater is a loaded term, and many times a code for work that is well intentioned, honest, but lacking in rigor. Many times theater viewed in the community optic is theater as a means for something else other than making theater. And the mainstream withdraws it from the professional realm. But this theater, grown and nurtured in community, and particularly Latino theater, has made and makes significant contributions to the broader theater world. "But you wouldn’t know it from reading the New York Times and other mainstream papers, and it is also largely ignored by popular news outlets and alternative media, thus leaving the recording of our work and its impact to a handful of specialists, writers and researchers." 6. In the period following its move to the Grand Concourse, Teatro Pregones continued to develop a philosophy for arts-centered community outreach. Curiously, a staunch commitment to Latino audiences nurtured the ensemble’s criticism of the community-based category. Their desire to expand the range and the reach of Latino theater arts was, in the words of artistic director Rosalba Rolón, "incongruous with the discrete logic of a label." Rolón believes that quaint and provincial notions of arts and community — the sort one sometimes finds in yearly "special issues" or "special features" on community-based and grassroots theater — put in evidence a painful ignorance about the true diversity of the professional theater. Pregones strives to give fine theatrical expression to social, cultural and artistic currents within the Latino community and across different cultures. The ensemble likes to draw out distinctions among these currents in an effort to avoid the pitfalls of easy pluralism. Notable collaborative projects include a two-year partnership with Painted Bride and Taller Puertorriqueño in Philadelphia; an arts and education partnership with Bronx PS/MS 95, funded by the Annenberg Foundation; La Ruta, the only professional Latino arts presenting network in the Northeast; and The Exchange, an ongoing artistic collaboration with Roadside Theater (Kentucky) and Junebug Productions (Louisiana). Popular plays like "El bolero fue mi ruina," "Quíntuples" and "El Apagón" also deal with the many faces and the many fortunes of Latinos, often Puerto Ricans. These and other works, together with admission subsidies, surtitle translations, tours and a host of bilingual Spanish/English outreach materials, make Pregones dear to theatergoers nationwide. 7. Inching toward a more suitable and permanent home, Pregones Studio closed its doors in May 2001. The ensemble now occupies facilities at 571-575 Walton Avenue, a spacious complex in the immediate Hostos College vicinity. The move marks the launch of a five-year capital campaign including a request for Empowerment Zone financing towards the purchase and renovation of the 9,000 sq.-ft. main building and adjacent lot. Pregones seeks to build a 200-seat theater complete with scenic design shop, dressing rooms, concessions area and rentable/grant workspace. Today, refurbished offices and workshop/rehearsal loft allow for uninterrupted artistic productivity. Pregones continues to work on a year-round calendar and presents its seasonal programs at longtime associate venues. For the launch of its 23rd anniversary season, Pregones gave old friends and new neighbors a glimpse of things to come. The stretch of Walton Avenue running between 149th and 150th streets turned into Pregones’ playground for one hot New York August afternoon. The ensemble premiered its latest musical theater production, "The Ballad of María Sabida." The play tells the story of the wisest woman ever born in the island of Puerto Rico, and of her legendary adventures. Neighborhood volunteers are busy distributing fliers and posting "No Parking" signs. It goes to show, it’s never too hot for fun. Biography of site visitor An ensemble-theater scholar born and raised in Puerto Rico, Arnaldo J. Lopez studied English literature, typography and letterpress arts in Pennsylvania, where he also lived and worked as a graphic designer. A Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at NYU, he likes to write on issues of identity, arts and politics. |
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