Amplifying the Voices of Latiné Playwrights in the American Theater.
Pregones/PRTT and The Sol Project, dedicated to amplifying Latiné voices and building a body of work for the new American theater, are pleased to invite the general public to the 5th Edition of SolFest: A Latiné Theatre Festival. The four-day program runs August 7-10 with both online and in-person events including two evenings of live programming at the historic Puerto Rican Traveling Theater (304 W 47th Street, New York, NY 10036. Admission is free and you can RSVP right here!
SolFest Producer and Founding Member of The Sol Project Adriana Gaviria stated, “I am thrilled to be celebrating our fifth year of SolFest with our friends at Pregones/Puerto Rican Traveling Theater, our collaborators since our inaugural festival in 2018! We will once again keep a hybrid format to continue providing greater accessibility to our audiences and to further cultivate our relationships and collaborations with Latiné artists both in New York and around the world, creating a larger and more expansive familia. This year’s festival brings exciting new work in long and short form from a talented group of writers working in the U.S., the Caribbean, and Central/South America, as well as our very first showing of a new virtual reality work that will be available for audiences to experience as an interactive installation before our in-person performances.”
[bg_collapse view=”link” color=”#f3615a” expand_text=”Show More ▼” collapse_text=”Show Less ▲” ]This year’s festival will kick off with a SolFest Picnic in the Park on Sunday, August 7, followed by three days of Latiné work, including works in progress, short pieces, solo and ensemble work, panels and a VR project. The festival will culminate with two days of in-person readings in the heart of the theater district at Pregones/PRTT theater. This year’s four-day program is also realized in collaboration with North Star Projects, a community partner since 2020.
SUNDAY, AUGUST 7
SofFest Picnic in the Park
4PM We kick off the festival with the very first SolFest Picnic in Central Park, NYC. Catered by our friends at Que Chevere LES, join us in community in Central Park and celebrate our 5th year of SolFest. RSVP required.
MONDAY, AUGUST 8
North Star Projects: Virtual Art Share
7PM – 9PM Our Monday night digital program features two artist panels on creative and social topics of immediate interest to the Latiné theater community, plus short monologues and lively conversation following!
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Watch on northstarprojects.org, Facebook Live and YouTube.
7PM ET – DIGITAL PANEL #1: Latiné Storytellers, Filmmaking in 2022 – Moderated by Adriana Gaviria. Featuring members of the creative team of This Boy’s Vida (Made in America): Joseph Castillo-Midyett (Creator & Executive Producer), Adrienne Acevedo Lovette (Director/Producer/Editor), Gisela Chipe (Producer/Actor) and Heidi-Marie Ferren (Producer/Actor).
7:30PM ET – DIGITAL PANEL #2: Art and Advocacy – Moderated by Adriana Gaviria. Featuring select members from Black HMU United: Wunmi Fowora (Founder, President, Education & Vetting Team Director) and Nikiya Mathis (Founding Member, Vetting Team Member).
8PM ET – READINGS – Featuring Writers: Adrienne Dawes, Carl(os) Roa, Diana Burbano, Daniela Thome and Nelson Diaz-Mercano. The evening will include short monologues and a live post show conversation with the artists following the performances.
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TUESDAY, AUGUST 9
Online and In Person at PRTT
5PM – 9PM We are reaching wide and going deep with readings from Vanessa Garcia, Frank G. Gonzalez, Nancy García Loza, and Iraisa Ann Reilly, plus a sneak peek at new Virtual Reality project from Gabriel G. Torres and Adriana Gaviria!
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5PM – VIRTUAL READING: 1000 Miles. Featuring Writer: Vanessa Garcia
Watch on northstarprojects.org.
Solis has just arrived in The City from 1000 Miles Across the Sea, searching for family, for a way to carve out a new life, but The City is changing, and the very skills Solis brings with her can either save or help destroy the very place she’s trying to call home.
Currently in development for a theatrical immersive experience by Abre Camino Collective, 1000 Miles is about what it means to migrate to a new place. It’s about survival, surveillance, nationalism, and the nature of opportunity. About the walls that block our path and the new doors we try to open to save ourselves and those we love.
SOLFEST@PRTT Evening #1 – In person at 304 W 47 Street, NYC
7PM – VR EXPERIENCE: Excerpt of Untitled (Work in Progress)
Co-Created by Gabriel G. Torres (Writer) and Adriana Gaviria (Director)
VR Consulting by Kevin Laibson
Avatars powered by Technodramatist
“How far are you willing to go to let go of your addictions? Enter an immersive journey to dispose of your addictions. The journey will not be easy, but it will be rewarding for sure.”
Untitled (Work in Progress) is a docu-fantastical VR experience, where audiences are invited to journey into 12 different rooms inside of a rehabilitation facility in order to heal the severed bond of their spirits and their human forms. Each of the rooms are based on each of the 12 steps of Alcoholic Anonymous (A.A.), reimagined through activities created by Fundación La Casa De Bill in Bogotá Colombia.
The experience also highlights stories of substance users in rehabilitation who in their healing journey were forced against their will, to live inside shock therapy rehab facilities in Colombia.
7:30PM – SHORT WORKS
Featuring Writers: Frank G. Gonzalez and Nancy García Loza
Excerpt of That Must Be the Entrance to Heaven by Franky D. Gonzalez
A Nuyorican boxer with many losses on his record confesses to his infant son the intense struggles with guilt and shame after failing to lift his family out of poverty.
That Must Be the Entrance to Heaven explores the lives and struggles of four Latino boxers attempting to win a world title. They fight with everything their bodies and spirits will allow against destiny, society, the all-consuming power of a black hole, and ultimately each other in an effort to overcome the roles life has assigned them.
Excerpt of Ascent (or the eighth wonder) by Nancy García Loza.
A co-dependency love story. A mother, a daughter, a mountain.
Nati y Pila have always talked about taking the trip of a lifetime, now they are finally doing it. Anticipation is high as mother, and daughter embark on the four-day trek to reach one of the greatest wonders of the world. But soon, old tensions flare up causing more headaches than altitude sickness and their dream adventure starts going downhill. How far is the bottom when you reach the top? A mother, a daughter, a hike and the vast, jagged wilderness. Ascent (or the eighth wonder) is commissioned by Steppenwolf Theatre.
7:45PM – READING: The Jersey Devil Is A Papi Chulo
Written by Iraisa Ann Reilly
Directed by Jean Carlo Yunén A.
A comedic, bilingual, post-quarantine play. Five American-Latina friends embark on a camping trip in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey for the bachelorette party that should have been. There they encounter two white “papi chulos” (‘hotties’) who are doing this camping thing right: with running water. The boys hatch a plan inspired by reality television to determine which of the femme-fatales they will save from deportation through marriage. But will the boys be able to save the women from The Jersey Devil?
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WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 10
Online and In Person at PRTT
5PM – 9PM We are packing a wallop for this year’s closer with fresh works from Vanessa Garcia, Gabriel G. Torres and Adriana Gaviria, Oscar A. L. Cabrera, and Jorge B. Merced with Pregones/PRTT’s acting and music ensemble!
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5PM – VIRTUAL READING: 1000 Miles. Featuring Writer: Vanessa Garcia
Watch on northstarprojects.org.
Solis has just arrived in The City from 1000 Miles Across the Sea, searching for family, for a way to carve out a new life, but The City is changing, and the very skills Solis brings with her can either save or help destroy the very place she’s trying to call home.
Currently in development for a theatrical immersive experience by Abre Camino Collective, 1000 Miles is about what it means to migrate to a new place. It’s about survival, surveillance, nationalism, and the nature of opportunity. About the walls that block our path and the new doors we try to open to save ourselves and those we love.
SOLFEST@PRTT Evening #2 – In person at 304 W 47 Street, NYC
7PM – VR EXPERIENCE: Excerpt of Untitled (Work in Progress)
Co-Created by Gabriel G. Torres (Writer) and Adriana Gaviria (Director)
VR Consulting by Kevin Laibson
Avatars powered by Technodramatist
“How far are you willing to go to let go of your addictions? Enter an immersive journey to dispose of your addictions. The journey will not be easy, but it will be rewarding for sure.”
Untitled (Work in Progress) is a docu-fantastical VR experience, where audiences are invited to journey into 12 different rooms inside of a rehabilitation facility in order to heal the severed bond of their spirits and their human forms. Each of the rooms are based on each of the 12 steps of Alcoholic Anonymous (A.A.), reimagined through activities created by Fundación La Casa De Bill in Bogotá Colombia.
The experience also highlights stories of substance users in rehabilitation who in their healing journey were forced against their will, to live inside shock therapy rehab facilities in Colombia.
7:30PM – READING: Bonnet Blues
Written by Oscar A. L. Cabrera
Co-Directed by Daniela Thome and Adriana Gaviria
In person at PRTT (Manhattan)
Hortencia enjoys her afternoon rituals. After Nadia breaks Hortencia’s window with a baseball, things don’t seem to settle back down to the normal evenings she is used to with her husband of 50 years and her older children. But something isn’t quite right about this neighborhood kid. What starts as a simple magic trick… gives Hortencia reason to question everything. And as Hortencia struggles with what is real or not, they are tested against the clock to fix what is broken before it stays the same forever.
READING: A Musical Excerpt of Aloha Boricua
Conceived and Directed by Jorge B. Merced
Music composed in collaboration with Desmar Guevara
Additional Lyrics by Rosalba Rolón
In person at PRTT (Manhattan)
The rhythms of traditional Puerto Rican music and urban reggaetón collide in Pregones/PRTT’s song-driven rendition of the historic migration of Puerto Ricans to Hawaii. Dazzled by the promise of a brighter future, a group of young sugarcane workers embarks on a one-way transoceanic trip. From it they emerge changed but fired up to claim the prize that was promised. Multiple voices overlap in the telling of this unique story, including bigger-than-life Queen of the Hawaiian Islands Lili’uokalani and a younger generation of street-wise poets eager to make sense of it all. Based on a story by famed Puerto Rican writer and gay icon Manuel Ramos Otero. Production conceived and directed by Jorge B. Merced, with music composed in collaboration with Desmar Guevara, and additional lyrics by Rosalba Rolón.
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“This year’s festival brings exciting new work in long and short form from a talented group of writers.”
“The four-day program centers Latiné artists emboldened by pandemic and racial reckoning.”
“Bringing joy, live performances, and mindful provocations to digital platforms and to the PRTT stage.”
