SolFest 2020: Virtual Edition

EVELINA FERNÁNDEZ was born and raised in East LA. She is an award-winning playwright, screenwriter and actor who writes about the U.S. Latinx experience. Her plays include The Mother Of Henry (LA Times Critic’s Pick), A Mexican Trilogy (L.A. Drama Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Writing of a World Premiere Play) published by Samuel French; Solitude (LA Times Critic’s Choice), Dementia (LA Times Critic’s Choice); La Virgen De Guadalupe, Dios Inantzin featured in both the LA Times and the NY Times. Hope: Part II Of A Mexican Trilogy (Ovation Nomination Best Playwright); Dementia (GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Theater Production in Los Angeles) and four Ovation Award nominations, including Best World Premiere; Charity: Part III Of A Mexican Trilogy (Back Stage’s Critic’s Pick). Her play, Premeditation (3 Ovation Award Nominations) Evelina’s 6-hour epic A Mexican Trilogy: An American Story ran at the Los Angeles Theatre Center in the Fall of 2016 to great acclaim. She was part of the CTG Writers Workshop where she began her “Virgin” series with The Mother Of Henry. Other plays include Luminarias, La Olla, Liz Estrada In The City Of Angels, Sleep With The Angels, Macario & Departera (for Teatro Vision) and more. She is currently commissioned by the South Coast Rep and was a writer for Emmy Nominated East Los High seasons 2 & 3. She is currently developing A Mexican Trilogy for television with Imagine Entertainment. She is a founding member of the Latino Theater Company, her artistic family.

DARREL ALEJANDRO HOLNES is a poet and playwright from Panama. His plays have been presented as part of the Kennedy Center for the Arts College Theater Festival (KCACTF), NOW African Playwrights Festival, Brick Theater’s Festival of Lies, Keep Soul Alive! at the National Black Theater, and elsewhere nationwide. His play Starry Night was a recent finalist for the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center’s National Playwrights Conference. He is a MacDowell fellow in playwriting and a member of the Lincoln Center Directors Lab, Page 73’s Interstate 73 Writers’ Group, Musical Theater Factory’s POC Roundtable, and the Stillwater Writers Workshop. His play Nativity was selected for the 50PP List of top unproduced plays by Latinx playwrights in 2018. He is the recipient of a 2019 National Endowment of the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship in Poetry. He teaches playwriting at NYU and Medgar Evers College where he is an Assistant Professor.

CUSI CRAM is a first generation New Yorker of Bolivan and Scottish descent. Her plays have been produced by LAByrinth Theater Company, Primary Stages, The Denver Center, South Coast Repertory, The Williamstown Theater Festival, The Atlantic Theater Company, Cornerstone Theater Company, New Georges, and on stages large and petite all over the country. She has written on numerous television programs for both kids and adults and has been nominated for three Emmy Awards for her work on the animated program, Arthur. Her play, Novenas for A Lost Hospital, about St. Vincent’s Hospital in the Village will premiere in September at Rattlestick Theater directed by Daniella Topol, starring Kathleen Chalfant. Cusi is an Assistant Arts Professor in the Goldberg Department of Dramatic Writing at NYU, Tisch.

ROSALBA ROLÓN is the artistic director of Pregones/Puerto Rican Traveling Theater, and a revered visionary and passionate creator of musical theater that celebrates Latinx voices and cultures. She spearheads the sustained development of Pregones/PRTT’s acting and music ensemble, creative methodology, and original repertory. An accomplished actor, director, and dramaturg, Rosalba specializes in the adaptation of literary and non-dramatic texts for stage performance with live music. Drawing from rich and varied threads of Caribbean, Latin American, and U.S.-Latinx theater, she guides Pregones/PRTT in building a distinct body of work. Selected Premieres/Book/Lyrics/Adaptations: We Have IRÉ with text by  Paul Flores (2019), Betsy! with Roadside Theater (2015), Dancing In My Cockroach Killers with text by Magdalena Gómez (2012), Fly Babies/Piojos (2011), The Harlem Hellfigthers On A Latin Beat (2010) The Beep (2007), The Red Rose (2005), Peccatoribus (2004), Gení y el Zepelín with text by José Luis Ramos Escobar (2001), Promise of a Love Song with Roadside Theater and Junebug Productions (1999); Translated Woman adapted from text by Ruth Behar (1998), El bolero fue mi ruina adapted from text by Manuel Ramos Otero (1997), La otra orilla (1996), Fábulas del Caribe (1995), Quíntuples by Luis Rafael Sánchez (1993), The Wedding March (1991), El Apagón adapted from text by José Luis González (1990), Migrants! (1986). Salient distinctions include the 2019 Creative Capital Award, 2018 Doris Duke Artist Award, New York Latin ACE Gold Award in Theater, Teer Pioneer Award from National Black Theatre, United States Artists/USA Fontanals Fellowship in Theater and Performance, Ford Visionaries Fellowship, and Cherashore Actors Award. She is longtime faculty of the Leadership Institutes of National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures/NALAC and Association of Performing Arts Presenters/APAP National Conference. She is past President of the International Theatre Institute ITI-U.S. Centre, member of the Citizens’ Advisory Committee to the first New York City Mayor’s Cultural Plan, and serves on the Board of Directors of both NALAC and United States Artists. She is current member of the Nominating Committee for The Tony Awards, presented by The Broadway League and the American Theatre Wing.

ADRIANA GAVIRIA is an actress, voice-over artist, writer, director and creative producer. New York: Immigrants’ Theatre Project (The Public), Working Theater, FringeNYC (Classic Stage/Lion Theatre), Lark, Pregones, Repertorio Español, Young Playwrights Inc., 52nd Street Project and New York Stage & Film. Regional: Yale Repertory Theatre, Syracuse Stage, Dallas Theater Center, Denver Center, Arizona Theatre Company, Pasadena Playhouse, Marin Theatre Company, Alabama Shakespeare Festival and Chicago Shakespeare Theater. Television/Film: Law & Order: CI, Person of Interest, Sueños. Current Projects: SolFest Producer and Lead Producer for LTC Miami in Motion! Adriana is a founding member of The Sol Project and serves on the 50 Playwrights Project Advisory Board and on the Parent Artist Advocacy League and Latinx Theatre Commons steering committees. Training: Graduate of NALAC’s 2018 Advocacy Leadership Institute; 2017 Leadership Institute. BFA: Florida International University, MFA: Yale School of Drama. Member of The Actors Center, HOLA, SAG-AFTRA and AEA. www.adrianagaviria.com

The Sol Project is a national theater initiative dedicated to producing the work of Latinx playwrights in New York City and beyond. Founded by Artistic Director, Jacob G. Padrón and driven by an artistic collective, The Sol Project works in partnership with leading theaters around the country to amplify Latinx voices and build artistic homes for artists of color. Through the writers we champion, Sol aims to create a bold, powerful, and kaleidoscopic body of work for the new American theater. The Sol Project launched in December 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 Luis Alfaro(The Public Theater). The founding artistic collective is: Claudia Acosta, Elena Araoz, Adriana Gaviria, David Mendizábal, Kyoung Park, and Laurie Woolery. Brian Herrera is the Resident Scholar. Stephanie Ybarra is the Resident Dramaturg. Our partners include: Atlantic Theater Company, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Cara Mía Theatre Company, Center Theatre Group, LAByrinth Theater Company, MCC Theater, New Georges, New York Theatre Workshop, Playwrights Horizons, Pregones/Puerto Rican Traveling Theater, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, The Playwrights Realm, The Public Theater, WP Theater and Yale Repertory Theatre. Our honorary board includes: Raúl Castillo (HBO’s Looking), Junot Díaz (Pulitzer Prize-winning author), Priscilla Lopez (Tony Award-winning actress), Sandra Marquez (Steppenwolf ensemble member), Edward James Olmos (Emmy and Golden Globe Award-winning actor), John Ortiz (co-star, Silver Linings Playbook), Tony Plana (ABC’s Ugly Betty), Chita Rivera (Presidential Medal of Freedom), Diane Rodriguez (OBIE-winning actress, member of National Arts Council) Rosalba Rolón (Artistic Director of Pregones/PRTT) and Daphne Rubin-Vega (Tony nominated-actress, original company of Rent). Lead support for The Sol Project comes from the Howard Gilman Foundation. www.solproject.org

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

Play At Home – In March 2020 a bunch of theaters were producing plays, business as usual, when a global pandemic had other plans. Prioritizing the safety of their communities, they made difficult decisions to cease or postpone programming for the remainder of their seasons. But the story doesn’t end there. With a spirit of resilience, adaptation, and invitation, they came together to create the Play At Home project, a series of short plays commissioned specifically for this moment of unprecedented isolation to inspire joy and connection for all. We started as a small group —Baltimore Center Stage, Long Wharf Theatre, The Public Theater, Repertory Theater of St Louis, and Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company— committed to finding ways to keep people connected to live theater. Every day, more theaters are jumping in to participate in what we’re hoping becomes a national pastime. www.playathome.org

Pregones/Puerto Rican Traveling Theater 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 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

This program is made possible, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council, and the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. Southwest Airlines is the official airline of Pregones/PRTT. For a full list of our funders, visit www.pregonesprtt.org.