SolFest at PRTT

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.

LUIS RAFAEL SÁNCHEZ is a major literary figure and one of Puerto Rico’s foremost playwrights. Mr. Sánchez’s stage works include La pasión según Antígona Pérez, Los ángeles se han fatigado, O casi el alma, and Quíntuples, among others. His equally influential output as essayist includes the books La guagua aérea and No llores por nosotros, Puerto Rico, and the column Desnudo Frontal for El Nuevo Día print and digital daily. He is recipient of numerous distinctions including the Guggenheim Fellowship for Creative Arts, and is professor emeritus at the University of Puerto Rico and the City University of New York.

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.

JOSÉ LUIS VALENZUELA is the artistic director of the Latino Theater Company (LTC), and The Los Angeles Theatre Center (LATC) and is also a distinguished professor and head of the MFA directing program at UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and Television. Mr. Valenzuela is an award winning theater director, and has been a visionary and an advocate for Chicano/Latino theater for over 30 years. He has directed critically acclaimed productions at major theaters both internationally and nationally including the LATC, where he created the Latino Theatre Lab in 1985, and the Mark Taper Forum, where he established the Latino Theater Initiative in 1991. Most recently he directed Macbeth at the Oregon Shakespeare Theater and The Mother of Henry at the LATC.  Other credits include Destiny of Desire at The Goodman, Southcoast Rep and Arena Stage in Washington D.C. As the artistic director of the Latino Theater Company, operators of the LATC, he has been responsible for developing its artistic vision and organizational mission of producing programming that represents the diversity of Los Angeles. In 2010, under Mr. Valenzuela’s leadership, the LATC was nominated for an LA Stage Alliance Ovation Award for Best Theatre Season. His recent directing credits at the LATC include La Olla – Plautus’s The Pot of Gold; Premeditation; Peer Gynt; Melancholia; Faith, Hope and Charity; Habitat and La Victima. In 2007, Mr. Valenzuela was featured in The New York Times for the LTC’s annual holiday pageant, La Virgen de Guadalupe, Dios Inantzin, at Our Lady of the Angels Cathedral. In 2002 he directed the world premiere of Dementia, which won the 2003 GLAAD Award for Outstanding Theater Production in Los Angeles. Other international directing credits include Kiss of the Spider Woman at the National Theatre of Norway, and he assisted his mentor, Norwegian director Stein Winge, with Hamlet, The Glass Menagerie, Barrabas, Pantagleize, Die Walkurie, The Inspector General and The Wild Duck. Mr. Valenzuela’s film directing credits include Dementia, Luminarias, How Else Am I Supposed To Know I’m Still Alive?, Una vez al año para toda una vida,  La Redada and A Bowl of Beings, for PBS’ Great Performances. Mr. Valenzuela’s artistic vision and community commitment has garnered numerous recognitions, nominations and awards including the Ann C. Rosenfield Distinguished Community Partnership Prize and the Hispanic Heritage Month Local Hero of the Year Award. He also serves on the national steering committee of the Latina/o Theatre Commons and produced the national Latina/o Theatre Festival Encuentro in 2014 and Encuentro de Las Americas in 2017.

MELISSA CRESPO is a NYC based director of theater, opera and film. Her production of Native Gardens by Karen Zacarías was recently co-produced at Syracuse Stage, Geva Theatre Center and Portland Center Stage. Recent world premieres: Wickedest Woman by Jessica Bashline (Strange Sun Theatre), graveyard shift by Korde Arrington Tuttle (San Francisco Playhouse) and Brother Toad by Nathan Louis Jackson (Kansas City Repertory Theatre). Melissa co-wrote Egress with Sarah Saltwick was just produced in the New Ground Theater Festival at Cleveland Play House. Upcoming: world premiere of form of a girl unknown by Charly Evon Simpson at Salt Lake City Acting Company. Fellowships: Time Warner Fellow (WP Theatre), The Director’s Project (Drama League), Van Lier Directing Fellow (Second Stage Theatre), and the Allen Lee Hughes Directing Fellow (Arena Stage). She received her MFA in Directing from The New School for Drama. www.melissacrespo.com

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

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

Puerto Rican Traveling Theater
304 West 47 Street (b/w 8 & 9 Avenues)
New York, NY 10036

Trains to Times Square/Broadway District

For more information call us at 718-585-1202