| | TeatroStageFest and Instituto Cervantes Launch TeatroStageFest Artist Panel Series
"Latino-American Voices" Panel and Reception
Monday, February 19, 2007 - 6:00 - 7:30 p.m.
Our first Artist Panel featured renowned United States based Latino playwrights and performance writers who shared candid insights into their artistic processes and inspirations. We were honored to hear from:
NILO CRUZ, winner of the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Anna In The Tropics, which premiered on Broadway. Currently translating/adaptating Life is a Dream for the premiere at South Coast Repertory.
QUIARA ALEGRÍA HUDES, whose musical, In the Heights, is currently in its world premiere production at Off-Broadway's 37 Arts (book by Hudes, music and lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda).
CARMEN RIVERA, Obie Award winner for La Gringa, which continues to enjoy a successful run at Repertorio Español since its opening in 1996, and 2002 ACE Award for La Lupe: My Life, My Destiny.
EDWIN SÁNCHEZ, winner of a 2006 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship for La Bella Familia and A T & T On Stage New Play Award for Unmerciful Good Fortune.
CARMELITA TROPICANA, Obie Award for Sustained Excellence, wrote and starred in Milk of Amnesia and With What Ass Does the Cockroach Sit?
Moderated by PATRICK PACHECO, a journalist who is a NY1 commenator, serves as the Los Angles Times' Theater Correspondent, and is currently developing work for theater and film as a writer and producer.
Español
 Simultaneous Spanish interpretation available.
Instituto Cervantes
211-215 East 49th Street
TeatroStageFest in the News!
From Playbill.com
Cruz, Machado, Others Join Panel in Anticipation of New Latino Theatre Festival
By Zachary Pincus-Roth
February 14, 2007
Nilo Cruz and Eduardo Machado will be among the participants in a panel entitled "Latino-American Voices" at Instituto Cervantes on Feb. 19 - an event leading up to a new Latino theatre festival, entitled TeatroStageFest, which will run April 30-May 13.
Also on the panel are the writers Carmen Rivera (La Gringa), Edwin Sánchez (La Bella Familia) and Carmelita Tropicana (Milk of Amnesia and With What Ass Does the Cockroach Sit?). The journalist Patrick Pacheco moderates.
TeatroStageFest will include productions from four local theatre companies - Pregones Theater, INTAR, Teatro Circulo and Teatro IATI. For Pregones, Danny Rivera, the famed Puerto Rican singer-songwriter who has headlined at Carnegie Hall, will star in the play with music The Red Rose. The other three productions are to be announced.
The festival will also include three productions from Latin America and Spain to be announced, a series of panels and a cabaret night at Joe's Pub.
Also part of the festival is the Young Playwrights Latino Challenge Award, a partnership with Young Playwrights Inc. New York City high school students of any ethnicity are invited to submit a play - at least one main character must be Latino. The winning play will get a reading.
Susana Tubert, executive producer of TeatroStageFest, told Playbill.com, "It's about quality, number one, and diversity, number two. It's not exclusive. It's not a festival by Latinos for Latinos. It's a festival for everyone who appreciates great theatre."
Another lead-up event is a panel called "Latinas at the Helm," which will be held at Instituto Cervantes on March 26. Participating are Rosalba Rolon (founder and artistic director of Pregones), Miriam Colón Valle (founder and president of the Puerto Rican Traveling Theatre) Shoshana Polanco (creative producer of BAiT, Buenos Aires in Translation), Claudia Norman (artistic director of the Queens Theatre in the Park's annual summer Latino Cultural Festival and executive producer of the New York festival Celebrate México Now), Veronica Caicedo (founder of Caicedo Productions) and Vivian Deangelo (executive and artistic director of Teatro IATI). Tubert will moderate.
The festival is produced by the Latino International Theater Festival of New York, a new organization that will support Latino theatre year-round. The organization's first project was its sponsorship of the work Open Door at LaMama in Dec. 2006.
Jose W. Fernandez, one of the commissioners on the new NYC Latin Media & Entertainment Commission, which Mayor Michael Bloomberg formed in 2003, initiated TeatroStagFest. The founding sponsor of the festival is Time Warner; lead sponsor is JP Morgan Chase.
Cruz won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Anna in the Tropics. Machado is the head of playwriting at Columbia University, the artistic director of INTAR and the author of many plays, including The Cook and Havana is Waiting.
The panels are each at 6 PM and will be held at the Instituto Cervantes, 211-215 East 49th Street. For reservations email info@teatrostagefest.org or call (212) 760-4777. Simultaneous Spanish interpretation is available.Read the article on Playbill.com
AND MORE PRESS. . . From the Miami Herald's El Nuevo Herald.
Un Festival de Teatro Hispano en Nueva York
By Norma Niurka February 8, 2007
Su nombre revela el bilingüismo existente en la ciudad de Nueva York y aspira a mostrar el teatro que hacen los hispanos, no sólo en Estados Unidos sino en el mundo. Con esa ambiciosa premisa el TeatroStage Fest, un festival que se está gestando en la Ciudad de los Rascacielos, pudiera crear gran expectativa.Muchos de los participantes aún no están confirmados, pero desde hace meses se hacen gestiones que lleven a hacer realidad el encuentro programado para efectuarse del 30 de abril al 13 de mayo próximo.
El festival cuenta con el auspicio del Departamento de Asuntos Culturales de la ciudad de Nueva York y el apoyo del New York Times, el Diario La Prensa y la revista People en Español.
''El objetivo es abrir un abanico gigante para que el público se ponga al día de lo que hacen los latinos para contribuir al panorama artístico de Nueva York y para que refleje el talento de los latinos en el mundo'', señala la productora ejecutiva del festival, Susana Tubert, directora de teatro de larga trayectoria.
Read the entire article at El NuevoHerald.com
Young Playwrights Latino Challenge Award -- Deadline extended to March 8, 2007!
Click here for guidelines!
A WORLD PREMIERE:
The Latino International Theater Festival of New York, Inc. is proud to announce the first in TeatroStageFest's year-round program of events: The world premiere at La MaMa ETC of Loco7's OPEN DOOR: A Dance Puppet Music Urban Odyssey, conceived by Colombian director/choreographer/designer Federico Restrepo with original music by Elizabeth Swados, and costume designs by Denise Greber.
 In OPEN DOOR . . ., a multi-a multi-cultural ensemble of dancer-puppeteers and musicians perform in a multi-media environment a series of thematically connected scenes that touch on the diverse cultures living in New York City.
The unique show will challenge the way immigrants are commonly perceived, and open the hearts and minds of those who are afraid of what they do not know. The New York Times has praised Mr. Restrepo's earlier work, writing, "you know you've been enchanted when you step out into the December air."
OPEN DOOR: A Dance Puppet Music Urban Odyssey
December 1 - December 17, 2006
The Annex at La MaMa ETC
66 East 4th Street
New York, NY 10003
Thursday - Saturday @ 7:30 pm and Sunday @ 2:30 pm and 7:30 pm
Tickets: $20/Students & Seniors $15
To purchase tickets: Call Box Office: 212-475-7710 Online Tickets: www.lamama.org
For special discount tickets for performances on 12/1, 12/2 and 12/3, go to www.lamama.org and use code StageFest
Click here for Susana Tubert's interview with Federico Restrepo.
In October, TeatroStageFest brought Grammy nominated singer Danny Rivera and Pregones Theater's The Red Rose to People en Español's Fiesta 2006. Thousands cheered on the beloved Puerto Rican singer and the Company as they performed excerpts from The Red Rose -- next to be seen at TeatroStageFest in May 2007!
TeatroStageFest, in association with award- winning Young Playwrights Inc., will lead playwriting workshops in 10 high schools throughout the five boroughs. The Latino Challenge is an open competition for ALL students interested in writing original works that feature at least one main Latino character. Student submissions will be evaluated by a panel of theater professionals who will recognize the three top plays with cash awards and a staged reading. All finalists will receive Honorable Mentions and written evaluations of their work.
The Young Playwrights Latino Challenge Awards Ceremony will take place on Sunday, May 6, 2007 giving TeatroStageFest Audiences an opportunity to hear what the next generation of playwrights has to say. Save the date!
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