Roundabout Theatre Company will partner with Pregones/Puerto Rican Traveling Theater for the second season of The Refocus Project, featuring a roster of Latinx playwrights including René Marqués, Fausto Avendaño, María Irene Fornés, Rosalba Rolón and Desmar Guevara.
With a mission to elevate and restore marginalized plays to the American canon, the multi-year initiative launched March 2021, partnering with Black Theatre United and focusing on 20th-century Black playwrights.
“Our goal is to shift the theatrical canon by allowing theatre-makers, industry leaders, and educators to see these incredible plays performed and brought back to the spotlight. We are so proud to learn from season one, that the titles are slowly making their way into theatrical seasons and curricula across the country,” says Roundabout Theatre Company Artistic Director and CEO Todd Haimes. “Partnering with Pregones/PRTT is a perfect way to ensure that season two will be an equal success, and I am grateful to them for joining us.”
The season includes The Oxcart by Puerto Rican short story writer and playwright René Marqués; El Corrido de California by Mexican playwright Fausto Avendaño; Sarita by Cuban-American playwright María Irene Fornés; and Harlem Hellfighters on a Latin Beat by Rosalba Rolón with music by Desmar Guevara, James Reese Europe, Rafael Hernández, and the Harlem Hellfighters 369th Infantry Band.
“We are energized by this opportunity to expand the reach of dynamic, relevant plays that have enjoyed great success, staged by companies throughout the U.S. and in Puerto Rico over many decades,” says Pregones/PRTT Artistic Director Rolón. These works are again taking center stage for the enjoyment of artists and audiences near and far. The selected plays are only a sample of the ever abundant, imaginative, and stylistically varied output of works created by Latinx playwrights and ensembles.”
The plays will be workshopped and performed in a reading series this summer in Roundabout and Pregones/PRTT spaces, featuring performers and creative artists from both organizations. In the fall, a streamed version of three readings will be available online featuring both English and Spanish, free of charge with all suggested donations directly supporting Pregones/PRTT.
Visit RoundaboutTheatre.org for more.
