Puerto Rican Theater Group and Appalachian Theater Group Collaborate at Bronx Event Next Month

Pregones/Puerto Rican Traveling Theater, an award-winning theater company with locations in the Bronx and Manhattan, is pleased to be celebrating the history and legacy of one of its longtime collaborators, the Appalachian theater company Roadside Theater, at an event on March 31. The gathering starts at 5:30 p.m. and a highlight concert program follows at 7 p.m. The event will take place at Pregones Theater at 575 Walton Ave., just steps off the 2, 4, and 5 trains, in the South Bronx. Tickets are $25 and are available online.

This one-time celebration kicks off with a pre-show community gathering and cultural conversation, and then segues into a concert featuring musicians and storytellers from Roadside and Pregones performing selections from the newly published two-volume anthology, Art in a Democracy: Selected Plays of Roadside Theater (New Village Press, March 2023).

"We are thrilled to welcome Roadside back to New York for this special event," said Rosalba Rolón, artistic director of Pregones. "Local audiences have been captivated by stories and music of the people of Appalachia as crafted for the stage by the artists of Roadside. Their 50th Anniversary harbors three-plus decades of sustained friendship, creative exchange, and co-creation with Pregones! The coalfields and mountains of Kentucky might be worlds away from the streets of New York, but the heart and truthfulness of our artistry keeps us together."

Pregones is a bilingual theater ensemble and multidisciplinary arts presenter championing 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. Its year-round programs offer arts access and participation to New York residents and visitors alike.

In addition to the event on March 31, Art in a Democracy's editor Ben Fink, who worked with Roadside from 2005 to 2015, and Arnaldo J. López, managing director of Pregones, will discuss the new book anthology, as well as the legacies of American populism, the connections between art and politics at the grassroots level, and the possibilities of making a more fully democratic way of life, at the School of Visual Arts, 133/141 West 21st St., on April 10 from 6:30 to 8 p.m. The event is free and open to the public, but attendees are encouraged to RSVP.

Roadside Theater was founded in 1974 in Whitesburg, KY, deep in the heart of the Appalachian coalfields of eastern Kentucky and southwestern Virginia, with a mission to create a body of Appalachian drama where none existed before.

With no money for costumes, sets, or special effects, these actors began simply by telling old folk stories, often presented outside under revivalist tents. After each show, the actors would invite audience members to share their own stories that were similar to the ones being told on stage, and often those stories would be incorporated into the next performance, eventually leading to the creation of dramatic works that truly reflected the lives and histories of the people in their communities.

The company toured their original plays throughout Appalachia, and soon, they began bringing their original works to other parts of the country as well, to national acclaim. In 1982, their show, Red Fox/Second Hangin' was filmed in front of a live audience and aired on PBS stations nationwide, leading to even wider recognition. Between 1975 and 2020, the company created and co-created more than 100 plays and toured to 48 states and seven foreign countries.

Later, Roadside began forming partnerships with other theater companies who were also interested in creating art that is of, by, and for the communities it performs for and with, pioneering innovative methods of intercultural, bi-lingual playmaking.

Roadside has partnered with Pregones for decades and the companies have collaborated on two different plays: Promise of a Love Song (in partnership with the African American Junebug Productions from New Orleans) in 1996, and Betsy!, in 2015.

The new books include scripts from nine of Roadside's award-winning plays, a critical recounting of the theater's history from 1975 through 2020, and 10 new essays by authors from different disciplines and generations exploring the plays' social, economic, and political circumstances.

By publishing Roadside's plays and history in these works, the editors hope to be able to pass on Roadside's method for creating art that truly reflects a whole community to artists and performers around the county.

"Art in a Democracy overflows like water from a well, chronicling a rural, working-class theater's 45-years of crisscrossing the country bridging bitter partisan, racial, and other divisions by dramatizing the tremendous local intelligence and creativity inherent in every community. This collection of plays and commentary represents the cutting edge of a new democratic art," says Harry Boyte, senior scholar in public work philosophy at the Institute for Public Life and Work.

Bill Rauch, founding artistic director of the Perelman Performing Arts Center in New York agrees. "Art in a Democracy is an indispensable gift to our field," he says. "These plays, and the insightful essays that accompany them, offer a roadmap to hope, joy, and inspiration."