Musical Production HEY YO!
Celebrates Grit and Genius
of Nuyorican Wordsmith Jesús Papoleto Meléndez
Recipient of Pregones Master Artist Award
Newly
merging Pregones Theater & Puerto Rican Traveling
Theater jointly announce the April 2014 premiere run of HEY YO! YO SOY!, a new musical with texts by Nuyorican poet and
Pregones Master Artist Award recipient, Jesús Papoleto Meléndez. Distilling four decades of tumultuous and
prolific literary life into 12 explosive scenes, the production pays tribute to
the grit and genius of the radical author, and to the insomniac city he
lovingly rebukes and immortalizes. HEY YO!
is the latest in a sequence of new theater works inspired by founding figures
of the Nuyorican arts and cultural movement, remixed and reimagined by
Pregones’s multi-generational ensemble; prior examples include Until We Win, with texts by Sandra María
Esteves, and Dancing In My Cockroach
Killers, with texts by Magdalena Gómez. HEY
YO! is scheduled for 7 performances at the PRTT stage on
West 47th Street, Manhattan, from April 3rd to April 12th.
Poet tribute and reception on April 3rd. Tickets online at pregones.org
or by phone at 718-585-1202.
At the center of
HEY YO! are New York City, the
Pan-Latino enclave of East Harlem/El Barrio, and the people who lend it authenticity,
international street cred, and an accent. Pregones’s formidable ensemble celebrates
this uncompromising pride of place, community, and self. Like Papoleto, the
performers in HEY YO! fashion
language, knowledge, and Latin rhythm into fun-house mirror and whip for social
justice. From the rousing Sister (para
nuestras hermanas), where the poet marvels and bristles with desire, to the
whimsical A Conversation With My Son,
where he takes a jab at the New World Order; from the raw What Love Kills, where the narrator laments a crime of passion, to
the Zen-like Happy Thought, where he finds
good fortune while riding the subway, HEY
YO! bristles with the passions of life’s better moments!
HEY YO! YO SOY! is directed by Rosalba
Rolón with composer/musical director Desmar Guevara, and produced in association
with Miriam Colón. Featuring Jorge Castro, Chad Casterphen, Rosal Colón, Shadia
Fairuz, Gabriel Lugo, Jesús Martínez, Flaco Navaja, Joel Pérez, and Yaritza
Pizarro.
A great evening
of live theater and music, performed in English/Spanish, with simultaneous
translation via supertitles. Runtime is 65 minutes.
7 SHOWS ONLY:
APRIL
3-12, 2014
Thursdays,
Fridays, Saturdays at 8:00pm; Sunday at 3:00pm
Master Artist Award Tribute & Reception
on April 3rd.
LOCATION:
Puerto Rican
Traveling Theater, 304 West 47th Street, Manhattan.
TICKETS:
$24 Advance, $40 Door
LIMITED SPACE, PURCHASE EARLY!
Online
sales at WWW.PREGONES.ORG
By
phone at 718-585-1202
