Saturday, March 22, 2014

Teatro Pregones & Puerto Rican Traveling Theater: HEY YO! YO SOY! April 3-12, 2014


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