NY: Mundo Cruel by Luis Negrón at Pregones Theater, November 5th and 6th

MUNDO CRUEL – Luis Negrón’s Award-Winning Stories About

Queer Life in Puerto Rico Get NY Stage Premiere in The Bronx

Pregones Theater and Puerto Rican Traveling Theater teams up with Gil René + En Equipo for the New York premiere of MUNDO CRUEL, adapted from stories in Luis Negrón’s eponymous short story collection.  Like the book, which garnered comparisons to the works of Argentine author Manuel Puig, the play MUNDO CRUEL jolts the audience with the verve, sass, and authentic voice of working class characters getting by and getting on in Santurce, the most densely populated barrio in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Satirizing local gay male culture in particular, the stories dramatized in MUNDO CRUEL are consistently gritty, funny, and heartful. Only two performances: November 5^th and 6^th at Pregones Theater, 575 Walton Avenue, in The Bronx. Tickets at pregonesprtt.org or by phone at 718-585-1202.

THE AUTHOR: Luis Negrón is a Puerto Rican writer born in 1970. His debut short story collection, Mundo Cruel, was first published in 2010 and has seen five printings in Spanish. An English translation by Suzanne Jill Levine was published by Seven Stories Press in 2013, and won the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction in 2014. He is coeditor, with David Caleb Acevedo and Moisés Agosto, of Los otros cuerpos, an influential anthology of writing by LGBT Puerto Ricans.

DATES:               Saturday, November 5, at 8pm

                             Sunday, November 6, at 3pm

                             Performed in Spanish with English Supertitles

LOCATION:        Pregones Theater, 575 Walton Avenue, The Bronx

TICKETS:            Starting at $15 — Group Offers Available

                             Online at WWW.PREGONESPRTT.ORG

                             By phone at 718-585-1202

This program is a feature of 21 ISLANDS: A Global Arts Stage In The South Bronx, generously funded by the New York State Regional Economic Development Councils via New York State Council on the Arts, and by Con Edison. The residency by Gil René + En Equipo is supported by the National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures and Ford Foundation through the NALAC Diverse Arts Spaces Grant Program. The NY premiere of MUNDO CRUEL is made possible with public funds from the New York City Dept. of Cultural Affairs. Special thanks to Southwest Airlines, proud airline sponsor of Pregones/PRTT.

Pregones/PRTT is Partner of the National Performance Network (NPN). This project is made possible in part by the NPN Performance Residency Program. Major contributors include the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Ford Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. www.npnweb.org.