Time Out New York
August 11-17, 2005

Life is a stage
The Puerto Rican Traveling Theatre hits the streets

Dogs are barking, babies are crying, car alarms are blaring and a man with a wash basin on his head believes himself to be a knight errant. Sounds crazy, but it's actually theater live in Sunset Park. Specifically, it's Don Quixote, this year's production of the Puerto Rican Traveling Theatre, a professional company which will visit 17 neighborhoods in all five boroughs—plus a stop in Jersey City.

Now in its 38th year, the PRTT was started by actor Miriam Colon as a way to bring live theater to Latino communities. Every August, she and her crew drag their mobile stage and sound system out of storage at a long-term-care facility in the Bronx. They truck it to different neighborhoods for one-night-only performances on street corners, in parks, at community centers and even in parking lots. News spreads by word of mouth, and thanks to flyers that community members post around their neighborhoods. This year's Quixote production kicked off on August 9 in midtown Manhattan and runs through August 28. The play is in Spanish (it varies from year to year), but a written English synopsis is available at all shows so Anglophones can follow along.

Colon observes with both satisfaction and disappointment that this PRTT production may be the first time many young people are exposed to Cervantes's work (which is 400 years old this year). In the past, PRTT has presented other classics—such as works by Gabriel Garcia Marquez—and introduced New Yorkers to newer, lesser-known writers. "We belong to the community and people come to see us because they like what the playwrights have to say," Colon says.

PRTT has always sought to deliver a fully staged, staffed and rehearsed production—the same quality theater staged year-round at PRTT's home base on West 47th Street, which opened in 1974. Casa Promesa, a health-care outfit in the South Bronx, has invited PRTT to come and perform for the past three years. "They bring Broadway to us," explains Sylvia Celis, Casa Promesa's activity coordinator.

The Casa Promesa show (scheduled for Thursday 11) is indoors, but typically plays are performed outside. Folks of all ages fill the plastic folding chairs that surround the mobile stage, where players compete with the noise of the surrounding city for the audience's attention. The actors revel in the opportunity to put on live theater in unusual settings: "The PRTT summer tour allows actors to train before an audience that doesn't often get an opportunity to see theater," says Yvonne Camilo, one of eight new cast members this year.

Founder Colon is more than an impresario-she's an actor, too. Roles as a high-school and college student led to a scholarship for the Dramatic Workshop and Technical Institute in New York, and she's been acting ever since. Her credits include regular appearances on the soap opera Guiding Light, the role of Tony Montana's mother in Scarface and parts in numerous Broadway productions. Still, she considers the PRTT—along with the Raul Julia Training Unit (her dramatic-arts after school program for children in East Harlem)—her best work.

"We start from scratch every year and fight to make sure it exists and make people understand why this is needed," she says of the annual funding battle. In spite of the challenges, Colon says it always seems to come together, thanks largely to funding provided by local and state arts programs, foundations and corporations (this year's donors include JP Morgan Chase, Con Edison and the New York State Council on the Arts). So, why does she do it? Colon ponders on it and then chuckles: "Crazy—that is what I am."—David Gerlach

For more information on upcoming shows, see daily listings or call PRTT at 212-354-1293.

© 2009 david gerlach | contact: davidgerlach at yahoo dot com