Playwrights and Theater Companies
Spanish-language Puerto Rican writers such as René Marqués who wrote about the immigrant experience can be considered as antecedents of Nuyorican movement. Marqués's best-known play The Oxcart (La Carreta) traces the life of a Puerto Rican family who moved from the countryside to San Juan and then to New York, only to realize that they would rather live a poor life in Puerto Rico than face discrimination in the United States. Puerto Rican actress Míriam Colón founded the Puerto Rican Traveling Theatre in 1967 precisely after a successful run of The Oxcart. Her company gives young actors the opportunity to participate in its productions. Some of PRTT's productions, such as Edward Gallardo's Simpson Street concern life in a New York's ghettos. Other theater companies include Pregones Theater, established in 1979 in the Bronx and currently directed by Rosalba Rolón, Alvan Colón-Lespier, and Jorge Merced.
Playwrights who pioneered the Nuyorican movement include Miguel Piñero, Jesús Papoleto Meléndez, Pedro Pietri, and Tato Laviera, and now include younger artists such as Migdalia Cruz, Edwin Sánchez and Lin-Manuel Miranda. Piñero became an acclaimed playwright with Short Eyes, a drama about prison life which received a Tony Award nomination and won an Obie Award. Judge Edwin Torres wrote Carlito's Way, the saga of a Puerto Rican drug dealer which eventually became a Hollywood film. Lin-Manuel Miranda is a Tony-Award winning actor and playwright best known for the musical In the Heights.
Currently, spaces such as B.A.A.D. (the Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance), established in 1998 by the dancer and choreographer Arthur Aviles and the writer Charles Rice-González in the Hunts Point neighborhood of the Bronx, provide numerous Nuyorican, Latina/o, and queer of color artists and writers with a space to present and develop their work. Many additional groups use the two theaters at the Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural Center in Loisaida for their events.
Read more about this topic: Nuyorican Movement
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