Rosalba Rolón

Pregones Theater Company is a Bronx-based touring company that focuses on expanding arts opportunities to Latinx theater artists.

After their first small performance, Rolón invested in starting their own theater company. She, along with Luis Meléndez and David Crommett, began to work seriously to produce the play collection, or La Colleción, that they had created. They rehearsed wherever they could find space and performed all over New York and the surrounding states, including small towns and prisons. According to Rolón, they were in Philadelphia so much they received an award reserved for local artists.[2]

The initial impetus behind the Pregones Theater Company was to create collective productions and bring them to people outside the mainstream theater community.[3] To this end, they chose productions for their repertoire that would require minimal staging. As the company grew to include more actors and musicians, they decided they needed a more formal rehearsal space. By that time, they had been working with a number of Bronx organizations for more than a year, and when given the opportunity to use an office space there they jumped at the chance to settle down.[2] By 1985, the company was rehearsing in their office rooms and performing in St. Ann's church in a room they had renovated from a gym into a theater space.[2] While there they produced many works, including Areyto de Pescadores (1982), High Noon/Al Mediodía (1983), Migrants!: Cantata a los emigrantes (1985), The Caravan (1986), and Voices of Steel (1990).[4] During the 1990s, the company grew and began many outreach programs, including the Visiting Artists Series, the Pregones Summer Stage, and curriculum development sessions, as well as collaborations with other theaters throughout NYC and around the world.[4] As the company grew, so too did their need for a larger space. In the late 1990s, they relocated to The Studio and in 2005, they found their permanent home in a warehouse they renovated with the help of a $2.7 million capital campaign.[4]

The company has been a collective project since its inception. There are three directors, including Rolón, a music director, and a collective of actors. Some pieces are more director-driven than others, but all include cooperative elements, and most are musical, necessitating that the music director be a co-director.[2]

Pregones Theater Company has performed in over 400 cities in 13 different countries,[5] although their main focus is the Tri-State area, and they have nearly 70 premiers to their credit.[6] The company has partnerships with many different theater companies, including the Roadside Theater in Kentucky, The Yuyachkani Collective in Peru, and the Worldwide Virtual Theater Carrousel cohort in Peru, Belgium, South Africa, and Slovakia, among others.[6] They have received a number of different awards, including the leading national ensemble theater designation from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the Primary Cultural Institution Designation from the New York State Council of the Arts, the New York State Governor's Arts Award, and the Culture and Humanities Award from the Center for Puerto Rican Studies.[7]

In 2016, Pregones completed a merger with the Puerto Rican Traveling Theater (PRTT) in order to expand the reach of both of their programming.[8] The theaters now function as one institution, although they retain their previous names. Since the early 2000s, the two theaters have done many collaborations and co-productions, and Rolón worked extensively with the founder and director of PRTT, Miriam Colón.[8][2]

• 21 Islands International Short Film Fest (Dec. 9-11, 2016)[9]
• Elders Share The Arts (ESTA)[10]
• New York Shakespeare's Festival Latino[11]
• Teatrofestival[11]