PUENTE THEATRE

Puente has presented staged readings of over 100 plays from around the world from countries such as China, Japan, Chile, Kenya, Nigeria, Italy, Holland, Russia, Iraq, Egypt, Iran, Lebanon, Mexico, Palestine, Romania, Lithuania, Russia, South Africa, India, Cameroon, Syria, Ireland, Spain, the Philippines, Ireland, Hungary, Andorra, England, the United States, Uruguay, Argentina, Australia, Switzerland, Catalunya and Barbados, as well as several plays by Indigenous playwrights from Canada.

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Many members of the immigrant community have been included in WORLDPLAY as performers, pre-show speakers and/or scholars, giving information about the play and its cultural background, talk-back facilitators, or mediators.  For some of them, it was the first time they were able to see, on stage, an example of the valuable contributions their countries have made to world theatre.

 

A large number of these plays have never before been presented in Canada. Some of these were Letters for Tomas by Chilean Malucha Pinto, Happy New Century Dr. Freud by Mexican Sabina Berman, Boxcar by Mexican-American Silvia Gonzalez, Harvest by Manjula Padmanabathan from India, Guantanamo: Honor Bound to Defend Freedom by Gillian Slovo and Victoria Brittain from England, and The Woman who Fell From the Sky by Victor Hugo Rascón Banda from Mexico.

Plays such as Letters for Tomas, The Dark Night of Marguerite de Roberval, Three Marias and a Rose, Pereira Declares, The Pilgrimage of the Nuns of Concepción, etc. were translated from the Spanish specially to be presented at WORLDPLAY.

We are lucky to have been in touch with two excellent translators from Japanese into English: Cody Poulton (Victoria) and Yoshi Yoshihara (Vancouver). It is thanks to them that we have been able to present 6 plays from Japan. 

Because of WORLDPLAY, we have been in e-mail contact with writers from India, Japan, Chile, United States, England, Kenya, Nigeria, Mexico and more.   All have been thrilled to have their plays presented in Canada.

Puente was able to send US $300 to the Centre for Constitutional Rights in New York gathered during a benefit performance of Guantanamo: Honor Bound to Defend Freedom, a play about the people detained without charge at the Guantanamo Bay prison.

Puente has been able to produce four world premiers of WORLDPLAY plays: "Letters for Tomas" by Malucha Pinto, "The Woman Who Fell From the Sky" by Victor Hugo Rascón Banda, "The Pilgrimage of the Nuns of Concepción" by Jaime Silva, and "Lieutenant Nun", by Elaine Ávila.