“Fuenteovejuna: East End,” a new play that will debut at Guild Hall tomorrow and Saturday at 8 p.m., is on many levels a testament to the power of community collaboration.
A co-production between Organizacion Latino-Americana of Eastern Long Island and Guild Hall, and co-directed by Guild Hall’s 2025 community artists in residence Minerva Perez, executive director of OLA, and Margarita Espada, founder of Teatro Yerbabruja in Bay Shore, it features a cast of community members and will have the distinction of being the first full theatrical production performed entirely in Spanish on the East End.
“It was at least five years ago or so when I started seriously thinking that this storyline, this story is just too beautiful, too strong, too powerful to not have done up here,” recalled Ms. Perez. The play is an adaptation of the Spanish playwright Lope de Vega’s 17th-century classic “Fuenteovejuna,” which tells the story of an actual 1476 event in which residents of the titular Spanish village courageously revolted against the tyrannical, violent abuses of their local political leader through collective action. Ms. Perez and Ms. Espada transposed the plot to present-day eastern Long Island and adapted the storyline to reflect the real, lived experience of members of the area’s diverse Spanish-speaking community.
“We’ve got people on the East End of Long Island from many, many different countries,” said Ms. Perez, “so the last thing in the world we do is boil everyone together.” They were interested in telling a story about the fact that “we’re not boiling everyone down on the stage to ‘Latino’ or ‘Hispanic,’ that there can be, onstage, people from Ecuador, from Colombia, from Mexico, from Guatemala, Spanish speakers that are having a Long Island experience, let alone an East End experience. They’re all going to resonate with what’s going on, because the way that this has been crafted, it really is speaking directly to them.”
Ms. Espada described the project as something that “made sense” for her, aligning with her own passion for “advocacy” and “empowering communities” through theater. “It can be very isolating for people, for artists coming from Puerto Rico, from Latin America,” she explained, and many go into New York City due to the lack of creative opportunities locally. The prospect of a collaborator who not only “understood the culture” here, but also shared the “professional expertise” necessary to bring that understanding to life onstage, was very exciting.
Last fall, Ms. Perez and Ms. Espada invited community members to Guild Hall to learn about what they were doing, to “honor the fact that, hey, this never happens.” They explained what “Fuenteovejuna” was, why it was important to them, and led them through a warmup and an acting exercise onstage. “And then we said, ‘Okay, the auditions are going to be on these few dates,’ ” recounted Ms. Perez. She thought she was going to have to “push” to draw people in, but that was not the case. “So many people were interested, from so many different backgrounds.”
“It feels like a long time ago,” Ms. Espada reflected –- since before the election, she noted, which made the play feel even more resonant than they had anticipated. Over the course of their months working together they were able to further adapt the script to the cast, and to pull their characters into the modern day. “Each person has something that’s really tremendous that they bring to the table,” said Ms. Perez, and they want to share “every bit of the characters they’re playing.” One was adapted into an “influencer,” for example, and another a local journalist.
They also added in a scene between a mother and her young daughter (played by an actual mother and daughter) just before the climax of the show to give a voice to the children of Fuenteovejuna that is not present in the original play. “It’s one thing to talk about the dangers this town is experiencing, and another to actually see children,” she said. “ ‘Why does this person hate me so much?’ ‘Why does he want to take away my mother and father?’ This is the ongoing inner monologue of so many children right now. So I wanted to keep it short, but also have a crystalline moment to let that child’s voice be heard.”
Both Ms. Perez and Ms. Espada have advocated extensively for “actual access” in the arts and arts spaces within their communities, for audience members as well as performers. “All of the art spaces out here will say ‘Oh no, it’s open to everyone, anyone can come.’ ” But for members of their communities, the actual experiences of those spaces often make them feel not entirely welcome. What is that person’s experience getting a ticket, and showing up? What if they have a question, or get sick? Can they bring their family?
“We can do everything we want,” added Ms. Espada, “but if you go to the space and feel that tension –- that happens all the time.” She hopes that this will be “an opportunity for other organizations to learn –- and for the community also –- that it can be done.”
“It’s having the desire at the very top level, to say this is important to us. We’ve got a 50-percent Latino student body across the entire East End, which means that all those students have family members connected to them. This is your audience. They’re going to go to the city and pay money to see something, but they’re not going to see it out here because they don’t feel that there is either something that’s interesting to them, or that they’re maybe truly welcome.” In Guild Hall, she recognized an organization that was interested in asking not only what the experience of a “true, welcoming, open art space” looks like, but also what they can do “to continue to grow that.” She described this moment, the culmination of their work, as “the full thing in action” –- creating “actual access” and demonstrating what that can look like from a theater’s perspective. “They’re going to learn a lot about having a full house, because we are going to sell this thing out.”
“From a theater background, there’s a misconception when you talk about community theater. Some people think community theater is something that has less value, and I feel the opposite,” said Ms. Espada. “All of these people, including us, our lives are being transformed with this experience. And that is the power when you work with community. I come here and feel so happy because I belong, we belong to this. And that’s why community theater is so important.”
A reception will be held in Guild Hall’s garden beginning at 7 each evening before the performances, which run from 8 to 9:30.
Tickets are $15 ($13.50 for Guild Hall members). An English libretto will be available for non-Spanish speakers. The show contains brief moments of depicted violence and assault and is not recommended for children under 10.
