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[0:08] Robert Bannon: Well, welcome to the round table, everybody. My name is Robert Bannon. You're listening to us on Broadway World over here on the Broadway Podcast Network, iHeartSpotify, wherever you listen to artists talking about art. We have two great artists in front of the behind the scenes putting things up, doing all sorts of fun, exciting things. Award-winning. Award-winning. Uh, we have a really special event that we're going to talk to you all about. It's called Everybody Has a Story to Tell. It is a remote theater project. It's free. Okay. It's coming up this beautiful month of May. When you need something to do, the weather is changing in New York City and you need a moment. We've got the perfect event for you to check out and week for you to check out.

Please, everybody, please give a big giant warm welcome to our wonderful guest today, Carmen Rivera and Alexandra. I think it's Aaron. Is it Aaron? Aaron? Yes. Yes, Aaron. Aaron's correct. Oh, I get so stressed by people's names. They stress me out so much.

[1:02] Robert Bannon: So tell me. Firstly, Alex, is this your baby? You run this little theater program, extravaganza?

[1:12] Alexandra Aron: Yeah. Yeah. It is. Sort of my baby. Yes, it is an extravaganza. It developed very organically through a project I did here a few years ago and a connection that I made with some amazing community members here, particularly the Sarah Roosevelt Park Community Coalition, which is a volunteer organization. Kay Webster, who's the executive director, who invited me in, invited Remote Theater Project to basically help share stories from various community groups who are often not heard from and who share the same spaces and often don't know about each other. So how could we create an opportunity for um people to come together to learn about each other and um uh and have fun and so I brought in Carmen who is an old friend and a fantastic playwright um who and so like three years ago we started this project and um I brought Carmen into it saying like look we have done all these lovely workshops here with some elders in Chinatown with um some unhoused folks um with the new migrant families um and um and Carmen got involved with all these workshops and how can we take some of the um stories and material that we're hearing and and craft a beautiful experience for an audience and so I was so lucky to um have Carmen really begin this whole project with me because all the research you want to do is great if you don't have a really skilled artist to turn it into um really engaging theater then you know it's uh that's a whole other step.

[3:02] Robert Bannon: Well, I love Carmen hi that's such thank you Alex you are known um your New York New York playwright I mean you are an Obie Award-winning playwright uh your work has been done all around the city and and around the world really in different theater companies so what made you say yes to this particular and you are you are your heritage being Puerto Rican and then you see this event that you're doing you it shows you that art transcends race, gender, culture. It is all we are all a part of whatever experiences we are going to witness when it comes to art. So why did you say yes? Why were you the person that we I'll take this on, I could do this.

[3:50] Carmen Rivera: Alex said we're friends, uh and we both um feel about we both feel we both think theater is a wonderful uh way to tell stories and to connect. So when Alex introduced me to the project she had already begun some workshops and she showed me some videos and it was wonderful. I mean it's something that I think um uh uh even when I I do teach playwriting and I always tell my kids sometimes people say oh I don't have nothing to write about it yes you do where were you this morning? How did you get here? Like we we we live stories every single day. We live heroes' journeys every single day. So um from my own my own um filter of how I interpret my world it's it's like there's stories everywhere. So when Alex told me about the project it was I just felt like it was something I really wanted to be a part of and I'm very glad Alex invited me to be part of this and I know Alex's work and Alex very much the Alex herself is an artist I'm I'm sorry to speak about you in third person but just like remote and and and remote theater project very much are involved with um giving agency and platform to to voices from everywhere and uh um and I felt that I I hoped I I I felt like perhaps I could work with her on this and and I love uh her as an artist as a director, so it was really nice.

We she showed me the interviews, and then we came up with um, I came up with some ideas and I pitched them to her, and then we found common ground in in how these three communities could be reflected in a theater piece with their with their authentic voice and concerns and dreams. So uh Alex was was um was in was in, you know, she's like, let's do it. And I felt really great about that. So I feel really pleased and honored to be part of this.

[5:49] Robert Bannon: Let's do it. You can go right now to remote. Carmen, Carmen really um and you also let's so sorry, I think we maybe like have not the best internet connection. I apologize. I it may be that we're freezing a little bit. Um say that again.

[6:11] Alexandra Aron: It there you said to go on to uh the the remote so the remote theater project. So no, I was just saying that when Carmen came to join us, um she also asked to like interview specific people. She dug into like she had the clarity to you know zero in on a few individuals and a few narratives and then to really dig deeper into those stories. And I remember you were coming back to interview like Corelli over and over and over again. Um, and then you know, it's how do you weave these stories in a theatrical way so that it's fun, and even though there's like some of what we're hearing is heavy, and um how do we how do we share some of the reality and the heaviness, but still exploit the joy and the resilience.

And um this and so this is our third iteration of this project, the third year we're doing this, and unlike the other two years where we performed in the section of Sarah Roosevelt Park, which is called the Pit, which is like a big cement, you know, lot, and it's uh it's a big wide open space, and it's it's um a lot of traffic that goes through there. Uh, last year we were competing against a major construction site that had a lot of work going on. So we we amplify, we have the actors on headsets and stuff, but this year we wanted it to take to do more performances and to do them a little bit more intimately. So we've decided to move into the community gardens, and we'll be in the Mathinda Kalunga Garden, which is part of Sarah Roosevelt Park, um, but it's a very protected part with with lots of flowers and and plantings and gardeners, and we'll be in a couple of other uh uh lower east side gardens.

Um, and we're really starting to dig into those communities, the communities of those gardens themselves and the people who tend them, all of whom are volunteers and who care passionately about their community and about their garden space, and so we're Carmen's written a brand new iteration of this project um called Everybody Has a Story to Tell that's specifically set in gardens and inspired by a lot of garden um imagery and um you know metaphor, so yeah.

[8:21] Carmen Rivera: And I know nothing about gardening, I might but my parents do. My parents are amazing. We had a house in the Bronx and they had tomatoes and uh we have roses, different color roses and grape leaves and beans and tomatoes and onions, and I was not allowed to go there like stay away, but Alex Gardens, and I'm I I the gardens are so beautiful, and so I I actually kind of had to kind of like uh I talked to my mom about gardening and and I did research on gardening because the gardens are so beautiful, and there's so much I felt like there was a lot of connection about tending a garden and tending your life and how you live your life, and we don't know when there's gonna be a storm.

[9:04] Carmen Rivera: We don't know if there's gonna be little bugs that come into the garden. We're living this every day as human, it's as our human collective family. We're all living that every single day. The train might break down, uh COVID happens, like you know. So I found common ground with the guard the process of gardening with these stories. It was amazing. Like if I can, can I just we had somebody that had a really had a death in his family and had to go stay with his grandparents, and he had very long locks in his hair, and then he had like an awakening and he shaved his head. Well, that's like pruning a garden. Like it, there's so many similarities to how we care for ourselves, how we care for our garden, how we care for our families, and those stories are very universal no matter where you come from.

So we met people from like all parts of the world. Alex had arranged the workshops, and it was from Chinese elders to little children from Uzbekistan and Colombia, Venezuela, and uh people who grew up here or from the south. It's incredible, just the reach that Alex provided for this story to happen.

[10:13] Alexandra Aron: May everybody May 16th to the 24th. You have a full week worth of events that are happening. You have an incredible location, all of you go to the lower east side, all the way even touching it to Chinatown to make all of this happen. And this is the part that I'm sure Alex, what in the world is going on there? It is all free.

[10:30] Carmen Rivera: Free. How is it free? Tell us.

[10:38] Alexandra Aron: Uh well, yeah, I think so. Remote Theater Project, um, you know, really they we do produce, you know, professional shows where we go into venues and charge money for our tickets. But when we started doing this project, this was about having taking the theater to where the people who don't really have access to theater are, like literally bringing it into their backyards. Like the pit was an is an area where a lot of people who um live in shelters and don't have permanent housing hang out on these benches. And so we were literally, I felt like we were bringing some of this theater into their living room where they could just they didn't have to move, they could just look down from their benches and they could listen and be part of it.

And that is like that did happen, and that really felt like an important um thing. And and so anyway, how is it possible? It's because we're getting funded. Um, and the first year we were not funded, actually. We sort of put the cart before the horse, expecting the horse to catch up, but it didn't. And um, it was a big investment um on the part of the company because of course we pay the actors that we work with and we pay the people that we do who do the workshops and we have expenses. Um and then the DCLA started funding us in this year, uh last year they did uh we got a uh creative development fund grant, and we did that, uh we applied for it again. Um this year we have some multi-year funding from them.

Um, and then uh some other resources that we put into to to make up the full budget. But it's um this is money that's municipal money that's being um trusted, entrusted to us so that we can, I think it's important that we can turn we can provide these this for the sit for the citizens of the city. It's free. Anyone can attend. And um, so I I think this work's really important. I think it's important to do theater outside of the venues and to do them in places to put in public places where where the public is. So it's an ethos, even though you don't get lighting and you there's no video, and you know, there's a lot, and there's a lot to contend with. It's not easy, you know, and then the weather, you know, we've been lucky, you know, and we're doing many more performances this year.

I'm sure we're gonna face some inclement weather at some point, and we'll just have to deal with it. We may have to hold for an hour or you know, or cancel or figure it out. Put up our umbrellas, you know, we'll we'll figure it out. Theater happens no matter what.

[13:03] Robert Bannon: So you're muted, yeah. Are you muted, Robert? Theater happens no matter what, and what's exciting about this is it's live, live, live. It will happen and it will be you need to go and and you have to check this out. Carmen, who do you hope comes and shows up? Who do you hope are the people that are gonna roll up and be able to see this? Is it for everybody? Is it for families? Do I have to be what who do you hope is who's your audience?

[13:27] Carmen Rivera: Our audience, literally, I really feel this. A two-year-old to an 82-year-old. We are really being um conscious of families, older folks, people for even if they don't speak the language, I feel they can understand it. Um a lot of the stories involve people who had to overcome uh difficult things in their life. I think we're all living that. And then we have some fun things for the kids too. So like we we um uh that's what's wonderful about what Alex um sort of like the mandate. It wasn't like a mandate, but it was sort of like what's the objective of this project? It's like, well, anybody who passes by can stop and and be, you know, we hope the families that we interviewed come. We hope that every, you know, everybody goes.

I was actually just telling the cast today, common actually couldn't come to rehearsals like she was teaching. And um I would last night went to a community meeting at at Mefidakalunga Garden, one of the gardens that we'll be at. Um it was uh and it was a panel of people that were put together from the neighborhood, including like people from the Fifth Precinct Youth Officers, there was Part Partnership for Parks, someone from City Relief, there was Carol from Inside Change from Within. Um, and uh it was really it was fascinating. And it was about like how it was a community conversation about things that could be done to make the park safer. You know, there's issues the park has a lot of issues, which is what also attracted me to it.

You know, it's uh it they they struggle with um crime, they struggle with a lot of drug use and drug dealing in the park. So you know, there's some very practical things, but what was really reassuring, what was really validating for me, which I didn't expect, is that various people on that panel thanked Remote Theater Project for the work we were doing in terms of bringing their stories out. And so I think also just honoring the people like who are on that panel who we are also bringing attention to for their work and their volunteerism and their like their dedication. And I think it's very validating for them to see themselves represented in some of our, you know, in in some of the characterizations. And so I realize that that's a another level of also giving back to the people who are really giving so much of themselves to make to the community.

[15:50] Alexandra Aron: Yeah. I'm excited for this, everybody.

[15:53] Carmen Rivera: Yeah, I agree with with what's wonderful is that there are people who care.

[16:00] Robert Bannon: Oh, I'm sorry, Robert.

[16:01] Alexandra Aron: No, please, you're fine. We're going to go back. We might have a delay. That might be it. I don't know. We have a delay. I hear you, and then you have a delay.

[16:07] Carmen Rivera: Okay, yeah. No, thank you for this, Robert.

[16:10] Alexandra Aron: Yeah. No, please. What I want to say. It might be delayed. Just oh, sorry, we don't have it. I'm excited for people to be able to be there and see this. And if you have, if you are looking for a date night, if you're looking for something to do this for a weekend or during the week when you're coming home from work, people always complain about how expensive and and and class art is that you're classed out, you're financially taken out, you can't go and access it. This you can access for free, everybody. You can go see this, you can check this out, and you could be a part of it and see up and coming stories and new works and celebrate culture and art right there in the middle of New York City.

You just go to Remote Theaterproject.com and you can go. There's something to do every single day on the weekend from the 16th all the way through the week and carrying on all the way until the 24th. You just go to the Lower East Side and they're gonna be there and they're gonna be checking it out. I'm so grateful for you both. I'm thankful for you both to be able to be here and spend time with me. The work you're doing for art and artistry in New York City is so inspiring that we need to take that in our heart and spirit and carry it all across this country.

[17:12] Carmen Rivera: Oh, that's really great. Thank you so much, Robert.

[17:15] Alexandra Aron: Thank you for having us and for for giving platform to the work that that that Remote Theater Project has been doing.

[17:21] Carmen Rivera: Thank you.

[17:22] Alexandra Aron: Thank you. Congratulations.