The People's Theatre Project

 

[When I first heard CBS2 News reporter Dave Carlin, who covers breaking news stories and major events in the Tri-State Area, broadcast a story about the People’s Theatre Project on WCBS-Channel 2’s six-o’clock program on Wednesday evening, last 25 October, I was really intrigued.  I’d never heard of the project, even though it was launched 14 years earlier, and had one very illustrious name attached to it: Lin-Manuel Miranda. 

[Furthermore, it was a totally fascinating project: a new theater focused on and promoting the work of immigrant artists, to be located in Inwood, the northernmost neighborhood of Manhattan, where playwright and composer-lyricist Miranda grew up.]

The People’s Theatre Project was founded in 2009 to build “a culture of peace through theatre,” according to its mission statement, in the northern Manhattan neighborhoods of Washington Heights and Inwood.  The founders of PTP had a vision to combine social justice with the arts.

PTP works in partnership with various community stakeholders to advocate for the artistic and cultural resurgence of Upper Manhattan and to become a significant forum for the ideas and expressions of immigrants and people of color.

That same year, the People’s Theatre Project launched a theater program for children ages 5 through 12 that became what is now the PTP Academy for Leadership, Theatre, & Activism, a multi-year, full-scholarship program dedicated to “the holistic development of immigrant youth and youth of color.”

Over PTP’s early years, it held classes, rehearsals, and performances all through the Inwood and Washington Heights neighborhoods.  From 2010 to 2016, PTP produced a dozen Forum Theatre productions that toured the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens.  The goals of Forum Theatre, a kind of role-play, are to “rehearse tactics against real-life oppression, critically analyze how each tactic plays out, and creatively share ideas as a community.”

As described on a blog, a Forum Theatre scenario might begin like this:

“Who thinks they can arrange these three chairs as though one has more power than the other two?”

. . . .

From sculptures using the three chairs, we start to generate stories and eventually bring them to life in short improvised scenes about encounters with the police—a conversation, a detention, and an interrogation.

In one scene last week . . ., a young person playing a police officer pulled out a bottle of Axe body spray in order to “pepper spray” his peer playing the suspect (slightly avoiding his face for the purposes of the scene).  “Because that’s what they do!  They did it to me!” he explained once the scene was over and he could break character.  The now-scented room of young people concurred—sometimes cops do that.

Once we’ve established the reality and have seen what kinds of oppression are enacted during police encounters, we turn each scene into Forum Theatre.  “Who has another idea?  What else might this “suspect” character try?”  For the purposes of this workshop, we’re also asking “What are this character’s legal rights?”

The People’s Theatre Project’s aim is to create what it considers a more just and even-handed society by making theater by and for immigrant communities.  Some of its productions include Mariposas (Butterflies), focusing on the journey of immigrants mothers and their children, as well as Somos Más (We are more), a story about immigrants who spark a revolution in a world where assimilation is required.

In 2015, the People’s Theatre Project became a resident company of the Alianza Dominicana Cultural Center on W. 166th Street at Amsterdam Avenue in Washington Heights with access to two rehearsal studios and an event space.  PTP began offering its public programs on a regular basis.

After four years at the Alianza, PTP leased a rehearsal studio and administrative office in the Workspace Offices complex at 5030 Broadway, between 213th and 214th Streets in Inwood, which allowed the organization to expand its offerings into the after-school hours. 

From Summer 2015 to 2017, the People’s Theatre Project teamed with the Office of English Language Learners (OELL) of New York City’s Department of Education to bring its arts-integrated programming to immigrant students in 32 schools in four boroughs.  When PTP determined that its staff was too small and it was spread over too large a geographic area, it began a reorganization in Spring 2017.

This resulted in a fresh commitment to its community and its mission and vision, and renewed strategic priorities for the next three to five years.  In 2019, the Pierre and Tana Matisse Foundation made a $750,000 Arts Education Impact Grant to the People’s Theatre Project for the PTP Academy.  In 2021, PTP marked the start of its second decade of making theater with and for immigrant communities, and entered into collaboration with Lin-Manuel Miranda and his family.  

In March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic hit the city and the country.  The People’s Theatre Project's staff (all retained at their full wages), board, partners, and families worked to adapt its programming to the virtual space and PTP served its community by providing resources (such as cash relief, food pantries, vaccine drives) to local residents.  It co-organized a Black Lives Matter march and a collaborative arts camp.

Programming is now back in-person and on 19 May 2022, New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced that the People’s Theatre Project “will own and operate a first-of-its-kind Immigrant Research and Performing Arts Center coming to Inwood.”  The announcement read further:  

Filled with a range of visual and performing arts, the center will amplify the voices of New York City’s diverse immigrant communities and cultivate work by local artists and arts organizations.  The city will invest $15 million to help PTP acquire a newly constructed cultural center . . . .

According to the official statement, the People’s Theatre Project was selected through an open request for expressions of interest conducted by the New York City Economic Development Corporation and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs (DCLA).  In addition to the $15 million in capital support from the city for the new facility, DCLA provided $75,000 to help PTP prepare to operate the new space.

Lin-Manuel Miranda; his father, Luis A. Miranda, Jr.; and their charity, the Miranda Family Fund, have been influential in the creation of the new performing arts center.  The three-time Tony-winner, three-time Emmy-winner, and five-time Grammy-winner personally gave a million dollars to help build the center.

“The Miranda family is excited that People’s Theatre Project has been named the owner and operator of Inwood’s first performing arts and cultural center,” wrote Luis Miranda in a release.  “For too long, our artists of Northern Manhattan of all disciplines have needed local space to create, display and perform their work.  We are proud to support as they build this home for our immigrant artist community.”

(Luis Miranda is a political strategist, philanthropist, and advocacy consultant who lives in Washington Heights.  He was born in Puerto Rico and served as an advisor for Hispanic Affairs to Mayor Ed Koch.) 

The new Immigrant Research and Performing Arts Center, to be known as The People’s Theatre: Centro Cultural Inmigrante (immigrant cultural center), will rise at 407 W. 206th Street at Tenth Avenue in Inwood, and is expected to open in 2026. 

The center will be in a new, mixed-income, mixed-use building, developed by a joint venture of LMXD, an urbanist development company focused primarily on mixed-income and mixed-use residential projects; MSquared, a women-owned real estate impact platform focused on creating mixed-income, mixed-use projects that promote affordability, sustainability, and diversity; and Taconic Partners, a New York City real estate developer.  The design is by the woman- and immigrant-owned architecture firm WORKac and theater and acoustics consultant Charcoalblue.

On the floors above the cultural center there will be affordable residential rental units, part of a separate project with a more than $400 million price tag.

Construction on the Centro Cultural is actually already underway, but a ceremonial ground-breaking took place on 25 October 2023, with Lin-Manuel Miranda in attendance, along with New York Governor Kathy Hochul.

Other guests at the ceremony included elected officials, including U.S. Congressman Adriano Espaillat (D-NY), who represents Inwood and Washington Heights; New York State Senator José M. Serrano (D-South Bronx); New York Assemblyman Manny de los Santos (D-Fort George), whose district includes Washington Heights; Assemblywoman Amanda Septimo (D-South Bronx); Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine (D); New York City Councilwoman Carmen de la Rosa (D-Inwood); and Deputy Speaker of the New York City Council Diana Ayala (D-East Harlem).

Also appearing were appointed city officials and representatives of corporate benefactors of the project.

Hochul and Miranda got a tour from former director and theater teacher Mino Lora, PTP’s Dominican-born co-founder and its executive artistic director.  “It's a 19,000 square-foot cultural center,” Lora said.  “There are rehearsal rooms, sound booths, dressing rooms, green rooms and art gallery space, and a state of the art theater. So ‘Centro Cultural Inmigrante’ will be coming in 2026 to serve our community and citywide artists.” 

The center will also have a flexible midsize theater, a smaller performance space, rehearsal studios, a soundproof practice room, and gallery space.  It will be PTP’s first permanent home in its history.

"This is a joyous day,” proclaimed Miranda, “this a real dream come true for the many artists who grew up in Washington Heights and Inwood and now will get to make theater in the actual neighborhood where they live.”

“It is for immigrants,” Lora affirmed.  “So we have social workers across the city who refer unaccompanied minors to us and we work with them to build their skills through theater.  Some of the young people who performed today came as unaccompanied minors a few years ago.  Separated from families, crossing the border by themselves, and here they are sharing those stories.”

“As someone who grew up a few blocks from here, to have a theater in our neighborhood is incredible.  A Latina-owned, Latina-run theater in Inwood, woah,” exclaimed Miranda.

Aside from growing up in Inwood, Miranda set his first Broadway success, In the Heights (Off-Broadway: 8 February-15 July 2007; Broadway: 9 March 2008-9 January 2011; film released: 9 June 2021, Tribeca Film Festival), in Washington Heights, the neighborhood to the south which is part of the community PTP serves.

Among the participants of the ground-breaking ceremony were three young performers, members of the People’s Theatre Project who will soon find an artistic home at the cultural center.  One, actress Vida Tayabati, said with hope: “I am Iranian.  We have people from China, Korea, Africa, all over, different places.  We are gathered here at PTP having the same goal, showing that we can collaborate together, we are the same.”

Tayabati, who came here from Tehran about 11 years ago, added. “You get to work with people from different backgrounds, different cultures, different points of view, it’s beautiful.  It's just going to be for us, as a home, we need a home.  As artists, here, so we can come together, work together.  It's just going to be amazing for us.  For all of us.”

The performances that will take place in the cultural center will focus on immigrant experiences in New York City.  Live music, dance performances, film screenings, and civic and community events will take place on its stages and its performance spaces.  

For children and families, the center will offer classes, festivals, student matinees, and field trips.  PTP will also partner with the New York Public Library to provide space for literary programming and research exploring the historical intersection of immigrants and the performing arts.  The center is expected to draw at least 28,000 people annually.

The People’s Theatre Project’s mission will be accomplished through a combination of efforts:  production, which includes the development of devised and playwright-driven original theater, all by immigrants and artists of color; education, which provides free access to high-quality arts education through the multi-year PTP Academy for immigrant youth, and partnerships with schools and libraries across the city for immigrant New Yorkers of all ages; and advocacy, in which PTP staff and artists collaborate with elected officials, community leaders, and other organizations to champion immigrant rights, racial equity, LGBTQIA+ rights, and equitable arts and culture funding in New York City and beyond.

“As the largest Latine theater in New York City and the city’s first Dominican-managed cultural institution, the People’s Theatre Project’s new home will be more than a performing arts center—it will be a tribute to the diverse artists, cultures, and communities that define our great state,” Governor Hochul said.

“I look forward to cutting the ribbon on this beautiful space in a few short years,” concluded the governor.