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T
eatro en El Verano Opening Night
RESCHEDULED DATE: Tuesday, July 7, 6:30 PM
Roger Williams Park – Broad Street
Rhode Island Latino Arts’ (RILA) Teatro en El Verano returns this summer, with a newly adapted version of La Broa’ — the one and only play that premiered on the stage at Trinity Rep in 2024. The stories are based on oral histories collected by Marta V. Martínez and brought to the stage by playwright Orlando Hernández. Inspired by the stories that shaped Broad Street and the early Colombian families rooted in Central Falls, this production (which we’re calling La Broa’ en tu barrio) is in line with RILA’s goal in 2026 of celebrating the voices, histories, and everyday heroes of Rhode Island’s Latino communities.
La Broa’ en tu barrio opens on July 3, at the onset of Independence Day weekend and will offer a contemporary reflection on Rhode Island’s 250-year history by centering stories that unfolded long after 1776. Rooted in oral histories from Latino communities, the play explores migration, memory, language, food, and everyday acts of belonging that have shaped the state’s neighborhoods and cultural life.
Presented outdoors on Broad Street—where many of these stories began—this summer’s production invites the public to consider independence not as a single historical moment, but as an ongoing, lived experience, reimagined by each generation. As part of the RI250 commemoration, La Broa’ en tu barrio expands the narrative of Rhode Island’s past while pointing toward its future.