FUENTEOVEJUNA: EAST END
As 2025 Community Artists-in-Residence, Margarita Espada and Minerva Perez will develop a community generated/devised multi-media theater piece based on the play, “Fuenteovejuna” by the Spanish playwright Lope de Vega.
First published in Madrid in 1619, as part of Docena Parte de las Comedias de Lope de Vega Carpio (Volume 12 of the Collected plays of Lope de Vega Carpio), the play is believed to have been written between 1612 and 1614. The play is based upon a historical incident that took place in the village of Fuenteovejuna in Castile, in 1476.
While under the command of the Order of Calatrava, a commander, Fernán Gómez de Guzmán, mistreated the villagers, who banded together and killed him. When a magistrate sent by King Ferdinand II of Aragon arrived at the village to investigate, the villagers, even under the pain of torture, responded only by saying “Fuenteovejuna did it.”
This version of the classic play will feature the East End as the town, “Fuenteovejuna”. Our East End paradise is home to families and individuals hailing from 20+ Spanish speaking nations. Our East End school districts have more than 50% Latino students. The many injustices felt by our community members continue to grow: Wage Theft, Housing Exploitation, Worker Safety concerns, Mental Health concerns, Transportation safety, and Health Care access. The gaps in power and wealth render many of our community members voiceless.
The inherent divisions that serve as hairline fractures across a vibrant Latino community are shown during the action of this play to be the very way to divide and conquer a community through fear, misinformation, threats of scarcity, differences in language and dialect, class, immigration status, country of origin, and more. The questions running through the play will include: “What is community?”, “When is the value of the community more than the value of the individual?”, “How do we help each other navigate through the darkest of times?”, “When are younger voices listened to?”, “What is violence and how does it impact a body and a community?” among other questions.
The 2025 CAiR is co-produced by Guild Hall of East Hampton and OLA of Eastern Long Island.
Margarita Espada
Margarita Espada (MFA) is an award-winning performer, educator, cultural maker, researcher, and activist in the fields and studies of physical theater, body and embodiments, settlers-colonialism, race, ethnicity and migration.
Margarita is the founder and director of Teatro Experimental Yerbabuja, an art organization with the mission to use the arts as a tool for social change (www.teatroyerbabruja.org). She is part of the faculty at the Department of Women Study at Stony Brook University where she teaches theater and activism.
Margarita received her Master of Fine Art in Dramaturgy from Stony Brook University and her Bachelor of Art in Education from Puerto Rico University. She is a New York State and Puerto Rico-certified theater teacher with over 30 years of experience as an educator, performer, playwright, arts activist, and cultural and community organizer.
Margarita has conducted research, supported school and organization change efforts, and facilitated professional learning around applied theater, culturally responsive practice, curriculum design, problem solving, and reflective communication. Margarita advocates on the importance of arts and culture for the social and economic well-being of the local and global community. Her work advancing the art of LatinX, Black, Indigenous, and artists of color on Long Island has made her one of the most prominent leaders in Long Island. She is a board member for the New York State Dance Force, and a member of the Arts Advisory Council for the Suffolk County Legislature.
She has received numerous awards and proclamations for her leadership, her art and community work including 2021 Faces of Long Island, Newsday, 2018 Martin Luther King Living Legend Award, NAACP Islip, NY, 2018. Her work has been reviewed in the New York Times and by the Associated Press, Newsday, and numerous other media outlets.
Minerva Perez
Minerva Perez is the executive director of OLA of Eastern Long Island, where she centers her work on the protection, empowerment, and celebration of our Latino community through OLA’s mission to create a safer, healthier, and more equitable East End region for all. As an advocate and an artist, she relishes being in the uncomfortable spaces where love and understanding can grow.
Ms. Perez holds a theatre arts degree from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. She founded and ran a theatre company for 8 years in NYC. In addition to acting in theatre, film, and television, she has directed and produced independent films and local theatre productions including the only Spanish language version of the Vagina Monologues on the East End as well as the English version featuring cast members Brooke Shields, Blythe Danner, and Julie White. She has curated more than 10 OLA Latino Film Festivals which feature Spanish language films with English subtitles meant to bridge cultural interests and create harmony and understanding. She has created and produces two OLA shows on LTV meant to highlight community members and guests of all backgrounds and disciplines: “Conversations with OLA” and “Sabor con OLA”.
OLA of Eastern Long Island works to create a more equitable East End for Latino immigrants through advocating for just and inclusive government and school policies; protecting families; nurturing power and unity among Latinos through leadership workshops and other programs; and building bridges among different sectors of the East End community through celebrating arts and culture.
https://www.olaofeasternlongisland.org
Program Sponsors
Guild Hall’s Learning + New Works programs are made possible through The Patti Kenner Arts Education Fellowship, Vital Projects Fund, the Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Endowment Fund, and The Melville Straus Family Endowment.
Additional support provided by Friends of Learning + New Works: Julie Raynor Gross, Stephanie Joyce and Jim Vos, S. Kutler Foundation, N. Glickberg, D. Glickberg, and J. Abrahams, Andrea and Jeffrey Lomasky, Peter Marino, Stephen Meringoff, and Eva Sandler.