In 2013, Rosalba Rolón took the helm of the newly merged organization, Pregones/Puerto Rican Traveling Theater, as the Artistic Director. The Pregones/Puerto Rican Traveling Theater merger brought together two pillars of the East Coast Latinx theater movement – Pregones, which was founded by Rolón and a collective of Puerto Rican artists in 1979 as a touring, ensemble company and was dedicated to creating new musicals and plays rooted in Puerto Rican and Latinx culture and the Puerto Rican Traveling Theater (PRTT), which was founded in 1967 by Puerto Rican movie star and theater icon Miriam Colón, and was dedicated to developing and producing Latinx artists and making theater more accessible.
The Pregones/PRTT merger was driven by one key priority – to preserve Miriam Colón and the Puerto Rican Traveling Theater’s legacies. In essence, the merger was a succession plan for Colón. With this priority in mind, Rolón, Colón, and their team had to determine how to live out this commitment to PRTT, while also grappling with the new realities of the merged organization. The organization now had two spaces (one in Manhattan and one in the Bronx), two artistic and educational programs, and two sets of audiences and donors to manage. On one hand, this increased scope created potential for broader reach and impact. On the other hand, the organization’s staff was not growing significantly from the merger and Rolón, Colón, and their team knew they would need to be intentional about how they deployed their resources.
With a sense of both immense possibility and some logistical constraint, Rolón, Colón, and their team had three major strategic decisions ahead of them. They had to determine how they would manage venues in both Manhattan and the Bronx, maximizing the growth possible from having a location in the theater district, while never creating the sense that the downtown location was better or more important than the Bronx one. They had to scale the aspiration of both Pregones and PRTT’s programming to what the organization could realistically handle, while honoring their commitment to Colón and PRTT’s legacy. And, they had to determine how they would brand the new organization and message the merger to new and existing audiences and to donors. Rolón, Colón, and their team wondered how they could strategically navigate these multi-faceted issues around location, programming, and branding to ensure the success of the newly merged Pregones/PRTT.
Citation: Caitlin Dutkiewicz, "Pregones/Puerto Rican Traveling Theater (2013)," David Geffen School of Drama at Yale Theater Management Knowledge Base Case 20-106, July 23, 2024.