IN TH IR WN WORDS

In that very space and time, we continued to develop our artistic craft. In 1995, we named ourselves UNIVERSES (universesonstage.com). With UNIVERSES, we have honed our unique musical theater aesthetic, one that has moved us from the streets of the South Bronx to the poetry scene, to the New York performance scene to university theaters, to Off-Broadway theaters and national and international stages. We have made homes in the many communities across the country that required our expertise—from the Bronx all the way to Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF), which commissioned UNIVERSES in 2009 to write a new play for their American Revolutions’ History Cycle. The result was PARTY PEOPLE, a musical about the Black Panther Party and the Young Lords Party. It premiered at OSF in 2012 and toured to Berkeley Rep (2014) and The Public Theater (2016) where we worked with Jacob as a producer. Funded by the Ford Foundation, we became the first-ever Resident Ensemble at OSF (2013-2018). In 2014, OSF commissioned us to write UNISON, a music-filled work using August Wilson’s poetry (2017 OSF premiere). Throughout the years, we have created lifelong relationships with likeminded artistic directors and theater makers who have bravely joined us to support our work of heart and soul.

Our relationship with the City of New Haven started in the late nineties when the International Festival of Arts and Ideas (IFAI) invited us to perform a concert on the City Green. We returned years later to interview former members of New Haven’s Black Panther Party for PARTY PEOPLE. After the PARTY PEOPLE premiere, we returned to IFAI to present a PARTY PEOPLE salon/town hall/performance.

Even then, our Black and Puerto Rican roots invited us to continue building our relationship with this complicatedly vibrant city. We deepened these roots with New Haven and the greater community as Mellon Foundation playwrights-in-residence at Long Wharf Theatre beginning in 2020. Now, with LIVE FROM THE EDGE, we’re excited to introduce greater New Haven to the deeper UNIVERSES aesthetic and philosophy: to explore and further deepen the dialogue of the intersectionality of art and activism, the historical power of theater as a tool for social justice, and the reimagining of American theater, by and for the people.

– Mildred Ruiz-Sapp and Steven Sapp