Puerto Rican Traveling Theater

In the 1940s and 50s Hispanic theater waned, only surviving in mutual aid societies, church halls, and lodges for smaller audiences.

[1] The story of La Carreta dramatized a family dislocated from their farm and resettling into a slum in San Juan, and then to New York City.

The success of the play allowed Rodríguez and Colón to form the first permanent Hispanic theatrical group to have its own space, Teatro Arena,[2] located in Manhattan on Sixth Avenue between 43rd and 44th street.

[2] Though El Nuevo Círculo Dramatico could not continue, Colón went on to form the Puerto Rican Traveling Theater company in 1967 after starring in an off-Broadway production of The Oxcart (an English translated version of La Carreta) in 1966.

[6] Supported by a joint sponsorship from Mayor Lindsay's Summer Task Force Program and the Parks Department, Colón began by touring a production of The Oxcart through various neighborhoods,[7] often to audiences who had never seen theater before.