Saysha Heinzman and Brandon Wengrzynek in SisterMusic. photo: Ron Glassman

Diane Stiles, Castillo’s Managing Director, explains that Five Points Presents… a new theatrical consortium of which Castillo is a part, in residence at the All Stars Project, was initiated by Castillo Theatre artistic director Fred Newman as part of the move to the new Center. He envisioned the new All Stars Project Center as a cultural hub, connecting to multicultural theatre and performance all over the city.

The Castillo Theatre has a long history of producing the work of African American, Latino and gay theatre artists such as Ed Bullins, Lawrence Holder, and James Chapman, author of the well-remembered play Our Young Black Men are Dying and Nobody Seems to Care, as well as, Aimé Césaire and Robert Lanier. So the question became: Was there a way to build on the successes of Castillo and the All Stars and invest it in the work of diverse community of artists? With that in mind Castillo reached out to the cutting edge of the theatre community, including through an announcement in the Alliance of Resident Theatres (ART/NY) member newsletter, to see if there was interest in creating a new sort of producing consortium. At the founding meeting of Five Points (long before it had that name) back in the summer of 2000, Newman showed the gathering of some dozen theatre artists the initial plans for the 42nd Street center and asked “What would you like to see happen here?” The discussion that ensued touched on the challenges of collaboration among artists and what it means to create a new entity, even while you are investing great resources in growing or maintaining one’s own theatre. “That discussion has continued, in one form or another, for these 4 years. We all grapple with going beyond our companies, our plays, our ideas — because that’s what it takes to create something new,” says Stiles.

A bluesman (Emmitt H. Thrower) gets fresh with a reporter (Megan Garcia) in "Birth of the Blues," the Ben Caldwell short in Solution to All The World’s Problems.

From this genesis the consortium developed through a series of play readings that “was part of the process that shaped Five Points even before it had produced anything.” Out of this collaborative process came this year’s first season of Five Points Presents… with two new productions of Solution to All the World’s Problems and SisterMusic.

Woodie King, Jr., the prominent African American producer and founder of the New Federal Theatre introduced the consortium to the work of Ben Caldwell, the playwright of Solution… Diane found it “wonderful to have the opportunity to work with Woodie King, after so many years of mutual respect and friendship.”

SisterMusic is by Carol Polcovar, artistic director of New Village Productions and the Fresh Fruit Festival, a gay, lesbian and transgender theatre festival that takes place in the city every summer. Carol Polcovar “met us through the ad Gabrielle had placed in ART/NY and we all, Carol included, felt that New Village Productions would be a ‘good fit’ in this consortium.”

This has been “a great first season for Five Points, very strong… Both of these productions have had a great audience response.” Solution... received a rave review in the Amsterdam News and SisterMusic was reviewed on Hi! Drama a cable show that called it “Exceedingly worthwhile…a fun, energetic, romantic comedy that would make anyone laugh ‘til they cried” and also praised the All Stars theatrical management saying “Disney could take some pointers from the All Stars…”

Both of the Five Points shows sold well at the TKTS line [Castillo volunteers venture out before each show and talk to the people waiting on line to get discount tickets]. The productions brought in “all kinds of new audiences, some of whom wouldn’t have come here otherwise, allowing for a cross fertilization of our audiences — every producer’s dream.” Five Points Presents… is “still quite new and very much evolving — we don’t know exactly where it is going, and we see that as a positive thing.”

As for next season, Five Points is producing Day of Reckoning, by the gifted African American playwright Melody Cooper. This historical drama tells the story of Lucy and Albert Parson, American anarchists and an interracial couple, who played a central role in the late 19th century labor movement in America. In 2003, Day of Reckoning was the winner of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education Jane Chambers Playwriting Award. “We are very excited about this wonderful script and looking forward to creating this multimedia production.”