RED BANK — Two River Theater will hold its annual theater festival with a company of actors, writers, directors and other artists in residence.
The Crossing Borders Theater Festival was launched in 2011 as a way to create opportunities for Latino theater artists and to foster a stronger relationship between the theater and the Latino community in Red Bank.
Now in its sixth year, the festival has become a mainstay within the Latino artistic community and attracts more than 500 audience members, artists, businesses and civic leaders, according to a statement prepared by the Two River Theater.
This season, the festival will celebrate the broadest range of voices and experiences by reflecting the diversity of stories that are being told by Latino playwrights, the statement said.
“This year, Crossing Borders is bringing together writers and stories from all over the country to explore questions of individual and national identity, and what it means to be a part of the Latino diaspora,” Curator Stephanie Ybarra said in the statement. “Our playwrights couldn’t be more different artistically, and it’s thrilling to have them all in the same space wrestling with some of the biggest questions we face today.”
Ybarra also serves as the director of Special Artistic Projects at The Public Theater in New York, where she also leads the Mobile Shakespeare Unit and produces the Public Forum series. She also is part of the Producer’s Lab Liaison for the Women’s Project and is the casting director for Crossing Borders.
A neighborhood block party with food and live music will be held at Two River Plaza at 5:30 p.m. Aug. 3. A lecture will be presented at 7 p.m. by writer Brian Herrera, who will answer questions about the landscape of Latino theater today. Herrera is also an assistant professor of theater at Princeton University.
All readings and events are scheduled to take place at the Marion Huber Theater, followed by an opportunity to meet with the festival artists in the theater’s Victoria J. Mastrobuono Library.
The festival is scheduled to run from Aug. 3-7.
For information, visit tworivertheater.org or call 732-345-1400.