The Portuguese in the Americas Series aims to contribute to the growing field of Portuguese-American Studies. The Series documents the variety and complexity of the Portuguese-American experience by publishing works in the social sciences, history and literature.
Amarelo, Paulo A. Pereira
Through a Portagee Gate, Patricia A. Thomas
 Patricia A. Thomas is a theatre director, teacher, writer and producer who began her career in theatre in the 1980s as a company member at Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, Rhode Island. She has worked internationally as a theatre director and teacher. In Boston, she wrote and adapted plays with young people, including Love & Mosquitoes, at The Teather Offensive, and Island of the Beholder, at the Boston Center for the Arts. Thomas is co-funder and Artistic Director of Culture*Park Theatre and Performing Arts Collaborative in New Bedford, Massachusetts, where she now resides. Paulo A Pereira was born and raised in New Bedford, Massachusetts. He earned a degree in Theater Arts and Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Tecnology. While at MIT, he was involved in numerous productions as an actor, director, producer, and playwright. Amarelo, his first full-length play, opened in New York City in 1998. More recently, Amarelo was performed at UMass Dartmouth, produced by Culture*Park and sponsored by the Center for Portuguese Studies and Culture. He resides in Merrimack, New Hampshire, with his wife Leah and their children. |
Two Portuguese-American Plays, comprised of Through a Portagee Gate, adapted by Patricia A. Thomas from the Charles Reis Felix memoir of the same name, and Amarelo, by Paulo A. Pereira, dramatize immigrant experience in the mill-town of New Bedford, Massachusetts. Each play begins or ends there, along with visits to Escamil, California, or the tiny village of Covoada, on the island of São Miguel, the Azores. Employing contrasting dramatic techniques, both works portray unforgettable protagonics, at once charming and idiosyncratic. In Through a Portagee Gate, the Radio Ensemble at the WNBH studio in downtown New Bedford broadcasts commercials and news stories, taking us on a journey through the twentieth century; in Amarelo, "Man" poses at the explorer Gonçalo Velho, and others, as he propels the story forward through time. These plays are alive with humor, wit and sincerity drawn from the human experience. Through a Portagee Gate, the play, was commissioned by the Center for Portuguese Studies and Culture of the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Both plays were sponsored for regional performances by the Center and produced by Culture*Park Theatre of New Bedford, Massachusetts. 2008 . 161 pages . Paper $15
Praise for Amarelo and Through a Portagee Gate
“The name in Portuguese means yellow, but ... Amarelo, by Paulo Pereira, is pure gold.”
“...as a look into the past, Through a Portagee Gate feels neither sentimental nor syrupy. Its nostalgia is genuine and its characters authentic. It's a pleasure to see local history theatricalized with such obvious caring. Congratulations! .” |