The Clemente Soto Vélez Center and Teatro LATEA Present the World Premiere of Last Request A Play by Renowned Nuyorican Poet Pedro Pietri April 9–26, 2026
The Clemente Soto Vélez Center and Teatro LATEA Present the World Premiere of
Last Request
A Play by Renowned Nuyorican Poet Pedro Pietri April 9–26, 2026
New York, NY – March 11, 2026 – Teatro LATEA at the Clemente Soto Velez Center is pleased to present Last Request, a never-before-seen dark comedy play by seminal Nuyorican poet Pedro Pietri. Written approximately two years before his death in 2004, the play is a rare theatrical work by the Poet Laureate of the 1960s Puerto Rican revolutionary organization, the Young Lords. Produced by Fantastic Experimental Latino Theater (F.E.L.T.), the production is a part of the Clemente’s Historias initiative and runs April 9–26, 2026 at Teatro LATEA at The Clemente (107 Suffolk Street, Lower East Side).
Associate Director at F.E.L.T, Juan Valenzuela, was entrusted with the script shortly before Pietri’s death. He shared, “Pedro handed me the script without explanation and simply said he wanted me to do it. My task has been to capture not just the text, but the electricity of his presence — the way he performed poetry as theater.”
Last Request presents the story of a corpse discovered in the lobby of a pre-war Bronx apartment building in the 1950s by a young couple, an old couple, and a blind couple. Their reactions to his possessions trigger escalating chaos and revelations about their personal lives, becoming an exploration of morality, greed, dignity, and survival in mid-century urban life. The work exemplifies Pietri’s ability to combine poetic narrative writing with social critique.
Known for elevating street language, working-class experience, and collective memory in his poetry, Pietri was a foundational figure in the Nuyorican poetry movement. Presented at Teatro LATEA, a location that sustained experimental bilingual performance throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the production locates Pietri’s rarely staged theatrical work within the same cultural context that originally shaped his artistic voice. The staging of Last Request can be seen as an act of historical recovery, reaffirming Pietri’s enduring influence on contemporary theater, poetry, and Puerto Rican cultural expression.
“Pietri’s writing transforms the mundane into the mythic,” said Libertad Guerra, Executive Director of The Clemente. “Last Request reveals how everyday moral decisions, gossip, fear, and desire become theatrical events in themselves. It is poetry embedded in the architecture of daily life.”
Last Request is supported by The Clemente as part of its ongoing Historias initiative, a multiphase celebration and recontextualization of the Latinx cultural community’s foundational contributions to New York City. The three-year citywide presentation of cultural programming, art commissions, and scholarship is the largest initiative in The Clemente’s thirty-year history. The play represents a part of its “Everyday Poetics” track, examining how ordinary ritual and survival strategies become forms of cultural expression in Latinx communities. Both Teatro LATEA and F.E.L.T. are resident organizations within The Clemente’s ecosystem of independent arts groups, continuing a legacy of artist-led production, cultural stewardship, and community-anchored performance.
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LAST REQUEST
By Pedro Pietri
April 9–26, 2026
Thurs–Sat 7:30 PM | Sundays 4:00 PM
Teatro LATEA at The Clemente
107 Suffolk Street, New York, NY
Tickets: $30 General | $25 Students & Seniors
Last Request is a dark comedy for mature audiences only.
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About The Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural & Educational Center
Founded in 1993, The Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural & Educational Center is a Puerto Rican/Latinx multi-arts institution with an inclusive and international vision rooted in NYC’s Lower East Side/Loisaida. The Clemente engages diverse audiences in heritage preservation, neighborhood history, and cutting-edge multicultural experimentation, emphasizing the humanities’ role in bridging civic and cultural life.
As a downtown cultural mainstay for three decades, they focus on cultivating, presenting, and preserving Puerto Rican and Latinx culture while embracing a multi-ethnic and international perspective. Committed to operating in a polyphonic manner, The Clemente provides affordable spaces to artists, small arts organizations, and independent community producers, reflecting the rich cultural diversity of the Lower East Side and New York City. Guided by their namesake’s values of culturally grounded multigenerational leadership, local empowerment, and mutuality, The Clemente is a collaborative hub for creating and co-producing multidisciplinary contemporary work.
The Clemente is a proud co-founder/partner of LxNY Consortium and the Coalition of Small Arts NYC (CoSA NYC).
About Historias
Historias is a transformative citywide effort led by The Clemente that re-centers Latinx cultural narratives in New York City through exhibitions, performances, oral histories, and digital storytelling. Launched with key support from the Rauschenberg Foundation and in partnership with the Latinx Arts Consortium of New York (LxNY), Historias unfolds across three phases: Sembradas, Entrecruzadas, and Reveladas, each building on research, collaboration, and community engagement.
At its core, Historias leverages cultural work as a form of resistance to erasure. It brings together curators, researchers, artists, and communities to activate physical and digital spaces through interdisciplinary practice. By leveraging Latinx contributions to the city’s culture, space, and economy, Historias offers a more inclusive historical lens and catalyzes a reimagined cultural future, one rooted in equity, visibility, and collaborative innovation.
About Fantastic Experimental Latino Theater (F.E.L.T.)
F.E.L.T is a nonprofit theater company founded in 1994 and based at The Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural & Educational Center on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Dedicated to strengthening artistic and cultural awareness of Latino communities, F.E.L.T. produces bold, multimedia theatrical works that engage diverse, intergenerational audiences. The company develops original writing through its creative labs and educational programs, amplifying emerging voices while addressing urgent social themes through performance, film, and community initiatives.
About Teatro LATEA (Latin American Theater Experiment Associates)
Teatro LATEA is one of New York City’s longest-running Latino theaters and a cornerstone of the Lower East Side’s cultural landscape. Founded in 1982, LATEA helped establish The Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural and Educational Center and has served for decades as a producing and presenting venue for experimental, bilingual, and multidisciplinary performance. Dedicated to advancing Latino and Latin American artists, LATEA creates space for theater, dance, music, film, spoken word, and visual arts through collaborative co-productions that engage both community audiences and the broader public. teatrolatea.org
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Katrina Stewart
Account Manager, Visual Arts
Blue Medium
T: +1-212-675-1800