The Playground Bar & Lounge is at the SW corner of N. 5th Avenue and E. Congress St. in downtown Tucson.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Jamie Manser
jlmanser@email.arizona.edu, 621-0599
Show & Tell @ Playground: Barrio Stories Project
Wednesday, Feb. 10, 6 p.m.
278 E. Congress St.
“In the late 1960s, a culturally diverse, 80 acre residential and business district in downtown Tucson was demolished as a consequence of urban renewal and the construction of the Tucson Convention Center complex.
Over 100 years of historically significant and irreplaceable cultural spaces, shops, homes, restaurants and entertainment venues, notably La Plaza Theatre, were wiped out.
Through the work of University of Arizona faculty, Borderlands Theater and the Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology, the Barrio Stories Project is reviving the history of this neighborhood in several public events this spring.
“The Barrio Stories Project offers an innovative approach to disseminating history and will inform audiences about an important chapter that vastly altered downtown Tucson’s physical and ethnic landscape,” said Lydia R. Otero, a UA Mexican American studies professor.
The free February Show & Tell @ Playground event is a preview and overview of “Barrio Stories” and its upcoming March 5-6, 2016 performances, which features Borderlands Theater actors bringing to life the oral histories of the residents whose homes were lost to the construction of the convention center
Otero received a 2015 Faculty Collaboration Grant from the Confluencenter for Creative Inquiry to help realize the Barrio Stories Project, and is working in partnership with Elaine Romero, an assistant professor at the UA School of Theatre, Film, and Television.
