Through a Portagee Gate

Directed by Patricia A. Thomas

Saturday, April 29 @ 8pm Sunday, April 30 @ 2pm

at UMass Dartmouth / Main Auditorium

Culture*Park Theatre of New Bedford, and UMass Dartmouth Center for Portuguese Studies and Culture present a Culture*Park production of Through a Portagee Gate, adapted by Culture*Park from the memoir by Charles Reis Felix, published by the Center for Portuguese Studies in September, 2004. The full length play centers around the author's memories of his father, Jose Felix, an immigrant from Setubal, Portugal, who was a cobbler on Acushnet Avenue in New Bedford throughout the Depression, WWII, the 50's and 60's - most of the Century - until I-195 sliced through New Bedford and isolated his shop and old Weld Square forever. Set between Escamil, California, and New Bedford, the play is narrated by the son Charles, a teacher in Escamil in the 1970's, who remembers life with his family in New Bedford, and who positions his own Portuguese heritage against his "American" way of life. Characters from the North End of New Bedford are customers in the shop, and New Bedford is a major character in the play, as a WNBH radio ensemble propels us through the 20th Century.

Through a Portagee Gate, is adapted and directed by Patricia A. Thomas, and performed by an ensemble of local and regional actors, including, Fred Cabral, Jason Casimiro, Ann Flynn, Ben Jolivet, Nancy Leary, Trudi Miller, Kris O'Brien, and Richard Pacheco.

"He was a Portuguese immigrant cobbler.

He is gone now.

His shop is gone.

Weld Square is gone.

His life has been wiped clean off the board.

But I keep hearing his voice like an old familiar song."