EVERYBODY HAS A STORY TO TELL, a Free Multilingual Community Play

Offered free of charge to the public, with art-making workshops and food justice programming, the events will be held May 16-24, 2026 from 1:00–5:00 p.m. in community gardens throughout the Lower East Side/Chinatown, including M’finda Kalunga Garden (May 16 & 17), 6th and B Garden (May 23), and El Jardín del Paraíso (May 24). Performances will be offered free to the public at 2:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m. The runtime is 40 minutes. Everybody Has a Story to Tell is a free community play created in collaboration with seniors, new migrants, and housing-insecure artists in the Lower East Side and Chinatown set among the neighborhood’s shared spaces written by Obie Award-winning playwright Carmen Rivera and presented by the Remote Theatre Project. Illuminating the voices that shape its vibrant, ever-evolving community, the piece invites audiences to encounter the lived experiences of artists, members of the Chinese community, housing-insecure individuals, and migrants whose stories often go unheard. In a time marked by social change and deepened isolation, the play reveals the resilience, complexity, and humanity within each voice, reminding us that listening is an act of connection and that empathy can be a powerful force for healing and understanding in a fractured world. “For three years, we’ve embedded ourselves with Chinese seniors, new migrant families, and unhoused artists in the Sara Roosevelt Park area - listening deeply, hearing stories amid political strife, displacement, and loss,” shared Alexandra Aron, founder and artistic director of Remote Theater Project. “We are transforming community gardens into vibrant stages to ensure these voices are heard. In a time when shelters close and visas block international collaborations, we double down on local resilience.” This marks the third iteration of RTP’s Sara Roosevelt Park community project, following Thank You for Listening in 2024 and 2025. Alexandra Aron will direct a multilingual cast of six, including Christopher Bisram, Ana Sofia Colon, Darlenis Duran, Dezzy the Great, Coco Huang, and Jesse Cao Long. Producers: XiaoYan Zhu and Zihe Tian; Stage Manager: Lily Cox; Sound Engineer: Boris Nazarov; Inside Change from Within: Carol Prudhomme Davis. Funded by the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs and created in partnership with the Open Door Senior Center, Unframed Artists Collective, and Inside Change From Within, Everybody Has a Story to Tell was developed through weeks of workshops in and around Sara Roosevelt Park and reflects the lived experiences of the Chinese seniors, new migrant families, and housing-insecure artists and individuals RTP has worked with since 2023. The production builds on Remote Theater Project’s ongoing community-engaged work in Lower East Side/Chinatown, beginning with Embrace the Tangle for Little Amal Walks NYC in 2022, which engaged more than 1,000 community members, and continuing through Thank You for Listening in 2024 and Thank You for Listening ’25, created with local seniors, new migrant families, and unhoused neighbors in Sara Roosevelt Park.