Brooklyn recycling center hosts site-specific World Premiere of a play about waste pickers.
June 6 - 22, 2025 at Sure We Can
Sure We Can will host the World Premiere of RIVEN, a play based on the reality of waste pickers (the global community of people who pick and sort recyclable materials as a way of living). Conceived by Marina Zurita and created in collaboration with Laila Garroni and Josanna Vaz, this site-specific production staged at an actual recycling center in Brooklyn explores themes of environmental justice, accumulation of waste, and complexities of hope.
RIVEN runs June 6- 22, Friday and Saturdays at 7pm and Sundays at 2pm and 7pm. Sure We Can is located at 219 Mckibben Street in Brooklyn, NY 11206 -- accessible from the L train at Montrose or Morgan Avenues. Tickets are $28.52, available at www.eventbrite.com.
RIVEN follows Melina and Alessandra, two black women from the global south working at a waste picking cooperative – a place where recycled materials are sorted and people are rescued from neglect. Side by side, our characters share not only a lifetime of sorting the accumulated discards of a society that has failed them, but also a promise: to survive and to stay bound to each other.
RIVEN is written and directed by Marina Zurita, created in collaboration with Josanna Vaz and Laila Garroni. It stars Josanna Vaz as Melina and Dee Beasael as Alessandra with live music by percussion ensemble Mambembé and dancer Daniella Macre. The production team includes Acadia Barrengos (co-director and movement director), Patricia Marjorie (costume and prop design), Luísa Galatti (marketing director), Yasmin Santana (graphic designer), Erin Gray (stage manager), and Giorgia Valentin (producer).
RIVEN was born out of a research and interview process on the reality of waste pickers of Brazil – a community of invisible environmental agents responsible for picking and sorting 90% of the country's recycled materials. Although the research was initiated in Brazil, the play aims to raise awareness and give voice to the global community of pickers, accounting for more than 20 million people around the world. Host venue Sure We Can alone counts more than 1200 pickers as part of their community.
The research behind RIVEN began in 2021. The play started being developed in 2022, through a collaborative artistic process hosted by The Space Residency at the Target Margin Theater and The Lab at APE. Riven was presented in workshop format in June of 2023 at the Artist Space @ BRIC Arts and in a reading at Theaterlab in 2024. The play has been developed thanks to the support from NYSCA, NALAC, The Kennedy Center and the A.P.E. It was featured in American Theatre in May 2023.
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Marina Zurita is a theater maker born in São Paulo, Brazil, and based in New York City. Marina is a former resident artist at the Target Margin Theater (NYC) and is currently a Directing Fellow at Et Alia Theater (NYC), Kenan Fellow at the Kennedy Center (DC) and resident artist at the Lab at A.P.E (MA). Marina is a 2023 NYC Women’s Fund grantee. Marina’s theater directing credits include ‘Saudades’ (LaGuardia Performing Arts Center; Consulate General of Brazil in NY); ‘Riven’ (BRIC Arts); ‘For The Time Being’ (NY Winterfest; Dixon Place). Current and future projects include ‘Fanny Unpacked’ (developed in residency at The What Co.; part of the upcoming 2023 ESTIA Festival); ‘Nurse/Juliet’ (workshop) by Beth Hyland produced by the Kenan Fellowship at the Kennedy Center; and ‘The Wolves’ by Sarah DeLappe (Rutgers University).
Mambembé, a group that uses the drums and the beat of samba reggae, intends to value, preserve and expand Afro-Brazilian Percussive music. It is based in NYC, but with members from all over the world. The group also celebrates the multicultural makeup of this city, in which each member feels the music in their own way. Our intention is to delight people and spread positivity with our beats and dances.
Sure We Can is a non-profit recycling center, community space and sustainability hub in Bushwick, Brooklyn where canners (people that collect cans and bottles from to streets to make a living) come together with students and neighbors through recycling, composting, gardening and arts. Founded in 2007, they currently collect over 12 million cans and bottles and compost over 50 tons of organic waste annually. www.surewecan.org.