HartBeat Ensemble Explores the Word of Sex Trafficking

Herbert Newsome and Cindy Martinez. Photo: Courtesy of HartBeat Ensemble 

HartBeat Ensemble continues the tradition of bringing original investigative theater works to the stage with the premiere of Riding the Turnpike. A visionary theater work, Riding the Turnpike
explores the variations and definitions of trafficked women, survival sex workers, and voluntary sex workers.

The play is HartBeat’s first at its new home theater, the Carriage House Theater at 360 Farmington Ave., Hartford. The production runs through May 18 with performances scheduled Wednesday through Saturday at 7:30 pm. www.hartbeatensemble.orgrt;  860-548-9144.

Set in a strip club on the Connecticut Berlin Turnpike,  Riding the Turnpike introduces four women involved in prostitution in different ways and for different reasons. The lines between who is trafficked, who is there of their own free will and who is there for survival, are blurred as we watch the women navigate their own disparate situation, each more complex than the next. The play looks at what makes certain women and girls targets and examines all that one person can and will do to survive and secure their needs.

The work is inspired by the book, "The Berlin Turnpike: A True Story of Human Trafficking in America" by Raymond Bechard.

HartBeat ensemble members Cindy Martinez and Debra Walsh are lead playwrights, Co-Artistic Director Steven Raider-Ginsburg directs, and Co-Artistic Director Julia B. Rosenblatt is dramaturg. The cast is Herbert Newsome, Bryan Swormstedt, Michelle Mount, Caitlin McInerney, Cindy Martinez and Taneisha Duggan.

Founded in 2001 by Raider-Ginsburg, Rosenblatt and Gregory R. Tate (1952-2012), HartBeat Ensemble is a Hartford-based performance company that creates theater productions
based on stories drawn from contemporary life in Connecticut. Through Mainstage Plays and Education Programs.