Announcing the 2014 LATC Encuentro

The Los Angeles Theatre Center (LATC), in association with the Latinx Theatre Commons (LTC), is proud to announce the 2014 LATC Encuentro: A National Latina/o Theatre Festival. This groundbreaking festival will be the largest national Latina/o theater festival in over twenty-five years, bringing together 100 artists from across the country to explore the aesthetic, thematic, and cultural diversity in the field. The overarching question the festival seeks to address through performances and discussions is “What is the state of Latina/o theater today?” The festival offers an exciting range of productions including Pulitzer Prize winning plays, English and Spanish language plays, devised theater, experimental work, community based plays and solo plays.

Encuentro translates to “an encounter,” a theme that is a core component of this festival as audiences and artists alike will be able to encounter, and interact with companies from coast to coast. This festival will celebrate the richness of contemporary Latina/o theater in the U.S. through presenting over a dozen selected companies from across the country that will perform in repertory over four weeks at the historic Los Angeles Theatre Center. The Festival participants were chosen through an open application process by a selection committee made up of Latina/o Theatre Commons Steering Committee members. The selected companies provide a snapshot of national contemporary Latina/o theatre practice.

What would happen if companies could spend a month making work together, mixing aesthetics and sharing practice? What would the new work look like, and how would it impact the collective aesthetic(s) of contemporary Latina/o theater? More than a Festival, the Encuentro seeks to provide this opportunity to explore aesthetics and art making for the participating companies. Beyond presenting their work to the public, artists will work together during the month-long residency sharing their creative methodologies in artistic workshops that will culminate in public performances of co-created devised works. This unique opportunity will allow participants and audiences to take an in depth look at the range of aesthetic diversity in the field. Public conversations about the work will include post-performance discussions, roundtable conversations, symposia, and distinguished speakers.

The final weekend of the Encuentro will also serve as the second Latinx Theatre Commons National Convening, November 6-9, where over fifty influential Latina/o theater practitioners and scholars will come to Los Angeles to view the festival offerings, including the newly co-created cross-company work. The convening participants will engage in dialogue around aesthetics and art-making, and strategize the implementation of ongoing and future initiatives in support of the continued vibrancy of the field.

Encuentro Companies/Artists and Productions (in alphabetical order):

• About Productions: Properties of Silence by Theresa Chavez, Alan Pulner & Rose Portillo. Directed by Theresa Chavez. (Los Angeles, CA)
• Aurora Theater: Mariela en el desierto (Mariela in the desert) by Karen Zacarías. Directed by Tlaloc Rivas. (Atlanta, GA) (Performed in Spanish with English supertitles)
• Borderlands Theater: Maria’s Circular Dance by Medrano Treviño. Directed by Eva Zorrilla Tessler. (Tucson, AZ)
• Caborca Theater: Zoetrope Part I Written and Directed by Javier González (New York, NY)
• CalArts Center for New Performance/Duende CalArts: Daughter of a Cuban Revolutionary Written by Marissa Chibas. Directed by Mira Kinglsey (Los Angeles, CA)
• INTAR Theatre / Unit 52: Patience, Fortitude and Other Antidepressants by Mariana Carreño King. Directed by Daniel Jáquez. (New York, NY)
• Latino Theater Company: Premeditation by Evelina Fernández. Directed by José Luis Valenzuela (Los Angeles, CA)
• Pregones Theater: Dancing In My Cockroach Killers by Magdalena Gómez. Directed by Rosalba Rolón (The Bronx, NY)
• Rickerby Hinds: Dreamscape Written and Directed by Rickerby Hinds (Riverside, CA)
• Su Teatro: Enrique’s Journey, based on the Pulitzer Prize winning work by Sonia Nazzario, adapted and directed by Anthony J. Garcia, music composed and directed by Daniel Valdez. (Denver, CO)
• Tantai Teatro: Agua a cucharadas (Water by the Spoonful) the Pulitzer Prize winning play by Quiara Alegría Hudes. Directed by Ismanuel Rodriguez (San Juan, Puerto Rico) (Performed in Spanish with English supertitles)
• El Teatro Campesino: La Esquinita U.S.A. by Rubén C. Gonzalez. Directed by Kinan Valdez. (San Juan Bautista, CA)
• Teatro Luna: Your Problem With Men by Emilio Williams. Directed by Alexandra Meda. (Chicago, IL)
• Theater Mitu: Juarez: A Documentary Mythology Written and Directed by Rubén Polendo (New York/Abu Dhabi)

Staged Readings and Presentations

• Cornerstone Theater Company: reading of Alisal by Juliette Carrillo. (Los Angeles, CA)
• South Coast Repertory: reading of The Long Road Today/ El Camino Largo de Hoy by José Cruz González as part of South Coast Repertory’s Dialogue/Dialogos Project:. A two-year bilingual theatre project to gather and tell the stories with and by the Santa Ana Latino/a community. (Santa Ana, CA)

Additional Programming held at local Latina/o Theaters

• Casa 0101: Julius Cesar by William Shakespeare. Directed by Robert Beltran
• Frida Kahlo Theater: Las Mujeres de Juarez Written and Directed by Rubén Amavizca-Murúa

THE LOS ANGELES THEATRE CENTER is a facility of the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs and is operated by Latino Theater Company. It is located at 514 S. Spring Street, Los Angeles, CA 90013 in Downtown’s Historic Core.The 2014 LATC Encuentro is made possible through generous support from The Doris Duke Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts, The Ford Foundation, Southwest Airlines, Time Warner Cable, The James Irvine Foundation, The City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, and The L.A. County Arts Commission.

THE LATINX THEATRE COMMONS (LTC) is a self-organized collective of Latina/o theater practitioners who have chosen to adopt a commons-based approach to advocating for Latina/o Theater as a vital, significant presence in the not-for-profit theater sector. The LTC is committed to radical transparency, knowledge sharing, and accessibility. Infrastructure for the LTC is provided by HowlRound: A Center for the Theater Commons.