P. Carl interviews Michael Garcés, Artistic Director of Cornerstone Theater, about their touring production California: The Tempest, which revisits ten California communities that were part of ten year’s of Institute Summer Residencies.

Teresa Marrero writes about the 2014 International Hispanic Theater Festival in Miami and how/why Latin American theater and American theatre are embedded differently in culture

“Dreaming in Cuban” is dedicated to performance as a way to evoke, remember, feel, create, long for, and traverse Cuba. The discussion in the blog series that follows on Cuban theater and performance includes new research on contemporary, historical, ritual, and experimental performance based in Havana and Miami.

I walk away, reflection upon reflection, moved and inspired. Even now, the questions that came up at the long table stay with me: What is your fire? What is it that you are here to uniquely do? As many of us prepare to meet again in Los Angeles this fall, we will keep these questions in mind. I can’t help but to think back to the idea of a spherical journey, which is the unstoppable future of the LTC and Latina/o theater in this the US.

As a Chicano director and writer, I am inspired by my own culture—the influence of poetry and magical realism, the contradictions and collision of European and Indigenous cultures, the corridos and huapangos of home, the memories of sitting on the porch hearing my family’s stories, and my own ever-growing inquiry into the nature of storytelling—from the specific to the universal—all came to mind in the design of the play.

Jamie Gahlon interviews José Luis Valenzuela on the LATC and the upcoming Encuentro 2014: A National Latina/o Theatre Festival.

The Los Angeles Theater Center (LATC) in downtown Los Angeles is looking for ten arts leaders of various backgrounds who represent the future leadership of the American theater to apply to our newly minted Artistic Leaders Fellowship. The Fellowship will take place from October 1 through November 21, 2014 at The LATC, and run concurrently with the 2014 LATC Encuentro—the largest National Latina/o theater festival in over twenty-five years. // El Los Angeles Theater Center (LATC), localizado en el centro de Los Ángeles, busca a 10 diversos líderes en las artes que representan el futuro liderato del Teatro Americano para que soliciten la nueva beca llamada Artistic Leaders Fellowship. Este programa se llevará a cabo del 1 de octubre al 21 de noviembre en el LATC en paralelo con el Encuentro LATC 2014—el festival nacional latino más grande en la nación en los pasados veinticinco años.

Association for Theatre in Higher Education pre-conference attendees made their way to Scottsdale, Arizona via bus, through a carefully planned route that covered important sites connected to SB 1070, labor history, and immigration. Through this tour, participants acquired a richer understanding of contemporary Arizona immigration policy and its implementation.

To understand the deep impact Latina/o artists have had in our collective history, it is crucial to discuss the varied artistic expressions that exist within the polycultural Latina/o theater landscape. The Encuentro seeks to understand how and why we arrive to each form—be it community-based, avant-garde, ensemble-based, playwright-driven, devised, or experimental work. // Para poder entender el impacto que han tenido varios artistas Latinos/as en nuestra historia colectiva, es necesario discutir las varias formas de expresión artística existentes en nuestro territorio multi-cultural mediante el teatro Latino. Este Encuentro busca entender el como y el porque de cada proyecto escénico—sea teatro de la comunidad, avant-garde, colectivo, basado en material original y en el dramaturgo, teatro ideado, o experimental.

In this installment, Maya Malan-Gonzalez details her experience attending the 2014 TCG Conference as a millenial and coming to terms with her mixed racial identity.

In this last installment, Armando Huipe shares his observations about the identity affinity groups at the 2014 TCG Conference.

In this installment, Lisa Portes reflects on her experience at the TCG Conference and ponders how artistic curiosity can influence a "polycultural American theatre."

In this second installment, Olga Sanchez discusses the act of physically and metaphorically crossing borders at the 2014 TCG Conference.

In this first installment, Luis Alfaro reflects on his experience at the 2014 TCG National Conference: Crossing Borders.

We are committed to providing a safe, crowd-sourced space for online dialogue and discussions around the topic of Latina/o theater. As the definitions of Latinidad and Latina/o theater continue to shift and evolve, so will Café Onda / Nos dedicaremos a proveer un espacio positivo, creado de opiniones publicas donde las conversaciones acerca de los temas de el teatro Latino/a puedan florecer. Así como es cambiante e indefinida la identificación académica y artística de lo que es Latinidad y el teatro que lo representa, así también Café Onda será siempre cambiante y evolucionará en forma colectiva.

Dani Snyder-Young writes about Generation Sex, a devised piece from Teatro Luna looking at misogyny, violence, Latina identities, modern femininity, and more.

The Los Angeles Theatre Center (LATC), in association with the Latina/o 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.

Theater for students of color is needed in the University: to speak about these issues and at the same time to break the “Berkeley Bubble” by showing that issues students study about in their classes—including, race, class and gender—have a real impact on campus life.

Before college, I found myself in the stories of Shanley and Shepard—but now I was only getting cast in parts such as Mexican pregnant girl, homeless person, or getting included in all non-white casts. I am half Mexican and a quarter Lebanese, but that never mattered before. Growing up, white stories were reflected all around me so much that I thought I was white.

For an American playwright today, where is Mecca? Where does it all come together: actors of high quality who give maximum effort to a new script; directors with a sense of humor to match their ability to move bodies in space and make moments that signify on stage; audiences who not only love going to theater but do so a lot and make it part of their daily lives; and great bars before and after the show? Mecca (for me anyway) is Chicago. And my most recent hajj was to Teatro Vista.

When I read the list of speakers on the mayor’s panel, it was made of six women, including five artists and one critic. In terms of racial diversity, only one was African-American and another was from Iran. The rest were white speakers. Where was the Latina? Dallas is an astounding 42 percent Latino and the mayor is going to “Re-Imagine Art in Dallas” without including anyone to speak on our behalf?

And although I’m proud of the production and of the nearly-all Latina/o creative team that gave Mariela en el Desierto an authentic voice, an issue arose as the last weekend of performances approached: No critics from the periodicals in the Atlanta area had attended or reviewed the show.

Since the October 2013 Latina/o Theatre Commons (LTC) National Convening in Boston, the LTC has been moving forward on a number of upcoming planned initiatives. As the momentum and enthusiasm for the LTC has grown, so to has the need for a full-time, dedicated producer. On behalf of the LTC Hiring Committee, I'm pleased to announce that we have hired Abigail Vega—she will begin working full-time in June as the dedicated Latina/o Theatre Commons Producer.