Hamlet, Our Town, and The Glass Menagerie are titles often associated with great theater.
They are also titles all written by white men.
One San Antonio theater company is on a mission to bring inclusive and diverse theater to highlight the experience of Latinos and other underrepresented communities.
Teatro Audaz produces plays that take on relevant — and often unexplored — topics affecting people of color, refugees, women and more.
The theme of the current season is “Reclaiming our Roots.”
Its most recent production, The Ghosts of Lote Bravo by Hilary Bettis, centers on the young girls who’ve gone missing in the Mexican border city of Juarez and one mother’s journey to cope with her daughter’s disappearance.
Another play, Luchadora, explores one girl’s love of lucha libre and her desire to inherit her father’s wrestler legacy.
Abe Ramirez is a board member and managing director of Teatro Audaz.
He said Teatro Audaz’s productions explore topics in a bold, fearless and audacious way.
“There’s more than just Zoot Suit that everyone does,” he said. “ I think that’s what separates us. We’re not afraid to do the stories that people are scared of.”
Laura Garza, co-founder and executive director of Teatro Audaz, said the plays help young audiences see themselves represented on stage.
“We want [students] to see that it’s possible for them to be the main character of their own stories,” she said. “We want them to see their stories on stage.”
Teatro Audaz’s next production, the musical Somewhere Over the Border by Brian Quijada, will run starting Sept. 2 at the McAllister Fine Arts Auditorium at San Antonio College.
Click here for more information about future shows.
