Latino Theaters for Social Change

Theatre in Latin America was already established even before the Europeans arrived to the continent. The inhabitants of Latin America had their own practices, festivals, and ceremonials. They involved dance, singing of poems, song, theatrical spoof, mime, acrobatics, and magic performances. The entertainers were trained; they dress in costumes, makeup, masks and toupees. Platforms had been assembled to make visibility better. The ‘sets’ were garlanded with plants, branches from trees and other natural items.

The Europeans exploited this to their benefit. For the first fifty years subsequent to the conquest the missionaries made use of theatres widely to proliferate the Christian doctrine to inhabitants accustomed to the image and oral quality of show. It was more efficient to use the indigenous styles of communication than to put a conclusion to the ‘pagan’ customs, the conquerors grabbed the substance of the spectacles, maintained the trappings, and exercised them to express their own message.

At first the roles played in these austere religious performances such as the nativity as well as the adoration of the Magi were acted by priests in the shelter of the church. However, as the anthology of the Church grew to embrace the passion and crucifixion of Jesus Christ, the Church was threatened with the predicament of how a priest should represent Herod. While sharing of opinion in the Church persisted as to the worth of theatrical interpretations, the constituents of the congregation undoubtedly enjoyed and were encouraged by them. The dramas persisted to grow, moving out of the Churches and into the open areas in front of the Church. Eventually, the members of town society began to play a role on these dramas, which persisted to grow more sophisticated with time. Known as passion dramas, miracle performance and morality acting, they continued their unrelenting close relationship with the Church and church festivals, but began to institute elements of typical characters that were more current in nature.

Throughout the 16th & 17th centuries the Latin theatre increased --with religion as its primary foundation. During the 16th century, they celebrated a religious festival three times annually regarded as the Corpus Christie festival which highlights the power of the Church. At the celebration, they performed dramas known as autos sacramentales. The autos sacramentales had some of the features of morality plays as well as some features of cycle plays, and they presented human as well as mystical characters. The plays that were conducted; sometimes old acting and sometimes new, were carried out by a single company and later on by two companies. The dramas were presented on carros, or carts, which held everything needed for presentations.



Pre-Hispanic ceremonies were how the natives came in contact with the religious. Spaniards exercised plays to Christianize and conquer the indigenous community of the Americas in the sixteenth century period. Theatre was a potent instrument in manipulating inhabitants already comfortable to spectacle. Theatre became a means for political influence on Latin America by colonialist plays by using indigenous routine practices to stage-manage the population. Furthermore, it presented a way for the indigenous inhabitants who were forced to involve themselves in the drama of their own downfall. In 1599, the priests even used dead bodies of Native Americans to represent the dead in the dramatization of the final judgment.

While the dramas were promoting a novel sacred order, their first precedence was to maintain the new secular, political stability. Theatres under the colonizers are principally at the service of the government. After disease, manipulation, and murder transpired to the native inhabitants, the indigenous consciousness and distinctiveness in theatre vanished, though pieces did have original essentials to them. The theatre that developed in Latin America is contended to be theatre that the colonizers brought to the Americas, not the plays of the Americas.

Development in Latin American Theaters

Internal conflict and external obstruction have been the determination behind Latin American chronicle which likewise applies to theatre. Below are the periods of Latin theater development:

1959-1968: dramaturgical composition and organization of community projects leaned more in the direction of creating a more native Latin American foundation called the “Nuestra America”

1968-1974: Theatre tries to declare a more homogenous characterization which introduces more European versions. At this point, Latin American Theatre attempted to associate to its historical ancestry.

1974-1984: The pursuit for expression entrenched in the history of Latin America developed into victims of banishment and death.

1985 – Present: Theatre producing establishments such as the Latino Theater Company emerged and continues to perform plays and comedy showcases.

After years of analyzing the Latino experience in daring, contemporary conditions, Latino Theaters continues to acknowledge and embrace the most diverse cities in the world in order to create a space that displays this rich culture and diversity.

The existing dynamic theaters nowadays will be a destination core for those practicing artistic superiority; a laboratory where both custom and innovation are respected and improved. Latino theatres will develop the creative vivacity that comes from individuals telling their own chronicles and digging deep into their own civilizations to address important matters of our day. Furthermore, it will deliver these skills and practices to young and emerging performers and generations. Mutually, the theatre and the performers, will create a freedom where the unification of people, traditions and ideas give birth to our future.