On May 18th, at the Teatro Echegaray in Málaga, Jóvenes Clásicos, the Málaga-based theater company, will present a musical adaptation of Calderón de la Barca’s Amar después de la muerte. This production marks the company’s fourth collaboration with Diversifying the Classics and its third with Radio Comedia.
In January, DTC’s Mex-Clásicos and its collaborator, the Seminar on the Early Modern Period at la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) in Mexico City, launched a call for a new artist residency and theatrical laboratory initiative: Nuevas Dramaturgias del Teatro Clásico Hispánico. The project encourages artists to produce contemporary adaptations of theatrical texts from the early modern period. Five applicants were chosen to participate in the initiative, which involves a series of courses, workshops, and master classes delivered by comedia specialists who aid in nurturing the writing and production processes of the selected plays. The initiative will culminate in works-in-progress performances at UNAM’s Festival Internacional de Teatro Universitario (FITU) which will take place September 4-14, 2025.
On April 8th, Barbara Fuchs joined UCLA ArtsBridge’s director Perry Daniel and her class of undergraduate artist-educators to discuss comedia, adaptation, translation, and early modern visions of the world. This engaging discussion was part of DTC’s ongoing project, now entering its third year, to bring comedia to LAUSD students in collaboration with ArtsBridge and the Bresee Foundation. We are thrilled to work with such creative artist-educators to continue supporting students in our community in making Hispanic classical theater their own.
In collaboration with La Librería, the noted Spanish-language children’s bookstore in Los Angeles, Diversifying the Classics will be hosting a theater workshop for kids ages 6-11 on May 17! Reprising our 2023 workshop, this event will teach young students about comedia in a bilingual art-making environment. Students will have the opportunity to learn theater techniques—how to tell stories with their bodies and voices, how to design costumes, how to make a set—and to put these skills to use in the production of a short play. This year’s play will be La vida es sueño by Pedro Calderón de la Barca, which DTC has adapted into both a children’s book and a shorter dramatic text.
This February, members of Diversifying the Classics visited UCLA’s 6th-12th grade school, Geffen Academy, to share their work with Upper School Spanish students. The visit was perfectly timed, as students in the Advanced Spanish course were studying Spanish Golden Age literature.READ MORE
A roundtable on scholars collaborating with New York’s Red Bull Theater, organized by Prof. Jean Howard of Columbia University, allowed us to share our vital partnership, “Hispanic Golden Age Classics,” with a large audience of early modernists.
A most welcome note from Noémie Ndiaye, Associate Professor of English and Romance Languages and Literatures at the University of Chicago, on her experience teaching DTC’s The Courage to Right a Woman’s Wrongs:
In case you missed it at LA Escena, Rosie Nagasaki’s I Put a Spell on You, based on Ana Caro’s El conde Partinuplés, will have a staged reading this weekend as part of EST’s festival of new plays, Winterfest!
When: Saturday, April 5, 8pm
Where: 3269 Casitas Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90039
For more information:
To celebrate Women’s History Month, Expand the Canon, an organization that supports the study and production of classic plays by women and underrepresented genders, will host a digital discussion of Ana Caro’s Valor, agravio, y mujer. The discussion will take place on Sunday, March 30th at 10 am PST on Zoom. Diversifying the Classics is excited to join this discussion of Caro’s timeless text, which we translated as The Courage to Right a Woman’s Wrongs in 2019. Contact emily@hedgepigensemble.org for more information.
We are thrilled to announce the release of Golden Tongues: Adapting Hispanic Classical Theater in Los Angeles, an anthology that brings Hispanic classical theater into vibrant dialogue with contemporary storytelling. This collection, born of the collaboration between Diversifying the Classics and Playwrights’ Arena, features seven English-language adaptations of comedia classics by Los Angeles playwrights. These plays offer fresh perspectives on themes of gender, race, cultural identity, and social justice, connecting centuries-old narratives to the challenges and experiences of modern audiences.
