LA Escena 2026
September 17 – October 5
The LA Escena Festival of Hispanic classical theater will be back September 17 – October 5, 2026. The fifth edition of Diversifying the Classics’ biennial festival will bring exciting new works by international artists and Los Angeles playwrights to UCLA’s Macgowan Hall theaters in Westwood, Los Angeles.
LA Escena is Los Angeles’ first Hispanic classical theater festival, organized by UCLA’s Diversifying the Classics, which is part of the Division of Humanities. Since the inaugural edition in 2018, LA Escena has brought the best of Southern California theater together with acclaimed performers from around the world to celebrate the comedia in performance and adaptation.
This year LA Escena will offer productions at the theaters in UCLA’s Macgowan Hall by internationally recognized Spanish theater company Jóvenes Clásicos, performing Canciones de Olmedo and Amar después de la muerte, three new adaptations from our popular Golden Tongues series, and new performances stemming from our Mex-Clásicos initiative. These include La casa de empeños by Christian Nájera and Historias amorosas by Paola Izquierdo, adapted from pioneering Baroque female dramatists Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz and María de Zayas de Sotomayor. We will also feature theatre dybbuk’s “illuminated lecture” on La Celestina. To conclude the festival, streaming from New York City, Red Bull Theater will present a virtual reading of Diversifying the Classics’ latest translation, Luis Vélez de Guevara’s The King Born a Woman, as a part of our ongoing collaboration, Hispanic Golden Age Classics.
Festival Schedule:
Thursday, September 17
7:00 PM, UCLA Macgowan Hall, Little Theater
A wild, days-long party has just come to an end and Cristina is stuck cleaning up. As she sweeps, she entertains herself and us, the audience, with tales of love, lust, humor, and sometimes heartbreak.
Friday, September 18
La casa de empeños by Christian Nájera Jiménez
7:00 PM, UCLA Macgowan Hall, Little Theater
On Leonor’s first day working at a pawn shop, she comes across an intriguing book: a used copy of Sor Juana’s Los empeños de una casa. As Leonor reads the 17th-century romantic-comedy-of-errors, she soon discovers that the play mirrors the lives of the workers at the shop in surprising and revealing ways.
Amar después de la muerte by Jóvenes Clásicos
8:30 PM, UCLA Macgowan Hall, Little Theater
Jóvenes Clásicos presents Calderón’s sweeping tale of love amid the War of the Alpujarras (1568–1571). The conflict erupts when the “Moriscos” who stayed in Spain after the fall of Granada and converted from Islam to Christianity are ordered to abandon their ways. The play humanizes a troubling episode in Spain’s past and speaks to pressing issues of today.
Saturday, September 19
Donde comen dos, comen tres by abe zapata jr. for Golden Tongues
Based on Lope de Vega’s El perro del hortelano
Performance in English
4:00 PM, UCLA Macgowan Hall, Studio Theater
Set in Los Angeles during the 1940s, this adaptation takes Lope de Vega’s playful and mischievous Golden Age comedy and infuses it with Mexican-American tradition. Donde comen dos, comen tres shows life on a family farm turned upside down after its owner passes away.
La Celestina: An Illuminated Lecture by theatre dybbuk
7:00 PM, UCLA Macgowan Hall, Little Theater
What do we owe each other, especially across lines of class or gender? How do we make room for ourselves when society has already decided on our place? How do we find meaning in the world?
A mix of manifesto and cautionary tale, bawdy story and philosophical meditation, La Celestina haunts us with its devastating insight.
Canciones de Olmedo by Jóvenes Clásicos
8:30 PM, UCLA Macgowan Hall, Little Theater
Canciones de Olmedo is a musical adaptation of Lope de Vega’s El caballero de Olmedo, featuring ten original songs. Verses penned by this towering figure in the comedia tradition become refrains of melancholic torch songs sung in a smoky nightclub. Love — unrequited or doomed — reaches its crescendo as the noble knight of Olmedo meets his tragic fate.
Sunday, September 20
Beast Among Men by Nicholas Pilapil for Golden Tongues
Based on Pedro Calderón de la Barca’s Life is a Dream
2:00 PM, UCLA Macgowan Hall, Studio Theater
In the shadow of American politics, a sex worker and a morally righteous politician are bound by a secret that thrives in the dark. Beast Among Men follows the fallout of hypocrisy, faith, and ambition when that secret is exposed, in a nation obsessed with power and purity. In the machinations of politics, how long can illusions cover up reality?
The Liars: A Comedy on Tragic Realities of the Postmodern World by Roger Q. Mason for Golden Tongues
Based on Alarcón’s La verdad sospechosa
3:30 PM, UCLA Macgowan Hall, Studio Theater
In ever-hustling New York City, prestige-obsessed influencer Owen Raven rejects his father’s traditional career path. Facing financial ruin after his father’s death, Owen spins comedic deceptions that ultimately backfire and he finds that his internet-famous charms are no longer sufficient in sustaining both his material and inner world.
Monday, October 5
The King Born a Woman by Red Bull Theater and Diversifying the Classics. Directed by Melissa Crespo.
4:00 PM PST, Streaming Live from New York City.
King Charles “the Fair” is celebrating his birthday in Paris and life is good, except for one thing – Charles must hide the fact that he was born a woman! As internal rebellions, external invasions, and ungovernable emotions explode, the realm hangs in the balance, but will the heart win out?
LA Escena is free to attend, but tickets must be reserved in advance.
Little Theater:
Macgowan Hall
245 Charles E. Young Dr. East, Los Angeles, CA 90095
Studio Theater:
Macgowan Hall 1340
245 Charles E. Young Dr. East, Los Angeles, CA 90095
By car: From Hilgard Avenue enter the east side of campus at Wyton Drive. Make an immediate right turn onto Charles E. Young Dr. East, and signs will direct you to parking structure 3.
Walking from structure 3: From the ground level of structure 3, enter the underpass (or from the street level, cross Charles E. Young Dr. North and proceed down steps). Walk straight alongside Melnitz Hall and Macgowan Hall. Turn left at the plaza, and proceed to the courtyard of the theater.
By public transit: See Getting to UCLA for detailed public transportation information.
Payment kiosk in structure 3: Buy your parking permit at the payment kiosk located in structure 3. Have your license plate number and a credit card available.
Use the ParkMobile app: Install the ParkMobile app on your phone and purchase your parking on the day of the event from your smartphone. Enter zone number 2552 (this event code will be valid for parking three hours prior to the event). Go to DP parking zone 2500 if you have a disabled person placard.
Accessible parking: Accessible parking spaces in structure 3 are located on level 4.
Festival Credits:
Members of Diversifying the Classics: Marta Albalá Pelegrín, Diana Echeverria Palencia, Barbara Fuchs, Saraí Jaramillo, Laura Muñoz, Javier Patiño Loira, Cristian Reyes, Rhonda Sharrah, Rebecca Smith, Aina Soley i Mateu, Sofia Yazpik
Graphic Design: Todd Lynch
Supported by:
Hispanex
Pine Tree Foundation
Acción Cultural Española
Consulado General de México LA
UNAM-LA
UCLA Division of Humanities
UCLA Dept. of Spanish and Portuguese
UCLA Center for 17th- and 18th-Century Studies
Hannah and Edward Carter Programming Funds
Spain/USA Foundation
Rosina Becerra
The Olga Garay-English and Dr. Kerry English Legacy Trust
Susan Paun de García
