Today we’d like to introduce you to Monica Torres. Them and their team share their story with us below:
Monica is a native Puerto Rican pediatrician that graduated from San Juan Bautista School of Medicine in 1996 and finished her Pediatric residency in 2000. She completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship at Case Western Reserve in Genetic Epidemiology.
Despite her inclination for the science and medicine, her love for theater never stopped. She studied Dramatic Arts at the University of Puerto Rico in 1992. She is also a former member of the Yaguez Theater company in Puerto Rico. Some of her stage performances included; “Dollhouse”, “La Cantante Calva”, “Arriba las Mujeres”. She also participated in the XXX11 Puerto Rican theater festival with the play “Epoca de Celo”.
In Cleveland, she was the Co-founder and currently Executive Director of the first independent Latino/Hispanic Theater Company in Ohio. Her mission is to conserve the Hispanic culture and language through the Latino community in Cleveland.
With hard work and ambition, she was able to raise enough funds to make this dream a reality. Since 2018 LatinUs productions have produced “La Cueva De Salamanca”, “Death and the Maiden”, “The Unusual Case of Miss Piña Colada” and “Divorcees, Evangelist and Vegetarians”. Monica has participated as an actress and producer in all of these productions. Besides handling all the aspects of the Company, Monica is proud to announce the opening of their own Black Box theater in 2021, the blackbox was opened on August 2021, and then in September, LatinUs had their first production “The House of Bernarda Alba” with many sold-out nights the play was a hit with the audience. On December 3, the company pine their second show with “Public restrooms”.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Well, a lot of people, including my husband and friends thought that it was a crazy idea and almost impossible to create a 100% Latino theater Company, where we will do Spanish-speaking plays and even more crazy to think about having our own space. But thanks to a couple of importante people that I meet in the process and that believed in my idea, the dream became reality. I am talking about people like the former director of Hispanic Alliance, Juan Molina who introduced me to Jennifer Coleman from Gund Foundation. And then meeting also Lilliam Kuri fro Cleveland Foundation and at that moment Luis Gomes from Cuyahoga Art and Culture was a key for the success of LatinUs Theater Company. The big challenge when you do art and especially theater is Money, and in that, we have been lucky to have the support of some of the most important foundations in Cleveland.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I am the executed artistic director of LatinUs , I do many roles in the Company, and my favorite one is acting. But in order to have the theater I have learned from grant writing to running Q lab (a theater software for theater).
How do you think about luck?
I am a very positive person so if we talked about luck I will say that I have been very lucky to meet good people on this road called life. Including my biggest support, my Husband Dr. Reinaldo Garcia and two very important persons who love the theater as much as myself, John Rivera-resto and Kivin Bauzo.
Pricing:
- Tickets from $15-$25
Contact Info:
- Email: Info@latinustheater.com
- Website: Latinustheater.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/latinustheater/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LatinUsTheaterCompany/photos/a.229130214592694/1085111515661222/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/LatinusC/status/1466402426676813830
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=latinus+theater+company
Image Credits
Bob Perkoski
Jose Melendez
Alejandro Rivera
