Our Chicago: Inicios Chicago Latine Playwright Festival
CHICAGO (WLS) -- The stories and voices of Latino playwrights will be center stage at the upcoming Inicios: Chicago Latine Playwright Festival.
The event will feature six new plays and is the conclusion of a fellowship created to support Latino playwrights.
The Chicago Latino Theatre Alliance is behind the festival. The organization's executive director says Latine stories are underrepresented on stages across the country.
According to Jorge Valdivia, there's a gap in support for Latino artists. He says this fellowship is an investment in process and in community.
"In spite of us being 33% of Chicago's population and in spite of all the work we're doing to really sort of raise the alarm around this, we only see about 6% of all arts funding in the Chicago area going to Latino arts organizations," Valdivia says that includes both private and government funding.
"Representation, I think we all know, matters. And when you look at representation in the theater ecosystem, we only see about 5% of our community being represented. And I think that number, is again, another figure that a lot of common, everyday people don't know," Valdivia said.
"Theater is a reflection of our lives. It allows us an opportunity to think about, laugh, cry, everything that we've experienced. And being able to share that with the world, you build community." He says Inicios is a unique festival. The audience will see staged readings, not full on productions. But he says the plays are all very diverse.
Sonja Lynn Mata's play will be one of those featured during the Inicios festival.
She says it's based on her hometown, northwest suburban Wheeling.
She described what she hopes audiences take away from her play: "I hope they walk away with a sense of belonging. I hope they see themselves in this play. And if they don't, there's five other plays that they might see themselves in. And if they don't see themselves within those five plays, this is still a space that says tell your story and this community will back you up and show up."
For more information on Inicios:
