Grantee Database
La Lengua Teatro en Español
Grant Year
2023-24
Grant Program
General Operating Support
Award Amount
$46,749.00
Project Description
With support from the California Arts Council, La Lengua will provide salary to staff who have primarily been compensated for punctual projects and worked pro bono the rest of the time. La Lengua was founded in 2019 and has been growing ever since, putting out multiple projects every year to growing audiences, collaborating with BRAVA and AlterTheater, and employing scores of Spanish-speaking theater artists on professional theater projects. As often, the benefits offered to the community resulted from the dedication of a small group of individuals donating their time, resources, and energy to create the kind of art they wished to see, while juggling other jobs to pay the bills. We seek part-time salary support to solidify our administrative infrastructure, and ensure that we can sustainably continue serving our community in the years to come.
Organization Summary
La Lengua produces contemporary theater with a pan-American perspective. Plays are mainly in Spanish (but also in English, bilingual and Indigenous languages of the Americas) while striving to offer opportunities for, and promote the work of, Spanish-speaking and bilingual artists in our community to normalize the use of languages other than English in the arts.
We commission playwrights to create original plays (e.g., Las Azurduy, 2022) or bring new plays to US audiences (e.g., Doméstica Realidad, 2023); we run a playwright residency every two years to develop short plays about the legacy of colonization in connection with other topics written in any of the languages of the Americas, which we then present in a live festival (Historias de Descolonización, 2022, 2024); we organize events, and produce media content, to showcase Spanish-speaking/multilingual artists and foster language justice (e.g., Festival, 2022 and 2024; Paradi$e, 2024).
We make a priority of offering paid professional opportunities at every stage of the process to Spanish-speaking artists, while producing high-quality original work.
Organization
La Lengua Teatro en Español
Address
60 Sussex Street
San Francisco
94131
County
San Francisco
Region
Bay Area – San Francisco
Phone
(408) 510-9408
