Keep the Drama
on the Stage:
Discovering Chicano Theater in the Big Bend
by Cristina Sosa Noriega
Photo by Denise Solaris Ortega
El Paso artist Denise Solaris Ortega created the image that became the Pueblo Unido
T-shirt design. The original drawing, “Cantinflas,” is charcoal on paper, 14 by 17 inches.
W
hen I first moved to Alpine in
the summer of 2008, I was
stuck by the strong presence of
community theater in this small West
Texas town. Glossy posters advertised
new productions of the Theatre of the
Big Bend, a series of plays that takes
place every summer in a breezy outdoor
theater perched atop the eastern end of
Kokernot Park. It is the quintessential
small-town venue, but the mountainous
backdrop, orange sunsets and blinding
night stars add a majesty that few places
can match.
And there’s more under these pristine
skies – the resurgence of Chicano theater.
El Sueño
Dona Roman, associate professor of
theater at Sul Ross and director of the
University’s theater program, has always
8
had an interest in Chicano theater. But
several years ago she had a self-
described “heart-rending experience”
while running a short-form film festival.
Her moment of clarity occurred while
reviewing a couple of entries that dealt
with border issues.
“I realized that a lot of Latino culture
and stories were at risk of being lost
because they were not always written
down. I felt it was our duty to capture
the culture and tales that could be lost,
and a great way to do this was through
bilingual theater,” Roman explained.
Shortly thereafter, the ball started
rolling. Roman wrote a proposal and
won a grant from the National
Endowment for the Arts, bringing Dr.
Jorge Huerta, an expert in contempo-
rary Chicano and U.S. Latino theater,
and Rupert Reyes and Pueblo Unido to
Alpine. The homegrown playwright Liz
Cenizo
Third Quarter 2010
Castillo returned to Sul Ross. And, as
they say, the rest is history.
Pueblo Unido Nace
In July of 2009, Sul Ross hosted the
first Pueblo Unido festival, which boast-
ed prestigious panelists such as Huerta,
who is chancellor’s associate professor of
theater at the University of California
Santa Barbara, and Rupert Reyes, co-
founder of Austin’s renowned Teatro
Vivo. The event coincided with the
Theatre of the Big Bend’s hosting of
Petra’s Sueño (Petra’s Dream), part of a trilo-
gy of plays written by Reyes. It was also
the third year that Roman had chosen a
Reyes play for the summer series.
Pueblo Unido touched on a myriad
of topics, including the ins and outs of
playwriting, funding, scriptwriting and
directing. Adding a unique cultural
stamp to the workshops were topics such
as language barriers, connecting to the
Hispanic and local community, bringing
bilingual theater into the classroom and
engaging new students. Four days of
intense cultural immersion in the Big
Bend.
Upon being welcomed to town, the
first thing that caught Reyes’ eye was the
bold T-shirt bestowed upon him by
Roman: “It was black with a skull in
grey, almost invisible, with the words
‘Chicano Theater.’ The skull struck me
as apropos: Chicano theater is a phrase
whose meaning had been nearly dead to
me for a while.”
But not in Alpine, of all places. It is
alive and well here, having been given a
fresh start.
From the moment he arrived in
Alpine, Reyes was invigorated by the
energy exploding from the tiny depart-