I was born in Chile, and there I became an actor, theatre director and teacher. When I came to Canada in 1976 I already had a full theatrical career in my country of birth. The change to a new language, a completely new environment and culture was challenging. In this website you can find out how my theatre career continued and evolved in my adopted country. My personal experience with exile and immigration made me see theatre with new eyes, as an essential instrument for social and personal transformation. In 1988, I founded PUENTE THEATRE in Victoria BC, with the mandate to express through theatre the experiences of immigrants and diverse minorities. With PUENTE I had a rich, varied and profoundly life-affirming journey. In June 2011, I retired as PUENTE’s Artistic Director. I am ready for new projects where I can use my experience as director, workshop facilitator, dramaturge, storyteller, and actor.
Since I retired I have been very fortunate and participated in several exciting projects, most of them for the Intercultural Association of Greater Victoria (ICA). Please click in the next line to see a description of them!
Recent and ongoing projects.
AN INVITATION!
Over my long life I have written many articles abut my experiences using theatre to tell the stories of immigrants and refugees. Many of them are published in this website, and it is my hope that some of my strategies and discoveries will be useful to those engaged in similar work. Please acknowledge me if you include them in your work, and mention the provenance if you quote articles published in magazines. And if you have questions or comments, please contact me. I’d love to hear from you!
My latest article was WHERE POLICE AND COMMUNITY MEET (Published in ALT Theatre Volume 14 No.1 2017). You can find it under the Printed Publications tab.
This book is the first to showcase the work of established and emerging Latina/o playwrights in Canada, charting the range and depth of Latina /o Canadian theatre—its radical experimentations with form; its unflinching forays into histories of conquest, political oppression, and exile as told from intimate first-person perspectives; its community activism; and its dark humour. Each play is preceded by a critical introduction written by Latina/o theatre studies scholars from Canada and the US. With its companion essay collection, Latina/o Canadian Theatre and Performance, this anthology provides a core curriculum for courses focusing on Latina/o theatre, theatre in the Americas, political performance, or intercultural theatre in Canada. There are eight authors featured, including Lina de Guevara’s “Journey to Mapu”, Beatriz Pizano’s award-winning Madre, and Carmen Aguirre’s “Refugee Hotel”.