El Teatro Campesino
Subtitle: Theater in the Chicano Movement
Edition: 1 edition
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Published: 1994
Language: eng
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 304
ISBN-13: 9780292708013
Subjects: Theatre, drama; Performing Arts; Poetry; Performing Arts/Dance; General; Theater - History & Criticism; Theater - Stagecraft; Performing Arts / Theater / History & Criticism; California; History; Mexican American theater; Teatro Campesino (Organization; Workers' theater
Description: Born in 1965 as an organizing tool within Cesar Chavez's United Farm Workers union, El Teatro Campesino became the premier Chicana/o performance ensemble to emerge out of the Chicano movement of the 1960s and 1970s.

This pioneering work demythologizes and reinterprets the company's history from its origins in California's farm labor struggles to its successes in Europe and on Broadway until the disbanding of the original collective ensemble in 1980 with the subsequent adoption of mainstream production practices.

Yolanda Broyles-Gonzalez corrects many of the widely held misconceptions concerning the Teatro's creation and evolution. She draws from a rich storehouse of previously untapped material, such as interviews with numerous ensemble members, production notes, and unpublished diaries, to highlight the reality of the collective creation that characterized the Teatro's work.

Writing within contemporary cultural studies theory, Broyles-Gonzalez sheds light on class, gender, race, and cultural issues, showing how they traverse and inform the Chicana/o performance aesthetic embodied by El Teatro Campesino. Her work situates the Teatro within working-class Mexican performance history, the Chicano movement, gender relations, and contemporary attempts to mainstream.