Teatro Visión is a Chicanx theater company with four decades of service to the community. Our work amplifies the voices of Latinxs, creates a dignified and empowering sense of identity, inspires action, builds respect and understanding, and explores the social and psychological experiences of Latinxs.
Our Vision
A community of equity, peace, and justice nurtured through the arts.
Our Mission
Teatro Visión creates theater rooted in Chicanx and Latinx experiences to inspire the people of Santa Clara Valley and beyond to feel, think, and act to create a better world.
Our Values
Respect for all
Celebration of diversity and positive cultural identity
Desire for social justice
Artistic excellence
Artistic development
Our History
Teatro Visión is a Chicanx theater company with forty years of service to the community. Our work amplifies the voices of Latinxs, creates a dignified and empowering sense of identity, inspires action, builds respect and understanding, and explores the social and psychological experiences of Latinxs.
Teatro Visión's past works include the World Premiere production of Silvia Gonzalez’s El Vagon (Boxcar), which won the 2004 Repertorio Espanol’s NuestraVoces national playwriting competition; the 2011 West Coast Premiere production of Rudolfo Anaya’s Bless Me, Ultima; the 2013 world premiere stage adaptation of the classic Mexican novel and film, Macario; and the 2018 world premiere of Departera.
Teatro Visión is committed to nurturing the next generation of community leaders and cultural ambassadors. Our education programming engages students to strengthen their critical thinking, self-confidence, communication, and problem-solving skills.
Our work was honored in 2012 with the Santa Clara County Human Relations Commission Award. In 2010, our Founder Elisa Marina Alvarado, received the James McEntee Lifetime Achievement award recognizing her work in the arts and community organizing. In 2015, then-Artistic Associate Rodrigo García (who has since become our Artistic Director) received a Beacon of Light Award from the Santa Clara County Office of Human Relations in honor of his years of selfless service to Teatro Visión and our community. In 2016 Theatre Bay Area selected Elisa to be honored at their 40th anniversary celebration as one of forty individuals who have been pivotal in making the Bay Area theater community one of the most dynamic in the nation. In 2019, Teatro Visión received the Legacy Award from Theatre Bay Area for our longstanding service to the field and the community.
Co-Founder & Former Artistic Director
Elisa Marina Alvarado is a founding member of Teatro Visión and served as Artistic Director until 2017, when she passed the position on to her protege Rodrigo García. As an actress, director and community organizer she has been active in the Chicano movement for over thirty years. Elisa has taught theater for Teatro Visión, San José State University, San Francisco State University and many community organizations. She developed a new works program, Codices, through which Teatro Visión has produced world premiers for plays including Conjunto by Oliver Mayer and Boxcar by Silvia Gonzalez.
Elisa established Teatro Visión’s educational program, the Instituto de Teatro, which offers comprehensive training in culture and community based theater for Latino communities. The training approach incorporates popular education (Conocimiento) and indigenous approaches to teaching and learning. Elisa is also a licensed clinical social worker, an Aztec dancer, and practitioner of indigenous Mexican health traditions. She founded the Ethnomedicine Project in San José, California, which offers training in traditional Mexican medicine. She is Purépecha Indian (México) and Cuban.
What is Chicano Theater?
From Elisa Marina Alvarado, Founder and Former Artistic Director:
Chicano theater was born of the movement for justice and equality in this country. Truly a ‘people’s theater,’ its performance forms and mission were initially shaped by the renowned Teatro Campesino through its work with the United Farm Workers.
Teatro became a unique form of expression for people of Mexican heritage that migrated or were born in the United States. Chicano theater has evolved to include not only the original actos performed for farm workers in the fields but also full length plays which capture the depth and complexity of the essential and shared experiences which define us as a people, regardless of what we choose to call ourselves — Latino, Mexican-American, Cuban, Chicano, Puerto Rican...
Teatro Visión has played a leading role in the evolution of Chicano theater with its commitment to community access, staging new work by leading Latino playwrights, developing new ‘teatristas’ and performances in Spanish with projected translation. We proudly uphold the ideals of ‘Chicanismo’ with theater that calls for social justice while sharing and learning the cultural values that unite all of us as a community.