Closing Ceremonies at the 2026 Latinx Theatre Commons Carnaval of New Latinx Musicals

We are short so we're not going to stand behind those stands. Hey LTC [cheering] Carnival, you guys stayed through to the bitter end. You're amazing. This is the official beginning of the closing ceremonies. Um, and the very first thing we would like to do is um, recognize a bunch of people. We particularly want to recognize folks that have made all of this possible. You keep coming up to me and thanking me and telling me how amazing it is and thanking Patrice and telling her there is a whole army of people involved in making this happen. So, first of all, I would really like to thank the staff at the EFA. That's Lauren and Kyle, Simone, Jenna, Brent, the lighting designer, Heidi, Jake, we got Eli on sound. How amazing was the sound? Sound was amazing. Thank you so much. And then I'm sure there's names that I haven't said here at the EFA, but we have been so very pleased. I see Jake back there. Hi, Jake. We have been so very um blessed to have such uh incredible professionals handling the sound and lights for these presentations. So, thank you all so much. >> We also want to thank all of our volunteers. We had a a huge team of volunteers to over the course of this weekend including Jude, Julieta C, Lisa, Elizabeth, Juan, Mariso, Julieta F, Galina, Emolina, Luis, Holly, Janice, Lisa B, Marcos, Kai, Bucky, Alex, Jadeline, Devon, Jada, Omar, Hovan, Eliza, Elena, Caitlyn, Michael, Sophie, Marade, and Jersey. >> Thank you. amazing >> and our um incredible volunteer coordinator Vanessa Flores and our extraordinary PSM Andrea Morin. Andrea and of course uh a huge thanks to uh to Hannah. Where's Hannah? Anna, our our partner in arms at the La Hoya Playhouse, who is also a UCSD Triton. Woohoo. [cheering] Um, at here at this university, because we're on a university campus, I want to take a moment to acknowledge all of the students and teachers and the cycles of students and teachers that are here in this audience. For example, I have students from Depal here. I have students from UCSD here. I and they have been as much my teacher as I have been theirs. So, thank you all for being here. And we have I have teachers here. and you're an alum, >> an alum of UCSD as well as a teacher myself. Yeah. >> Yes. >> The cycle always goes. >> So, we have a lot of teachers and scholars in the house. I just want to, you know, the LTC is both an artistic and an academic movement. And it's one of the things that I think has helped it thrive because our scholars have archived the work that we've done over the years. And so, um, I just want to uplift scholars. >> Without them, we don't exist kind of, you know what I mean, for history. All right. Um, we would like to take a moment now to recognize the 74 artists whose work we celebrate and champion out into our networks. 74 artists. Raise it up. And we would like to invite anybody uh we would like to invite Jesse J. Sanchez to the stage. >> Jesse Jay, come to the stage. >> We're gonna invite the team of Eore City, Dan and Anita, if you're still here. >> [cheering] >> We'd like to invite Crystal and Satya to the stage for wait and our music directors >> and um Eliza and Mario from Daydreamer >> and also our music directors. If Come on, music directors come up. >> I want to invite our directors and music directors and dramaturs on the show. >> If you're here, come on up. >> Come on up. Come on up. If you're a music director or a director, come on Satia, I see you. You got to get on the stage. Come on. >> Is Deafany here? Do we still Do we have Deafany? >> We have everybody. We got our music. >> We're gonna do a big group photo. So, everybody come on up. Come stand in front of the this the sign. Big group photo. >> Come on, y'all. Come on, Mario. >> Beautiful. Beautiful. Beautiful. Lisa, >> come join in. >> [cheering] >> And now we're going to make you wait. Don't go anywhere. Don't go anywhere. We're going to make you take a big group bow. So line up. Take a bow. Take a bow. >> Please join us in celebrating these artists. A big round of applause for the artist. [cheering] >> Okay, now to the crowd. To the crowd. Oh, wait. We need to get our slam artist up here. Yes. Yes. Don't leave. >> Don't leave. Don't leave. Don't leave. Don't leave. Don't leave. >> Georgina slams. Come back. Come back. Come back. >> Don't leave yet. >> Come back. >> Any of our slam artists out here or have they gone? >> Slam. >> Come on, Mah. Come on, Georgina. >> Georgina. [cheering] >> Is Daryl in the house? No. Okay, great. >> One more group photo. Thank you. >> One more group photo. >> You survived. One more group photo. >> Don't worry, the drinks are going to be served soon, y'all. So, you know, >> this way. Come this way. Come this way. >> Okay. So, Oh, and bow. And bow. No. >> [laughter] >> Okay, listen. I've got a question for this crowd. Who saw a musical that this weekend that they are going to tell someone about when they get home? >> So, shake your shakers. Do you still have your shakers? Hey. Okay. Who is going to take one of these musicals to their season planning meetings? Who connected with an artist they want to collaborate with? [screaming] >> I want you to hold this question. Who can I tell? Who can I tell about the work that I saw this weekend? Because it should be a name. It should be somebody identifiable. Who can you tell about the work that you saw? How do we get the word out? Think of somebody specific so that you have a name to take this to. Does this musical fit a season? And if so, who do you tell? How do you become champions? Who are my collaborators? Whose name can I speak into a room? >> Now, turn, please, and talk to the person next to you about something that's inspired or surprised you. >> This is a think pair share. So, we're going to give you two minutes to have a conversation with somebody near you and then we're going to ask you to share. So, have a conversation. >> Talk to the person next to you about something that's inspiring or something that surprised you this weekend. >> Something insp something that inspired or surprised you this weekend. something that surprised or inspired you. Take another 30 seconds. >> Okay, let's come back together. Can I get a couple shouts from the audience? What's something that inspired you >> or something that uh surprised you? Inspired >> out. >> Let's share out. [crying] >> We belong in the musical theater cannon. >> Yeah. >> What else we got? What else we got? >> Loopy. >> Satias loopy. Yes, >> these artists are so talented. >> The talent. >> Last one. Last one. What do we got? >> Different styles. A whole season that we saw on the stage together. So again reminding us that in the LTC we use the language of championship and on the first day I endowed you all. You are all champions now. So what commitment are we going to make? How do we take the magic that we created this weekend back into our networks? What do we want to commit to? What do we think? What are we gonna What surprises are we going to take? What inspiration are we going to take back home with us? Nonrhetorical question. writers group, >> craft labs, infrastructure, building out infrastructure. Excellent. The the LTC is this incredible space. It is the network, right? In NPN, we have this like phrase, the networking is the work that makes the network work. I butchered it, so sorry. Um, but it's the same idea. It's these relationships that we built over the course of this weekend that is going to carry this work outside of the EFA, the gorgeous hot EFA, and into the world beyond it. I hereby double endow you. Again, please become a champion. Speak these names into rooms. Take these pieces out into the world. That is your that is your homework. That is the thing that you carry forward is celebrating these artists and being the force of change that's going to impact our field. >> And with that, we're going to welcome our new LTC producer, Bridget Martinez, to the stage. [cheering] >> I just have to say again how inspired I was by everything I saw this weekend. I was blown away by the talent, not just from the writers, but also the music directors, the directors that we had on these projects. I I'm at a loss for words, honestly. But I will point out some of the various committees that were uh making this convening happen. Um, as you all know, the LTC is um or maybe you don't know, but the LTC is run by volunteer committees, a steering committee, and an advisory committee. Um, and those are the people that make these programs happen and they are not getting paid for it. So, we want to recognize our host selection, programming, and outreach committees for their work this past year and dreaming up what our time together would look like and bringing it to life. So, let's give them a round of applause. Thank you so so much. I also want to shout out the incredible local entertainers and vendors that we have worked with or we're about to see here today. Um, Supersonic Samba School on Friday who opened up our ceremony. They were incredible. Empanada Kitchen. They brought us some empanadas on Friday. They were very delicious. And then this evening we will have Holy Palta. So you're going to get some good paletta soon. Roly's Roll Tacos who are setting up now. Very exciting. And DJ Fontiso Pop, who is going to get us dancing in a little bit. Yeah. Um, I also want to thank Jacqueline who has already departed, but she was fantastic. Let's give her a round of applause in her honor and Patrice and Lisa who welcomed me on the team like three weeks ago and they have been so patient and welcoming as I jumped in on the deep end and just started swimming. So, I really appreciate you both. Um, I'm going to keep repeating that none of this work happens alone. I want to thank UCSD theater and dance for being such great hosts here as well as Stu Theater and La Hoya Playhouse for the collaboration and their deep commitment that made this carnival such a joy to be part of. Um, I said it before, but if you are here, you are already part of the Latinx theater commons. But if you are someone who is committed to moving Latina theater forward by dedicating your time and your energy to turn dreams into reality, we invite you to join the steering committee as we'll be onboarding new members this upcoming year. So in the next couple months. So if you are interested, if you are someone who likes to be hands-on and actually moving things forward, planning these kinds of convenings, being in the room, um find me afterwards or you can email info ltcoms.org for more information. Uh, speaking of the future of the LTC, I'm going to invite one of our steering committees, Juliana Fry Menddees, and she's going to be telling us about some upcoming programming so you can stay involved. [screaming] Um, hi everyone. Um, in classic what has become my carnival style, I come up here for one job, but I actually am here with three pieces of information. Um, so the first is that we're gonna eat in a little bit and we're also going to uh drink in a little bit. And um we have a carnival signature drink. Um that is the Oasis that's been engineered by Tanya Perez. Give us a Yeah. So if you like the taste, say thank you. If you don't, uh say thank you. Uh great. Um so I'm here to tell you about two future pieces of programming that are near and dear to my heart. Um the first is um the LTC archive project that is going to be coming to a city near you hopefully um in this fall. So you will see on our Instagram in the next couple of days some dates. Now the first one is going to be in New York City. It's a rather quick turnaround. It's at Intar Theater Saturday. Yeah. Yeah. Saturday, September 19th from 2 to 5. If you are an artist at the um who is interested in thinking about your legacy, how do I create my archive? How do I think about archiving materials? Whether you're an independent artist, you work for aatro, um please come. Please sign up to come and um learn from the amazing uh Noi Montes and Carla Deleatada who will be running that workshop in New York Saturday September 19th 2 to 5. We ask that you RSVP. Okay. Next, boom. We're moving to Urban Theater in Chicago. Let me hear it. [cheering] >> Heck yeah. Okay. Okay. So, that's going to be Tuesday, September 29th from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. That's going to be myself and Noi Montes holding it down. Um, Chicago, come through. Would love to see you and talk about archiving. Next, we're going to be in Teas. [cheering] Um, we're going to be in Houston at the Alley SE Saturday, October 3rd from 12 to 3. Okay. And then finally, last but certainly not least, um y'all, on Saturday, October 10th from 1 to 4, we will be in LA at >> I thought that might get a little bit of a a woo. Um at the Latino Theater Company in Los Angeles. Yeah. So, um please if you are near any of those hubs, come join us. If you are not near any of those hubs and you're like, gosh goodness, would love to learn how to archive. Don't worry, we got you. On November 18th, which uh for any art history majors is Anna Mendetta's birthday, uh CubanAmerican sculptor, phenomenal human. Um if you don't know her work, look it up. She feeds us all. Um, so November 18th at 8:30 p.m. Eastern, we will be doing a condensed virtual session. Okay, so we got New York 919, we got Chicago 103, we got Houston, I lied. Chicago 929, Houston 103, LA 1010. Yeah. >> Yeah. Okay. Two down, one to go. You ready? Okay. Then uh the next big event that the LTC is running is called Forum on the Future, Language, Technology, and Provocations in Multilingual Theater making. Um I'm really excited. I'm one of the co-champs for this with Christina Fernandez, an actor, playwright, translator, and all-around badass clown. that is going to be happening in Washington DC in July of 27. Yes, we're coming for you. >> We're going to be partnering with Gala Hispanic Theater, with Willie Mammoth, and with Georgetown University's Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics. Give them some love. Give him some love so that they don't love. And so you're like, Juliana, what is the forum? Great. I'd love to tell you. So, it is going to investigate our current practices and expand thinking about our future p possibilities of trans linguistic Latina theaterm. It's an opportunity for us to gather in community to talk about to dialogue and to get curious around the politics of translation around the literal skills of how do we make bilingual and translual plays and over three and a half days uh participants will engage in skill building. We're going to have workshops around how do we navigate this technology targeted mini keynote presentations both from uh bilingual artists and from folks who are working in technology. We're gonna have some dynamic panels, learn some new technologies, and um do a little bit of a deep dive into the ongoing legacies of bilingual productions in North American Theatro um which has is uh been represented by Gala and we're so excited to partner with them. And then it's also going to feature international conversations with artists in Latin America because we think that um if uh presence is resistance. Wait, what was where's Alan? Where's the quote? What's the quote? Yes. Can you shout out the quote that you said today? >> Existence is resistance. >> Resurrection. For all those things to be true, which we know that they are, we must be able to cross literal and figurative borders uh to be in partnership to show up in space. So, I am so hoping that you all are um interested and sign up to an RSVP for this event in DC. We are thrilled. Um, we will also be in the process of creating the committees for that event. So, if you're interested in being on the committee, uh, come talk to me. Would love to chat. And then question. Yeah. >> Fantastic question. Yeah. Um, yeah. So, I will give you dates and then we're just going to have a lot of grace that if they shift, we're not going to be like, Juliana, no, please don't. um tentatively either the second weekend in July or the third weekend. So I think that's the 11th. You're looking at the calendar I can tell. [laughter] But it's the second weekend in July, Thursday to Sunday or the third weekend in July. Thursday to Sunday. Hold those on your calendar. You are so welcome. Excellent question. Any other questions before Great. Seeing none. Um yeah. Amazing. I'm gonna pass the mic. Thank you so much. >> All right, we will be starting the pachanga very, very soon. We have DJ Ector getting ready in the back, so he's going to be on stage so we can all dance on stage. We can dance down here. We'll also have the bar open as well as our taco truck is just finishing getting set up and we will also have palettas later on this evening. So, please stick around to party with us. Thank you all so much for being here.