NO NOS MERECEMOS SOÑAR Brings Spanish Theatre to New York

Los Teloneros, an independent theatre company from Valencia, Spain, will make its New York debut this October with No nos merecemos soñar, an award-winning contemporary tragicomedy written and directed by Spanish playwright and director Rafael Ponce.

The company's New York engagement will begin October 27 with a special presentation at La Nacional - Spanish Benevolent Society in Manhattan, followed by four performances of No nos merecemos soñar at LATEA Theatre on the Lower East Side from October 28-30, 2026.

Following recognition in Spain, including four awards for the production, Los Teloneros arrives in New York for its first U.S. engagement. The production will be performed entirely in Spanish.

Five strangers come together for a night of songs and drinks. As the evening unfolds, the cracks begin to show: abandoned dreams, broken promises, disappointments and the lives that might have been.

Blending humor, irony and absurdity, No nos merecemos soñar explores a middle class that no longer knows what it is and a generation that inherited the promise of a future that never arrived. Through five characters and their contradictions, the play confronts the distance between the lives people imagined and the lives they ultimately inhabit - and the stubborn human impulse to keep dreaming.

The 75-minute production is written and directed by Rafael Ponce, whose theatrical work spans three decades. Ponce received the Premi Max Aub in 2002 for Mala leche.

The Los Teloneros collective bringing the production to New York includes Alba Serra, Begoña Tena, Cora Mateu, Manuel Ruiz Arteche and Marian Villaescusa, alongside Juan Sebastián López Galeano and Carlos Molina Lloréns, whose work contributes to the production's visual, technical and lighting identity.

Photography and audiovisual documentation are by Teresa Serigó.