Destinos, 5th Chicago International Latino Theater Festival, Announces Full Line-up

Mark your calendar! Destinos, 5th Chicago International Latino Theater Festival, will return with a big splash, live and in-person, September 14-October 16, 2022.

Destinos is Chicago's annual citywide festival that brings together and showcases Latino theater artists and companies from Chicago, the U.S. and Latin America, every fall.

For five weeks in September and October, Destinos will give Chicagoans and visitors alike the chance to experience a rich array of Latino-centric shows, panels and student performances presented at marquee venues downtown, neighborhood storefront theaters, and cultural institutions throughout the Chicago area.

"The fifth annual Destinos is not to be missed," said Myrna Salazar, Executive Director, Chicago Latino Theater Alliance (CLATA), which produces the city's international Latino theater festival, one of the largest in the U.S. "Vibrant solo shows and large scale productions from Chicago and U.S. Latino companies, plus visiting artists and productions from Latin America, will be playing on Chicago's top stages, each celebrating the Latino experience."

The 2022 Destinos artist line-up - including the debut of six world premieres, one North American premiere, three U.S. premieres and three Midwest premieres - is set and now available to review on destinosfest.org.

Festival highlights include three provocative productions from Mexico and Puerto Rico:

• The world premiere of La Pájara de San Juan, a Trump-era drama about two sisters, one documented, one not, on a fateful night in Chicago, starring Mexican TV stars María del Carmen Félix and Mariannela Cataño, written by Victor Salinas and Sergio Gezzi, co-presented by CLATA and the National Museum of Mexican Art at the National Museum of Mexican Art, September 14-17.

• The Midwest premiere of Pequeños Territorios en Reconstrucción, a documentary fable about a group of Colombian women who created the "League of Displaced Women" and built 98 houses with their own hands, from Mexico City's Teatro Línea de Sombra, co-presented by CLATA and Goodman Theatre in the heart of Chicago's Loop, September 21-25.

• The U.S. premiere of Blanco Temblor by Puerto Rico's Teatro Público, a play about mental health as told via the story of Marina del Mar, a doctor in quantum astrophysics, Puerto Rican, bipolar, suicide survivor, with a disease from birth: she could not tremble, at The Den Theatre in Wicker Park, September 29-October 2.

You want new plays by Latino writers? Destinos will see diverse new works by Chicago's top Latino companies and artists, including:

• Las Migas by Colectivo El Pozo, a world premiere drama set on the roof of a Chicago skyscraper as an eerie red moon disrupts city life below, presented at Chess Live Theatre in Bridgeport, September 15-October 2.

• The U.S. premiere of Bruna la Bruja Bruta by Mexican playwright Tomás Utrusástegui, starring Teatro Tariakuri Artistic Director Karla Galvan as a modern-day Latina bruja who flies into her theater's Marquette Park storefront space to get a few things off her chest before Halloween, Saturdays and Sundays, September 17-October 16.

• The North American premiere of Tebas Land by Uruguayan playwright Sergio Blanco, inspired by the Oedipus myth, about a series of meetings in a prison basketball court between a playwright and a young parricide (a person who kills a parent or close relative), presented by CLATA in collaboration with the National Museum of Mexican Art, at Chicago Dramatists, September 22-October 9.

• The world premiere of Enough to Let the Light In, produced by Teatro Vista and co-presented with Steppenwolf Theatre Company, by Paloma Nozicka, a Mexican-American actor, writer, director and filmmaker, bred in Chicago, based in L.A. Her play introduces us to girlfriends Marc and Cynthia, who spend a night celebrating a milestone, but it quickly devolves into chaos as buried secrets are revealed and lives are irrevocably changed. Performances are September 21-October 23 at Steppenwolf's 1700 Theater.

• Poet, actor, singer and Latino favorite Flaco Navaja stars in his first full-length solo show Evolution of a Sonero, a Midwest premiere from UrbanTheater Company. With unabashed love for the Bronx, a gift for crafting memorable characters, and genuine good humor, Navaja and five top-notch musicians bring on the charm, the rhythm, and the soul essential to a Bronx Sonero. Don't miss this fresh salsa epic that brings the Bronx streets to UrbanTheater's Humboldt Park stage, September 29-October 23.

• Alma, an American Blues Theatre world premiere about a single mom who has single-handedly raised her daughter on tough love, home-cooked comida, and lots of prayers. But on the eve of her daughter's SAT, she's nowhere to be found. Alma, written by 2019 National Latinx Playwriting Award winner Benjamin Benne, runs October 7-November 6. Venue TBA.

• The midwest premiere of Sancocho by Visión Latino Theater Company, written by Christin Eve Cato, directed by Xavier M. Custodio. The play tells the story of two sisters, 25 years apart, who come together to discuss their father's will while making a traditional sancocho stew that suddenly becomes peppered with revelations about their family history. Performances are October 10-November 30. Venue TBA.

• The world premiere of BULL: a love story by Chicago's own Nancy García Loza, about a Mexican American ex-con who returns to his old Chicago neighborhood, Lakeview, only to discover how much has moved on without him. BULL: a love story is a Paramount Theater BOLD Series production, October 5-November 20 at the new Copley Theatre in downtown Aurora, Illinois' second largest city with a 40 percent Latino population. It also marks the first-ever expansion of Destinos into a Chicago suburb.

• The world premiere of The Wizards by Ricardo Gamboa, a supernatural thriller about a Black and Brown genderqueer couple who find a Quija board in their new Pilsen apartment that connects them to a '70s Mexican-American Motown cover band. The Wizards, co-produced by the Chicago Latino Theater Alliance at Pilsen's historic APO Cultural Center, runs October 14-November 22.

• The U.S. premiere of Cintas de Seda from Aguijón Theater in Chicago's Belmont-Cragin/Hermosa neighborhood. Set on the eve of the Day of the Dead, this play by Norge Espinosa imagines a painter and nun coming together for an impossible dialogue with ghosts, hallucinations, and images of the past, October 13-November 20.

Tickets to all productions will be on sale by mid-August. Visit destinosfest.org for more information and to sign up for CLATA's weekly e-newsletter.

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