Teatro Vista's 2021-22 Season Theme 'Futurology,' Signals A New Future For Ensemble-Led Work

Chicago's leading Latinx theater company, Teatro Vista, announced plans today for its 2021-22 season, the first guided by new Co-Artistic Directors Lorena Diaz and Wendy Mateo.

Futurology, or "the study of current trends that forecast future developments," is the unifying theme for Teatro Vista's 31st season, signaling a new future powered by ensemble-driven work.
Under this banner, Chicago's largest, longest-running Latinx theater ensemble will present live and virtual productions that push boundaries of theatrical expression, propelling the company and its ensemble to a new future of work that encompasses many disciplines of art, genres and expression.

Futurology exemplifies how Teatro Vista plans to apply a theatrical process to the medium of film, taking the time to develop three-dimensional characters and new forms of storytelling.

First, three world premiere virtual productions will roll out over the course of 2021-22: The Fifth World, a serial audio play by Gabriel Ruiz sure to appeal to true crime podcast fans starting later this fall; Detective Q, a moving graphic novel by Marvin Quijada and Gabriel Ruiz, in winter 2022; and La Vuelta, a new digital experience next spring commissioned by Teatro Vista, devised by its ensemble members, written by Isaac Gómez and directed by Monty Cole.

In addition, Teatro Vista will return to the live stage in spring 2022 with Somewhere Over the Border, a world premiere musical by Brian Quijada, creator and star of Teatro Vista's 2016, smash hit world premiere, Where Did We Sit on the Bus?

"Our ensemble is in full use of multimedia to explore what theater and artistic expression is meant to be for Teatro Vista and its future," said Diaz. "As artistic directors, Wendy and I feel like we won the golden ticket to meet Willy Wonka in the chocolate factory, surrounded by an eccentric and brilliant ensemble ready to make magical experiences that our audience will remember."

"I am so energized by this group of artists. We leave a meeting and I am literally buzzing because we are about to start telling stories from a perspective that hasn't truly been explored on America's stages and media," Mateo confirmed. "The American Latinx experience...for us, by us. This content is for our community created by the very representation we seek."

Teatro Vista's virtual productions will drop and be easily accessed via its website, teatrovista.org.