Produced, directed, written and performed by all-Hispanic creatives, Teatro Fest NYC returned for its 11th year earlier this month, celebrating a history of Latinx identity and performance. Through April 30, with some shows extending through May 3, 10 New York City theaters, known as the Alliance of Teatros Latinos NY or “La Allianza,” present 24 unique and original shows, highlighting the diversity and talent of the Latinx diaspora through music, dance, side-splitting comedies and tear-jerking dramas.
A little over a decade ago, the directors of each of the Latino-focused theaters joined forces to create a more united front. They soon realized most of their performances coincided in the fall and spring.
“We chose March and April as two months in which we could more intentionally and aggressively really promote the contents and the programming of all of our participating theaters and that’s how [La Allianza] began,” said Rosalba Rolón, artistic director and founder of Pregones Theater in the South Bronx, formed in 1979 and born from the Puerto Rican Traveling Theater/PRTT founded in the late ‘60s,
Through March 29, Pregones presents, “March Is Music 2026,” adapted and directed by Rolón.
On March 21, composer and saxophonist Jonathan Suazo performed with his band where the quartet debuted songs from their newest album, “Ricano Vol. 2,” set to be released May 8. Suazo’s previous album “Ricano“ – a name created as a hybrid of his Puerto Rican and Dominican roots – was recognized by the New York Times as one of the best jazz albums of 2023 and he was also named one of the top 10 emerging jazz artist by the GRAMMYs the same year.
Suazo’s music fuses the erratic feeling of jazz with the rhythmic sway of salsa. His fast-paced song “Candela,” exemplifies this amalgamation where discordant notes meld with more traditional harmonies to create a new sound for a modern audience.
“It’s sort of like a cultural excavation of some sorts, you know, looking for rhythms and sounds and really honoring them in a certain way and in certain points, combining them to honor that combination that lives inside me,” Suazo told the Bronx Times.
Other performances include “Fiesta de la Zarzuela” at the Teatro Circulo in Manhattan’s East Village. Conceived and directed by Pablo Zinger, the show takes the 17th Century Spaniard tradition of satirical musical theater intertwined with operatic works and runs March 27 through April 5. Some shows are more steeped in emotional adversity and internal struggle, like “Petra” written by Camilo Vergara and directed by German Jaramillo.
The titular character, played by Sándie Luna, returns to her hometown for her father’s funeral and ends up accepting a position at a juvenile detention center. Petra’s new job forces her into a spiral of introspection as she navigates the ups and downs of her personal relationships while searching for meaning in her own life.
While Teatro Fest NYC began as a way to tell stories through the perspective of Hispanic performers while placing them center-stage, in the current political climate, it has become a form of courageous visibility.
“For La Allianza to make this festival in this moment, I think it’s bold, it’s subversive, because we are also celebrating us in a moment where the world is telling us we don’t belong and we are being persecuted,” said Luna, executive director of the iD Studio Theater in Mott Haven which joined the Alliance of Teatros Latinos NY this year.
“I had an artist call me this week – ooh I don’t want to get emotional – to tell me that he’s leaving because he can no longer live in fear.”
Since President Trump’s inauguration in January, a narrative of hate rhetoric towards immigrants, specifically those from Spanish-speaking countries, clouded the nation. Stories of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arresting and deporting presumed undocumented immigrants continues to proliferate the news.
According to the 2024 U.S. Census, almost 30% of New Yorkers identified as Hispanic or Latino. For Bronxites, that number jumped to 55%. Today, long-standing sanctuary cities like NYC are no longer safe, providing more incentive to humanize Latinx voices.
Many of the theaters participating in Teatro Fest NYC were formed in the 1960s and ‘70s, following a wave of Puerto Rican migration, popularized by the 1961 classic film, “West Side Story.” While the plot negatively portrayed Puerto Ricans as infiltrating gang members, it earned Rita Moreno an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in 1962, making her the first Hispanic woman to win an Academy Award.
The theaters which formed after the turn of the millennium, like the iD Studio in 2001 and The People’s Theater in 2009 in Washington Heights, follow in that tradition.
“There was a hunger at the time in the ‘70s – and the theaters that were emerging tapped into that hunger to see ourselves presented on stage,” Rolón said. “But sometimes they just had to kick the door open and say, you know, ‘look at us.’”
Tickets and a full calendar of events for Teatro Fest NYC 2026 can be found at latinotheatersny.com/home-2025/.
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