Drawn from the first ten years of the Goodman Theatre’s renowned biennial festival of Latino plays, the works in this collection expand the definition of Latino theater, resisting the confines of a particular language, locale, or assumed audience. Instead of focusing on similarities that outline the boundaries of Latino identity, these plays look outward, representing the multiplicity of actual Latino experience. The plays were written and performed sometimes in English and sometimes in Spanish; their stories are set in heterogeneous milieus; they’re directed at both Latino and non-Latino audiences; and they incorporate cultural or theatrical elements from vastly different traditions. As a group, these plays indicate the extraordinary range of the festival’s offerings and show how it has contributed to a more complex notion of what Latino theater is and can be.

Holy Terrors presents exemplary original work by fourteen of Latin America’s foremost contemporary women theatre and performance artists. Many of the pieces—including one-act plays, manifestos, and lyrics—appear in English for the first time. From Griselda Gambaro, Argentina's most widely recognized playwright, to such renowned performers as Brazil's Denise Stoklos and Mexico’s Jesusa Rodríguez, these women are involved in some of Latin America's most important aesthetic and political movements. Of varied racial and ethnic backgrounds, they come from across Latin America—Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Colombia, Puerto Rico, Peru, and Cuba. This volume is generously illustrated with over seventy images. A number of the performance pieces are complemented by essays providing context and analysis.

The performance pieces in Holy Terrors are powerful testimonies to the artists' political and personal struggles. These women confront patriarchy, racism, and repressive government regimes and challenge brutality and corruption through a variety of artistic genres. Several have formed theatre collectives—among them FOMMA (a Mayan women’s theatre company in Chiapas) and El Teatro de la máscara in Colombia. Some draw from cabaret and ‘frivolous’ theatre traditions to create intense and humorous performances that challenge church and state. Engaging in self-mutilation and abandoning traditional dress, others use their bodies as the platforms on which to stage their defiant critiques of injustice. Holy Terrors is a unique English-language presentation of some of Latin America's fiercest, most provocative art.

Contributors
Sabina Berman
Tania Bruguera
Petrona de la Cruz Cruz
Diamela Eltit
Griselda Gambaro
Astrid Hadad
Teresa Hernández
Rosa Luisa Márquez
Teresa Ralli
Diana Raznovich
Jesusa Rodríguez
Denise Stoklos
Katia Tirado
Ema Villanueva

"An invaluable resource to teachers of Latin American theater, with texts that provide an accurate panorama of Latin American theater."
---Adam Versenyi, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Stages of Conflict brings together a vast array of dramatic texts, ambitiously tracing the intersection of theater and social and political life in the Americas over the past five centuries. Including eighteen works faithfully translated into English, the collection moves from a sixteenth century Mayan dance-drama to a 2003 production by the first published indigenous playwright in Mexico. Historical pieces from the sixteenth century to the present highlight the encounter between indigenous tradition and colonialism, while contributions from modern playwrights such as Virgilio Pinero, Jose Triana, and Denise Stolkos take on the tumultuous political and social upheavals of the past century.

The editors have added comprehensive critical commentary that details the origins of each play, affording scholars and students of theater, performance studies, and Latin American studies the opportunity to view the history of a continent through its rich and diverse theatrical traditions.

Diana Taylor is Director of The Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics and Professor of Performance Studies and Spanish at New York University. Her books include the award-winning volume The Archive and the Repertoire: Performing Cultural Memory in the Americas.

Sarah J. Townsend is a doctoral student at New York University.