Theater

Theater and theory are inextricably tied through a common etymology: both are derived from the Greek word theastai (θεάομαι), meaning to gaze at or contemplate. In addition to theory, theater is dramatic literature, that is, both published or unpublished texts and the staging or productions—the mise-en-scène—of those texts. But theater also includes the many artists involved in theater-making, along with spectators, theater festivals, and the communities of practice in which theater is immersed. The project of reconceiving Latina/o theater as communities of practice, like Ramón Rivera-Servera’s notion of “curatorial framing,” is vested in “the artists and audiences it convenes and the collective experience it creates—as the definitional locus for a theatrical practice that is as invested in cultivating Latina and Latino theater artists as it is in circulating their artistry to wider audiences” (2013, ix).