Shorts Celebrate Latinx Voices in TEATRX's La Vida Es Cortos Festival

Studies continue to show that Latinx audiences in the U.S. go to the movies, per capita, more than their non-Latinx neighbors . It's a fact that left some, like the founders of Houston-based Latinx theater company TEATRX , with questions.

"We know they seek entertainment in many ways, and they seek entertainment through film. Why not theater?" says Marissa Castillo, one of the co-founders of TEATRX. "When we started TEATRX, one of the big things we talked about is why. Generally speaking, why doesn't the Latinx community come out to the theater?"

To reach the community, the company launched La Vida Es Cortos/Life Is Shorts Festival , a showcase of short plays presented alongside short films – some in English, some in Spanish, and some in both – returning for its sixth year this weekend at the MATCH.

"Putting these short films with the short plays is our way of introducing the Latinx community to a different form of storytelling," explains Castillo. "We're six years in now, and there's not a year that we've done this that we haven't had someone say, 'This is my first time at a theater and I loved it'...We had somebody say – it was in Spanish – she said, 'It's like a telenovela right in front of me.'"

TEATRX looks nationwide for the plays and films featured each year, and with the nature of shorts, Castillo says they can tell around 30 stories throughout the festival. "The people that come are going to find one story that resonates with them, at least one if not many, and it doesn't matter who you are, where you're from, what your background is – something is going to touch you."

When it comes to choosing those stories, Castillo says the process starts with one question: Is it about the Latinx experience? From there, they work to find "all of the different viewpoints that fit within the vast nature of Latinidad."

"We're not one thing. We're not a monolith. So, we really do try to find the stories from the people who aren't like us but are still a part of this community, the people that are often left behind from this community or forgotten or ignored by the community," says Castillo. "We want to make sure that we can find as many different stories as possible to really show the range of Latinidad."

Once selected, Castillo says a theme tends to emerge from the plays and films chosen for the festival. "It's not something we think about when we're creating the lineup or picking the selections, but this year, there was a lot about family and connection."

These themes can be found in the sibling rivalry between two boxers, a brother and sister who each want their late father's "old, beaten up but loved boxing gloves" in Erik Florentino's "Knuckle Games," and the father and son in Hernán Angulo's "Translation, Traslacion, Traducción Or Whatever You Call It." The son in Angulo's play is a second-generation American, and language, as Castillo points out, can be lost as generations pass.

"[The play] really touches on all the different ways in which communication can be lost between your loved ones and how do we get it back," says Castillo, adding that "it's not just language" that's involved, but "the way they view life and the way they approach life."

Doris Ramos approaches the idea of connection from a different angle in her relatable Spanish language farce "Café Deluxe," which Castillo calls "relatable to everybody."

"It's about how are we not connecting because of all of the devices we use in our life," says Castillo of the shop-set play, "where you've got several people who are all just being mesmerized by that little device in front of them."

In "The Garden of Night Blooming Flowers" by Samantha Vargas, described by Castillo as "a twist on ," two women find themselves caught "in the midst of political turmoil."

"You've got one who wants to stay with the status quo, and the other who some might say is an anarchist, some might say they are fighting for people's rights and fighting for the little people, but they love each other," says Castillo. "How do they reconcile that when their family is pulling them apart at the same time?"

The remaining three short plays were made with young audiences in mind and will feature during La Vida Es Cortitos, or Cortitos, two performances designed to showcase short plays and films for ages five and up.

The first work is "Jarabe," a "true dance theater production" written by Adriana Domínguez and presented by The Pilot Dance Project. The memory play, which TEATRX has been trying to produce since 2020, explores a daughter's memories of her mother and the day she stopped dancing, and it is also "a different take on gun violence." "It is not necessarily the story you think you're going to hear about gun violence because gun violence affects everyone, not just the people who are there, not just the people that experience it firsthand...sometimes it can affect a whole community," says Castillo.

The two plays TEATRX will produce for young audiences this year are , the third play by playwright Alvaro Saar Rios to be chosen for the festival, and Alicia Ana Hernandez-Roulet's

"I'm really excited to hear how our adult audiences take this particular play in," says Castillo of , which sees how a mother struggling with addiction and her very young daughter communicate with each other about their feelings.

Cortitos debuted in 2023, and Castillo says it is the result of a longtime TEATRX goal.

"We're trying to raise the next generation of theater-goers, and in order to that, we have to reach out to them. In order to do that, we have to make work just for them just like we have to make work for our Latinx community who doesn't come right now [to the theater]," says Castillo. "If it's not for them, they're not going to come."

Castillo, who has two children, adds that her kids have only seen Black and brown theater, and it's something she's proud of.

"I'm happy for that because then when they're older, it's not going to be something that's new or crazy," says Castillo. "And I want kids in Houston to see Black and brown bodies on stage as something that is beautiful and normal and every single day. It just feels like it's always been there. That's how I want them to feel about Latinx theater – like it's always been there."