What
We Do

Cara Mía Theatre produces a professional season of plays and a national Latinx theatre festival at the Latino Cultural Center. Since its inception in 1996, Cara Mía Theatre has invested in multi-year development of original bilingual plays with local and national Latinx writers.

While producing classic plays by acclaimed Latinx playwrights, CMT understands the necessity of contributing new plays to the underrepresented Latinx canon.

CMT also produces a reading series that cultivates the active addition of new plays by voices of color to the American canon of theatrical work.

Today, CMT boasts of a 14-member resident Artistic Ensemble that actively creates new work.

Presenting stories through a Latinx lens not only provides representation to the Latinx community but encourages understanding, compassion, and healing with productions that speak to universal values.

CMT offers community outreach for all productions including subsidized accessible tickets, Youth Nights at the Theatre, study guides, talk backs, and Community Conversations that encourage action and further engagement among the participants.

Since 1996, Cara Mía Theatre has offered a unique set of culturally-specific educational programs for youth and educators, and now reaches 20,000 to 30,000 youth each season. Through the Transformation Fund, Cara Mía Theatre will reach over 60,000 youth annually.

Cara Mía Theatre’s core educational programs for youth include after-school residencies, in-school bilingual touring productions, and on-site field trip performances at the Latino Cultural Center.

Educational programs are built on a framework that emphasizes intercultural learning and relationship building.

All programs feature original curricula that celebrate culture and support the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) standards, and curates original curriculum for CMT’s flagship program, The School of YES!, which is provided after school throughout the year and culminates in a month-long summer camp. The School of YES! teaches creativity as a life skill and is offered free to underserved youth in communities of color.

Since 2017, Dallas Independent School District has contracted Cara Mía Theatre to design multicultural arts education programs and curricula with BIPOC master teaching artists. Most recently,during the 2020-2021 academic year, Cara Mía Theatre provided a suite of six culturally-specific, bilingual virtual plays and classroom experiences that cultivate intercultural learning and relationship building among diverse students. This unique offering, designed specifically for the pandemic year, reached over 30,000 students in elementary, middle, and high schools.

This virtual repertory of bilingual plays and classes have created additional opportunities to extend its reach beyond Dallas to the entire country. In May 2021, Cara Mía Theatre hosted 177 students from South Texas’ Brownsville ISD for a virtual performance and an interactive post-show activity with one of our teaching artists.

In the fall of 2016, Cara Mía identified live theatre as a tool for intentionally bringing audiences together for plays about pressing social issues and engaging with local leaders and activists before and after performances to learn how to collectively create positive change in our city.

With seed funding from the Embrey Family Foundation, Cara Mía Theatre created its Community Action programs and has engaged over 10,000 youth and adults since 2016.

The goals of Cara Mía Theatre’s Community Action programs are to lead conversations on important social issues and inspire participants to transform their own communities through social change.

Cara Mía Theatre’s Community Action programs provide engagement connected to productions through Community Conversations, Youth Nights at the Theatre, and post-performance discussions.

Additionally, Cara Mía Theatre brings thoughtful programming directly to Dallas’ diverse communities through programs like the Women Talk, Men Listen series and Our Stories: Building Communities and Building Trust Through Storytelling (a true-life storytelling series told by Dallas residents of multiple backgrounds) provide a forum to engage, listen, and share.

Utilizing a framework of interpersonal learning and community building, Community Action programming unites people of diverse races, ethnicities, and identities through arts, culture and community gatherings.

During the 2017 national tour of Deferred Action, Cara Mía Theatre took its community team on the road and built community programs at each tour stop. Our team connected local immigrant rights’ organizers with Latinx political action groups for community conversations, post-show discussions and youth performances, establishing a model for future national tours.

In 2020, Cara Mía Theatre added a new slate of programs called Circles of Community Care. Led by BIPOC facilitators, Circles of Community Care provide a sacred space for people of all races, ethnicities and identities to share personal stories, develop trust with other participants and build community.Aligned with the principles of racial healing circles from the Kellogg Foundation’s Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation movement, the Circles of Community Care can be a catalyst for community transformation throughout the city of Dallas.

Current Community Care programming includes various classes and courses including “Stories That Heal”, a workshop that uses art as a personal healing and relationship building tool for diverse participants of artists and non-artists; “Becoming A Light unto Yourself and Others” features guests from different world cultures and traditions that shine a light on the intrinsic power and inner resources of all human beings; “Trenzando: Women’s Stories of Affirmation”, a course for multi-generational women that explores personal and cultural identity through the universal practice of braiding hair; and “Reclamation Talking Circles” that bring Native wisdom and principles to diverse participants to reclaim one’s life from the speed of Western living.

In 2020, Cara Mía Theatre officially started a consultancy service. With a core team of BIPOC artists, teachers and cultural workers, we share expertise that is beneficial to other organizations.

Consultancy services are available to non-profit organizations, academic institutions, and corporations, in many areas, including:

• Intercultural relations
• Culturally specific performance
• Arts and Education
• Spanish & Bilingual communications
• Community Building
• Cultural Advocacy
• Cultural Competency

Recently, Cara Mía Theatre served as a production and script consultant for the Perot Museum’s bilingual educational video series, The Whynauts. The program will reach over 250,000 students in North Texas schools during the 2021-2022 academic school year.

Over the course of its 25-year history, Cara Mía Theatre has established a reputation of having the skills and knowledge to meet the challenges of the 21st century to support equitable and diverse communities.