Elena Machado Sáez (NHC Fellow, 2022–23)

Fellowship Work Summary, 2022–23

Elena Machado Sáez dedicated her fellowship year to identifying over 30 plays for analysis, researching the post-2000 emergence of US Latinx theater institutions, and performing extensive reading and note-taking on secondary sources about library archival practices, BIPOC activism, theater, performance, and US Latinx studies. She interviewed the founders, artistic directors, and/or commissioned playwrights of: Cara Mía Theatre in Dallas, TX; Borderlands Theater in Tucson, AZ; CASA 0101 in Los Angeles, CA; Power Street Theatre, Philadelphia, PA; Teatro Público in Cleveland, OH; Delaware Shakespeare Theater Company in Wilmington, DE; Gamut Theatre’s Stage Door Series Ensemble in Harrisburg, PA; and Roadside Theater in Whitesburg, KY. By the conclusion of the NHC fellowship, she completed a draft of the introduction to her book project, Archival Activism and US Latinx Theatre, as well as a fully-developed organizational structure for the manuscript.