LA Escena Festival celebrates Hispanic classical theater from Sept. 17 to Oct. 5

LA Escena, Los Angeles' biennial Hispanic classical theater festival, returns to UCLA from Sept. 17 to Oct. 5. Since it began in 2018, LA Escena has brought the best of Southern California theater together with acclaimed performers from around the world to celebrate the theatrical tradition of the Spanish Golden Age in performance and adaptation.

At LA Escena 2026, audiences can enjoy eight live performances - all free to the public - and one livestreamed premiere from New York. The festival features staged readings of brand-new adaptations and inventive presentations of Hispanic classics, in Spanish and English.

LA Escena is produced by UCLA's Diversifying the Classics project, which is based in the UCLA College Division of Humanities. The festival's artistic director is Barbara Fuchs, UCLA distinguished professor of Spanish and English and the founder of Diversifying the Classics. LA Escena launched with a mission to promote Hispanic theater produced on both sides of the Atlantic in the "long 17th century," a period from the late 1500s to the early 1700s characterized by significant cultural, political and social changes across Europe, and to expand modern audiences' concept of what constitutes the "classics."

"Every new edition of LA Escena is an opportunity to see what results when extraordinary artists encounter the Hispanic classics," Fuchs said. "The use of music, film and puppetry, and the striking repurposing of classical texts to think about our lives today - I am constantly amazed by the possibilities. I can't wait to share these new pieces with our LA neighbors!"

LA Escena will open with performances from Spain and Mexico at the UCLA Little Theater. Diversifying the Classics' Mex-Clásicos initiative, supported by the University of California's Alianza MX program, will bring two works from Mexico City: "La casa de empeños" by Christian Nájera and "Historias amorosas" by Paola Izquierdo, adapted from pioneering baroque female dramatists Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz and María de Zayas, respectively. Acclaimed Spanish company Jóvenes Clásicos will present two tragedies: "Canciones de Olmedo" and "Amar después de la Muerte."

The lineup will also feature new works from Diversifying the Classics' Golden Tongues series, which commissions adaptations of Hispanic classics by local playwrights from diverse backgrounds, part of a longtime collaboration with legendary Los Angeles theater company Playwrights' Arena. The festival will include the premieres of modern takes on classic plays by Lope de Vega, Pedro Calderón de la Barca and Juan Ruiz de Alarcón.

Other highlights include an "illuminated lecture" - a hybrid scholarly lecture and theatrical performance - by Fuchs in collaboration with Los Angeles-based theatre dybbuk. They will delve into "La Celestina," the wildly popular 16th-century bestseller that uses humor to explore taboos around religion, class and sex.

The festival will conclude with the world premiere of Diversifying the Classics' newest translation, "The King Born a Woman" by Luis Vélez de Guevara. New York's Red Bull Theater will livestream a staged reading on Monday, Oct. 5, and the recording will be available on demand for a week after. "The King Born a Woman" is the latest in Hispanic Golden Age Classics, Diversifying the Classics' ongoing collaboration with Red Bull.

Tickets for all performances at UCLA are free, but advance registration is required. Tickets for "The King Born a Woman" will be available through the Red Bull Theater website.