PHOTO COURTESY OF THALIA SPANISH THEATRE
Angel Gil Orrios is the executive director of the Thalia Spanish Theatre in Sunnyside. PHOTO COURTESY OF THALIA SPANISH THEATRE
QUEENS’ ORIGINAL HOME FOR LATIN AND HISPANIC
CULTURE IN SEARCH OF PERMANENT LOCATION
BY ANGÉLICA ACEVEDO
The Thalia Spanish Theatre, the
first and only bilingual, Hispanic theater
in Queens, is a beloved Sunnyside
institution — and now, after 43 years,
they’re in search of a permanent home
in the neighborhood.
“Mostly, what we do is world premieres
or American premieres of
the best writers and composers from
Spain, Latin America and Hispanics
in the United States,” Angel Gil Orrios,
the Thalia Spanish Theatre’s
executive director for 20 years, told
QNS. “So that’s what makes our productions
somehow unique, because if
you don’t come to see them here, you
won’t see them.”
With more than 230 productions
and 222 awards locally and
nationally, Thalia (located at 41-17
Greenpoint Ave.) certainly stands
out for its original and endearing
Spanish and English language
productions.
Gil became the executive director
following the retirement of the
Thalia’s founder, Cuban actress and
director Silvia Brito, in 1999. He recounted
how in 1977, when the theater
was first established, Sunnyside’s population
was mainly Irish.
“When my predecessor started this
theater, there weren’t really many
Hispanics around here at all, so
much so that people thought that she
was crazy for establishing a theatre
here,'” Gil said. “But she proved everybody
wrong.”
The Spanish director likes to think
of their intimate stage as a “lab,”
where they get to take risks, present
interesting stories with modern day
issues and support the best talent they
can find.
That talent spans from world-renowned
artists to first-time actors and
playwrights.
One of their longtime collaborators
is Uruguayan Bandoneon Maestro
Raúl Jaurena, who won a Latin Grammy
for Best Tango Album (“Te Amo
Tango” or “I love you, tango”) in 2007,
after recording it live in the Thalia.
Thalia usually has six productions
per season: four musicals and two
plays that are either dramas or comedies.
The bilingual productions alternate
from English and Spanish performances,
but it’s essential to have both
languages available, as their audience
is 60 percent Latin or Hispanic with
Spanish being their first or main language.
Their work organically find ways
to present issues and fresh takes that
the Latin community faces. One example
is their “Queens of the Night/
Reinas de la Noche” production, a
play by Txemi Parra that presents the
hardships as well as the beauty of the
lives of transgender people who immigrate
to the United States.
Their hit comedy, “We Women Do
It Better Than Men” (“Las Mujeres
lo hacemos mejor que los hombres”),
by distinguished Puerto Rican playwright
Roberto Ramos-Perea and an
award-winning performance by longtime
PHOTO: ANGÉLICA ACEVEDO/QNS
Thalia actress Soledad López,
will be back for its third season before
it heads to Guatemala in April.
“We are invited many times to take
our productions to international theater
festivals, representing not only
Queens and not only New York, but
also the United States as sometimes
we are the only productions from the
country in international film festivals,”
Gil said.
The theater also gives back to their
immediate community.
They host an annual free Outdoor
Festival (“Thalia al aire libre”
) in June at the nearby Thomson Hill
Park/Noonan Playground, where they
typically feature Spanish flamenco,
Mexican folkloric music and dance
with a mariachi or Indigenous band,
and Colombian music and dance. They
also have workshops, with acting and
dance classes for youth and adults,
throughout the year.
Some might say that it’s because of
the Thalia’s quaint, yet inviting space
(it has 74 seats with eight rows) that it’s
managed to become a New York City
staple.
But Gil and his team have bigger
plans for the future of the Thalia.
For as long as the theater’s been
around, it has leased their space in
Sunnyside. And after the Amazon HQ2
debacle in Long Island City, Gil realized
they needed to find a place that’s
all their own if they wanted to stay in
the neighborhood.
“It was clear to us when this whole
thing of the Amazon fiasco came in,
that was the time we were really aware
that if we were not buying something
to have a permanent home, we were going
to be out,” Gil said. “We could even
do much better because by having a
larger space, we could at some point
have town halls or community meetings
for the Hispanic community.”
Gil mentioned District 26 City
Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer is
helping their vision of having a larger
cultural center for the Sunnyside community
come to life within the next
five years.
“The Thalia Spanish Theatre is
one of those incredible hidden gems in
the city of New York, where you could
go to Greenpoint Avenue and and go
into this small, nonprofit theater company
and see some of the most amazing
performances that you’ll ever see,”
Van Bramer said.
Van Bramer told QNS that he remembers
visiting the Thalia many
times while growing up in Sunnyside,
and has increased their funding in the
10 years that he’s been in City Council.
“It’s a place that should be bigger,”
he said. “We should have a cultural
center for the Latinx community in
Queens.”
The Thalia Spanish Theatre has
several new productions coming up
this season, including “Flamenco al
son Latino,” a vibrant musical of flamenco
performances mixed with Latin
American rhythms, premiering on
Friday, March 13.
If you want to keep up with the
Thalia Spanish Theatre, where “every
month is Hispanic Heritage Month,”
visit www.thaliatheatre.org.
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