Former CLE physician creates one of first Latino theaters in Ohio

CLEVELAND (WJW) — A Cleveland theater is one of a few in Ohio to give Latino actors, playwrights and creatives a place to showcase their talent.

It all started back in 2018 when Monica Torres started talking with Latino leaders in the city while she was at Case Western Reserve University about doing a fellowship in epidemiology.

“I remember myself walking through the campus and seeing the theater and dying to go inside and see what was going on,” she said. “Maybe see if I could act. But I never had the courage to do it.”

She started talking with Latino leaders in the city, and with their help, founded Latinus Theater Company the same year. It’s one of the first professional Latino theaters in the state of Ohio. Torres is the executive artistic director.

There are productions from all over Latin America, including Cuba, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Argentina and Chile.

“All the playwrights are Latinos,” she said. “And we like to bring a lot of, you know, classic theater from the Latin American countries. Kind of to remind … all the people who used to go to the theater in our countries, what they saw there.”

Fourteen productions later, the theater’s impact is profound. Torres said she often hears feedback from audiences young and old, who are elated they can experience Hispanic culture and stories in Spanish, in Cleveland’s Clark-Fulton neighborhood.

Latinus is also filling a major gap.

“I never thought I could be acting here because, you know, few characters are Latino or the accent, in English,” said Torres. “So it’s the same for all these actors who come, have recently arrived, and some of them don’t even have a good English to communicate. So if we are not here, then they will have no way of exposing their art.”

The shows aren’t just for Spanish speakers. The theater offers devices with headphones so guests can follow along with audio translations in English. From the theater’s 110 seats, English subtitles are visible, too.

Torres said sometimes it feels like a dream, one she’s grateful to live out.

“Being, you know…a physician previously, I always say it’s so important – the health, the physical and everything,” she said. “But what about the soul? To have a healthy soul, we need art. In our case, it’s the theater.”

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