History

Su Teatro is the third oldest Chicano theater in the country (only Teatro Campesino and Teatro de la Esperanza are older). For more than 40 years, the group has established a national reputation for home-grown productions that speak to the history and experience of Chicanos. Su Teatro has created more than 20 original full length productions that have toured widely to venues such as New York’s Public Theater, The Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center, San Antonio, TX and Los Angeles’ Plaza de la Raza. Su Teatro has been nationally recognized for the artistic excellence of its programs through funding from the Shubert Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, Theatre Communications Group, and the American Composers Forum. Born from the Chicano Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and 70s, Su Teatro (Your Theater) began in 1972 as a student-organized theater group at the University of Colorado at Denver. Throughout the 70s, Su Teatro performed politically charged agitprop plays and skits to support social activism and bolster civil rights causes. The 1980s saw a shift in the artistic output of Su Teatro, who began to develop full length plays focused on demystifying the Chicano identity and celebrating the experiences, history, language, and cultural heritage of Chicanos, Mexicanos, and Latinos throughout the Americas. In 1989, Su Teatro, which up until that time had been a roving theater troupe, purchased the old Elyria School in Northeast Denver. Having a home allowed the organization to expand its programming to include annual arts festivals and an arts education program in addition to a full theater season. In 2010, Su Teatro expanded again, with the purchase and renovation of the Denver Civic Theatre, centrally located in Denver’s Santa Fe Arts District. The newest move is part of Su Teatro’s plan to become a regional Latino cultural arts center—the only one of its kind in the area.