Today, the Teatro del Barrio has won the 2024 National Theatre Prize, awarded annually by the Ministry of Culture and worth 30,000 euros.
The jury proposed to award this prize to a Madrid stage space that celebrated its tenth anniversary in 2023, “for its broad and varied programming, its conception of the theater as a home and space of proximity to the territory in which it is integrated, and it “is committed to decentralization, programming artists throughout the national territory and promoting the mobility of their productions”. Likewise, the jury highlighted “its educational work in the field of performing arts and the democratization of knowledge through its school and the Universidad del Barrio project”.
Furthermore, the jury highlights that the Teatro del Barrio “welcomes innovation and risk in the performing arts, serving as a platform for creators with diverse profiles and trajectories” and emphasizes that “the cooperative management and strong involvement of its entire team allow it to welcome many voices, taking risks and welcoming both established and emerging artists.
The judgment highlights “its commitment to innovative and interdisciplinary formats” that “bring together diverse audiences, creating a space to generate reflection on the social and political context of the performing arts.” The minutes state that “in its ten years of existence, the theater has consolidated its own identity and generated an undeniable impact, positioning itself as a unique space in the cultural ecosystem.”
Chamber of Heirs of the Triangle
The Teatro del Barrio is a cooperative and popular artistic and cultural project inaugurated on December 4, 2013 in the Madrid neighborhood of Lavapiés, in the facilities of what was once the Sala Triángulo, an emblematic space of the alternative scene.
Linked since its origins to the 15-M movement, in its productions, anchored in social commitment and citizen initiative, there is a clear commitment to reflection and debate on the performing arts, analyzing the present and imagining other possible realities. Its artistic programming revolves around humanism, memory, class consciousness, feminism, antiracism, anticolonialism and environmentalism, among other topics. Among its most famous productions, which have toured national and international festivals and theaters, are: Bread and Salt, Mundo Obrero, Ruz – Bárcenas, The King, The Good Wars, The Section, the trilogy Women Who Dare, Feminism for the Clumsy, Those Who Speak, I’m Not Your Gypsy, How We Got Here, Tribute to Billy The Child And Infiltrated into VOX.
In addition, last season they were premiered at the Cuarta Pared hall, as part of the Autumn Festival, The Great Hunt written and directed by Juan Mayorga, a work that went on an international tour that took it to the Spanish Academy in Rome.
The jury
The jury, chaired by the Director General of the National Institute of Performing Arts and Music (INAEM), Paz Santa Cecilia Aristu, and by the Deputy Director General of the INAEM Theatre, Miriam Gómez Martínez, acting as vice-president, was composed of the following members: playwrights Manuel Andrés Benito Picón and Andrea Jiménez García, actor and director Juan Ignacio Ceacero Ruiz; journalists Álvaro Vicente Pavía and Raquel Vidales López; professor and director Ana María Contreras Elvira – proposed by the Research Group on Feminism and Gender Studies of the Royal Higher School of Dramatic Art (RESAD) – and Ana Zamora Tardío, National Theatre Award 2023.
