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Carla Della Gatta
Writer. Scholar. Educator. Arts Advocate.
Dr. Carla Della Gatta is a theatre historian and performance theorist, specializing in contemporary Shakespearean performance and bilingual and Latinx theatre. She is a theatre archivist and dramaturg, and she offers casting workshops for theaters. She is author of Latinx Shakespeares: Staging US Intracultural Theater. Professor Della Gatta built and maintains the only archive of Latinx theatrical adaptation, LatinxShakespeares.Org.
Current and Recent Projects
Latinx Shakespeares:
Staging US Intracultral Theater
(University of Michigan Press, January 2023)
Latinx Shakespeares explores how Latinx cultures are constructed dramaturgically and textually in Shakespearean adaptations and productions.
Latinx Shakespeares is a performance lens for analyzing Shakespeare as ethnic theatre based on an amplification of aural signifiers such as music, accents, and the Spanish language. It is also a theatre history, detailing adaptation work in theaters and universities all over the United States, ultimately arguing that these productions are intracultural, and part of the New American Theatre.
Finalist - Barnard Hewitt Award for Outstanding Research in Theatre History
American Society for Theatre Research (2024)
Finalist - George Freedley Memorial Award for an exemplary work in the field of live theatre or performance
Theatre Library Association (2024)
Honorable Mention - Best Academic Book, College Level – English
International Latino Book Awards (2024)
LatinxShakespeares.Org
LatinxShakespeares.Org is an archive that includes reviews and ephemera from over 200 Latinx-authored and/or Latinx-themed Shakespearean productions and adaptations and over 100 Latinx-authored and/or Latinx-themed adaptations of other western classics staged in the United States over the last seventy-five years.
Silver Medal - Best Website
International Latino Book Awards (2024)
Writing
All of Carla's writing is in dialogue with artists, advancing a conversation on theatre.
She writes for academic presses and journals, trade publications, and online magazines and blogs.
Program notes and scholarship for the theatre are located on the Theatre page.
Photo credit: Latinx Theatre Commons
Theatre Work
Carla offers consulting and dramaturgy, especially related to performances of identity through language and accents.
She works with artists and theaters on script development and staging possibilities for classical and early modern plays and adaptations, intercultural, ethnic, bilingual and semi-bilingual theatre.
Located here are video and audio lectures, interviews, and program notes.
In the News
"For Never Was a Story of More Whoa: Why We Still Can't Get Enough of Juliet and Her Romeo," Town and Country
"The Here-and-Now Insight in Folger’s youth-centric, DC-set Romeo and Juliet," DC Theater Arts
"Caught Up in the Metaverse During an Election Year Warring Families Underpin This Brilliantly Reimagined Story of Romeo and Juliet at the Folger," The Zebra
"Theatre News: Folger Shakespeare Reading Room Festival – Reframing the ‘Shrew,’" MD Theatre Guide
"Outdoor Theaters Have To Compete With a Lot of Noise Including Low-flying Planes," NPR
"At CalShakes, Romeo and Juliet Offers Two Brave Turns for Timeless Love Story," San Francisco Chronicle
"In Translations, A Canon For All," American Theatre
"A 400 Años del First Folio: Shakespeare Resignificado," El Universal
"PBIC: Young Chinese Come Up With Ideas to Improve People's Lives in Africa," CGTN
"A Carnaval of Latino Writing in the Windy City, American Theatre
"DramaWatch: Brain Food at Barbecue," Oregon ArtsWatch
Dr. Carla Della Gatta is Associate Professor of Theatre at University of Maryland.
She is author of Latinx Shakespeares: Staging US Intracultural Theater
and co-editor of Shakespeare and Latinidad.
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