I have been writing about the history of Latina/o representation in UIL for a while. Last year, Virginia Grise’s blu was one of those plays and the year before Zoot Suit by Luis Valdez was finally at the State meet. Each year, a handful of plays compete at the State meet, presumably the most effective plays from all over the state. Texas has a large competitive festival of plays each year, part of the University Interscholastic League (UIL). More and more, I am asked to share this list with teachers all over the country-from Texas, California, Arizona, New York, and even Iowa and Michigan. Several years ago, I began to compile a list of plays with Latina/o themes and characters appropriate (or worthy) to be performed by young performers quality dramatic literature for teachers to produce with their students. What are the plays you want to see in our schools? What have you produced already?

Resources are necessary to help break the cycle of exclusion. Whatever the reason, theatre teachers rarely introduce nor produce Latina/o plays despite the numbers of Latina/os that fill their classes. Other times, they state that they never studied Latina/o plays in their educational programs.

Sometimes, non-Latina/o teachers express to me their feelings of inadequacy in representing plays outside of their identity markers, and their fears of misrepresenting Latina/o cultures.

In my work as a high school theatre teacher in Texas and in my current position of teacher of theatre teachers at UT Austin, I recognize a consistent invisibility of Latina/o stories and bodies in our theatre curricula and on our school stages. There are great disparities in this data and the number of plays read and produced in school theatre programs that feature Latina/o characters. The Texas Education Agency has reported that over 50 percent of students enrolled in Texas public schools are Hispanic (their term I use Latina/o).

Jose rivera 10 minute play scripts full