The new artistic director of the Hispanic Theater GALA, Gustavo Ott.
Famous playwright and founder of Teatro San Martín in Venezuela will direct the country’s main Latino theater
Washington, D.C. – GALA Hispanic Theater announced today that its Board of Directors has selected Gustavo Ott as its next Producing Artistic Director. Originally from Venezuela, Ott has over 15 years of experience working in the United States. He was founder and executive artistic director of Teatro San Martín and Fiesta: International Theater Festival in Caracas, Venezuela, and most recently, executive artistic director of Teatro Dallas in Texas. Ott succeeds the late Hugo Medrano, co-founder of GALA, who led the organization for 47 years. Effective January 1, 2024, Ott joins GALA Executive Director and Co-Founder, Rebecca Medrano, to lead the theater in the next stage of its service to artists and the community.
“I have been very close to GALA since 1991,” says Ott. “I admit that with GALA, everything is always the same as with my theater in Caracas: a family, intimate, funny, supportive, but also political, engaging, community, like lifelong friends who imagine meaningful projects, create touching things. fantasies. So today, continuing at GALA is a creative and passionate responsibility, a personal destiny. I know very well what this heritage means. With Rebecca and Abel López, I see clearly where I am going. And with them, who could doubt it, the eyes of my friend Hugo reminding me that between us there is no meeting that does not end with a smile.
“We are thrilled to have Gustavo join the GALA family as our new Producing Artistic Director,” says Cristina King Miranda, President of the GALA Board of Directors. “His artistic talent, his knowledge of Spanish, Latin American and American dramaturgy, as well as his commitment to artists, community and international exchange made him our unanimous choice to succeed our visionary founder, Hugo Medrano.” “Gustavo’s experience,” added Rebecca Medrano, “as a playwright, director and arts administrator in the United States, Spain and Latin America, will strengthen our efforts to commission new works and strengthen relationships with Latin American artists from all over the world.”
Gustavo Ott is a playwright, fiction writer, translator and journalist. For 20 years he was executive artistic director of Teatro San Martín and Fiesta: International Theater Festival in Caracas, Venezuela. In 2023, he was named executive artistic director of Teatro Dallas in Texas. He has directed more than 40 plays; wrote more than 50 plays; and has been translated into 15 languages: English, Portuguese, German, French, Italian, Danish, Greek, Russian, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Japanese, Galician, Catalan and Creole. He has translated into Spanish plays by William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Orson Welles, David Mamet, Daniel McIvor, Frank Loesser/Jo Swerling/Abe Burrows, Lisa Loomer, Rosemary Frisino Toohey and Karen Zacarías.
GALA has produced seven of his plays: the musical The return of Eva Perón-Momia in the closet, that GALA commissioned and was nominated for the Charles McArthur Award for Outstanding New Play or Musical at the 2009 Helen Hayes Awards; The photo, Señorita and Madame; Your Molotov era; Pavlov: Dos segundos antes del crimen; Nunca said she was a good girl; And Divorciadas, evangelicals and vegetarians. Ott also directed two productions at GALA. A new version of The return of Eva Perón will be produced by GALA in May 2024.
Mr. Ott participated in the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa (1993), the New Work Now program at the Public Theater of New York (2002 and 2003); the International Residence Aux Recoilets (2006, Paris); the Residence of the Cité Internationale des Artes de Paris (2010); and the playwriting program La Mousson D’Ete and La Mousson à Paris at the Comédie Française.
Among his playwriting awards are the Tirso de Molina International Playwriting Prize (Spain, 1998); Ricardo López Aranda International Playwriting Prize (Spain, 2003); Theater Prize of the Venezuelan Ministry of Culture (2007); Third IDB “Hispanics in the United States” Prize (Washington, DC, 2010); and the FATEX Prize for Dramatic Writing (Spain, 2012). Other awards are the Apacuana National Playwriting Prize (Venezuela, 2015); Aguijón Theater Hispanic Playwriting Prize (Chicago, 2016); Marius Gottin Prize for Dramatic Writing 2018 (Martinique/France) for the best non-French-speaking play; Trasnocho Prize for Playwriting (Venezuela, 2017 and 2020); Luis Brito García Literary Prize (Caracas, 2014): Panama Escenas Prize (Best play of 2007); and Best Play Yakumo Festival 2007 (Japan).
The GALA Hispanic Theater is the National Center for Latin American Performing Arts in the nation’s capital, fostering the understanding and appreciation of Latin American arts and culture by a broad and diverse audience.
GALA preserves and promotes Latin American arts and culture and shares this rich Hispanic heritage through its diverse performing arts programs, using theater as a vehicle for social change. By developing, producing and presenting works that explore the breadth of Latino performing arts with its company of bilingual artists, GALA provides opportunities for Latino artists, educates youth and engages the entire community in an exchange of ideas and perspectives. galatheatre.org
