ABSTRACT

This chapter explores how theater also renders aspects of literary study and historical contextualization more accessible by enlisting the creative energies of students to imagine how texts can be staged. Drama is disappearing. Or, so it would appear after a quick, informal perusal of online syllabi for recent classes on Latino/a literature. If considering how to stage Niggli's Soldadera contributes to students' understanding of history and how it is represented, attending to the staging and performance of Maria Irene Fornes's The Conduct of Life forces students to consider how subjects including the reader and audience are positioned. The movement of Latino theater from literature classrooms to these interdisciplinary fields highlights more than just a shift in drama's status in literary study. The students typically develop a more sophisticated sense of power as something that permeates a social body and moves in unexpected ways.