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Valor, Agravio y Mujer (The Courage to Right a Woman's Wrongs)

by Ana Caro Mallén de Soto
Directed by Tatyana-Marie Carlo
Adapted by Julissa Contreras

Original English translation from Diversifying the Classics

Presented in association with Expand the Canon

Part of The Reading Room Festival 2025

Booking and details

This event has passed.

Dates Fri, Jan 31, 2025, 8pm

Tickets $20 (or $150 for an All-Access Pass)

This event is ASL Interpreted.

Please note: Children under the age of 4 are not permitted.

This play is a celebration of women’s agency, written by Shakespeare’s Spanish contemporary Ana Caro Mallén de Soto (1590-1646).

Following a scorned heroine determined to carry out a revenge tragedy-turned-comedy, the play includes hallmarks familiar to Shakespeare’s writing, including cross-dressing, love triangles, swordplay, and soaring verse. Doña Leonora dresses like a man and crosses Europe to get revenge on her ungrateful ex who left her unmarriageable. Along the way, she manipulates others in her sphere causing confusion and antics – and ends up with a triumph that she deems better than any murder.

Post-show conversation

Join us for a post-show conversation moderated by Robert Ramirez. The panel features Tatyana-Marie Carlo, Emily Lyon, and Julissa Contreras.

How to attend the festival

Individual events – $20

Reading Room Festival All-Access Pass – $150

Access to all staged readings, panel discussions, workshops, and community celebrations included in the Festival.

Students – Free admission to readings and conversations

Admitted free one-half hour before event start time, with a valid ID.

About Diversifying the Classics and Expand the Canon

Expand the Canon researches and celebrates classic plays by historic women and gender-expansive writers—and is a call to action to produce them. They’ve partnered with and inspired more than 20 companies across the country to teach and perform these works. Find all 52 curated plays (spanning 1600-1990, 16 countries, and 11 languages) at expandthecanon.com.

Diversifying the Classics promotes the vibrant, Spanish-language theatrical tradition developed on both sides of the Atlantic by playwrights such as Spaniards Lope de Vega and Calderón de la Barca, or Mexicans Ruiz de Alarcón and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. The project seeks to foster awareness and appreciation of Hispanic classical theater in Los Angeles and beyond, expanding the canon to include the heritage of US Latino communities. While our work is based in Los Angeles, we hope to reach theater professionals and audiences across the US, offering them the materials and tools to explore the rich tradition of the comedia. diversifyingtheclassics.humanities.ucla.edu.

The original English translation is by Diversifying the Classics who translated from the Spanish through the UCLA Working Group on the Comedia in Translation and Performance:

Marta Abalá Pelegrín
Adrián Collado
Carla Della Gata
Paul Fitzgibbon Cella
Barbara Fuchs
Rafael Jaime

Robin Kello
Javier Patiño Loira
Jennifer L. Monti
Laura Muñoz
Payton Phillips Quintanilla
Kathryn Renton

Rhonda Sharrah
Cheché Silveyra
Aina Soley
Veronica Toro
Elizabeth Warren