Teatro Nahual
Teatro Nahual
Teatro Nahual is a non-profit organization founded in Santa Clara County in 2003. The mission is to provide education and entertainment through plays that represent Latin American culture and customs in California and the United States. The productions of this community theater group have the purpose of creating a social conscience and establishing a dialogue that allows informing about cultural, social, and political situations, at the same time that the audience spends a pleasant moment to enjoy theatrical works entirely in Spanish. Nahual Theater is made up of actors, musicians, educators, designers, and people from the community interested in joining efforts to promote the magic of theater. Acting classes are also taught in Spanish for children, youth, and adults since 2004.
www.teatronahual.org
Email: veronica@teatronahual.org
Verónica Meza-Biography-
Verónica was born in Guaymas, Sonora, México. She earned a bachelor’s degree in literature and drama from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) with additional study at The National Institute of Arts (INBA) in Mexico, and received an M.A. in Spanish Education from Bennington College. Veronica has an extensive theatre history in Mexico City, where she was an actress, assistant director and assistant producer. She participated in multiple plays, including El Cervantino and the Houston International Festival. In 2003, she created Teatro Nahual, a Spanish-language theatre in Santa Clara County, for which she has directed several Spanish-language performances in different theatres and cities throughout California. Veronica is also a playwright, whose works include Huelga sin palitos, Chismes de Machos and the adaptation of several Hispanic plays. Since 2004, Verónica also has developed her own methodology to lead beginning, intermediate and advanced Spanish acting classes. Additionally, Veronica has collaborated with a variety of other organizations, such as Fuego Nuevo Ballet in San Jose, California, National Hispanic Foundation, and the Day Worker Center in Mountain View, from whom she directed La espera, which was a play as well as a video that included workers from the Center alongside professional actors. In 2012, Verónica directed Teatro Nahual actors in Internet episodes of her story Mirela, about Alzheimer’s caregivers produced by Photozig in collaboration with Stanford University and National Institute of Aging. She also wrote and directed two Apps in English and Spanish about the Alzheimer. Verónica is the Spanish Department Chair at The Girls’ Middle School. She also is a new Spanish Adjunct Instructor in San Jose City College. She received the Friedel and Otto Eberspacher Award for Excellence in the Teaching of a Modern Western European Language 2020 from the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth (CTY)
Verónica also is a writer of the cultural and education sections in the Hispanic newspaper, Alianza Metropolitan News and has been recognized from The National Hispanic Publications-NAHP- with an honorific mention in 2004 with the article, “The Entrepreneurial Girls,” a golden award in 2009 with the article, “GED Classes in Spanish,” and a First Place for Editorial with the article, “El Alzheimer en la Comunidad Latina” in 2015, and a bronze award, “The Danger of the Nuclear Bombs” in 2019.
