For Immediate Release: February 19, 2025
Media Contact: Joshua Henry Jenkins | [email protected]
Registration Now Open for TCG’s 2026 National Conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico
“Pa’lante: People Practice Power” to guide June gathering featuring plenaries with Quiara Alegría Hudes and Professor Alan Jenkins
New York, NY – Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national organization for theatre, announces that registration is now open for its
34th National Conference, taking place June 10–13, 2026 in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Hosted in partnership with the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña (ICP) and the Departamento de Drama de la Facultad de Humanidades, Teatro UPR, Universidad de Puerto Rico, Recinto de Río Piedras, the Conference will convene a global community of theatremakers under the theme
Pa’lante: People Practice Power.
Pa’lante is the red thread moving through every part of the Conference, honoring Puerto Rican arts and activism on the island and throughout the diaspora. From there, three guiding arcs (People, Practice, and Power) will focus our shared journey:
- The People arc centers care, relationship-building, and the connections that sustain theatre workers.
- The Practice arc creates space to learn, share tools, and strengthen skills you can bring home.
- The Power arc invites us to imagine and act on what becomes possible when we move together.
“Pa’lante speaks to movement and momentum,” said
Emilya Cachapero, Co-Executive Director of National and Global Programming at TCG. “As we gather in Puerto Rico, we are called to learn from the island’s artists and organizers whose work models resilience and visionary leadership. Across the arcs of People, Practice, and Power, we’ll center care with Quiara Alegría Hudes and local artists in conversation, and explore global examples of artists protecting democracy, anchored by insights from Professor Alan Jenkins. This Conference invites us not only to be inspired, but to build deeper relationships and take action that strengthens theatre for years to come.”
First Plenaries Announced
The People Plenary: Quiara Alegría HudesThe People arc centers care, relationship-building, and the connections that sustain theatre workers. In this plenary, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Quiara Alegría Hudes will join artists from Puerto Rico and the diaspora for a conversation grounded in care, creative lineage, and shared responsibility. Together, they will reflect on how relationships across place, culture, and experience shape our work, our communities, and our capacity to endure and imagine what comes next.
About Quiara Alegría Hudes
Quiara Alegría Hudes has written for the stage, page, voice, and screen. Quiara’s debut novel, The White Hot, was named a best book of 2025 by Kirkus, NPR, and Ms. Magazine. Her 2021 memoir, My Broken Language, was longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal and was One Book, One Philadelphia’s citywide read. Her plays include Water by the Spoonful, recipient of the Pulitzer Prize; In the Heights, winner of the Tony Award for Best Musical and a Pulitzer finalist; and Elliot, A Soldier’s Fugue, another Pulitzer finalist. Hudes has also written two feature films: the animated Vivo and the screen adaptation of In the Heights. She has contributed essays for The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Cut, The Nation, and American Theater Magazine. With her cousin Sean, she co-founded a prison writing program: Emancipated Stories. A daughter of the Puerto Rican diaspora, she was born and raised in West Philly and now lives in New York.
The Power Plenary: Alan Jenkins
The Power arc invites us to imagine and act on what becomes possible when we move together. In this plenary, Professor Alan Jenkins presents A Moment of Inspiration: Cases of Artists and Creatives Protecting Democracy, sharing global examples of how artists and cultural workers have mobilized to defend democratic values. Through stories of resistance, engagement, and collective action, this session offers concrete entry points for theatre workers seeking to understand their power and expand their role in shaping a more just and resilient civic landscape.
About Alan Jenkins
Alan Jenkins is a law professor, writer, communications strategist, and human rights advocate. Jenkins is a Professor of Practice at Harvard Law School where he teaches courses on Race and the Law, Strategic Communication, and Supreme Court Jurisprudence. He is a frequent commentator in broadcast, print, and digital media; a Trustee at the Brooklyn Museum, the Freedom Together Foundation, and the Hollywood Commission; and the Co-Creator of 1/6: The Graphic Novel.
Before joining the Law School faculty, Jenkins was President and Co-Founder of The Opportunity Agenda, a social justice communication lab. His prior positions have included Assistant to the Solicitor General at the U.S. Department of Justice, where he represented the United States government in constitutional and other litigation before the U.S. Supreme Court; Director of Human Rights at the Ford Foundation, where he managed grantmaking in the United States and eleven overseas regions; and Associate Counsel to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, where he defended the rights of low-income communities facing exploitation and discrimination. He previously served as a Law Clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun and to U.S. District Court Judge Robert L. Carter.
Additional plenaries, breakout sessions, performances, and long-form labs will be announced in the coming weeks. The Conference will also mark the 10th anniversary of TCG’s Global Theater Initiative (GTI), celebrating theatre as a force for global interconnectedness and justice.
The 2026 TCG National Conference is supported by a growing list of funders including Arts Consulting Group, Arts FMS, BroadwayWorld, Charcoalblue LLP, Critical Minded, Distracted Globe Foundation, the Edgerton Foundation, Fisher Dachs Associates, the Howard Gilman Foundation with additional support from Marquee TV, the Mellon Foundation, the New York State Council on the Arts, the Opportunity Fund, the Paul M. Angell Family Foundation, Pilot House Philanthropy, the Richenthal Foundation, the Seniel Ostrow Foundation, the Sheri & Les Biller Family Foundation, the Shubert Foundation, the Venturous Theatre Fund of the Tides Foundation and the Wallace Foundation.
Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national organization for theatre, leads for a just and thriving theatre ecology. Since its founding in 1961, TCG’s constituency has grown from a handful of groundbreaking theatres to over 750 organizations (including member theatres, affiliates, universities) and over 3,000 individual members. Through its programs and services, TCG reaches over one million students, audience members, and theatre professionals each year. TCG offers networking and knowledge-building opportunities through research, communications, and events, including the annual TCG National Conference, one of the largest nationwide gatherings of theatre people; awards grants and scholarships to theatre companies and individual artists; advocates on the federal level; and through the Global Theater Initiative, TCG's partnership with the Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics, serves as the U.S. Center of the International Theatre Institute. TCG is North America’s largest independent trade publisher of dramatic literature, with 21 Pulitzer Prizes for Drama on the TCG booklist. It also publishes the award-winning American Theatre magazine and ARTSEARCH®, the essential source for a career in the arts. TCG believes its vision of “a better world for theatre, and a better world because of theatre” can be achieved through individual and collective action, adaptive and responsive leadership, and equitable representation in all areas of practice. TCG is led by Co-Executive Directors, Emilya Cachapero, LaTeshia Ellerson, and Alisha Tonsic.
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