Juan Ramirez Credit: Courtesy the artist As I was gearing up for the Reader coverage of this year’s Destinos: Chicago International Latino Theater Festival , I received news of the death of Juan Ramirez, longtime artistic director of Latino Chicago Theater Company—a powerhouse in the 1980s and ’90s. The sad juxtaposition of losing one of the most vital forces for building up Latine theater in Chicago just as the largest Latine theater festival in the United States was getting ready to kick off in town wasn’t lost on me.
Ramirez, 68, died of pancreatic cancer on Tuesday, September 17. Though he hadn’t been as visible on the theater scene in recent years, his influence on a generation of theatermakers through Latino Chicago and other initiatives remains palpable. Several of his former collaborators and colleagues reached out to talk to me about Ramirez in the past few weeks. Others posted heartfelt tributes on social media.
What came through so clearly is that Ramirez was not just a champion of Latino writers, directors, and actors—though he was. He was also a voice for moving Chicago theater beyond the meat-and-potatoes realism that tended to dominate the local scene into storytelling that drew on different […]
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