Inside the rehearsal room at Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, Jesús I. Valles watches a rehearsal of "¡Que Diablos! Fausto”, the upcoming play for Teatro en El Verano’s 10th summer season. Valles, the show’s playwright is originally from Juarez, Mexico and identifies as non-binary. Valles says they had been searching for a creative space like Teatro en El Verano since moving to Providence in 2021.
“Since arriving in Providence, I’ve been really hungry to find Latina community spaces here. So I then started to see these little glimmers of like, oh, there’s people in places like Central Falls or La Broa or these sections of town that I felt really, really spoke to me.”
Teatro en El Verano, which is a part of Rhode Island Latino Arts, has been bringing theater outdoors since its inception in 2015. Marta Martinez is the Executive Director of RI Latino Arts and says Teatro en El Verano fills an important role in the organization’s mission.
“The idea of having a bilingual theater is part of our mission because everything that we do is bilingual. We are an organization that, if you’re of Latino heritage, you can come and be your true self because in 2025, not everybody is fluent in either language, especially the young up-and-coming theater makers. So it’s a place where you can just be your true self.”
"¡Que Diablos! Fausto” follows the long heritage of plays based on Faust, the tragedy where its central character, in the case of Valles’ adaptation, Dr. Fausto, makes a deal with a demon-like figure to achieve success that would have otherwise felt out of reach.
“As (Dr.) Fausto becomes more and more successful, he becomes more corrupt,” says Valles. “It’s a very traditional adaptation of Faust, with the exception of Margie. She sort of acts as a kind of moral compass for Faust.”
Dr. Fausto is played by Alexander “Crespo” Rosario and Margie is played by Marina Tejeda. The six-person cast opens "¡Que Diablos! Fausto” on Saturday, July 5, at La Galería del Pueblo in Central Falls. The show will perform in various outdoor locations throughout Rhode Island until August 1.
Teatro en El Verano has had to find ways to cover the costs for the summer show each year, which Martinez says has cost between $60,000 - $75,000. Trinity Rep, which is a partner alongside RI Latino Arts, provides some funding each year for the show. Martinez says the rest typically comes from grants.
“Most of the funding that RILA (Rhode Island Latino Arts) has received has been local. But it was just this year, as a matter of fact, I chose to apply to the National Endowment for the Arts to fund the program.”
Martinez requested $25,000 from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), which, according to its website, says applicants can submit grant requests for art projects between $10,000 - $100,000.
“But before you could submit the application, (and) this was the first time I’d seen this, a window popped up and you had to attest that you would comply with (an) executive order that would not promote gender ideology, and I did not want to check that box.”
Signed by President Trump on January 20, the executive order 14168 prohibits federal funds from being used to “promote gender ideology”. For Martinez, she says it was something she could not agree to.
“Consciously knowing the artists that I work with and the First Amendment, the right to the First Amendment and to free speech and to be who they are, I just know that I could not consciously agree to tell an artist to not be who they are.”
On March 6, the ACLU filed a lawsuit on behalf of RI Latino Arts and several other arts organizations against the NEA, challenging the executive order.
Martinez says they’ve since been able to find funding through other grants to cover the costs for "¡Que Diablos! Fausto,” including from the Rhode Island Foundation.
For Valles, they say it would be difficult for them to separate gender from any of the work they’re part of, and think it plays a significant role in storytelling at large.
“I think gender is the thing that frames so much of how we watch scenes, how we think about stories. I think in the case of Faust specifically, and in so many retellings of Faust, there is such a specific impulse to tell the story as a story of a man who wants and really desires success and power and access to wealth. And I think for me, and if we think about just the longstanding history of this particular country, these are traits that are often associated with masculinity. These are things that men are supposed to aspire to.”
Valles adds that they see elements in their version of the story that challenges some of these ideas around gender, “It becomes a play about how our notions and relationships to labor and gender and class and storytelling are things that maybe we should always be questioning that maybe should always be a little bit more fluid than we think they are, because then we might be able to tell better stories and we might be able to imagine better ways to be in the world.”
Below is a list of dates and locations to see "¡Que Diablos! Fausto":
- July 5: La Galería del Pueblo, Central Falls - OPENING NIGHT • RAIN DATE: July 6
- July 10: Dexter Park, Providence - RAIN DATE: July 25
- July 11: Payne Park, Pawtucket - RAIN DATE: July 17
- July 15: La Galería del Pueblo, Central Falls - RAIN DATE: July 19
- July 20: District Park, 200 Dyer St. Providence - NO RAIN DATE
- July 22: Roger Williams Park, Broad Street entrance, Providence - RAIN DATE: July 29
- July 27: Edward King House, Newport - NO RAIN DATE
- Aug. 1: Southside Cultural Center, Providence - CLOSING NIGHT • NO RAIN DATE
