In between deadlines, taking care of family members, and everything else GALA's Artistic Director must do, Gustavo Ott took time to speak with LATINO Magazine.

A Venezuelan immigrant, he started working at the GALA Hispanic Theatre in 2024. Before coming to the US, he built a remarkable career founding the Teatro San Martín de Caracas in 1993, directing it for almost two decades, earning numerous international playwriting awards, and seeing his work translated into 15 languages, as well as staged across Europe, Latin America, and here in the US.

Gustavo is someone who tends to look ahead but I wanted to ask about the musical Aguardiente, which ended the last season. It was written by Luis Salgado, a Broadway director and choreographer, and at its heart is a story about the creative journey: a writer and a musician, Puerto Rican and Colombian characters who immigrate to the US, and who must each decide whether to stay or return home. Gustavo explains that it is a story about the possibility of going back, returning and contributing to the place you came from.
"It touches me personally," he says. "The presence of your country of origin never leaves you. Those who carry the language carry that weight."

That tension — between staying and belonging, between assimilating and keeping your identity — is one the organization knows very well. Founded in 1976 by Rebecca Read Medrano and her late husband Hugo Medrano, GALA is celebrating its 50th anniversary. The Washington, DC location gives its productions national impact with broad visibility and a unique platform. More than 25% of GALA's audience are not Spanish speakers. In fact, they are English-speaking Americans who follow along through a carefully crafted translation system with supertitles— one that GALA takes great care with, treating it as a literary work. The goal is to carry the message as far as possible.

Gustavo speaks about the many gifted dancers, singers and sculptors who arrive in the US having trained under repressive regimes in Latin America. They face new challenges here such as fewer professional opportunities, discrimination, and the diminishing of talent that the world cannot afford to lose. "They arrive with a photograph and a story. The odyssey they live through is far more difficult than most imagine," Gustavo says.

GALA exists precisely to prevent that obliteration, to center the Latino artist, to promote writers and directors, and to reflect what he calls el delirio contemporáneo: the contemporary delirium. "Theater becomes valid — or invaluable — when it reflects that delirium back to us," Gustavo states. "Your capacity to translate reality into art is either necessary or useless. Right now, it is necessary."

In Gustavo’s view, we are living through one of the most pivotal moments in recent memory, one in which the conversations about public institutions and the practice of freedom of expression are becoming more complex. According to him, there are growing social tensions that worry many artists and audiences may be approaching a climax. GALA’s 51st season, launching in September, will face these issues, pairing them with an equally urgent environmental thread. "The idea of extinction has never been closer to the surface," he says. "The idea of the end..."

Gustavo believes the Latino community has arrived at a crossroads, a place where it must turn and ask: Who defends our legacy? He mentions that, in the past, many English-speaking, non-Latino community members have shown their support by the way they have supported the theater and Latinos. Gustavo believes that GALA, and theater overall, have the duty to answer this question. And that, in the end, may be what defines this season — and this moment.

Reflecting on the interview, I kept thinking about how important it is to leave a positive legacy. My father died tragically a few years ago. He made such a meaningful impact on his community that many still remember him fondly, and I have learned this from him. As a Latina, I hope to leave a lasting, positive mark on the country that welcomed me and helped me become the woman I am today. True, there have been challenges like Gustavo mentions but it has been worth it – I am deeply grateful to this country that I now call home.