Fernando Villa Proal  

• 2025 Microcomedias Project

• 2026-2028 Gamifying the Classics Project

Fernando Villa Proal is an actor, director, and learning facilitator with a solid track record in classical theater and the academic dissemination of the performing arts. He graduated from the College of Drama and Theater at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM).  As a member of the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab in New York (2018), he has performed in over 40 plays and directed numerous productions in Mexico and abroad.

He is the founder and director of EFE TRES TEATRO, a company dedicated to reimagining the Spanish Golden Age with a playful and irreverent approach for contemporary audiences. With this company, he has directed and adapted productions such as El príncipe Ynocente by Lope de Vega, El Merolico based on Cervantes, La firmeza en la ausencia by Leonor de la Cueva, and Empeños by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, which have performed in Mexico, Spain, Argentina, the United States, Canada, Romania, and Brazil. He is also the Artistic Director of the MX International Classical Theater Festival, a platform that brings together companies and experts specializing in the repertoire of the Golden Age.

In the academic field, he has taught workshops at institutions such as CITRU-INBA, the Universidad del Claustro de Sor Juana, and McEwan University (Canada), as well as various international festivals, addressing topics including improvisation applied to the Golden Age, bululú, ñaque, and stage communication strategies in the classics. His work combines research, pedagogy, and performance practice, building bridges between tradition and contemporary languages.

 Leyma López (2025 Microcomedias Project)

Cuban-American theater director currently living in New York City. She graduated from the Provincial School of Art Instructors with a specialty in Theater. She earned a degree in Pedagogy and Theater Direction from the Instituto Superior de Arte in Havana in 2008. López is the founder of the Rompecalle Theater Project in Cuba (2007) and Teatro Columna in New York (2014). She is currently the resident director of Repertorio Español in New York. She was a 2012 Van Lier Fellow, and her company credits include directing Aire Frío, Valor, Agravio y Mujer, La Celestina, La Paz Perpetua, Filomena Martirano, and La Dama Boba, among others. She has also directed for various companies, including Pregones PRTT Theater, Teatro Círculo, and ID-Studio. She has collaborated on several readings with Two River Theater and RedBull Theater as a director.

Her group, Teatro Columna, has won awards at several festivals, including the 2016 Dominican Culture Commissioner's Festival, where she received the award for best production, performance, and direction for the play La Boda, and the 2018 Latinx LGBTQ Art Festival/Fuerza-Fest, where she won the award for best direction for the play El Gos.

Nominated and awarded by prestigious New York theater institutions such as HOLA, ATI, and the Latin Entertainment Critics Association of New York (ACE), TALÍA, and LaTA for her outstanding direction in Classical Theater, Drama, and Comedy. From 2012 to 2025, Leyma López directed over 20 shows in the city.

Juan Carrillo (2025 Microcomedias Project)

Director, actor, and theater teacher, a graduate of the National School of Theater Arts (INBAL). He has been a FONCA scholarship recipient for Young Creators and the National System of Creators in stage direction. As a director, he has received notable awards, including the La dama de la Victoria (2017) award for Numancia and the Best Play award at the Almagro Off International Competition (2014) for Mendoza, a production that was also recognized in Spain as one of the five best foreign productions of 2017. In 2019, he directed Somni for the Institut Valencià de Cultura in Spain.

He has performed in over 60 productions and directed approximately 40 professional productions. He is the founder and artistic director of Los Colochos Teatro, a company with which he has participated in more than 20 international festivals (Bogotá, Almagro, Cádiz, Heidelberg, among others) and with which he has developed a repertoire of five Shakespeare-inspired plays (Mendoza, Nacahue, Silencio, Reina, and Tuta). His work has been presented on tour throughout Mexico (including the Cervantino Festival, the National Theater Showcase, and the Nuevo León International Festival) and in countries such as Spain, Portugal, the United Kingdom, Germany, the United States, Cuba, Ecuador, Peru, Colombia, and the Dominican Republic.

In the academic field, he has 12 years of teaching experience, leading workshops and master classes in Mexico (ENAT and CUT–UNAM) and in countries such as Cuba, Spain, Portugal, and the United States, focusing on dramaturgy and the stage intervention model.

Guadalupe Fuentes Castellanos (LUPE GALLO) 

(2025 Microcomedias Project)

Multidisciplinary performing artist with a background in theater and architecture. Her creative and academic interests are related to intertextual, performance, and audiovisual experimentation, as well as Nahuatl tradition, Sufi poetry, and the classics of the Golden Age and New Spain.

Lupe Gallo is the co-author of "Voces del Patio Novohispano," an academic journal titled Patio Efímero (2022). She is also the author of Exilio y Porvenir (Exile and Future) by Elena Garro, as well as "Encantamiento en el teatro" (Enchantment in the Theater), an article in the book Mujeres Escribiendo Mujeres (Women Writing Women), published by Collectiva MEDEAS in 2023. Gallo is also a member of the Mexican Association of Theater Research (AMIT) and coordinator of the research group Siglo Aúreo, Escena, Teatro, Actoralidad (SAETA). Some of her notable projects include: Gossip Nuns, the Magnánimo Verbo (Recollections of the Magnanimous Verb), Comedy, Cabaret, and Golden Chacoteo, Metaversos Berrocos, and SANGINÉS-CULTURE. In her 30-year stage career, she has had the opportunity to present her work in several countries, including Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Chile, Argentina, and Korea.

Lupe Gallo is a woman in her 50s who enjoys her diverse roles: mother, teacher, costume designer, good cook, apprentice witch, devil dancer, and whirling dervish.