''Talento Bilingüe de Houston'' (TBH, "Bilingual Theater of Houston") is a bilingual English-Spanish theater in the Second Ward in the

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.Davis, Rod.
Houston's really good idea Bus tour celebrates communities that forged a city.
''

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''. Sunday August 3, 2003. Travel 1M. Retrieved on February 11, 2012. It is located at the intersection of Jensen Road and Navigation Drive, adjacent to Guadalupe Park, and two city blocks from

Downtown Houston Downtown is the largest central business district in the city of Houston and the largest in the state of Texas, located near the geographic center of the metropolitan area at the confluence of Interstate 10, Interstate 45, and Interstate 69. The ...

.Reyes p. 46.

History

Arnold Mercado, a Puerto Rican who previously lived in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

, founded the ''Teatro Español de Houston'' ("Spanish-language theater of Houston") and used a Community Engagement and Touring Artists (CETA) grant to hire young Texan Hispanic and Latino actors. Mercado said that he changed the theater's name to "Teatro Bilingüe de Houston" (Bilingual Theater of Houston") after, in 1977, a government site visitor had an inquiry about the name of the theater. Mercado said that he changed the name because, at the time, there was a controversy over whether the federal government should fund non-English only programs; the theater's mission was to produce Spanish-language plays. After the name change, Reyes announced that the theater would now produce bilingual plays, but he had not yet decided whether plays would alternate between English and Spanish, or whether the plays would be in

Spanglish Spanglish (a portmanteau of the words "Spanish" and "English") is any language variety (such as a contact dialect, hybrid language, pidgin, or creole language) that results from conversationally combining Spanish and English. The term is m ...

.Reyes p. 44. It was originally located in the Casa de Amigos Community Center in Northside. It moved to the Ripley House Community Center in the Second Ward two years after its beginning. In 1984 Richard Reyes, an executive with the theater, changed the name to the current name; he said he did this because many third-generation Hispanic Houstonians did not like the previous name, and in some cases were unable to pronounce it. Reyes coined the acronym "TBH," and he said that students had a favorable reception to the new acronym. The theater moved to its current location 12 years prior to 2008. In 1995 the theater received a $980,000 ($ in today's money) City of Houston Community Development Grant to build a new facility due to the theater's work with inner city youth to prevent them from joining gangs. The theater moved into a building that includes administrative offices, a 240-seat theater, a gallery space, a rehearsal room, a commercial kitchen, and a professional dance studio. In 2000, Reyes cancelled summer classes and changed activities to be only half day events rather than full day events after the nonprofit screening and placement agency HoustonWorks suddenly announced that there would be a lack of student workers; HoustonWorks said that changes in federal funding caused the shortage of student workers to occur.Hung, Melissa. "Suddenly This Summer." ''

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''. Thursday June 29, 2000.
1
Retrieved on September 2, 2012. As of 2008 the theater had private security guards in light of the homeless and vagrant population that occupied Guadalupe Park. When visiting school groups travel to the park, usually a guard accompanies them.Turner, Allan.
Neighbor fights for cleanup at park drawing homeless
" ''

Houston Chronicle The ''Houston Chronicle'' is the largest daily newspaper in Houston, Texas, United States. , it is the third-largest newspaper by Sunday circulation in the United States, behind only ''The New York Times'' and the ''Los Angeles Times''. With i ...

''. Tuesday March 11, 2008.

References

* Reyes, Richard.
Center of Dreams: Talento Bilingüe de Houston
"
Archive
"
Archive
'' Houston History'' Volume 9, Issue 1. pages 44–47. Center for Public History,

University of Houston The University of Houston (UH) is a Public university, public research university in Houston, Texas. Founded in 1927, UH is a member of the University of Houston System and the List of universities in Texas by enrollment, university in Texas ...

Profile page

Notes

External links

''Talento Bilingüe de Houston''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Talento Bilingue de Houston Theatres in Houston Hispanic and Latino American culture in Houston

History

See also

References

Notes

External links