Three Dallas theater artists who first bonded on a 2024 stage production are bringing new solo shows to a West Dallas venue this month, the result of international training that took them from Madrid to Mexico and back home again. Meagan Harris organized the bilingual festival, called Los Tres Cabazones: A Three-Part Festival, which features new solo pieces by Harris, Armando Monsivais and Bismark Quintanilla Jr.
From Diosa to Solo Stages
Harris, Monsivais and Quintanilla were cast together in Cara Mía Theatre's 2024 production of Diosa, according to The Dallas Morning News. That production held its world premiere in April 2024 at the Latino Cultural Center in Dallas, directed by Carlos García Estévez and Paige Allerton with original music composed by Monsivais, as detailed by Manifesto Poetico. Diosa was devised by the ensemble members together with Manifesto Poetico, pitting corporate greed against nature through physical theater and live music.
The collaboration didn't end when the run closed. The three actors later traveled to Spain earlier this year to keep working with García Estévez on the new solo pieces that now make up the festival, per the same Dallas News report. García Estévez directs and co-wrote the solo pieces, drawing on the same working relationship that began with Diosa two years earlier.
An International Laboratory Comes to West Dallas
García Estévez founded Manifesto Poetico, an international theater laboratory based outside Madrid, Spain, according to The Dallas Morning News. The lab uses a compositional method it calls Spatial Dramaturgy, combining movement, architectural space, rhythm and mask performance to build physical, non-traditional theater, per Manifesto Poetico. Its founder developed the technique drawing from physical theater traditions including the pedagogy of Jacques Lecoq and Dario Fo, the lab notes.
Harris has already used that training once before. The Dallas actor developed her one-woman show with García Estévez, performing as Sally deLux in Lux: a solo show last summer. That piece began as a workshop in Guadalajara, Mexico in May 2024, expanded further in Madrid, then premiered in Guadalajara in March 2025 before making its U.S. debut at Artstillery in July 2025, according to KERA News. In that earlier show, Harris performed in clown makeup exploring vulnerability and self-discovery.
Themes of Identity, Ancestry and Immigration
Los Tres Cabazones explores identity and liberation across its three parts, according to Dallas News. The festival addresses the harrowing nature of immigration, how success and happiness are defined, and the role of ancestors in belonging, the report states.
Quintanilla brings his own résumé to the bilingual format. The Salvadoran-American actor played lead roles in Inclusion Productions' Spanish-language staging of La Dama de Negro at the Kalita Humphreys Theater in May 2026 and in Cara Mía Theatre's immigration-focused production Tina's Journey in February 2025, according to Onstage NTX. Monsivais, meanwhile, holds bachelor's and master's degrees in music performance from Southern Methodist University and has created sound designs for Dallas companies including Cara Mía Theatre and Teatro Dallas, per Pegasus Theatre, incorporating styles ranging from Mexican folk and classical music to hip-hop into his compositions.
A West Dallas Home for Independent Theater
The festival runs Aug. 21-23 and Aug. 28-30 at 723 Open Space, located at 723 Fort Worth Ave. in Dallas, with tickets priced at $17.85, according to Dallas News. The venue serves as headquarters for Artstillery, which presents the festival and offers sliding-scale rental rates to give local independent artists and community organizations affordable access to performance space, according to Artstillery.
Artstillery was founded in 2016 by writer and director Ilknur Ozgur as a Dallas-based multidisciplinary arts and social justice nonprofit that turns community narratives into original immersive theater, according to Texas Highways. The nonprofit focuses on gathering true oral histories from underrepresented groups, and its past projects include Family Dollar in 2021, which partially reconstructed West Dallas shotgun houses using neighborhood materials and incorporated oral history interviews from more than 25 neighborhood residents, as well as Welcome Mat 2 | People 0 at Fair Park in 2025.
That community mission has drawn municipal support. The City of Dallas Arts & Culture Advisory Commission recommended $37,243 in funding allocations for Artstillery in fiscal year 2025 to support its community programming at 723 Fort Worth Avenue, according to the City of Dallas. The backing underscores the role grassroots venues like 723 Open Space play in keeping independent, boundary-pushing theater alive outside the city's larger institutional stages.
Cara Mía Theatre, where the three performers first crossed paths, remains the largest Latinx theater company in Texas. Founded in 1996 by Adelina Anthony and Eliberto Gonzalez and led since 2002 by Executive Artistic Director David Lozano, the company secured a 25-year residency at the Latino Cultural Center in 2019, according to NALAC. That residency and the Diosa production that grew out of it set the stage, quite literally, for the international detour that now brings three Dallas artists back home with new work to share.
