From street vendors to theatre company

A group of women working as street vendors in greater San Salvador have transformed their lives into a theater company performing dramatic works which tell their own life stories.

The group named La Cachada recently performed at SXSW in Austin, Texas as part of the premiere of a movie about their theatre company:

AUSTIN — Ruth, Wendy, Magda, Chileno and Magaly are five Salvadoran women who started their own theatre company and aspired for a better life in a male-dominated culture. Together, the former street vendors turned actresses created La Cachada Teatro, a theatre group that provides social commentary on how El Salvador treats its women while providing a creative outlet. The single mothers tell stories of their struggles and victories by performing them on stage. 

Their story was so compelling it caught the eye of film director Marlén Viñayo. She watched how the women changed the way they dressed, the way they spoke and their outlook on life. Viñayo captured the beginning stages of their evolution in her documentary “Cachada: The Opportunity.”... 

Today, theatre is the troupe’s main source of income. All but one have stopped working as street vendors and most do domestic work on the side. They say theatre is the type of work they can look forward to when they wake up. 

“We’ve stopped repeating cycles, we’ve stopped hitting our children and have established new relationships with them,” Magdalena “Magdy” Henríquez told Latino Rebels after the show. “It’s one of the most important things because that allows them to be more confident in themselves, in us and to teach them to dream as well.”

 You can watch a video of a portion of their performance in Austin.


The documentary trailer is also available.