Professor Federico Pous' Spanish 4500 Innovation/Social Protest Theatre Class transformed Carlton Commons into a stage. Students collaborated to create a script that addressed a current social issue, which they brought to life in two public performances.
On November 20, 2025 students and faculty gathered in Carlton Commons to watch and participate in two theatre performances created by Associate Professor of Spanish Federico Pous’ Spanish 4500 Innovation/Social Protest Theatre Class.
Associate Professor of Spanish Pablo Celis-Castillo’s SPN3300 “Spanish Speaking World Through Media” class was in attendance, as well as Associate Dean of Elon College David Buck and Associate Professor of Spanish Nina Namaste.
The performance was “forum theater,” an interactive performance that centers around a social issue. After watching the performance, audience members are asked questions about the issue they saw and how to solve it, and they are then invited to join the scene, replacing an actor and changing the way their character handles the situation.
The class is composed of nine students who performed two plays entirely in Spanish. The first group of students’ performance was centered around feminism. The production, titled “We Can Do It,” centers around a college class where two boys do not contribute to the group project, and the girls are forced to do all the work and are given lower scores than the boys. Throughout the theatre performance, the girls try to figure out how to get justice.
The second performance, titled “First Word, Last Day,” takes place in an office, where a new female employee learns quickly that she is silenced whenever she voices her suggestions in a male-dominated advertising company, where she feels that “they are a team and I am alone.” In this performance, the other employees dismiss her idea and presence, which makes the work environment unpleasant and extra difficult for her to feel valued in. The boss dismisses her idea saying, “You’re new and don’t have much experience, listen to him and listen to me.”
Both performances depicted misogynistic issues that can arise in both academic and professional settings. Professor Pous engaged the audience by asking thought-provoking questions to examine these systems of power critically. He asked, “What was the conflict?” followed by “What do you think could solve it?”
After the discussion, audience members were invited to step in and replace the problematic character in a scene that they wished to change. In the first play, an audience member volunteered to support one of the female group members to talk to the professor and confront her male counterparts. In the second play, two audience members stepped in, one replacing a passive coworker and the other replacing the boss.
Several audience members participated in each of the performances, replacing characters and changing various scenes in an attempt to solve the issue originally presented. Many creative ideas were presented, which led to engaging discussions about the social issues presented.