Tucked into the Cuauhtemoc district of Mexico City, a short walk from one of the capital's busiest intersections, the Teatro Benito Juarez sits among a cluster of cultural landmarks that includes the El Eco experimental museum, the sculpture garden and the Monument to the Mother. The theatre at Villalongin 15 opened on 1 January 1984 and has since become one of the city's notable homes for contemporary performance. Since 2002 the venue has been administered by Mexico City's culture secretariat, and under that stewardship it adopted a deliberately avant-garde programme of contemporary theatre, dance, music and multidisciplinary work. Commemorative plaques inside record the successful runs the stage has hosted, and its calendar has long mixed adult drama and dance with children's matinees, cabaret and film-club screenings. The auditorium is an Italian-style house seating around 286, with a proscenium roughly 9.6 metres wide, and it reopened after refurbishment in December 2005 with a performance by the cabaret artist Astrid Hadad. The relatively intimate scale suits the experimental, director-led productions the theatre favours. Over the years its stage has drawn leading figures of the Mexican scene, among them Cecilia Lugo, Alejandro Ricano, Claudio Valdes Kuri, Hugo Arrevillaga and the Compania Nacional de Teatro, alongside international artists such as Daniel Veronese and Tadashi Endo. With a privileged location and an abundant cultural offer nearby, the Teatro Benito Juarez has consolidated its place as one of the principal venues for artistic vanguards in the capital. The Italian-style stage has a mouth around 9.6 metres wide and 4.7 metres high with roughly eight metres of depth behind the front curtain, sized for the director-led work the theatre favours. Run by the city culture secretariat, it sells tickets both at its own box office and through national platforms, and its programming has at times absorbed series from other institutions, including shows redirected from the Museo del Chopo during a closure in the mid-2000s. Recurring strands such as children's Sundays, dance, cabaret and a film club give the calendar a deliberately multidisciplinary character, and its compact scale keeps audiences close to experimental productions that might struggle to find a home on larger commercial stages.

Type: Theater / Concert Hall

Address: Villalongin 15, Mexico City, Mexico, 06500

Telephone: 55 5592 7389

Capacity: 286

Opening Date: 01/01/1984