“Pa’lante!...in Puerto Rican culture, from the island to the Bronx, it’s an expression steeped in meaning, and roughly translates from Spanish as ‘forward’ or ‘onward.’ It gained currency as street slang amid the community activism and fight for Puerto Rican self-determination that grew out of Spanish Harlem in the late 1960s.” - Edwin J. Torres, Pa’lante!
Pa’lante is more than a theme: it’s a feeling, a way of being. It’s what urges us forward in difficult moments. This is the spirit guiding TCG’s 34th National Conference, Pa’lante: People Practice Power, and we’re so excited to invite you to join us June 10–13 in San Juan, Puerto Rico. In San Juan, we’ll come together to reconnect with ourselves and with each other at a time when gathering feels both urgent and deeply nourishing.
Hosted in partnership with the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña (ICP), Departamento de Drama de la Facultad de Humanidades, Teatro UPR, and Universidad de Puerto Rico, Recinto de Río Piedras, this Conference is a gathering rooted in movement. Movement forward, with one another, and toward the futures we are working to build.
San Juan is an essential part of our Conference story. A city shaped by layered histories, and vibrant cultural expression. San Juan offers a setting where art and activism are intertwined. Rooted in Latine, Afro-Caribbean, and Indigenous traditions, Puerto Rico’s theatre community invites us into a rich exchange of ideas, practices, and joy with a uniquely global flare. Throughout the Conference, we’ll learn from artists and organizers whose work responds to climate justice and other intersecting struggles, inviting you to envision how your practice can build reciprocal connections between theatre workers in Puerto Rico and all across the U.S.
Pa’lante is the red thread moving through every part of the Conference, honoring Puerto Rican arts and activism on the island and throughout the diaspora. From there, three guiding arcs (People, Practice, and Power) will focus our shared journey:
- The People arc centers care, relationship-building, and the connections that sustain theatre workers.
- The Practice arc creates space to learn, share tools, and strengthen skills you can bring home.
- The Power arc invites us to imagine and act on what becomes possible when we move together.
Across four exciting days, the 2026 TCG National Conference: San Juan will offer a rich mix of plenary sessions, long-form labs, breakout sessions, affinity spaces, performances, dinearounds, and TCG Trips so you don’t miss out on opportunities to explore San Juan. Whether you’re seeking deep learning, moments of reflection, or opportunities for connection and celebration, you’ll be able to shape a Conference experience that meets you exactly where you are.
We can’t wait to see you in San Juan from June 10-13, 2026! Pa’lante!
TCG is grateful to the following supporters of the
TCG 2026 National Conference: San Juan
About the TCG National Conference
The TCG National Conference is one of the largest nationwide gatherings of the not-for-profit theatre community. TCG has been gathering folks this way since 1976 and each year, the National Conference creates space for theatre practitioners across the globe to get inspired, learn from one another and build toward collective action. It’s also been a way for TCG and the field to get intimately familiar with theatre communities around the country, and to channel the particular energy of their artists.
In 2020, while we supported the field in contending with overlapping existential crises, TCG also completed a new strategic planning process. In our new plan, bolstered by our new mission to lead for a just and thriving theatre ecology, we’ve committed to centering the needs and experiences of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous People of Color) and BITOC (Black, Indigenous, Theatres of Color) throughout our programming. With that ongoing work in mind, it is our goal that our conferences will have some, if not all, of the following outcomes:
- Participants come away with new ideas and tools for activating models of collective care.
- BIPOC, TGNC, disabled, and young theatre practitioners see more opportunities for leadership and collaboration open to them throughout the field.
- Incremental yet transformative shifts in power structures and organizational practices begin to emerge in theatres across the country, and those shifts begin to create safer, human-centered working conditions for our freelance artists.
- The local theatre community builds off their shared work on the TCG Conference into a longer term, inclusive process of peer support and collaboration, and host city artists are invited to bring their work into other regional theatre communities.
In 1976, TCG convened its first ever National Conference. For the first few decades, the National Conference was biennial, held first on college campuses and then in cities across the country. In 2006, the National Conference became an annual event, and in 2020, we went virtual in response to the pandemic. In 2022, we held our first-ever hybrid National Conference, gathering in Pittsburgh, PA and online.
TCG's last conference, the 33rd TCG National Conference (virtual and in-person) took place in Chicago, IL from June 20th to 22nd, 2024, in association with the League of Chicago Theatres.
Please contact TCG's Conference Team at [email protected] with any questions.