When Laredo Theater Guild International (LTGI) opened its inaugural production of Man of La Mancha in 2009, the moment represented far more than a curtain rising on a new show: it marked the coordinated emergence of an arts organization determined to expand the city’s theatrical landscape, deepen its cultural offerings, and create generational access to performance.
In the years since, LTGI has evolved from an ambitious local project into a foundational cultural institution rooted in collaboration, education, and a belief that theater can reshape a community’s relationship with art. The origins of LTGI trace back to conversations in 2008 among local arts advocates, university leaders, and long-time performers, all with the shared concern that opportunities for professional-level theater were limited despite Laredo’s rich cultural heritage.
Organizations existed, but none carried the unified mission of producing and sustaining a full, annual season with a broad repertoire, mixing dramas, comedies, Shakespeare, and large-scale musicals into its seasonal catalogues. With this mission in mind, LTGI founders designed a plan to give its audience the “exceptional theater” it has long been craving, one that not only entertains but “educates and inspires.” This vision took organizational shape through a merger between two groups: Laredo Theater Guild (LTG), a newly formed collective aiming to produce sophisticated theatrical works, and Laredo Musical Theatre International (LMTI), which specialized in ambitious summer musicals. Joined together as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit in 2009, the combined board and volunteer base adopted a new name for the revitalized entity: Laredo Theater Guild International.
From the start, LTGI embraced a structure that blended community passion with institutional support. Its founding board included educators, business leaders, directors, philanthropists, and theater veterans across Laredo. Advisors from Texas A&M International University (TAMIU) and Laredo College (LC) strengthened the organization’s ties to academic and civic communities, helping ensure that the arts were not treated as a luxury but as an integral dimension of local life that contributed to the thriving of the Laredo community. That collaboration between institution and community led to one of LTGI’s early milestones: the installation and completion of TAMIU’s 500-seat state-of-the-art theater, which became the company’s first mainstage home. LTGI launched its inaugural production there with international fanfare, a beginning symbolic in affirming the City’s commitment to expanding its artistic infrastructure.
Despite its exceptional opening, LTGI’s most foundational efforts occurred in the theatrical seasons that followed. Within its first five years, the company produced twenty shows, presenting a repertoire spanning a multitude of genres in order to offer the Laredo community a diversity of productions which had previously been unavailable to them. What LTGI managed to accomplish with this act of intentionality was to not only provide theater-goers with isolated events, but rather to create a theatrical ecosystem that was consistent in its performances as it was in its commitment to train, mentor, and sustain the local talent it sourced for its productions. Performers, designers, technicians, educators, and students all found a place within LTGI’s productions, forming collaborative networks that, for many, would endure through the present day.
Central to its mission, and the belief that theater should do more than just entertain, LTGI built on the understanding that live performances have great potential as educational tools. This philosophy allowed LTGI to expand its community involvement and set into motion one of its most influential contributions to the city: the Class on Stage program. Through its partnering with local school districts, LTGI offers performances aligned with academic curricula, strengthening students’ engagement and commitment to their educational development through theater.
“Class on Stage: Education Through Performance” was born from an unexpected moment during the 2010 production of The Taming of the Shrew, Class on Stage emerged when student volunteers displayed a striking enthusiasm for the text once they encountered it in a performative context. That enthusiasm prompted LTGI to reimagine how theater could interact with education: What if students didn’t only read dramas? What if they experienced those works live, with opportunities to speak directly with actors and production staff? In partnership with English teachers, curriculum directors, and district administrators, LTGI designed a program that aligned major productions with high school literary studies and required state standards. The result was Class on Stage: a series of professional-quality productions specifically timed and selected to deepen students’ understanding of classic texts, such as Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, The Crucible, and most recently Sense and Sensibility.
The program expanded rapidly, garnering funding partnerships most notably with the D.D. Hachar Charitable Trust, which allowed LTGI to offer daytime student performances free of charge, inclusive of transportation, Q&A sessions, and curricular integration. These performances breathed new life into students’ assigned texts, allowing them to reimagine the literary landscape through visual expression on stage. With these performances, students were better able to engage with the historical contexts, character motivations, and thematic elements and interpretations in ways that reading the text alone could not provide.
This commitment to academic alignment further solidified LTGI’s integrity to the local community, with the impact of their Class on Stage productions being immediate and long-lasting. Teachers reported deeper comprehension, stronger writing, and increased engagement with the assigned literature after witnessing the stage performance. Additionally, Class on Stage provided students who wouldn’t otherwise have had the resources to engage with theater the opportunity to attend a live performance that encouraged their active participation. For many, Class on Stage became their first introduction to Laredo’s performing arts scene — and often, their entry point into participating in it.
“A Legacy That Reaches Beyond the Stage Today,” LTGI’s mission “to create exceptional theater that educates and inspires” operates not as a slogan but as an evidently lived practice. The organization continues to bring together an ecosystem of individuals who recognize the value that a vibrant arts environment provides to the community’s cultural and intellectual life.
LTGI’s productions and educational outreach offer Laredo not just entertainment, but an expanded vision of what local theater can achieve. LTGI’s history is still unfolding, shaped by the countless participants and supporters who have built its legacy. The organization began with the belief that Laredo could sustain professional-level theater year after year, and, more than a decade later, that belief has transformed into truth. Every season, past, present, and future, is a testament to the fact that LTGI has built more than a stage; it’s built a community around it.
(Xiomarra Milann is multidisciplinary artist, activist, and educator whose roots lay in Laredo, TX. She is currently an MFA candidate at the University of Texas-El Paso. Her work can be found in the Sybil Journal, the Acentos review, among other places, and is forthcoming in Defunkt Magazine.)
