Also on the panel are the writers Carmen Rivera (La Gringa), Edwin Sánchez (La Bella Familia) and Carmelita Tropicana (Milk of Amnesia and With What Ass Does the Cockroach Sit?). The journalist Patrick Pacheco moderates.

As previously announced, the panel is a lead-up event to a new Latino theatre festival, entitled TeatroStageFest, which will run April 30-May 13 and will include productions from four local theatre companies — Pregones Theater, INTAR, Teatro Circulo and Teatro IATI — plus three productions from Latin America and Spain, a series of panels, a cabaret night at Joe's Pub and a young playwrights competition.

A second panel called "Latinas at the Helm" will be held at Instituto Cervantes on March 26. Participating are Rosalba Rolo (founder and artistic director of Pregones), Miriam Colón Valle (founder and president of the Puerto Rican Traveling Theatre), Shoshana Polanco (creative producer of BAiT, Buenos Aires in Translation), Claudia Norman (artistic director of the Queens Theatre in the Park's annual summer Latino Cultural Festival and executive producer of the New York festival Celebrate México Now), Veronica Caicedo (founder of Caicedo Productions) and Vivian Deangelo (executive and artistic director of Teatro IATI). Tubert will moderate.

The panels and the festival are produced by the Latino International Theater Festival of New York, a new organization that will support Latino theatre year-round. The organization's first project was its sponsorship of the work Open Door at LaMama in December 2006.

Cruz won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Anna in the Tropics. Machado is the head of playwriting at Columbia University, the artistic director of INTAR and the author of many plays, including The Cook and Havana is Waiting. The panels will be held at the Instituto Cervantes, 211-215 East 49th Street. For reservations, email [email protected] or call (212) 760-4777. Simultaneous Spanish interpretation is available.