Nicolás Kanellos: 1945—: Publisher, Editor - Supported Latino Theater

Of particular interest to Kanellos is the past, present, and future of Hispanic drama in the United States. He told Los Angeles Times writer Mike Boehm that major regional theaters have not been acting quickly enough to produce Latino plays. "They're turning away from the future and the demographics of where the population is going," he noted. "There's a very good core of Hispanic theater material that could appeal to everyone, not just Hispanics, and they should be producing it."

Kanellos has done much to increase mainstream appreciation of Hispanic drama. In addition to his own works on theater history and criticism, he has edited or coedited anthologies of Latino plays, including Nuevos Pasos: Chicano and Puerto Rican Drama, which contains eight plays by leading Mexican-American and Puerto Rican playwrights. As Kanellos and coeditor Jorge A. Huerta pointed out in the book's introduction, these plays are examples of the sense of identity and community that theater has provided for Spanish speaking peoples in North America since the sixteenth century.