In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

• “A home page for all of us”: A History of Café Onda: Journal of the Latinx Theatre Commons (2013–2018)
• Trevor Boffone

In May 2012, a group of eight Latinx theatre-makers from across the country met under the auspices of the American Voices New Play Institute at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C.—soon to be HowlRound Theatre Commons at Emerson College.¹ There, the so-called “DC 8”—Kristoffer Díaz, Anne García-Romero, Lisa Portes, Tlaloc Rivas, Antonio Sonera, Enrique Urueta, José Luis Valenzuela, and Karen Zacarías—discussed the state of Latinx theatre in the twenty-first century. While each artist brought a unique perspective into the room, the DC 8 all focused on one thing: what the future might hold for Latinx theatre-makers nationally. It was in this moment that the seeds for the Latinx Theatre Commons (LTC) were planted.² José Luis Valenzuela aimed to produce a month-long Latinx theatre festival at the Los Angeles Theatre Center, Lisa Portes wanted to resurrect the new play pipeline with a Carnaval of New Latinx Work at DePaul University, the group would form a Steering Committee for the Latinx Theatre Commons, and Tlaloc Rivas pitched the idea of an online journal exclusively dedicated to Latinx Theatre, the end result of which would become Café Onda. Shortly after the DC 8 meeting, the first convening of the LTC took place in Boston in fall 2013 and all of these projects went into motion.

While each of these projects merit in-depth analysis, here I use Café Onda—the online journal of the LTC—as a case study to explore the vulnerabilities of digital scholarship in the age of the digital humanities. Operating as a subset of the larger digital journal on HowlRound’s website, Café Onda published blogs, essays, interviews, and critical reflections on contemporary Latinx theatre.³ While the journal met its mission and flourished in many ways, it ultimately had an abrupt ending in 2018, which brought up several issues with collaborative work and with digital projects in general. In what [End Page 237] follows, I provide a history of Café Onda. In addition to published materials and first-hand accounts from interviews I conducted, this article is informed by my own relationship with the journal. In January 2015, I joined the LTC’s Steering Committee, a process whereby I became tightly involved with Café Onda. In October 2015, I became co-champion of Café Onda alongside Emily Aguilar, a position we would both remain in until fall 2017. My work here is not meant to be a “cheerleader” for Café Onda, but is instead meant to capture a moment and unpack the troubles the journal faced as a digital project due to infrastructure problems, disparate visions, and lack of support from the LTC Steering Committee at large. My argument is that digital humanities projects such as Café Onda must be collaborative and non-hierarchical in organizing structure in order to have long-term success.

Charting Our Digital Present: The Origins of Café Onda

In “Our Digital Present,” theatre and performance studies scholar Brian Eugenio Herrera advocates for the importance of creating a digital narrative of Latinx theatre, asking: “what can we theatermakers do to chart our own digital present?” Recounting an early meeting of The Sol Project, Herrera notes how Latinx theatre artists expressed “their craving for myriad modes of digital connectivity.” ⁴ By any account, this is vague, though Herrera does offer some examples: an online archive, collaborative opportunities made possible online, and data mapping. According to Herrera, there is an undeniable “need for a freely accessible, interactive, and searchable digital platform that might provide current and easily updated information about contemporary Latina/o theater professionals...” One such example is Café Onda. As a point of departure, Herrera explains how director and playwright Tlaloc Rivas dreamt of making Café Onda a “home page for all of us.” Even so, Café Onda was not built to be the end-all digital resource for Latinx Theatre.

In line with the LTC’s philosophical parent, HowlRound Theatre Commons, Café Onda used a commons-based approach whereby the community contributed and provided feedback. In “The...

中文翻译：

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“我们所有人的主页”：Café Onda 的历史：Latinx Theatre Commons 杂志（2013-2018）

代替摘要，这里是内容的简短摘录：

• “我们所有人的主页”：Café Onda的历史：Latinx Theatre Commons 杂志（2013-2018）
• 特雷弗·博芬

2012 年 5 月，在美国之声新戏剧学院的支持下，来自全国各地的八位拉丁裔戏剧制作人在华盛顿特区的 Arena Stage 会面——即将成为爱默生学院的 HowlRound Theatre Commons。¹在那里，所谓的“DC 8”——克里斯托弗·迪亚兹、安妮·加西亚-罗梅罗、丽莎·波特斯、特拉洛克·里瓦斯、安东尼奥·索内拉、恩里克·乌鲁埃塔、何塞·路易斯·瓦伦苏埃拉和凯伦·扎卡里亚斯——讨论了二十世纪拉丁剧院的状况第一世纪。虽然每位艺术家都为房间带来了独特的视角，但 DC 8 都专注于一件事：全国拉丁剧院制作人的未来可能会怎样。正是在这一刻，Latinx Theatre Commons (LTC) 的种子播下了。²何塞·路易斯·瓦伦苏埃拉 (José Luis Valenzuela) 的目标是在洛杉矶剧院中心举办为期一个月的拉丁戏剧节，丽莎·波特斯 (Lisa Portes) 希望在德保罗大学 (DePaul University) 举办一场新拉丁作品嘉年华 (Carnaval of New Latinx Work) 来重振新的戏剧管道，该小组将成立拉丁戏剧指导委员会Theatre Commons 和 Tlaloc Rivas 提出了专门针对拉丁剧院的在线期刊的想法，最终结果将成为Café Onda。DC 8 会议后不久，LTC 于 2013 年秋季在波士顿召开了第一次会议，所有这些项目都开始实施。

虽然这些项目中的每一个都值得深入分析，但在这里我使用Café Onda（LTC 的在线期刊）作为案例研究，探索数字人文时代数字学术的脆弱性。作为 HowlRound 网站上更大的数字期刊的一个子集，Café Onda发表了关于当代拉丁戏剧的博客、论文、采访和批判性反思。³虽然该期刊实现了其使命并在许多方面蓬勃发展，但它最终在 2018 年戛然而止，这带来了与协作工作和一般数字项目有关的几个问题。在[End Page 237] 之后，我提供了Café Onda的历史. 除了已发表的材料和我采访的第一手资料外，这篇文章还参考了我自己与该杂志的关系。2015 年 1 月，我加入了 LTC 的指导委员会，在这个过程中我与Café Onda密切相关。2015 年 10 月，我与 Emily Aguilar 一起成为Café Onda 的联合冠军，我们将一直担任这个职位直到 2017 年秋季。我在这里的工作并不是要成为Café Onda的“啦啦队长” ，而是为了捕捉由于基础设施问题、不同的愿景以及缺乏 LTC 指导委员会的普遍支持，现在并解开该期刊作为数字项目所面临的麻烦。我的论点是像Café Onda这样的数字人文项目 为了取得长期成功，组织结构必须具有协作性和非等级性。

绘制我们的数字礼物：Café Onda的起源

在“我们的数字呈现”中，戏剧和表演研究学者布赖恩·尤金尼奥·埃雷拉 (Brian Eugenio Herrera) 主张创建拉丁剧院数字叙事的重要性，并问道：“我们戏剧制作人可以做些什么来绘制我们自己的数字呈现？” 在回顾 The Sol Project 的早​​期会议时，Herrera 指出拉丁裔戏剧艺术家如何表达“他们对无数数字连接模式的渴望”。⁴无论如何，这都是模糊的，尽管 Herrera 确实提供了一些示例：在线存档、在线协作机会和数据映射。根据 Herrera 的说法，不可否认的是“需要一个可自由访问、互动和可搜索的数字平台，该平台可能会提供有关当代拉丁裔/O 剧院专业人士的最新且易于更新的信息......”一个这样的例子是翁达咖啡馆。作为出发点，Herrera 解释了导演兼剧作家 Tlaloc Rivas 如何梦想让Café Onda成为“我们所有人的主页”。即便如此，Café Onda也并非旨在成为拉丁剧院的最终数字资源。

与 LTC 的哲学上的母公司 HowlRound Theatre Commons 一致，Café Onda使用了基于公共的方法，社区贡献并提供反馈。在里面...