Theaters

Thomas Price was an Irish horse-breaker descendant of an acrobat family who arrived in Madrid in 1847 and founded a circus in this city.

The second Price circus was inaugurated in 2007 in his honor. It’s the only circus installed in a building in Spain that offers spectacles all throughout the year. And not only circus shows, whether traditional or avant-garde, but also music concerts, expositions, workshops, dancing, private events…

The main hall (there are three) is very spacious and attractive with a great ring. There’s also a café.

Escuela de Teatro Asura is a school for helping amateurs or professionals to express, communicate and feel through theatre. I’ve been studying here for more than three years because the teachers make it easy and funny to learn. They are really nice, close to the students and flexible.

You can go for a free trial lesson. If you’re student you can request to use the place if you want to rehearse or perform. Asura is somehow specialized in clown and improv theatre (where actors and actresses create a play based on the suggestions of the audience).

In addition, Asura offers other regular courses or short workshops focused on interpretation (in a more classical way), body expression, dance, hospital clown… and even theatre courses for children.

Every now and then you can also go for a free performance by the students as they practice with audience. I don’t know why but in Asura there are always a great number of foreigner students.

Close to the bullring of Las Ventas, this little but very well equipped Sala Tribueñe it’s one of the many alternative theatres that you can find in Madrid.

The performances of its program are mostly self-produced under the direction of the Russian Irina Kouberskaya, who also teaches a weekly theatre class in Tribueñe.

The program of the theatre can surprise the audience with plays of Chejov, Federico García Lorca or a musical comedy.

“Matadero Madrid is a lively, constantly changing space at the service of creative processes, participatory artistic training and dialog between the arts”, as they well define themselves.

El Matadero is an impressive reinterpretation of several buildings that were used as a slaughterhouse and meat market in the past. The architects have respected the industrial spirit, keeping the walls and the big pipes, and mixed it with materials like plastic or crystals and original decorative elements give it an absolutely avant-garde aspect.

Matadero’s figures can scare you. The Madrid Council has 148.350 m2 dedicated to art, design and performances… In 2009 alone Matadero organized more than 200 activities. Most of them for free!

I have visited especially “las Naves del Español”, a great theatre inside one of the buildings. They usually program big and surprising performances for about 25 euro.

At the entrance, there is a nice bar to have a beer or something to eat before or after the performance. In the different buildings and in the patio you can assist in design expos, concerts and video art shows… it’s a training place and meeting point for creators, institutions, programmers, cultural managers, critics, and synthesizing, professionals of design and art. Matadero opens for professionals from Tuesday to Friday, from 11:00 to 14:00.

El Matadero is in the South (more south than Lavapies) but it’s relatively close to the city center if you go by underground.

In Lavapiés’s heart, the most ethnic and bohemian neighborhood of Madrid, La Escalera de Jacob (Jacob’s ladder, like the film) is located.

La Escalera de Jacob is a space dedicated to the artistic creation out of the conventional circuits. Every day you can find an extensive programme of activities there, especially, small format theatre (from 5 to 12 euros) and concerts, but also films and workshops.

There are two rooms in the low floor where these acts take place. But you can also go there simply for a drink on the terrace (when the weather allows it) and in the upper floor, you’ll find a young and good ambient, warm and with a magic and dark touch. Now, there is another Escalera that maintains that personality in La Latina neighborhood, in Mancebos Street.