The sixteenth Leopoldo Alas Prize, part of the Leopoldo Alas Mínguez International Competition, brought good news for two Spanish writers, Juan Carlos Mestre Gonzalez and Celia Morán. The award is organized each year by the SGAE Foundation in partnership with the Visible Culture Association to encourage and support new theatrical texts that bring the stage to life with fresh voices. The winning piece, Vagrants and Scammers, reveals the hidden history of homosexual lives suppressed during the Franco era, and the project stands out for its bold exploration of LGTBIQA+ themes.
“The reception to the piece was strong, though the cast of five senior performers plus a deaf teenager posed some logistical challenges in production,” Mestre notes. “Winning the LAM Award brought considerable excitement. It can influence production companies to back the project and confirms that our work resonates. It feels like a meaningful achievement.”
The jury for the sixteenth LAM Award was chaired by Paul Hairstyle, President of the Visible Culture Association. The jury also featured playwrights Avelina Hernández Martín and Aitziber Garmendia, joining the ranks of previous winners, including Mark Gisbert in 2019 and Xavier de God in 2021.
Their work Vagrants and Scammers receives a prize of four thousand euros. In addition, the piece will be published by the SGAE Foundation and included in the dramatized readings cycle next year. A total of 33 texts were submitted, and nine reached the final stage of the competition.
Hairstyle describes Vagrants and Scammers as a theater of human lives under pressure, portrayed with vivid honesty. The play examines lives battered by a political regime that sought to enforce a homogeneous society defined around heterosexuality and cisgender identities.
Mestre on the emotional impact of the story
The jury recognized the work for its uncompromising emphasis on the past from a noncommercial angle, particularly the focus on older characters and the element of historical memory. It highlights the experiences of those repressed by Francoism for their nonconforming sexuality, preserving a crucial part of memory that elsewise might have faded.
A Private, Handwritten Collaboration
Juan Carlos Mestre and Celia Morán began their collaboration after meeting as actors in several productions. A subsequent encounter at Teatro Valle-Inclán in Madrid deepened their connection, and Morán soon met the Alicante-born activist and director Hernando Gomez, who was making a documentary about homeless gay seniors. The experience left a lasting impression and sparked further research on shelters in the Lavapiés district, where Morán resides.
That discovery led Mestre and Morán to imagine a project built around recent Spanish history, a history that remains largely unknown. The idea grew into a text centered on real people with names and lifelines that continue today. The outcome felt so natural that both playwrights now anticipate additional joint projects. They explain that Vagrants and Scammers reads as though it were written by a single hand, even though two authors contributed; their styles blended smoothly, yielding a fluid creative process.