Far from fiction, one of the scenes that Barcelona is experiencing these days is the immense queue of migrants waiting in front of entities to obtain the condition of vulnerability. This same thing was seen this Monday on Villarroel street. Like so many other contrasts of the city, if one goes down Cendra street, in the Raval, and turns left, one comes across a small chicken shop that borders the Parish of Carme, inaugurated in 1913, in a project by the architect Josep Maria Pericàs, a disciple of Antoni Gaudí.
Despite the advanced age of this space, yesterday, backstage, a bottle of cava was opened to inaugurate the Teatre Raval, which has reopened its doors after two years of inactivity with a major renovation, and the new artistic direction of Pep Tosar and Evelyn Arévalo, who in September 2024 acquired the license for this theater. The works began in July 2025 and, as they explained, their complexity has delayed the premiere, which was scheduled for January. The smell of freshly painted walls evidenced the kick-off.
“Today we can see it as we had imagined it and we don't regret anything. We are indebted up to our eyebrows, but very happy”, said Tosar with a smile in front of the dozens of visitors and journalists who were inaugurating the new auditorium. Like someone showing off a new toy on Three Kings' Day, Tosar and Arévalo explained in detail the novelties that the hall incorporates. Among others, a new stage closer to the spectator, latest generation LED lighting, new sound equipment, a technical booth that did not exist before, a new stalls area and a new amphitheater with better acoustics and visibility.
The Tadeusz Kantor Hall, in homage to the Polish creator and theater director, is the main one of the space with a capacity for 193 spectators and an Italian-style layout (stalls with 146 seats, two spaces for reduced mobility and amphitheater with 45 more seats). “We will premiere two shows a year and we want to host the maximum number of companies from the city and the territory to become an important cultural space,” Arévalo detailed yesterday. And the Teatre Raval will include the project of the company Oblideu-vos de nosaltres of Pep Tosari and Evelyn Arévalo, which is based on the creation and production of its own shows, in their exhibition and also in the support for creation.
But this is not the only space of the Teatre Raval: where before there was a corridor and a meeting room, the Espai Damià Huguet has been built, a name dedicated to the multidisciplinary poet who wrote Esquena de ganivet. A multipurpose room with fifty seats, with a literary cabaret arrangement, with independent armchairs and tables where to enjoy shows and proximity concerts. This space is also an exhibition place that contains pictorial and sculptural work by Damià Huguet, original editions of books he published, some of his most emblematic photographs and portraits, reproductions of some of his drawings and works by other artists who paid him homage.
L’Espai Damià Huguet also contains the theater bar, which will be managed by Riquiño, the emblematic ‘pulperia’ and tapas bar of Parlament street.
The programming of the Raval Theatre
The May-July programming of the theater will kick off on May 12 with the show Federico Garcia, directed by Pep Tosar and written together with Evelyn Arévalo, 10 years after its premiere at the Grec Festival de Barcelona.
This Monday, on the stage there were also some of the playwrights and performers of the shows that the theater will host from now on. All of them have made five cents of their shows. Among all the programming (that you can consult here), we can highlight the show L’enterrador, a monologue written by Gerard Vázquez and performed by Pepe Zapata and that can be seen on Tuesdays, Saturdays and Sundays in the Sala Tadeusz Kantor. Vázquez, present at the event, nailed that he was glad that a "real" theater is opening that "gives many possibilities in this very complicated neighborhood, a fact that is a double challenge".
In turn, and regarding the small format, the Espai Damià Huguet will inaugurate Seven ways to be Hamlet, by Josep Pere Peyró, from May 22 to July 3. A solo that, from comedy and taking Hamlet as a model, reflects on how classics are constantly re-actualized in our days.
Apart from the performing arts, one of the great bets of Teatre Raval is live music, with the will to program concerts of emblematic figures of the music that has emerged from Barcelona. This concert series, which intends to program four artists per season, has been named La gran Blue Nit. The premiere will be on July 3 with Elisabet Raspall, who will present Aletheia, winner of the Enderrock award for best jazz album of 2026.
Finally, in the round of questions, the directors of the Teatre Raval explained that they have a fifteen-year rental contract with the parish, which depends on the Archbishopric of Barcelona.
You can consult the entire season's program at teatreraval.com. Due to the opening, from yesterday until April 30, Teatre Raval is selling all its tickets at half price.
