Cervantes Theatre shuts after seven years 'fighting against windmills'

The Cervantes Theatre was opened in 2017 in Old Union Yard Arches off Great Suffolk Street, a few doors down from the long-established Union Theatre and close to the Africa Centre's new location.

The theatre's closure was confirmed last month and a message from co-founders Paula Paz and Jorge de Juan – titled 'The lights go out' – is displayed at the entrance of the closed theatre:

We have worked endlessly, we have lifted this project on our shoulders. It takes a village to open a theatre and there have been many people who have built the Cervantes Theatre, stone by stone, verse by verse. Artists, technicians, audience, team, trustees, volunteers, members and friends of the theatre, the British theatre industry... each and every one of the companies and institutions that have supported this theatre since the beginning.

Unfortunately it has not been enough. The Cervantes Theatre needed fundamental institutional support that fell through. As many other cultural institutions in the United Kingdom, we are in such fragile state that any change or delay in funding can be deadly.

The Cervantes Theatre during the last 7 years, has programmed 106 plays, concerts and events, produced 15 plays, promoting the work of 42 playwrights from Spain, Colombia, Mexico, Uruguay, Argentina, Brasil, Venezuela, Peru, Chile and Cuba.

From Spain Juan Mayorga, Paloma Pedrero, José Sanchis Sinisterra, Lucía Carballal, Marilia Samper, Juan Carlos Rubio, Paco Bezerra, Guillem Clua, Denise Desperoux, Gon Ramos, Carolina África and many other playwrights have seen their plays translated and performed here at the Cervantes Theatre.

Like the Don Quixote of our beloved Cervantes, after which this theatre was named, we have fought against windmills since the beginning, more than 7 years ago. Including Brexit, the pandemic and an extremely fragile cultural industry. The Cervantes Theatre auditorium will stop listening to Cervantes' language, the seats will remain empty, the lights will go out and the heart of the Spanish theatre in London will stop beating.

With deep sorrow, the peace of the one who has fought everything, the frustration of the one who has waited for support that never came and the infinite gratitude to each and every one of the people who have been part of this dream, we we say goodbye. The Cervantes Theatre closes its doors. It, will remain in the memory of those who sat in its seats and those who stepped on its staged.

Bankside – with its literary and theatrical history – was an appropriate home for a theatre named after Miguel de Cervantes, who was a contemporary of Southwark's own William Shakespeare. Both men died in 1616 and both are commemorated by their countries on 23 April, which is also Unesco's world book day.