National Hispanic Heritage Month is observed in the U.S. from September 15-October 15 To celebrate, Playbill is looking back at some of the momentous accomplishments of Hispanic and Latine artists on Broadway.

Of course, diverse theatre artists often go unrecognized and underrepresented, so creating a comprehensive list of every milestone Hispanic and Latine artists have achieved in the theatre would be virtually impossible. With this in mind, we’ve collected a non-exhaustive list of a few of the many historical achievements—and we continue to celebrate those who are representing the community on stage now, like Romeo + Juliet’s Rachel Zegler, Hell's Kitchen book writer Kristoffer Diaz, Tony nominee Kevin Del Aguila in Yellow Face, and many more.

For the purposes of this timeline, we noted milestones achieved by artists with lineage from Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central and South America, in accordance with the National Hispanic Heritage Month site. With this list, we hope to honor the accomplishments of Hispanic and Latine theatre artists of the past and present, while emphasizing the importance of further representation on Broadway in the future.

1947
Puerto Rican actor José Ferrer wins the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play at the inaugural awards ceremony. Ferrer was honored for playing the title role in Cyrano de Bergerac, a performance he would go on to reprise on television and in a 1950 film adaptation, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Actor. Ferrer would later win four more Tony Awards, one for acting and three for directing.

1974
Miguel Piñero’s Short Eyes opens at the Vivian Beaumont Theater, making Piñero, who was born in Puerto Rico, the first known Hispanic playwright on Broadway. Piñero wrote the play during his stint in Sing Sing Prison. The work was nominated for six Tony Awards, including Best Play.

1975
Rita Moreno becomes the first known Hispanic woman to win a Tony Award, taking home the Best Featured Actress title for her performance as Googie Gomez in Terrance McNally’s The Ritz.

Also in 1975, A Chorus Line opens on Broadway with a book co-written by Puerto Rican scribe Nicholas Dante, making him the first known Hispanic artist to write a Broadway musical, and the first to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. He also received the 1976 Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical. Dante based A Chorus Line’s character Paul on his own experience as a dancer growing up in New York City. A Chorus Line also featured Priscilla Lopez, who created the role of Diana Morales and received a Tony nomination for her performance.

1977
Moreno becomes the first Latina (and only second woman ever) to become an EGOT winner when she receives a Primetime Emmy Award for her performance in The Muppet Show. The legendary actor had previously taken home an Oscar for portraying Anita in West Side Story in 1962, a Grammy as a featured soloist on 1972 Best Children’s Album winner The Electric Company, and her aforementioned Tony Award for The Ritz in 1975.

1979
Luis Valdez’s Zoot Suit opens on Broadway. The work is based on the Sleepy Lagoon Murder of 1942 and the Zoot Suit Riots of 1943 in Los Angeles. “While Zoot Suit says much about relationships between Anglos and Chicanos—or rather, implies much—it is also a play about the search for identity,” the production’s original Playbill reads. “[It is] about rebellion against respectability, about the clash between generations in a Chicano family, and the clash between cultures in the society as a whole, about xenophobia during the early 1940s, about the war throughout the world—and the one in the barrios—about the power of the press, about cultural schizophrenia in a time of stress, about hysteria, racism and the creation of stereotypes as a short-cut to understanding, and about the roles individuals assume in everyday life, then play out regardless of the consequences.”

Zoot Suit was the first play to be written and directed by Chicano artists to run on Broadway, and was nominated for one Tony Award, for actor Edward James Olmos. It would later be adapted into an 1982 film.

1990
Argentine-American Graciela Daniele serves as both director and choreographer for the original Broadway production of Once on This Island. Theatre legend Daniele has held multiple creative positions concurrently for several other Broadway shows, including Chronicle of a Death Foretold (which she directed, choreographed, and conceived), Annie Get Your Gun, Marie Christine, and Chita Rivera: The Dancer’s Life, among numerous other acting and choreographing credits. She received a Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2020.

2002
Chita Rivera is the first Latina and the first Latine American to receive the prestigious Kennedy Center Honors. She previously won a Tony Award for her performances in The Rink and Kiss of the Spider Woman, and originated the role of Anita in the 1957 Broadway production of West Side Story. Rivera also received a 2018 Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement.

2003
Nilo Cruz becomes the first Latine playwright to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Anna in the Tropics. The show follows Cuban immigrants in a cigar factory in Florida. It played on Broadway in 2003 and was nominated for two Tony Awards: Best Play and Best Featured Actress in a Play for Daphne Rubin-Vega.

2008
In the Heights opens on Broadway with a concept, music, and lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda and a book by Quiara Alegría Hudes, both of whom are of Puerto Rican descent. Set in Washington Heights, the production celebrated Hispanic and Latine culture on the Broadway stage, and took home the Tony Award for Best Musical. The work was also a finalist for the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and a film adaptation was released in 2021. 

The work establishes Miranda and Hudes as important 21st-century theatrical voices. Miranda would go on to write Spanish lyrics for the 2009 Broadway revival of West Side Story and create a little musical called Hamilton, while Hudes later won a Pulitzer Prize in 2012 for Water by the Spoonful.

2015
Hamilton, with a book, music, and lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda, opens on Broadway. In addition to Miranda himself, the original Broadway cast of Hamilton featured multiple Hispanic and Latine actors, including but not limited to Anthony Ramos, Ariana DeBose, Javier Muñoz, Carleigh Bettiol, and Jon Rua. With its commitment to diverse casting, Hamilton has continued to employ Hispanic and Latine actors on Broadway and in its other iterations. The original production broke the record for most Tony Award nominations by a single show with 16 nods, ultimately taking home 11 awards including Best Musical.

Also in 2015, On Your Feet!, the musical based on the lives and music of Gloria and Emilio Estefan, opens on Broadway. The jukebox musical showcased beloved songs from the collective 26-time Grammy winners, like "Get on Your Feet," "Conga," and "1-2-3," while featuring a nearly entirely Latine and Hispanic cast, led by Ana Villafañe as Gloria.

2021
Matthew López’s The Inheritance wins the Tony Award for Best Play, making him the first known Latine playwright to receive the award. "This is the 74th Tony Awards, and yet I am only the first Latine writer to win in this category,” López said in his acceptance speech. “I say that not to elicit your applause but to highlight the fact that the Latine community is underrepresented in American theatre, in New York theatre, and most especially on Broadway. We constitute 19 percent of the United States population, and we represent about 2 percent of the playwrights having plays on Broadway in the last decade. This must change." 

Also in 2021, Bianca Marroquín, Ana Villafañe, and Paulo Szot begin performances in Broadway’s Chicago revival as Velma Kelly, Roxie Hart, and Billy Flynn, respectively. The trio brought powerful representation to the production as it celebrated 25 years on Broadway—Marroquín is from Mexico, Villafañe is of Cuban and Salvadoran descent, and Szot is Brazilian.

2023
Bad Cinderella opens at the Imperial Theatre, making its star Linedy Genao the first Latina to originate the leading role in an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. "To be his first Latina leading lady to originate a role and to play a princess, I never had that growing up, a princess that I could relate to," Genao said on opening night. "It’s very overwhelming and something that I know is much bigger than me, and I only pray that it opens doors to other possibilities for people.”