The plays in Madrid are again this December one of the most refreshing cultural plans for Christmas. With temperatures dropping, the stages heat up the dramatic scene in the capital and serve as a cultural refuge. On the billboard there is no shortage of reinterpretations of great classics, subversive novelties that break taboos, great love stories and, of course, there is always room for humor.
Madrid is, once again this season, a place of reference for theater lovers. Here are the 7 theatrical plays recommended for this December.
1. El Monte de las Ánimas
The Fernán Gómez Theater. Centro Cultural de la Villa presents three of its own productions to celebrate All Saints’ Day. Among them, the staging of El Monte de las Ánimas, an adaptation of Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer’s legend, directed by Ignacio García and Pepa Pedroche. This play will take the audience to a night full of terror and legends in a mountain refuge, with a cast that includes Javier Godino, Pablo Béjar, Alba Recondo and Lucía Esteso. In addition, the theater will offer a version of the classic Don Juan Tenorio and a Mexican Altar of the Dead through November 10.
🗓️ Dates: November 1 to December 8
📍 Location: Fernán Gómez Theater. Centro Cultural de la Villa (Plaza de Colón, 4).
2. Bohemian Lights
The Teatro Español celebrates the centenary of the definitive edition of Luces de Bohemia, Valle-Inclán’s masterpiece that marked the birth of the esperpento, a new theatrical genre. In this play, Max Estrella, a blind poet, travels through Madrid’s nightlife with his companion Latino de Hispalis, encountering characters that represent the darkest bohemia. The play is a scathing critique of social injustice and political corruption, combined with moments of great poetic beauty, which always seem to allude to the present.
📅 Dates: until December 15
📍 Location: Teatro Español (Plaza Santa Ana and Calle del Príncipe, 25)
3. WAH Madrid
WAH Madrid has established itself as the most powerful leisure event of the year from its headquarters at IFEMA. Therefore, the proposal returns with a new season. WAH continues to break attendance records thanks to a show that does not skimp on visual media and artistic talent and has become a musical and gastronomic experience of reference at European level.
Over the course of five hours, the spectator is immersed in a delirious journey through the history of music thanks to a portentous sequence of musical and stage numbers of every genre and color.
👉 Buy your ticket here.
IFEMA (Avenida Partenón, 5)
4. Nothing
Carmen Laforet’s great play transports the audience to Barcelona in 1939, just after the Civil War. Andrea, a young woman who arrives in the city to begin her university studies, faces a family torn apart by the war. In her old home, now filled with tensions and broken dreams, Andrea seeks to maintain her own narrative and protect her aspirations. The friendship between Andrea and Ena becomes a vital refuge in the midst of emotional chaos, representing the generational cry of those trying to rebuild their lives in the aftermath of conflict.
📅 Dates: November 8th to December 22nd
Location: María Guerrero Theater (Tamayo y Baus Street, 4)
5. Beyond The Little Prince
Beyond The Little Prince is a must-see among the plays in Madrid during the Christmas season.
The play is an original creation by Yane Bonin, with text and direction by Pilar Ávila, inspired by The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. This revision invites us to reflect on existence and the process of leaving behind childhood innocence as we become adults. The story focuses on an aviator who remembers his encounter with the Little Prince in the desert, an event that gives him back the light and perspective lost since his childhood. The play seeks to convey a message about the importance of maintaining lucidity and childhood innocence throughout adulthood.
📅 Dates: December 12 to January 12
Location: Teatro Fernán Gómez (Plaza de Colón, 4)
6. Mothers
Mothers is a desperate humorous play. It is about five women who are locked in a school waiting room and this isolation results in an improvised therapy, bringing out the lights and shadows of motherhood. In the words of the director, Elena Díaz: “Madres is an opening in the channel, an open cry, a target at the center of the equation.”
It is a story that gives voice to five very different women who experience motherhood from different angles, all of them very connected to their multiple concerns and ways of understanding life. Together, they will address very different points of view about motherhood, parenting methods, different family models, the so-called ‘maternal instinct’, feminism and machismo, sexuality, diversity, abortion, social and work pressure. The agility of the rhythm and the surreal and comic situations are the open channel to disembowel the entrails of their lives until transcending them.
📅 Dates: Until December 20.
Location: Teatro Lara (Corre. Baja de San Pablo, 15)
7. El Secuestro
El Secuestro is about Paco, a man on the verge of collapse due to the closure of the market where he has been working all his life. Drowning under the pressure of losing his home and finding himself on the street with his daughter, he makes an extreme decision: to kidnap the son of the minister on whom the closure depends. In this tragic context unfolds this comedy that has already toured several countries with success.
📅 Dates: until January 26, 2025.
Location: Teatro Lara (Baja de San Pablo, 15, Corridor).
8. Bernice
The Teatro Español hosts Bernice, by the American playwright Susan Glaspell, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1931. Directed by Paula Paz, the play reflects on love, human relationships and female roles in a society in transition after the First World War. With a cast led by Eva Rufo and Jesús Noguero, the play explores family tensions following the loss of Bernice Norris, addressing universal themes such as freedom and women’s rights.
📅 Dates: until December 8
Location: Teatros Español (Plaza Santa Ana with Calle del Príncipe, 25)