WISH LIST $100: sponsors a young minority artist in a training workshop; $500: covers one week's residency for a guest actor, director, dancer, musician, or poet; $1000: provides a matinee performance and post-show education program for students

Walk past the old Tivoli Theatre and you will see something wonderful: the state-of-the-art home of the National Center for Latino Performing Arts and the only performance space in Columbia Heights. A multi-disciplinary performing arts center, GALA (Grupo de Artistas Latinamericanos) has mounted over 160 productions: original plays and musicals by renowned and emerging Hispanic artists (including local Latino youth and community members), classical Spanish plays, and contemporary Latin American works. Its ArteAmericA program presents outstanding dancers, musicians and poets from the United States, Spain, Latin America and the Caribbean. Productions are bilingual with surtitles, so Spanish-language productions have English surtitles and visa versa. Free and discounted tickets are available through local nonprofits, and preview performances are offered as fundraisers for Latino community organizations. Recognizing that there is a special need for Latino and multicultural youth programs in Columbia Heights, GALA runs the after-school Paso Nuevo program, which uses performing arts to encourage expression in both English and Spanish. Annually, more than 2,000 elementary and high school students attend matinee performances and post-show education programs. GALA founder and artistic director Hugo Medrano has been honored with a Mayor's Arts Award, a Helen Hayes award, and a Founder's Award from the Cultural Alliance of Greater Washington. A gift to GALA gives artistic voice to a new generation of Washingtonians.

Rebecca Read Medrano, Managing Director PO Box 43209 Washington, DC 20010 (202) 234-7174 www.galatheatre.org