Alfonso Sastre, del grupo Arte Nuevo al TAS (1945-1950): prehistoria de una abierta disidencia

In 1945, Alfonso Sastre founded the theater group Arte Nuevo along with some young friends. In its period of activity (1946-1948), Arte Nuevo brought more than 20 short works to the stage, promoting mostly pieces authored by its members. After trying unsuccessfully to connect the group with university theaters, and then bringing closure to that experience, Sastre and his friends collaborate with La Hora. He and De Quinto will launch the «Manifiesto del TAS» in October 1950 in the columns of the SEU weekly journal, and in the same columns, they will announce the abandonment of the project two months later. The article interrogates Sastre’s ideological adherence in the first years of his theatrical journey, as well as the contacts that sustained his activities in the university setting. The article concludes with the suggestion that this phase could rightly be described as pre-political in the trajectory of the playwright.