Calle de Guerrero y Mendoza

The name joins a married couple who, in the first third of the 20th century, were Spanish theatre itself. María Guerrero, born in Madrid in 1867, made her debut at eighteen and sharpened her craft during a stay in Paris. On her return she became an impresario, won the running of the Teatro Español by competition, and formed her own company. Fernando Díaz de Mendoza, an aristocrat and leading actor at the Español, married her in 1896. Together they built the Guerrero-Díaz de Mendoza company, which toured Spain and crossed the Atlantic to perform across Latin America, modernising the stage from its repertoire to the way plays were staged. The Teatro de la Princesa, which they had run since 1908, was renamed Teatro María Guerrero in 1931, now home to the Centro Dramático Nacional. The street runs through Ciudad Jardín, one of Madrid’s first garden colonies of small villas and low houses, where streets named after artists and writers give voice to a neighbourhood meant for living among gardens.