Laura María de Jesús Rodríguez Ramírez, known as Jesusa Rodríguez (born 1955 in Mexico City) is a director, actress, playwright, performance artist, scenographer, social activist, and senator (Moreno Party) in Mexico's Congress. She and her partner, Argentine singer/actress Liliana Felipe, operated El Hábito and Teatro de la Capilla, alternative performances spaces in the Coyoacán municipality of Mexico City, until 2005. In the 1980s Rodríguez notably directed an adaption of Mozart's Don Giovanni, featuring an all-female cast, entitled Donna Giovanni, and Oskar Panizza's El Concilio de Amor. Rodríguez won an Obie for Best Actor in Las Horas de Belén, A Book of Hours (1999) along with Ruth Maleczech and Mabou Mines. Rodríguez also contributes regularly to Mexico's most important feminist journal, Debate Feminista. This collection contains scrapbooks, newspaper clippings, magazines, photographs, contact sheets, programs and other ephemera, certificates, ID cards, diagrams, drafts and revisions of scripts, sketches, notes, sheet music, financial budgets, and correspondence from between 1977-2011 related to the creation and development of Jesusa Rodríguez's works as a director, playwright, and performance artist. The collection also contains materials relating to her work as a political and social activist, as documented by flyers, handouts, printed PowerPoint slides, articles, and optical discs containing video regarding gobierno legítimo de México, Creativa Resistencia, and the empowerment workshops that Rodríguez conducted. There are also empowerment workshop materials and participant letters.
