Abel Lopez, associate producing director of GALA Hispanic Theatre, is the president of the Boards of Directors of Americans for the Arts and chairman-emeritus of the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities. Lopez also is a member of the Boards of Directors of the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies (Treasurer), Washington Theatre Society (Vice President), Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation (Vice President), The Association of American Cultures (Vice President), Theatre Communications Group, Maru Montero Dance Company, the Smithsonian Center for Latino Initiatives, and the Washington AIDS Partnership. Productions he has directed have appeared at GALA; Horizons Theatre; DC Arts Center; the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts; Source Theater and the In Series in Washington, DC; the Arizona Theater Company; the Public Theater in New York; Jomandi Productions in Atlanta; the James Knight Center in Miami; Theatre on the Water in San Francisco; the Teatro Nacional in San Jose, Costa Rica; Teatro Nacional in San Salvador, El Salvador; Teatro San Martin in Caracas, Venezuela; and the National Theatre of Cuba. His production of The Pearl for the Kennedy Center toured throughout the United States.