Potrayal by Angel Vigil: The Spanish colonial cowboy El Vaquero is a true American hero. He was the first cowboy to ride the open ranges and sleep under the stars; the first cowboy to tame the wild horses of the plains and deliver vast herds of cattle across great distances, and the first master of the basic eternal cowboy skills-riding and roping. El vaquero was the repository of highly practical and effective Spanish wisdom and experience in the ways of horses and cattle, developed over generations on the open plains of European Spain and New Spain in the Americas. His language gave us the words we now accept as common cowboy “lingo.” Diego Martín, El Vaquero, is a composite character based upon traditional vaquero stories and histories. His story is the living history of the origins and development of traditional cowboy practices in the American West.
An award-winning author, educator, and storyteller, Angel Vigil is Retired Chairman and Director of Drama of the Colorado Academy Fine and Performing Arts Department in Denver. Angel’s awards include the Governor’s Award for Excellence in Education, a Heritage Artist Award, a Colorado Council on the Arts Master Artist Award, the Mayor’s Individual Artist Fellowship, and the Colorado Theatre Educator of the Year Award. He is also the author of six books on Hispanic culture and arts and his book on the cowboy west is Riding Tall in the Saddle, the Cowboy Fact Book.