Teatro del Sol presents "Mariela in the Desert." In Spanish with English supertitles. April 10-27. $15. 128 E. Pike St., Lawrenceville. 678-226-6222, www.auroratheatre.com.

Twenty years ago, few would have guessed that the first professional metro area theater to offer plays in Spanish would be in Lawrenceville.

These days, however, Gwinnett County has one of the largest and fastest-growing Latino populations in the Southeast. And Aurora Theatre, the county’s only professional theater company, offers a theater initiative called Teatro del Sol, designed to present and preserve Hispanic cultural heritage by regularly producing plays in the Spanish language.

Producing Artistic Director Anthony Rodriguez first conceived of the idea for Spanish-language theater in the Atlanta area after his mom and other older family members passed away in the late 1990s. “I felt like I was starting to lose touch with my heritage and my family, and I wanted a way to reconnect,” he said.

Rodriguez’s parents came to the U.S. from Cuba in 1961; he was born in the U.S. and grew up in Miami and New York. He became producing artistic director of Aurora in 1999.

“I was starting to speak Spanish much more poorly because I wasn’t speaking it as often. At that time, I felt like it would be great if we could produce one play in Spanish a year,” he said.

Teatro del Sol is an initiative of Aurora that does just that. The company’s latest Spanish-language production, “Mariela en el Desierto” (“Mariela in the Desert”), opens April 10.

Written by playwright Karen Zacarías, it is set in 1950 and tells the story of married artists Mariela and José, who are living an isolated existence in the desert of Northern Mexico and dealing with the tragic death of their son years earlier. Zacarias, who writes in Spanish and English, is playwright-in-residence at Washington’s Arena stage. Her English work “The Book Club Play” was a hit for Atlanta’s Horizon Theatre.

“The more we know about different cultures, the easier it is for us to wrap our heads around who someone else is and what their problems are,” Rodriguez said. “Theater gives us a unique opportunity to have conversations like that, about different cultures.”

Organizers say the popular shows tend to attract a diverse audience, including Spanish speakers from Mexico, Central and South America, and the Caribbean. “The beauty of the Latino culture is that, from the grandmother on down to the kids, everybody comes to the theater together,” Rodriguez said. “It’s really beautiful to watch.”

The plays also attract some students and former students of Spanish who come to brush up their language skills, as well as English-only speakers who follow along with the supertitle translations projected above the stage.

For the first time, the theater is bringing in crew members from around the country to work on the show, so even the lighting and set design will be created by Hispanic artists.

“Latino theater artists are a vital contribution to the cultural landscape of this country,” said the play’s director, Tlaloc Rivas, who is based at the University of Iowa. “When everybody is working in the Spanish language, it’s such a different way of expression that I can’t truly explain to American audiences.

“Being able to do this type of Spanish-language theater is not only a bridge for new audiences, it also celebrates those who speak the language who haven’t had the opportunity to experience quality works of theater in the U.S. since arriving from their native countries.”

“We’re the minority that is growing the most in Atlanta,” said Atlanta-based actress Blanca Agüero, who will play the lead role of Mariela. “To have something we can identify with and feel a little closer to home is beautiful. It’s a little piece of your culture far away.”

Agüero grew up and studied theater in Puerto Rico. She moved to the Atlanta area from Miami three years ago and said she was thrilled to discover a professional theater that was producing Spanish-language plays. She’s been in the theater’s productions for the past three years.

For Rodriguez, who originally started Teatro del Sol as a way to reconnect with his heritage and his family’s native language, “Mariela” presents the daunting challenge of doing just that. Rodriguez will take on the lead role of José, Mariela’s husband in the play.

“I’ve studied this script more than I’ve studied any script I’ve ever been handed,” he said. “I get up early and get on the treadmill and work through lines every day. I have to retrain my brain to be very specific about how I say the words. It’s been tricky, but it’s coming along great.”