Berwyn’s new 16th Street Theater kicked off the four-week run of its first show last weekend — “Machos,” a show exploring the Latino male experience acted entirely by women.

The show, performed by all-Latina theater company Teatro Luna and coming from a run in downtown Chicago, opened Friday night. “Machos” is the product of more than 100 interviews with Latino men across the country about what it means to be a man and what they think about women. The play is acted out entirely by eight women.

“What was exciting for us was the response we’ve gotten from audiences, because we weren’t entirely sure how people would respond to women dressing as men in this conversation about masculinity we’re trying to have in the show,” said Coya Paz, the director and developer of the show. “Sometimes people think it’s drastic, but ... we found ourselves wondering how we could talk about the Latina experience and the lives of Latina women from a different point of view. We’re very committed to doing autobiographical works and those based on real-life experience.”

The 16th Street Theater’s Artistic Director Ann Filmer, who saw the show in its original run at Chicago Dramatists, said the show offers something to everyone who watches it, men and women, Latino and otherwise.

“It’s great to see that perspective through a woman’s eyes of what a man is, and it’s something we can all relate to that is totally cross-cultural,” Filmer said. “Anytime you have women taking on men’s roles, it so easily could get silly, but these women totally transform and create these 3-D characters and become these new people. It’s really smart, and authentic, which is my favorite kind of theater.”

Paz said the women’s theater company spent nearly two years traveling the country to meet men of different backgrounds, and get their take on the male experience. She said many of the interviews became very personal, leading a very genuine group of characters within the show.

“They’re not just characters, they’re taken from things that someone actually said and did, so it’s like they’re real people,” Paz said. “Men walk out feeling really validated ... because we’re talking about what it means to be a man in a way a lot of men don’t talk about publicly.”

Paz said in the end, she believes the show transcends gender roles to look at the way our society shapes people.

“The play becomes more about an insight on how everyone in this society becomes the way they are, and there is something so beautiful about having that conversation,” Paz said.