Carpa Valentina was a theatre

Theatre

Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...

 troupe of the Mexican

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

 carpa

Carpa

In Mexico and the Southwestern United States, the carpa theater flourished during the 1920s and 30s. Like its American counterpart vaudeville, performances were varied, including comedic sketches, puppet shows, political satire, acrobatics, and dance.Some well-known carpas include Carpa Valentina...

(traveling tent) circuit during the 1920s and 1930s.

It was founded by a family of Russian

Russians

The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....

 circus

Circus

A circus is commonly a travelling company of performers that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, unicyclists and other stunt-oriented artists...

 performers who fled the turmoil of the 1919 Russian Civil War

Russian Civil War

The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed to the Soviets, under the domination of the Bolshevik party. Soviet forces first assumed power in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a...

, arriving in the port of Manzanillo

Manzanillo, Colima

The name Manzanillo refers to the city as well as its surrounding municipality in the Mexican state of Colima. The city, located on the Pacific Ocean, contains Mexico's busiest port. Manzanillo was the third port created by the Spanish in the Pacific during the New Spain period...

 in 1923. The troupe consisted of Gregor Ivanoff, the father of the family, who Hispanicized his name to Gregorio Ivanova, his three daughters, his son-in-law Estanislao Shilinsky, a Lithuania

Lithuania

Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...

n who wrote the material, and native Mexican performers. They set up their act in the Tacuba delegación of Mexico City

Mexico City

Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...

.

In 1929, Mario Moreno "Cantinflas

Cantinflas

Fortino Mario Alfonso Moreno Reyes , was a Mexican comic film actor, producer, and screenwriter known professionally as Cantinflas. He often portrayed impoverished campesinos or a peasant of pelado origin...

" joined the troupe. Shilinsky coached the comedian, then eighteen years of age, and helped him refine his style. Together, the two turned the Carpa Valentina into the hottest ticket in town.

Moreno began courting Valentina Ivanova, the daughter for which the troupe was named, but her father never approved of the relationship and refused to increase the comic's salary despite his success. Fed up with the abuse, Moreno left the troupe, bringing his writer with him.