[The theater of Carlos Atanes is] «A whole creative universe [...] Nihilism, exasperation and acid and sometimes desperate humor. A tender despair, from which emanates a spirit of revolt, located in apocalyptic territories, which are sometimes material (a desolate and oppressive landscape, an abandoned factory, a world in ruins...), and sometimes moral and psychological spaces . All this, together with the verbal richness with which it is expressed, is deeply attractive and tempting.»​ (Joaquin Hinojosa)

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Carlos Atanes' career as a playwright starts in Madrid in 2011 with the premiere of La cobra en la cesta de mimbre in the Sala AZarte. Almost simultaneously, Juan José Afonso directs El hombre de la pistola de nata at the Arenal Theater (a play that is also later performed in Teatro Cervantes in Alcalá de Henares and in Auditori de Torrent, Valencia).

In 2013 his comedy Secretitos is represented in the Sala Mirador and, later, again in AZarte; and his other comedy El triunfo de la mediocridad, starring José Troncoso and Eva García Vacas premieres in the Sala Triángulo. In 2014, 2015 and 2016 the director Marta Timón and the actor Joaquín Hinojosa put on stage their experimental monologue La quinta estación del puto Vivaldi in different theaters, such as El Umbral de Primavera or Teatro OFF de La Latina. La Pensión de las Pulgas welcomes with excellent response from audience and critics Un genio olvidado (Un rato en la vida de Charles Howard Hinton) in 2015.

In 2018, after a three-year hiatus, Atanes returns to the stage with the drama La línea del horizonte, directed by Joaquín Hinojosa at the Luchana Theaters, and the writing of the texts for choreographer Amaya Galeote's dance-theater show La incapacidad de exprimirte, Juan José Villanueva directing actors, released on Nave 73.

In October 2019 the company Platónica Teatro, under Juan José Afonso's direction premiered Antimateria in Tenerife (now on the billboard). And a year later, in October 2020, Casa Cino Fabiani does the same in Guayaquil, Ecuador.

Since 2018, Atanes plays are available to companies and producers through L&L Agency.

He has also written almost twenty pieces of microtheater that have been represented in Madrid, Seville, Barcelona, ​​Malaga, Valencia, Miami (USA), Buenos Aires (Argentina), Mexico City, Leganés, Gijón, Sabadell, Ibiza , Reus, Córdoba (Argentina), Benidorm and Segovia: ¿Hasta cuándo estáis? (2019); A Praga y vámonos (2019); Chéjov bajo cero (2018); Sexo y tortilla (2017); Pasión mostrenca (2017); La abuela de Frankenstein (2016); Love is in the box (2016); Caminando por el valle inquietante (2015); Santos varones (2015); Porno emocional (2015); El grifo de 5.000.000 de euros (2014); El vello público (2014); Necrofilia fina (2013); Romance bizarro (2013); La lluvia (2012); La depredadora (2012).