Three community college theater programs are coming together in Downtown LA Thursday, Jan. 18, to Sunday, Jan. 28, to present a trilogy of interlinked shows that each performed on their campuses in the fall.
Sponsored by the Latino Theater Company, the three-play series features students from East Los Angeles College, Los Angeles Valley College and Los Angeles City College. All three shows will be performed this month at the Los Angeles Theatre Center as part of the Latino Theater Company’s ongoing Impact Initiative.
“A Mexican Trilogy: An American Story” features the individual shows are “Faith,” “Hope” and “Charity.” Each were written by Evelina Fernández.
The Impact Initiative is a 3-year-old program of the Latino Theatre Company, according to Israel Lopez, the company’s education director.
It’s a partnership with the nine colleges in the LA Community College District as well as Pasadena, Glendale and Mount San Antonio College.
“What the Latino Theatre Company has done is partner with these schools to give that demographic an opportunity and valuable resources that can help them on their academic journeys,” Lopez said.
“We try to choose plays that allow students to become engaged with the community and that are topical about things that they are dealing with in their own neighborhoods. ‘The Mexican Trilogy’ by Evelina Fernandez is a perfect example of that.”
The three plays take place in different decades following the lives of the Morales family. “Faith” takes place in a remote mining town in Arizona during World War II, “Hope” is set during the Cuban Missile Crisis in Phoenix, and “Charity” moves to Los Angeles in 2005 just after the death of Pope John Paul II.
The plays explore tradition, religion, labor issues, war and the cultural clash between immigrants and their American-born offspring.
This year’s program was an expansion of past Impact Initiatives in that the partnership was with three schools rather than one. Each college performed one part of the trilogy on its campuses in the fall and then all the cast and crew will move their shows to Downtown Los Angeles for two weekends in January.
“It gets the Latino Theater Company out into the community,” Lopez said. “LA City College, LA Valley College and East LA College were incredibly welcoming, and the students were excited to work with a company in Los Angeles that serves that community. They were excited to do work that they understood and knew because this was their experience. This is their background. They really dove into the material.”
During the original run, each college hosted “cast nights” where the casts from the other two colleges watched the show and participated in a talkback afterward, forming connections across the schools.
Lopez described it as one of the more powerful aspects of the program — that the students, many of whom were working full time while attending school, were getting to engage with other students from all over Los Angeles. They had opportunities, he said, to connect and engage with each other over such things as current events, politics and their personal journeys.
While the family in the plays are of Mexican descent, Lopez stressed that the story is a universal one that any human being can relate to. It follows a Mexican American family in the context of World War II, JFK’s presidency and then the Iraq War.
“This story is about a family who’s attempting to survive, to hold on to who they are, and to participate in the political and social life of the United States,” Lopez said.
“In these three plays, you see a Mexican American family in the context of American history, and that’s not something you typically see. We don’t necessarily think of Mexican Americans when we think of World War II, but that history is there. We see this family during World War II. We see this family during the Vietnam War. Then we see the family during the Iraq War and how their lives here in the U.S. are affected by those events. It’s the same family over a trajectory of 100 years.”
The plays present characters from the time they are very young to when they are adults and have their children. The audience gets to witness character development over three plays.
The plays also incorporate music from each of the eras with the cast singing songs by the Andrews Sisters, Glenn Miller, the Isley Brothers, Elvis and Jimi Hendrix.
Lopez said many of the actors from the current generation weren’t familiar with any of those artists but that it did help them to learn about previous generations and have more empathy for their parents and grandparents.
“It was interesting for the cast, who are predominantly young students, to understand that, whether it was the Andrews Sisters in the ’40s or Jimi Hendrix in the ’60s and ’70s era or the contemporary music of 2005, that there was this notion where they realized that, ‘Hey, I’m young, but my parents were also young at one point, and my grandparents were also young at one point, and they loved music and had dreams and aspirations and things that they wanted to accomplish and obstacles that they faced,’” Lopez said.
He pointed out that it is easy to think of one’s parents and grandparents as complete adults and forget that they were part of a longer story, a thread of history in America. The music, he said, helps cast and audience alike to understand the connections between each generation through their love for music.
Most of the shows will be performed in repertory in three theaters, but on Saturday, Jan. 20, and Sunday, Jan. 21, folks can see all three plays in a row for one admission starting at 2 p.m. with two 15-minute breaks and one 45-minute dinner break. Each show ranges from an hour and 20 minutes to an hour and 45 minutes.
Even though there has been a change in the semester since the shows were originally performed last fall, Lopez said they have retained the original cast and crew for the January performances. They resumed rehearsals for a few weeks before opening, and Lopez said it’s been amazing to watch the evolution of the students’ talent.
“When we did it at the schools, all of the students grew tremendously from wherever they were,” Lopez said.
“When they performed it, from opening night to closing night, they grew even more. Now we’re starting to see them again and it’s really wonderful to see each student grow and mature and get more into their work and just continue to grow. It’s been really rewarding to watch all of the students grow in their own artistry and their own personal selves and to grow as a family and rely on each other and collaborate with each other.”
Lopez said this is a one-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see a truly American story unfold on stage.
“We have a beautiful team of about 60 students, both onstage and offstage, working on this massive trilogy,” Lopez said. “It’s funny. It’s heartbreaking. There’s incredible music in it. It’s beautifully designed, and it’s really worth watching.”
“The Mexican Trilogy: An American Story”
WHEN: Various times Thursday, Jan. 18, to Sunday, Jan. 28
WHERE: The Los Angeles Theatre Center, 514 S. Spring Street, Los Angeles
COST: Pay what you can in $5 increments from $10 to $50
INFO: 213-489-0994, www.latinotheaterco.org