Monday's Internet Edition, September 06, 2010.
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The Play
Calabasas Street follows a young boy named Domingo Sanchez who learns the true meaning of friendship when his baseball accidentally drops into the yard of La Viuda Martinez. The play takes place in California during the 1980s. All the children of the neighborhood are afraid of her. They think she’s crazy because she searches through people’s garbage and hauls it back to her house. What does she do with it? The mystery is too much for Domingo. He soon discovers La Viuda Martinez is a widow and she isn’t crazy. She collects junk and transforms it into art. This chance encounter becomes a lifelong friendship between Domingo and La Viuda Martinez, sharing fun, stories and making Mexican pinatas.
Actors and Stage Crew Members
Kory Arispe—Lights and sound
Emma Barnebey—announcer and stage crew
Lorri Ann Drazan—Viernes—Domingo’s younger sister—7-years-old
Judy Lynn Drazan—Miercoles—Domingo’s older sister, 11-years-old
Dallas Ann Drazan—La Viuda Martinez—a widow and supposed bruja (a witch)
Rikka Gallegos—stage manager
Andrew Gutierrez—stage crew
Haleigh Parks—stage crew
Eric Perez—Kiko, bus driver
Terrence Pullin—Lights and sound
Rosario Romo—Diciembre—the mother
Manuel Zapata—Domingo Sanchez—son (appears as an 8-year-old and a 21-year-old)
The Playwright
José Cruz González’s plays include The Blue House, Sunsets and Margaritas, The Heart’s Desire, Tomás and the Library Lady, The Cloud Gatherer, Earth Songs, Waking Up in Lost Hills, September Shoes and Harvest Moon. A collection of his plays, Nine Plays by José Cruz González: Magical Realism & Mature Themes in Theatre for Young Audiences will be published in the fall of 2008 by the University of Texas Press. During 2008, Tomás and the Library Lady is on a national tour. González has written for PAZ, the Emmy Award-nominated television series produced by Discovery Kids for The Learning Channel. He was a recipient of a 2004 TCG/Pew National Theatre Residency Grant. In 1997, he was awarded an NEA/TCG Theatre Residency Program for Playwrights and in 1985 was an NEA Director Fellow. González teaches theatre at California State University Los Angeles and is a member of The Dramatists Guild of America, TYA/USA and an associate artist with Cornerstone Theater Company (California) and playwright-in-residence with Childsplay (Arizona).