September 12, 2000 revives her acclaimed role in new one-woman show Doña Rosita’s Day of the Dead at UCSB Summary Facts:
One of the finest Chicana actors, Ruby Nelda Perez revives her critically and popularly acclaimed role as the feisty restauranteur of Doña Rosita’s Jalapeño Kitchen, in Doña Rosita’s Day of the Dead, a new one-woman play produced by El Teatro de la Esperanza, on Thursday, October 19 at 8 p.m. in UCSB Campbell Hall. Written by Rodrigo Duarte Clark, directed by Steve Bailey and with scenic and lighting design by Bill Langfield, the new show finds our busy chef working overtime on El Dia de los Muertos to fill orders for her customers to share with their loved ones, both dead and alive. During the play, Rosita introduces us to her customers, like Petra, who stabbed her husband to death, and Lucy, whose exaggerated mourning masks years of infidelity, as they pick up orders to share with their departed spouses. But the real crux of the play is our deepening acquaintance with Rosita herself, and the three generations of her family who are pressuring her, from both sides of the grave, to reconcile with her dying father. (Thirty years earlier, Rosita’s father forced her to marry an abusive man which resulted in her having to flee Mexico, move to the States and open the Jalapeño Kitchen.) Among them are her granddaughter Marisabel, a teenage clairvoyant, and Rosita’s deceased grandmother, Margarita, whose apparations lead Rosita on a magic serape ride through Mictlan, the land of the dead. Ruby Nelda Perez studied theater at Texas A& I University where she was a founding member of Teatro Bilinque. In 1977, she helped found the First Bilingual Theatre of Houston. In 1980, she joined El Teatro de la Esperanza and in 1984 became a member of Los Actores de San Antonio. She began a career as a solo artist in 1985 when she was asked to select and recite Latina literary works at the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center in San Antonio. Perez’ program A Woman’s Work, a collaboration with Latino and Latina writers that also incorporated her autobiographical experiences, earned her widespread critical and popular acclaim with over 400 performances nation-wide. In 1994, she collaborated with Rodrigo Duarte Clark in creating Doña Rosita’s Jalapeño Kitchen, which she performed at UCSB in 1998. Duarte Clark has been a member of El Teatro de la Esperanza since 1973 and is recognized as one of the nation’s premier bilingual playwrights. He has served as principal playwright on many of Esperanza’s collective creations including La Victima and Hijos: Once a Family. His first play, Brujerias, was published in An Anthology of Chicano Theater in 1973 and made into a film the following year. He is also the author of The Octopus, Loteria de Pasiones, Rosario’s Barrio, Basement Refugees and Don’t Leave Me Baby. Inspired by the Chicano Movement of the 1960s, students at UCSB formed El Teatro de la Esperanza under the leadership of faculty member Jorge Huerte in 1970. Committed from the beginning to developing a new theatrical aesthetic that is based on and draws from the culture, history and mythology of Latino experience, El Teatro de la Esperanza continues to be one of the only bilingual Chicano theater companies that tours annually. Esperanza was one of the first five theater companies chosen to initiate the California Arts Council Touring Program in the mid-1970s, and has created over 25 works, including Guadalupe, La Victima and Hijos: Once a Family, which are considered Chicano theater classics. In 1987, Esperanza relocated from Santa Barbara to San Francisco and initiated the Isadora Aguirre Playwriting Lab and annual Festival Latino of New Plays. These programs have fostered the growth of Latino writers and produced works including Josefina Lopez’ Real Women Have Curves, Roy Conboy’s Dancing with the Missing and Guillermo Reyes’ Deporting the Divas. In 1996, Esperanza opened its own performance studio in San Francisco’s Mission District. Presented by UCSB Arts & Lectures, this residency is sponsored by UCSB School-University Partnerships, and is supported in part with funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, a state agency, and the California Arts Council, a state agency. For tickets or more information, Editor: For photos, please call |