Los Olivos Pits


			El Teatro Campesino and Luis Valdez have invited San Francisco Mime Troupe founder, R.G. Davis, to return to San Juan Bautista to direct the Commedia dell’arte play ‘Los Olivos Pits’ adapted from the classic paseo by Spanish playwright Lope de Rueda. The last time Davis worked with ETC in San Juan was 1972. Davis founded the SFMT in 1965 after opening the R.G. Davis Mime Troupe and Studio in 1959. It was in 1964–65 that Valdez met and worked under the direction of Davis. Valdez has cited Davis as one of the mentors who gave him the inspiration to form his own theater company—the world-renown El Teatro Campesino. The 2010 production of “Los Olivos Pits,” benefits from both the SFMT’s long run from 1966–69 and a bilingual performance of the UFW in 1967. In addition two Teatro actors who worked with Davis in 1972—Rosa Apodaca and Eduardo Robledo Jr.—will be returning to work with Davis at El Teatro again in 2010. To round out the 2010 season opener performance bill, El Teatro Campesino will also perform Luis Valdez’s ‘Los Vendidos,’ to be directed by Kinan Valdez. "Los Vendidos’ (Spanish for “The Sold Ones”) is a one-act play by the Chicano playwright and founding artistic director of El Teatro Campesino. Luis Valdez wrote ‘Los Vendidos’ in 1967 and it was first performed at the Brown Beret junta in Elysian Park, East Los Angeles. The play examines Latino stereotypes in California and how local, state, and federal governments manipulate people. This will be the first time that ‘Los Vendidos’ will be performed at the San Juan Bautista Playhouse. The play is set in Honest Sancho’s Used Mexican Lot and Mexican Curio Shop, a fictional Californian store that sells various “models” of stereotypical Mexicans and Mexican-Americans that buyers can manipulate by simply snapping their fingers and calling out commands. But—buyer beware…
	AT THE PLAYHOUSE FEBRUARY 13 - 28