BLACK WORDS ON WHITE PAGES SERIES: CLOVER & CACTUS

WATTS VILLAGE THEATER COMPANY

(Los Angeles, CA Watts) Watts Village Theater Company (WVTC) presents workshop readings of Clover & Cactus by Beto O’Byrne.Clover and Cactus marks the newest addition to the company’s Black Words on White Pages series--created by Artistic Director Guillermo Aviles-Rodriguez to showcase the work of emerging playwrights of color in Los Angeles. Created as a play with music, Clover & Cactus is in keeping with WVTC’s tradition of dramatically exploring and interpreting historical events that explain metaphorical themes connecting present-day Watts and Los Angeles. Clover & Cactus takes into account the plight of everyday people and is an examination of faith, culture and identity transcending race. Playwrights Jorge Huerta and Carlos Morton serve as Black Words on White Pages mentors, providing dramaturgical feedback.

Clover & Cactus, set the night before the final battle of the Mexican-American war, sharply explores the historical issues that helped draw a group of strangers from opposite sides of the world together, discovering common bonds, and the worth found therein. In the late 1840’s approximately 200 United States soldiers defected from the American army to fight for Mexico in the Mexican American War. These mostly Irish soldiers came to be known as Los San Patricios (the St. Patrick’s Battalion).

Directed by: Guillermo Aviles Rodriguez

Saturday, December 4^th, 8:00PM & Sunday, December 5^th, 1:00PM

Saturday, December 11^th, 8:00PM

Watts Village Theater Company is a multicultural urban theater company that seeks to inspire positive social change through innovative theatrical work. WVTC produces and develops new plays by Los Angeles-based artists that address sociopolitical issues pertinent to Watts and the greater Los Angeles area, and promotes literacy and self-empowerment amongst the youth of Watts through internships, volunteer opportunities and education in the performing arts.

WVTC is supported by the California Arts Council, National Arts and Disability Center at the University of California Los Angeles and with technical assistance by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Beto O’Byrne is a theater artist from the pine forests of northern East Texas. He holds a BA in Writing fromUniversity in Natchitoches, Louisiana and an MFA in Dramatic Writing from the University of Southern California. Among his many and varied experiences in the theater profession, he is most proud of his work as Artistic Director of Austin Latino Theater Alliance, where he created the ALTA Performing Arts Showcase and directed La Pastorela. As a playwright, his plays have been performed in San Antonio and Austin, TX as well as Los Angeles, CA. He was a runner up for the National Latino Playwriting Award (Into the Pines, ’06), and a participant in the TexasBlack and Latino Playwriting Festival. He currently lives in New York City with his partner, dramaturg and producer Meropi Peponides, where he plans to continue pursuing his craft. Northwestern State

three anthologies of plays and written the landmark books: Chicano Theatre: Themes and Forms (Bilingual Press, 1982) and Chicano Drama: Performance, Society, and Myth (Cambridge 2000). Dr. Huerta has also directed in theatres across the country, including the San Diego Repertory, Seattle’s' Group Theatre, Washington D.C.’s Gala Hispanic Theatre, La Compañía de Teatro de Albuquerque and New York's Puerto Rican Traveling Theatre. Huerta has lectured and conducted workshops in Chicana/o theatre throughout the U.S. Latin America and Western Europe. In 2007 Huerta was honored by the
Association for Theatre in Higher Education for “Lifetime Achievement in Educational Theater.”

Carlos Morton has over one hundred theatrical productions, both in the U.S. and abroad. His professional credits include the San Francisco Mime Troupe, the New York Shakespeare Festival, the Denver Center Theatre, La Compania Nacional de Mexico, the Puerto Rican Traveling Theatre, and the Arizona Theatre Company. He has also written for Columbia Pictures Television, Fox Television as well as three radioplays in Spanish for the SRE (Secretaria de Relaciones Exteriores) and the IMER (Instituto Mexicano de la Radio) in Mexico City. Born in Chicago, Illinois, Morton has lived on the border between Mexico and the United States since 1970. He has taught playwriting and courses in dramatic art in various universities in Texas, California and Mexico.

for East LA’s world/punk outfit OLLIN. Scott has always carried a love for theatre. His professional theatre career began in 2003 as cast member/musician/composer for the critically acclaimed play “CHAVEZ RAVINE” by CULTURE CLASH at The Mark Taper forum. The play also had successful runs in San Francisco, Aspen, Chicago -- and universities such as UCLA and USC. Scott has also worked as musical director for CORNERSTONE THEATRE Company’s production of AS YOU LIKE IT, 2006, THE BOSTON COURT Theater’s production of “THE WINCHESTER HOUSE, 2006. SOLDADO RAZO by LUIS VALDEZ at The Los Angeles theatre center, 2007