 My name is Shelta Rodriguez, I'm the programming director. And I'll make a very brief, I'm just very privileged to work with this great ensemble. And we really are like a family here. I feel like I've been adopted so much so that an artist who works here on a different show, I love your parents. I do feel like a family and we welcome you to the LATC family as well. So I just want to present them to you. And we are going to hear about their 30-year history together as an ensemble that was born here in this dirty space. So without further ado, please welcome the Latino here. And there is some cards and papers that you want to put names of people into the altar. You're welcome. And we can archive that also as part of the archive also, please. And please, after we finish here at 6.30, is it 6.30? Right away, please join us in the lobby for a glass of champagne and a toast. Okay? So we have one hour to talk about 30 years. Just to kind of contextualize why we're here and why it isn't Guentro. This session is specifically to launch our digital archive. We've been together for 28 years, 29. And we've been so busy working that we haven't documented our work. We haven't documented our photographs. We haven't documented our scripts. We haven't done anything. So I applied for a TCG fellowship grant. And I was granted this fellowship, so Fox Fellowship, TCG Fox Fellowship. I was granted this fellowship to collect all of the photographs, all the reviews and stuff. So that's what this session is all about. During this past month and stuff, so many times I've heard people say, Jose Luis and Evelina, Jose Luis and Evelina. And every time I hear Jose Luis and Evelina, I feel badly because it's not just Jose Luis and Evelina. It's Jose Luis and Evelina and Jeff and Lucy and Sal. An artistic family that's been together longer than most marriages. We are a family and we love each other very much. We're just so honest that you're here. So let's start with introductions. So the way we're going to kind of do this so we can kind of stay on point is I'm going to kind of interview them or ask questions. So, Jeff. Evelina. Why don't you introduce yourself, say where you're from and how long you've been with the company. Well, first off, welcome to the weather 2014 veners and newer guests. My name is Jeff Rivas. I'm a native Californian. And I just want to acknowledge who this fellow did because his whole concept of the circle is pretty much this whole experience for me. I'm from Northern California. I went to a junior college up there. And in 1978, I graduated from high school, went to a junior college. And a counselor put me in touch with this play called Zootsuit. I couldn't get a hold of Zootsuit. But I talked to this gentleman named Tony Cooley Allen. It's all right, you called me Jeff Rodriguez. I'm sorry. And I got in touch with this gentleman named Tony Cooley Allen who was the assistant director of Zootsuit. And I took him on a lot. Went to UCLA. I got into UCLA. I graduated twice. In 1983, with my master's, 85, with my BA, 85 with my master's. In 1985, this building opened. They were doing a play called Badges. I came in, auditioned. And I was the editor studying for Robert Lebrun and got to work with Luis Valdez. I worked with you two years prior to it up in San Juan. But everything has kind of come full circle for me in terms of this experience. And so I just wanted to share that with you. That's where I am today. Lucy? Hi, my name is Lucy Rodriguez. I'm originally from San Antonio, Texas. And I've been here 31 years. I graduated from a small Catholic institution in San Antonio, St. Mary's University. And I majored in English and I'm double-minded in Spanish and theater. And growing up, I mean, I like acting. I like theater. But I always thought as an application, I really didn't see it as a vocation. But I managed to do a few plays in San Antonio at that time. When I got married and you got here, and my husband said, we're on your one. So slowly I started making my way. And the very first play I auditioned for was this blood wedding at BFA. And I met a guy from San Antonio, Texas in the cast. And he introduced me to Jose Luis and Evelina. And then the rest is history because I went and I auditioned for them. And I've been affiliated with them in some way since then. Lucy always says, we walked into this building in 1985 and we never left. Sal Lopez, I was born just south of the border. I grew up in California. I raised here all my life. I went to matriculate over at the Los Angeles City College back in 19, whatever it was. And my dream was to be an actor. I talked to my dad and everything. And I was like, what was your dream dad? What was your dream? I said, well, I'm going to follow my dreams. So anyway, so I go and I get there. And I didn't do it. I got cold feet. I was like, I didn't think it was something that was possible. I'm going to cry. So then just by chance, I ended up in the college manager. I ended up getting to Mexican dance for Prodigo. And I said, oh man, I feel this in my bone. This is my genetic memory. So I really got into that. And then I got into a dance company. So I did get on stage. I did some professional stuff with a company that a beautiful girl who's not my wife said, they're having these auditions for this thing called Zoom students. Some of the dancers are going to go because we want the experience of auditioning. And I said, I want to go for the experience too. And I go and the dance scene was no sweat because at that time I was pretty fresh out there, whatever. And then they gave me something to read. And I go in. That's the first time I saw it, please. And I go, you don't remember this, but maybe you do. Anyway, it's up to the table. And I go and they give me this mawa to read. And I read the whole thing like this. The whole thing like this. But I knew what this was. And I felt that I had heard it. It was something that resonated with me. And then I looked up and I started Latin. We started Latin. Then he goes, you're a learn. So that was it. I left. And two weeks later, I mean, I forgot all about it. I was going to go back to school, get a job, and do all that. And then I got a call. Anyway, but to bring that around is so then later on, I was doing this play. Yes. So then later on, I did this play with Lisa's play, Corridos. And I was at the Sao Juan Bautista. And oh, that's how we met here. Belina, we met during Zoom Zoom. Anyway, so several months or years later, wherever we were up in Sao Juan Bautista, I cut the short. It's okay. It's okay. It's okay. So Belina is going to see the show. And she brought this guy, you know. You know, I thought, you know, you know how you, you know, you marry down, marry out or whatever. And Trini was in Trigasila. This is in a little theater called the Haudenosaunee Theater in Estela. Yes. And where did you come in with, Lisa? And what? Storefront. Absolutely. Anyway, it was just powerful. This play was like really moving. Man, I want to work with this guy. And it's him. But so anyway, just a little bit. So as it turned out, I joined this other acting group. They were starting this acting group with a bunch of Latinos and everything. And they kicked me out. I was the only one that was kicked out of that group. We're not going to tell you who it is, but they know of him. But anyway. He saw me, I think. And I said, please. He said, you know, he recruited me to the group. Was a TA, a teacher's assistant at a junior high school. A lot of us were TAing there at the time. Los Lobos. All of them were TAs. I was a TA. We were all, you know, that was like our part-time job. And then a friend of mine, native of Garcia said, hey, there's auditions for this play, you know, by Luis Maldes. And I'm like, who's Luis Maldes? I was just totally not, you know, part of the Giorno theater scene at that point. So she basically dragged me to that audition. You know, isn't it amazing how things happen in your life? She basically, the reason I went was because she was bugging me so much. I was like, okay, let's go. And so I walked into this room at the taper. There was Luis and Danny. I was like shaking like this, but it was a very emotional scene. And I guess what Luis saw in me was authenticity. Because I didn't have any training or anything. I mean, I was like, you know, straight up for the, well, I was doing Chicano theater then. I just didn't know Luis, who Luis Maldes was. And so a few weeks later, you know, I'm the female lead at the Martín de Fora. And that's where I meet Sal and a lot of other friends, those young women who can pass this gun, who was also quite a part of our company the past away a few years ago. So Luis and I met. I moved to Santa Barbara for four years. We came back. We met at a Denaz conference. Oh yes, we met at a Denaz conference. And he's lost that to his college where I met my other mentor, Poeta Huerta. I'm so honored that both of you were here. Luis and Poeta. And what's interesting when I asked you, you met him first, right? And I told her story. She had to come in part of the company. How did she get into the company? She's not so good in everything. And then, you know, I thought she was, she better talk and I'm not into servicing wives or women at the time. I was like, I don't like, she's not smart. I'm like, she stood up. And that conference, she spoke. And I went, wow, she's really smart. So I went to her and I said, let's go to lunch. And she said, oh, can I? Yes, wait a minute. And then we sit down and I say, I think we should live together. The same day. Same day. And of course she said. And then we left the conference. He was following me around all weekend. She went and said that to you because... And she goes, oh yeah. I've heard he's really sexy. By January of, I had a son, by January. And then, you know, our life together started that way. And then we came to Los Angeles. We did, we did the play at the Fort Hennigan. And then... The people who were building this theater went to see the play at the Fort Hennigan. It was the only time why. And they came to me and goes, you know, we're building a theater. Then you come and talk to us. And I came and we had lunch. And they showed me the same thing. They were building. They were going to do your play. It was the whole thing. And they said, you know, we really like you. But it was, I just went to a room, you know, a room to exercise with doctors. Because that's all I got in my life. Since I was 19. And I had never got a great job. She forced me to come to LA. She had a company called Teatro de Esperanza. They said, let's give you a room just to get some workers together to work, exercise. And they said, how many hours? Two hours, you know, four hours. Two times a week. And they said, yes. They kicked me out of the reversal room. But you know, I was wearing a hat. And I said, don't you have a job? And they were like, no. We don't have any money. And I said, well, this is the only job I had as an accountant. And the accountant department. And I said, I'm a great accountant. I'm a great accountant. So they hired me as an accountant. They hired me as an accountant. In the first part of the accounting department. And I, you know, I was 19. I went to the auditions when you were auditioning because I was trying to move out of the accounting. You know, just to be there, you know. And I tried to do reading. You had Tanla Bamba. And I had seen the kiss of the Spanish woman. Spanish. And I loved the play. And I brought it. And I got the diamond fillet at the time. And the final time was to do a reading. And you know, in the drama, to hate at the play at the time. We thought we ought to know not to come and see it because it was a really bad place. You know, so there you have it. Anyway, so I kept doing readings. And then we did a reading of La Victima. And he said, you know, I think we should do this play. So he gave me an opportunity to direct the play on this stage. And so we opened February 9, 1987. And it was a huge hit. La Victima. La Victima. She does not use it. You know, it was a great success. You know, it was interesting because the producer at the time, you know, oh, we don't want to, I don't want to have my name in that play. It's just a chicken play. So when the play fit, you know, at the time, it was great. You will do the play. And at 12 o'clock, the review will be here. By the time you finish the play, the review will be out. And we got a great review from Page of the Alley Times. So it was a fantastic time. And then they say, well, get out of the counting, bring us play. And we started just producing. I directed. We did the promise. Like Jose Rivera was his first play that he had to end in a magical release. Diane, Diane is here now. She was in it. Diane was in it. And then I read this. She got one of her play by Manchester, which is called Roosters. And we produced Roosters right away. And the way this happened, somebody went to the Cardina group in San Antonio. You know, and I don't remember what year that was, but I went as an observer because I was not a part of the group. And I met this incredible lady. Her name was Ruth Maylis. Ruth Maylis. Amazing. And, you know, hey, that's the way I've been all the time. I met her and I tried to be her friend. And then I told her where I was going and she goes, what do you mean? You know, to do your dream. I said, I need $200,000, you know, to make my love, to produce plays. And she said, I'm going to give you two. And she gave me $200,000. And that's how we created the love. And that's how we started producing with the love during that time, which was really, really important. And so we created the love, and we made it in the name of the regional members, where Evelina and Rique Castillo, some of us, and I can say, I had a phone call when I said, we're going to make the company. And I said, I want you to be part of the company. The director of the other company called me. And I said, why would you like a music dancer? In the lab, Angela Moria, Trinidad Silva, and L'Opio Teneres. Trinidad Silva passed away in 1988 in L'Opio Teneres. She didn't understand. Anyway, so we did all the space administration, group stairs, and then we commissioned, we commissioned a bunch of writers. In that time, we were not that many play stars. We weren't that many writers writing plays. So we needed to commission people to write plays for the company. Commissioned with Moraga. We commissioned heroes and saints. Jimmy Santiago Baca, Eduardo Machado. I still want to play music. We commissioned him, Culture Touch. We commissioned you, for example, to do Bolo Beans. And we commissioned Mircha, such as Scott. And Mircha, we brought her into the company to write for the actors. And she created Stone Wedding, which we produced in 1989. And it was difficult because, you know, she's a, I love her writing. She's fantastic. But, you know, she was not used to work with an ensemble. So we did this play, and it was an interesting experiment, but it didn't work. And the idea was, how can we create an ensemble inside of a lord theater? It used to be a lord theater when we were here. So we decided, well, the play was fine. It was great. It was a disaster because we didn't have the sliders. You know, there were Latinos. So we went and decided, let's do a play that way. We had to do it in the theater room. But that's how we did the collective creation. And we started doing research to find out how to arrive to the mix. Now they call it device work, but it used to be collective creation. You know, we did the research, and we began doing the Chicano moratorium, the Chicano movement. We were interested in understanding it much more. They didn't say where. I'm from Mexico. I'm from a little town in Los Moches, Inanova. So we started researching, we wanted to get into what happened to Ruben Salazar, who was killed at the moratorium. He was an LA Times journalist. A very prominent LA Times journalist. Who really wrote about the situation with the Chicanos. So we interviewed people, I mean, we interviewed Estepo, who was the guy who was with him. We interviewed one of the, I got a hold of one of the policemen who was actually at the scene. We did a lot of research and interviewed his wife, Sally Salazar. And so the play was, a lot of us who were in the company, you know, under the guidance of Jose Luis, we'd write, you know, we'd write different things that were pertinent. And then toward the end of that process, eventually we needed, the voice needed to be narrowed. The story. And so the final product was really written by Medina and Enrique Castillo, which became August 29th. But we still kept an alias. So we used letters from all of our names and we created this author, whose name was Violeta Calles. And anyway, so, and one of those, one of the interesting things about that play in one of the reviews, I played the character Veni for Benedict Arnold, because he's one of the infiltrators. And the, the Times reviewers said that it was, that it was just not plausible, that that just couldn't be, et cetera. And then Rudi Apecunha, actually, we heard that you wrote this rebuttal, that was incredible, and eventually published it after the LA Times. So, a lot of stories, but during that 1990, we did that, that was very successful, which kind of, you know, we had brought this new idea into inside the institution, but, you know, they were suffering through economic crisis and the theater. And in 1991, in October, the company, the largest theater company, declared bankruptcy, because the city, the city took the money out of, reality, the city. They used to get, give them $750,000 a year for the maintenance and the operation. And so they took the money out and, and, we always know that everyone said, we can't do it without the help of the city. So, they, they took their boxes out, the trailer came to the LA, everything, and the police came and locked the doors. And we as a company say, we're not leaving. We want to stay in here. So we slept inside the theater for 11 days. And we say, no way. So we had press conference and, you know, they finally decided after 11 days we were not going anywhere. They decided, okay, we are going to give them the money and then they say, you want us to, you want to be hired because you know, I don't, because Gordon Davis had come and asked us to move the company to the, the theater, the market for. And we said, yeah. And during the time we were personally, we borrowed the, the screen for, from Luis, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, we created it again, and went out and raised five million dollars for a very ambitious initiative, a very ambitious initiative which is called the Latino Teeth Initiative and the deal was we were going to have one main space slot and the, every day, every year. Last 10, permissions. And my the 50, which was at the end of the initiative, we were going to do the entire season of the taper with that. OK, Okay, that was initially, initially, but you know, we were able, we were able, we were there from 1991 at the end, to 1995, but we were able to produce death in the making, we were able to produce carpac de las with the culture class, we were able to produce a pandido from Luis Valdez, and we were able to produce a Florian island. So we did, in history, understanding that since Tsutsu, that they had not produced a Latino plane until this movement happened. So, because of, you know, it's difficult to be a company inside of an institution. We moved out, we decided let's go back to our roots, then let's go back and we moved to Plaza de la Raza, you know, which is a community center in Estalete that had its own little theater. So that, at that point, that is when the Latino theater company was created. That's the point when we became independent. We were called the Latino Theater Lab. Now we call ourselves the Latino Theater Company. We became a non-profit organization. We created our own season of Plaza de la Raza with La Viglima and August 29th for the 20th anniversary of the Chicano war time. That was the first time we also started to produce our own. I co-produced that particular play. So we started producing our own stuff and that was kind of like the first time that we worked outside of an institution. It was at that time that when we were at the CTG that there was a contest at Plaza de la Raza and Sam Lopez dared me to write a play. And that's when I wrote How Also Am I Supposed to Know Still in Life. So that was the first time that I started writing The Members of the Company. I wrote that play for Lupio Giveros and Uncle Amoya. And then it was one act, so I had to write another one act, which is the first incarnation of premeditation and that sal and... So, yeah, go ahead. No, no, no. And then... Oh, yeah. So anyway, How else won this film competition? It was a universal Hispanic film project. And so, you know, I just changed it and submitted it and it won, it won. So that was the first time that we adapted one of our plays into film, which is something that we've done several times since. And so, I mean, we haven't mentioned that we're all theater actors, but we're also all... We work in film, we work in television also. And the combination of this had really worked for us, right? And so, How else was the first time that we did an independent movie? And after that, we made others. I mean, I don't know... Well, because you got... I think it was a very... You got us into the studios. You got us into the studios. People wanted to talk to us about doing a film and got us into interviews and they wanted to talk to Elena and she pitched... We were working and she pitched a film called Luminaria. And it was about four Latin professional women, but at the same time, Sony Pictures was doing... We're ready to excel. We're ready to excel. And they said we can do a... They couldn't do both. So, we needed a play for that season. I said, look, why don't you just adapt the screenplay to the play. And so, I produced that play here. This is the movie. But anyway, so we produced that play here and then we decided to make it into a movie. And we raised money by just asking our friends and family because we didn't know any better and we started just, you know, raising the money really grassroots, grassroots. I mean, my dentist, you know, I don't want it to be a part of it. And then we started shooting before we had all the money, which is really insane. But we did. We started because we had the location that one of the people who was a fan of ours said you could shoot here at our house and we said, okay. So we used that there. That was one of the main locations. And then from the footage that we had, we started showing it to different people who might be interested in investing, which, I mean, it was anywhere from $500 to $20,000, whatever people wanted to invest. Anyway, we finished the film. We asked Cheech and he was gracious enough to do the movie. Scott Bakke and Robert Downey. We went to go talk to Scott Bakke because we were looking for somebody to play the role of the angle. We had to go like that angle guy. And anyway, we got this meeting over at whatever he was at the time at the Raleigh studio. And we go over there and I'm in there. And when we give him the pitch, you know, he had read the script and he says, what? I mean, he's going to do it. And I'm walking out. It was basically I'm walking out. I'm going, what? We got Scott Bakke. We got Scott Bakke. And I go, what are those rocks? Anyway, so we were unfortunately took it to different film festivals. It was very successful. We had best actress in Spain film festival and many media awards that we got all over. And that was kind of our first money distribution. It opened in Los Angeles in 40 years and 2000. So it's pretty remarkable for it, in the sense that Netflix and all that, you can... And we took it to all kinds of festivals, so... If you want to buy it... If you want to buy it, ask them. Ask them. Actually, we're invited to a film festival in Cuba, and it's a whole other movie. And then, so we've made other movies. We've dementia re-adapted into film also. It's important to think about dementia is that all one of our best friends had died of AIDS in 1995, because it's our cello. And we wanted to talk... It was a very complicated issue bringing him to his house. He was afraid we brought him to his mother, and it was very complicated. And when he died, you know, we thought, you know, we have to create a tribute to Jose, and also this idea that there are people, Latinos with AIDS, and your own family. And so, okay, so we kind of got out of order. So we were... No, that's the movie. What are those? So we left Plaza de la Raza to come back here to do Luminadas. And when we came back to do Luminadas, the play, we just said, we're back home. So the second play that we did here was dementia, the play. And it's the first time that as a playwright, Evelina wrote for the company, and we workshopped it for about a year and a half. We really, really delved into the ideas of AIDS, the gay community, how the effects on the family and outer family and friends. And the first time that we incorporated live music, it was our very first production. We had a big trio underneath our stereo. We had a piano player, a guitar player, and a horn player. So that was our first introduction of creating and adding live musicians to one of our main stage plays. It was originally commissioned by the Electrical Theater Initiative and CTG. And it also garnered the GLAAD, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation Media Award for best theater production that year. And it solidified us as an ensemble and an arts organization. That last night of dementia in the audience was Montezuma Esparza and Casalo Nerarocha, who are now on our board. And they stood up and were so moved by the play. Casalo committed $10,000 to seeing the further development of this play or getting the play to be seen by the community that, because he's in the health organization, to be seen by the community that needs to see that play. And the idea of the board development came out of that night. And Montezuma was working out of the play. And this building was in terrible conditions. That's right. And Montezuma said, because, you know, we sold out that play every night in the 500th theater for six weeks, you know. And we were coming out and he goes, he said, wait, why don't you guys take over the theater? I don't know. And we said, we can do it if you help us. But Lucy goes, you know, it's that work that we are. Yeah. So that's the idea that we're working on dementia. This is the summer. And we noticed that there's a new building that's gone a few blocks away from here and it's the cathedral. And so, at least I took a really short little tour over there. And he goes, this is where we should do the meeting. And I said, oh, and so he just looked at me like, you know, go work on that. And so I contacted the powers that be at the cathedral. I mean, we didn't know anybody. And so we set up the meeting and we went over there and we made a pitch. And they were very polite and very uninterested. And they just, they were just so focused on the opening of the cathedral in September and they were planning this three hour pass and they had a VIP. So then just they, so we said, okay, well, we tried, we continued our work on dementia. The closing night of dementia, we get a call from the cathedral. And they say, so do you still have that little play? Do you want to still do that little play? And we're like, oh, and they gave us the date and it was three weeks away. And that was a little daunting. And I said, then, Lavidian is a pretty massive production, especially like he envisions it. And so he said, no, we have to do this. We have to accept the invitation because if we don't, they'll figure out something else to do for December 12th at the cathedral. And then that's what they'll do. And next year when we try, they'll say thanks, but no thanks. We know what we're going to do. So he says, we have to get our foot in the door. We have to do it. So we scrambled. I mean, we did have a little bit of a track record with Lavidian. We had done it before. So we called up everybody we needed to help us. Never mind the nine professional actors we needed. The nine leads we needed. We needed Aztec dancers. We needed musicians. We needed children. We needed people to be in the port. We needed people to be in the port. The venue, the cathedral for as beautiful as it is had a horrible sound system. So we had to go in there and address all the technical issues with it. And we did it. We did it. It was a very bumpy ride. The only mind that did not go out that night was Sal's. So he was like, it was great. It was great. But it was pretty, it was weird. But the audience was real appreciative. And the cathedral to our surprise called us back and said, okay, well let's talk about next year's production. And we were real surprised because, I mean, we had infiltrated that place for a few weeks. We had 80 to 100 people, you know, down in the cathedral at eight o'clock at night. We've had dresses and musicians and children. That goes on the altar. You know, I think the security was like, oh. But it worked. And this year, right after we finished in Cointreau, we go into our 11th production. It's weird because why do we do this show? This show is a big departure from our other productions. We only do original work. This is not an original work. This is the, you know, the story of the four apparitions. Abelina adapted the script from the Nicanupua, which is the indigenous account of what happened in 1531. And then we do all our plays in English. This is our only Spanish language production. Our home is the LATC. This is where we do our plays. This is the only production we do outside. We only do equity productions. We hire equity actors. This is the only production we do that includes a large, a large group of people that are community people. We watch our budget very closely. We know that theater is not a huge money-making venture, but we do try to stay in the black. We do charge admission. We have a budget that we need from the get-go that we were not going to charge admission from this. So why do this? And the five of us have Mexican roots. I mean, Salin and Jose Luis born in Mexico, the rest of us Mexican-American in different parts of the country. Our experiences are very different. Being raised here, but we were all familiar with the story of Levy de la Guadalupe. And regardless of our religious affiliations now or lack of religious affiliations, we can get behind this story because it's a very political story. It addresses racism. It addresses prejudice. But it also uplifts with a message of love and forgiveness and perseverance and redemption. And we can definitely get behind that. And what we wanted to do was that we wanted to be able to offer something to our community during the holiday season. And when I say our community, in this instance, I mean people that we're not going to buy a ticket to the Nutcracker, we're not going to buy a ticket to Christmas Carol, we're not going to buy a ticket to the Grinch or whatever else. But we wanted to offer them something during the holiday season that would uplift and that would celebrate our rich culture. So that's why we do it. It has its special challenges, especially if you're funding this production. A lot of corporations do not want to fund religious shows, but we manage to do it. We do it. We contract artists. They do receive a stipend, a stipend. So a lot of people donate their time, money, energy, talent to this. And I think the biggest success we've had is that we've created a new tradition here in Los Angeles in the holiday season. People, people love this show. The show starts at 7.30 and people are there at 4. Putting their sweaters, their coats up, their scenes, coming on here. You know, it's a big deal. And it's very gratifying that our families have grown up with this tradition and our extended weekend family and kids have aged out of this show. I think the best example is Esperanza. We did it at the million dollar. She was five years old or whatever and she had the opening line of the play saying, you give me los hombres barbados! And now she has played love with him. She's slugging people. So I don't know if this tradition will continue after the five of us sit down but, you know, through everything there's a season and we gave it our all and we love it. We won't continue. I think what we should do is probably scroll the images of our productions. We did, after Dimension, we did Solitude, which is another devised work. And then after... Oh, we did Malacalia, which was about the Iraq War. And then we did Solitude, which is another talk from the writings of Octavio Boss and Labyrinth of Solitude. We took Solitude on tour for the first time and went to Lepa. We took Malacalia to the Edinburgh Festival in Europe. We wrote the trilogy because we wanted with all the immigration laws and hate speech, we wanted to show the trajectory of a family, a Mexican-American family that began with the Mexican Revolution and ends with the war in Iraq. And then the last thing we did was premeditation, and hopefully those of you who are here will be able to see that show which is part of the San Coentro. The Mexican trilogy, just to say, you know, it's another ambitious project because, like, it's the story of a lady that we meet in the Mexican Revolution when she's 18 and she dies when she's 100. So we tracked her story in three plays. We did it separately, but in 2016 we were going to be able to come and see the three plays together. Everything means it's going to be a six-hour show and it's going to be very, very exciting. And the important thing is we tried to try the contributions of Mexican and Mexican-Americans or Chicanos to American culture and what has happened in the last 100 years. So those are the really fast pictures. And to bring everything closer, we just want to say that we were given an opportunity by Bill Bushnell and Diane White in 1985. They put us on the main stage in this building. And we've always been able to do main stage productions because we believe that that's what we belong on the main stage. We were given an opportunity and we believe that we should give opportunity because we were given an opportunity. And that kind of brings the school circle to this in Cuenzo why we're here, why we get so important for the younger generation to know the history, take that history, make it your own and take over the American theater. That's what this whole thing is about. I'm just going to say that the way that this company became about and started as a lab and then they became the larger lab and we were the little lab and we became the bulldozers that did the work for the larger lab. And then that became the name of our production company. Bulldozer Squad Productions when we started doing films and then we created yet another lab which then created Melancholy which is what I'm saying. So the circle keeps coming around and around and around this company. We want to keep that circle going and include you guys in that. A quick shout out to you know you see Melissa Luisa and Melina and they're a power couple. They're really blessed to have each other. Sal, Jeff and I also have wonderful spouses that are part of this company. I'm married to Irvine, many of you know her an artist in her own right and our choreographer. And I'm married to a wonderful guy named Albert Elfaro who is truly truly supportive of all the work we do. Last time when Lupin was up there talking I said you know we cannot do what we do without the love and support of our significant others.