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Las Positas College, in collaboration with the college’s Actor Conservatory program, will be debuting a brand new production, “Sueños: Our American Musical”, which follows the story of a young Mexican American composer from San Francisco with dreams of going to Juilliard.
“This is a rare and meaningful opportunity to collaborate with a Hispanic-Serving Institution on an original piece of American theater, written for and by a Mexican artist,” Jesse J. Sanchez, the playwright and composer of the musical, said in a press release. “I’m excited to share this journey and continue developing the story with this incredible community.”
Sanchez is a writer, composer and music director whose work has been nationally recognized and who often explores themes drawn from his own Mexican heritage, according to the press release.
Sueños, which stands for dreams in Spanish, is no different. Set in the late 1990s, the first-of-its-kind musical follows Ali Viramontes, who struggles with his identity and his culture as his father tries to steer him away from his dream.
“I’m thrilled to finally bring Sueños to the Bay Area, specifically to Las Positas College and The Actors Conservatory at LPC, where students will engage with a work in development that centers on a Mexican family set just 70 miles from Las Positas,” Sanchez said in the press release.
Titian Lish, LPC theater coordinator and producer of the show, explained that the Actors Conservatory is a two-year program within the Livermore community college’s theater department that awards students with certificates. She said it’s been great to see the students seeing themselves in the story and being able to take ownership of that work.
“I think the thing that has been the most joyous part of this experience is seeing the students feel honored to be a part of the production, to see their pride in their work,” Lish said. “To give them a place where they can hold space for feeling represented.”
In addition to a powerful score of music that “weaves Mexican and Latiné rhythms into traditional musical theater”, other LPC students and directors working behind the scenes also told the Weekly the story itself delves into many challenges that are pretty common in Latino, Mexican or Hispanic communities.
Jacklene Garcia, a junior theater student at LPC, told the Weekly it’s been exciting to be a part of a play that is not only completely brand-new, but also authentic in the stories it tells.
She said as a child of immigrant parents, similar to the protagonist in the story, she resonated with the themes of her family trying to assimilate into America and while she didn’t pay too much attention to it in the past, now as an adult she appreciates stories like Sueños that delve into those issues.
“This story is so multifaceted in the way that it covers identity,” Garcia said. “I think (Sanchez) did a really great job at writing a show for Hispanic people by a Hispanic person. It doesn’t feel whitewashed, it doesn’t feel stereotypical.”
She said being part of the LGBTQIA+ community, she also appreciated the representation in the character she is playing — the protagonist’s sister — who identifies as queer. Garcia said her character has a fiery personality who exudes confidence with everything except her own sexuality because of it being a taboo topic to discuss in Mexican or Latino households.
The musical also goes into the challenges of balancing parental expectations, cultural identity and personal aspirations as it relates to those communities. It will also highlight, according to LPC, the struggles and triumphs of “Mexican-American families as they navigate the complexities of cultural identity and the pursuit of the American Dream”.
“This story really brings to light an honest, hardworking, individual … life of just trying to survive, trying to push forward, trying to make ends meet even with the setbacks of what life has to bring,” said Adam Mendez, who plays the protagonist’s father.
Mendez, who grew up in Livermore, told the Weekly that as someone who graduated from college with the intent of holding space in theater as a first-generation Mexican American, he heavily resonated with his character so much that it made him reassess his own relationship with his father and his heritage.
Karina Gutiérrez, a Bay Area-based director who is part of the production team, told the Weekly that she first connected with Sanchez many years ago when she taught at Santa Clara University. But it wasn’t until a few years after that initial introduction that Sanchez asked Gutiérrez if she wanted to work with him on the play.
She said she jumped at the opportunity for many reasons, but the main one was that the story is very near and dear to her heart as a Latina director who grew up in the Central Valley with parents who were farm workers.
She said the story being told in Sueños is one that resonates with a specific audience — Mexican Americans, Chicanos, Latinos — who typically don’t have that type of representation in mainstream media.
“It has been very difficult to find stories that are dynamic, that are complex, that do not seek to write our communities into a very tangible and/or consumable box for audiences who may not be of the community,” Gutiérrez said. “So to have the narrative that is dealing with the complexity of what it means to be Latino, Chicano … to me it’s important to show those complexities.”
The musical is set to debut this Friday (March 21) at the Mertes Center for the Arts at LPC and runs Friday through Sunday for this weekend and next. For additional information regarding showtimes and tickets, visit laspositascollege.edu.
