SCR Aims Variety Show at Latino Audience

South Coast Repertory’s Hispanic Playwrights Project has an easier time finding Latino writers than it does a Latino audience, officials at the Costa Mesa theater company lamented recently.

So to gain attention for the project, while raising funds for the program as it moves into its third year, SCR is hosting a variety show of Latino comedians, dancers and singers Monday night titled “Una Noche del Teatro”--or “A Night of Theater.”

The program leans to the lighthearted, from festive traditional dance to irreverent comedy that an East Los Angeles troupe says is inspired by Monty Python and “Saturday Night Live.”

But the point--that SCR is committed to giving Latino writers an outlet--is serious, organizers say.

The Hispanic Playwrights Project, which runs workshops and readings for writers of Latino descent, draws applicants from across the country, and its participants have seen their plays produced at the Los Angeles Theatre Center and San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre as well as at SCR.

This year, the project selected six writers from 78 applicants to participate in meetings and workshops in the Aug. 2-14 period. The project has attracted attention not only from Latino writers and other theater companies, but from foreign governments as well. In May, the project hosted a delegation of cultural attaches from 15 Latin American embassies on an arts tour of the United States sponsored by the U.S. Information Agency.

Locally, however, the project has yet to capture the allegiance of a Latino audience.

“There’s a certain amount of resistance in the (Latino) community that an institution like South Coast Repertory would really be doing something of value to them,” said SCR spokesman Cristofer Gross.

“It’s an audience development challenge to let the Hispanic community know that this is for real,” he said. “We need to let them know that (the Hispanic Playwrights Project) is not self-serving, but that we want to reach out and amplify the voices that are in that culture.”

The participants in “Una Noche,” many of whom are known to Latinos for their work in movies and television, are already convinced.

“When they asked us to do a performance we all jumped at the chance,” said actor Rick Najera, part of the four-person troupe called Latins Anonymous, one of several acts that will appear Monday. “We really highly regard that theater for its support of Hispanics in the arts.”

Najera, who has appeared on television shows such as “General Hospital” and “Hill Street Blues,” said Latins Anonymous performs sketches intended to dramatize the questions of identity facing Latinos in the United States. “It sounds terribly serious, I know, but we are a comedy group. One of the best ways to make any point is through comedy--it’s less pedantic, it’s less preachy,” he said.

The sketches play on Latino stereotypes; one, inspired by “West Side Story,” is a street-gang scene that has Puerto Rican actors from New York battling Los Angeles’ Mexican-American actors over the small number of chances to play hoodlums on television crime shows.

The Mexican Dance Theatre, another participant, also examines cultural images of Latinos, according to its director, Miguel Delgado.

In its “Mexican Mosaic” piece, the seven-member troupe moves from folk dances through “Zoot Suit” to works inspired by the life of contemporary Mexican-Americans in barrios of Southern California.

“I’m not a purist, and I don’t like to do museum pieces,” said Delgado, who choreographed the picture “La Bamba” and has appeared in the movies “Born in East L.A.” and “Zoot Suit.”

“I do involve history in my work, but I don’t like to go back and say, ‘This is the way it was.’ I like to say, ‘This is the way it is,’ ” he said.

Delgado, who choreographed “Charley Bacon and His Family,” an SCR production born from the Hispanic Playwrights Project, said that while the playwrights program provided “a big motivation for people to write,” many Latinos remain intimidated by the mainstream theater.

“Buildings are formidable, and if you have a defensive culture, you feel that you don’t belong there,” he said.

“It’s hard to get them out (to the theater). But Mexican people go to variety shows, and here’s an evening of song and dance.” Delgado said.

The evening’s host, Emmy-winning writer and actor Abel Franco, agreed.

“We are beginning to hear from Hispanic writers, and we’ve got to have our own people listening to us,” said Franco, who played Mexicans in the pictures “El Norte” and “The Three Amigos.”

Reflecting momentarily on that remark, he added: “Though, the use of the term ‘our own people’ is stupid, since ‘our own people’ is everybody.

“Stereotypes are in your mind. It’s not that all Mexicans wake up and eat beans and tortillas,” he said during a morning telephone interview. “Right now I’m eating bagels. Bagels without lox and cream cheese, but they’re bagels.”

“Una Noche del Teatro,” a benefit performance, will be presented Monday at 7:30 p.m. by South Coast Repertory’s Hispanic Playwrights Project, 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. Tickets $25. Information: (714) 957-4033