Joan Hotchkis will be the sole performer...

Joan Hotchkis will be the sole performer tonight in “Tearsheets: Letters I Didn’t Send Home,” an autobiographical work about the privileged lifestyle of a wealthy ranching family, and the price Hotchkis, and the other women in her family, paid for that privilege.

“I call it Tearsheets because that word has some of the ambiguities I feel about the ranch,” Hotchkis said. “A tear sheet is a page saved from a newspaper or magazine, something you value, even cherish. It also suggests weeping into your pillow, or ripping something in anger.”

The performance begins at 8:30 p.m. at the Armory Center for the Arts, 145 N. Broadway, Pasadena. Tickets are $8 for members and $12 for non-members. Information: (818) 792-5101.

Hotchkis portrays several characters--men, women, children, even a cow. In one scene she compares the raising of women to the raising of cattle.

The work, which Hotchkis prefers to call a “performance piece” rather than a play, is based on stories from Hotchkis’ mother’s childhood diaries, letters and photographs that compose the Joan Hotchkis Collection of Bixby Family Papers in the Special Collections exhibit on the campus of Cal State Long Beach. The campus sits on what used to be part of the Bixby family’s ranch, founded by Hotchkis’ grandfather.

In the early 1970s, after Hotchkis discovered her mother’s writings, she began researching her family’s history. For the next 20 years, she collected documents, photos and journals, and recorded lengthy interviews with her mother and her mother’s sister about their life on the sprawling ranch.

Although Hotchkis, 64, grew up in San Marino, she spent weekends at the former Rancho Los Alamitos, which once encompassed more than 26,000 acres. All that remains is a small, public historic site featuring an adobe house dating to the 18th Century.

Before Hotchkis began performing Tearsheets two years ago, she was already a seasoned actress. She has appeared on Broadway, in off-Broadway and regional theater, and in film and television. She starred in the 1975 film “Legacy,” which she also wrote; was a cast member in the TV soap opera “Secret Storm” for two years; played opposite William Windom in “My World and Welcome to It;” and had a recurring role as Dr. Nancy Cunningham, Jack Klugman’s girlfriend, on “The Odd Couple.”

Tearsheets also will be performed at 8 p.m. July 24 as part of the National Women’s Theatre Festival at the Freud Playhouse, MacGowan Hall, UCLA.