An interdisciplinary stage show that looks at the origins of Los Angeles punk –and is announced as the first-ever play set in Bell Gardens– closes out its two-week run this weekend at Plaza de la Raza in Lincoln Heights.
Presented by About… Productions, “Adobe Punk – A Theatrical Zine With Music” opened March 19 at the center’s Margo Albert Theater. Final performances are Friday and Saturday at 8 pm and Sunday at 3 pm.
Here’s the play’s synopsis:
Punk music finds life in one of L.A.’s oldest adobe homes in this original theaterwork. Set in the early 1980s in working-class Bell Gardens, three young punk musicians, from disparate cultures, squat in a vacant house. Inspired by the bands X, the Minutemen, and the Bags, the trio builds its punk songbook and a life-size zine, as they define their artistic identity and find their place in the musical and historic landscape of L.A.
The play’s storyline was created by About… Productions’ producing artistic director Theresa Chavez and her son Gabriel Garza. Chavez, who directs the production, co-wrote the songs with Nina Diaz, the former frontwoman of Girl In A Coma (who made her stage debut in 2019 in another musical production at Plaza de la Raza, “Evangeline, the Queen of Make Believe”).
Adobe Punk’s creative team is rounded out by music director Sage Lewis and set designer/visual artist Dorothy Hoover. The play’s three central actors are Karis Brizendine, Isaac Cruz and Giselle Etessami.
“This production takes its cues from the punk attitude and ethos of the late 70s and early 80s, including zines of the period which heavily used collage,” says Chavez. “Adobe Punk has multiple collage elements including the script, the set, the soundscapes; and the life-size zine that the characters create on the walls of the house they are squatting in that includes collaged punk flyers, song lyrics they are writing, and lists one of the characters obsessively makes about the state of his Bell Gardens neighborhood (“coolest sidewalk cracks”).”
She adds: “So describing the piece as a theatrical zine with music felt appropriate to describe our approach to the story, and visual and musical elements. In addition, every audience member will receive the Adobe Punk InfoZine that gives the production’s historical backdrop which includes L.A. punk and early California histories, and how the two intersect.”
Final Performances April 1-3
Plaza de la Raza’s Margo Albert Theatre
3540 N. Mission Road, Los Angeles
Tickets available for $15-35
