8:00 p.m. – Their Dogs Came With Them: A Virginia Grise Staged Reading
Featuring Live Music by Quetzál

What happens to a community, and the people that live there, when four intersecting freeways are built right through the heart of their neighborhood? Adapted from the novel by Helena Maria Viramontes, Their Dogs Came With Them ascribes new meanings to gang life dramas, gender queer identities, and Chicana/o/x coming of age barrio tales. Much like the structure of a freeway, the lives of four Mexican-American youth intersect and intertwine, unearthing the effects and aftereffects of the Vietnam War, displacement, mental illness, and state violence.

Musical director Martha González of the Grammy Award-winning band Quetzál brings together band members Juan Perez (bass), Tylana Enomoto (violin) and legendary guitarist Bob Robles (Thee Midnighters) to compose the original score. The musical score is intended to express the East Los sonic landscape of the 1970s. In this way, the multifaceted sounds/songs of the score are a material trace of the people’s history that is an amalgam of Mexican boleros, classic rock, doo wop, R&B, and gospel. Like the 5, 10 and 710 freeways, these sounds intersect in the heart of the Mexican-American experience that Virginia Grise and Helena Viramontes bring to life for us.

Virginia Grise writes plays that are set in bars without windows, barrio rooftops, and lesbian bedrooms. Her published work includes Your Healing is Killing Me, blu, The Panza Monologues co-written with Irma Mayorga, and an edited volume of Zapatista communiqués titled Conversations with Don Durito. Virginia is a recipient of the Yale Drama Award, Whiting Award, the Princess Grace Award in Theater, and the Playwrights’ Center Jerome Fellowship. She is an alum of the Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab & the Women’s Project Theatre Lab. In addition to plays, she has created a body of work that is interdisciplinary and includes multimedia performance, dance theater, performance installations, guerilla theater, site specific interventions, and community gatherings. As a curator, artist, and activist she has facilitated organizing efforts amongst women, immigrant, Chicano, working class, and queer youth. Virginia has taught writing for performance at the university level, as a public school teacher, in community centers, women’s prisons, and in the juvenile correction system. She holds an MFA in Writing for Performance from the California Institute of the Arts.

Quetzál has made considerable impact in the Los Angeles Chicano music scene. The relevance of Quetzál’s music and lyrics have been noted in a range of publications, from dissertations to scholarly books. Their latest release is titled “Puentes Sonoros” and will be out on Smithsonian Folkways in the summer of 2020.