Monday on the Talk of the Bay host Christine Barrington takes us behind the curtain at Salinas’ Western Stage. Offering multiple productions each season, the Western Stage is a community-driven professional company that nurtures and develops local talent with a passion for the creative process and the desire for high-level artistic experiences.
The Western’s Stage is led by Managing Artistic Director Melissa Chin-Parker, and their current production is An Enemy of the Pueblo, which opened on September 27th and runs through October 19th. Written by acclaimed playwright Josefina Lopez this play explores the seemingly timeless tensions between personal integrity and the expediencies of capitalism. It is directed by an artistic team with deep roots in San Juan Bautista’s El Teatro Campesino, which has been at the forefront of using theater as an artistic generator of social change for nearly 60 years: Director Estrella Esparza-Johnson, who took audiences by storm in last year’s “In the Heights” at the Cabrillo stage, along with Music Director Jeremiah Martinez from San Juan Bautista’s Team Unco.
An Enemy of the Pueblo will run through October 19th: Tickets are available here.
The Western Stage will close their Season with the musical Bandstand: November 1-23. Music by RICHARD OBERACKER. Book and Lyrics by ROBERT TAYLOR and RICHARD OBERACKER.
The word theatre comes from the Greeks. It means the seeing place. It is the place people come to see the truth about life and the social situation. The theatre is a spiritual and social X-ray of its time. The theatre was created to tell people the truth about life and the social situation.
— Stella Adler
