VG And CLATA Announce Fall Culture Clash Production Of AN AMERICAN ODYSSEY

Victory Gardens Theater and Chicago Latino Theater Alliance (CLATA) for Destinos: the 2nd International Latino Theater Festival present Culture Clash: American Odyssey. American Odyssey runs October 4 - 7, 2018 at Victory Gardens Theater, 2433 N. Lincoln Avenue.

Culture Clash: An American Odyssey is a character study of real people and true stories from the shadows, borders and badlands of America. For 35 years the dedicated performance trio has tirelessly scoured the jails, detention centers, churches, mosques and the streets to fully understand and dimensionalize the human drama and joy of those who exist in the margins of the mainstream. Culture Clash dives into gender, race and class with the skills of veteran ethnographers in a pulsating, living theater of our complex times.

Founded in 1984 in San Francisco's historic Mission District, Culture Clash is Richard Montoya, Ric Salinas and Herbert Siguenza.

Culture Clash explains, "American Odyssey examines the journey from satire to poetics, listening to our poets whose words sent us on explorations where we found ourselves on borders and jails, to the mean streets of the Mission, to the Lower East Side where the echoes of Chicano-Boricua tales of survival carried us through the night and changed our lives and taught us to be the dramatists you see on the stage."

Victory Gardens Artistic Director Chay Yew comments, "We're excited to be working with Chicago Latino Theater Alliance to welcome my old friends-the legendary Culture Clash-and their production of American Odyssey to Chicago audiences. For 35 years, these remarkable artists have delighted our national audiences with stories of the Latinx community with their ingenious blend of laughter and light. It is the perfect and vital commentary to the times in which we currently live."

Myrna Salazar, CLATA Co-Founder and Executive Director adds, "Now more than ever, this partnership between Victory Gardens and CLATA is important in presenting the reality of Latinos in the U.S. What better way to do this than to bring to Chicago, Culture Clash, a group that is strongly rooted in their community, their culture, and their craft.

Culture Clash is celebrating its 34th anniversary, as a vital American theater company with works ranging from sketch comedy to drama, to adaptations of Aristophanes' The Birds, Peace and Frogs (aka Sapo) to co-writing Frank Loesser's long lost musical Señor Discretion Himself, based on a story by the late Budd Schulberg to earning "Best Production of the Year" Ovation Award for their critically-acclaimed play, Chavez Ravine, which was remounted at the Kirk Douglas Theater. Even dabbling in opera, in collaboration with the Long Beach Opera, Culture Clash premiered a remixed, reimagined and refreshed adaptation of Fairy Queen by Henry Purcell based on Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream last year.

Culture Clash's work has been produced by the nation's leading theaters including the Mark Taper Forum, Lincoln Centre Theater, The Kennedy Center, La Jolla Playhouse, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Huntington Theatre Company, Alley Theatre, South Coast Repertory, Seattle Repertory and The Goodman Theatre, among others. They have toured and lectured at major universities and colleges including, Syracuse University, Yale University, Stanford University, UCLA and dozens of state colleges in California.

Culture Clash has three books of compilations: Culture Clash: Life, Death and Revolutionary Comedy, Culture Clash in AmeriCCa and Oh Wild West: The California Plays", with TCG Books. They just finished a successful run of the reimagined Bordertown Now at The Pasadena Playhouse.

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