Artists Celebrate Casa0101 Theater’s Building Purchase
For playwright Consuelo Flores, having her autobiographical drama “Soul Sacrifice” produced at the Casa0101 theater in Los Angeles’ Boyle Heights neighborhood felt “like a homecoming in so many ways.”
After all, she grew up just a few miles from the arts complex and the Vietnam War-era events depicted in the play, including the seminal Chicano rights protest movement, took place nearby. Plus, Casa0101 has a strong reputation for nurturing Latino writers, actors, directors and technicians since its founding in 2000 by Josefina Lopez, whose own groundbreaking play “Real Women Have Curves,” frequently has been performed there.
So, Flores and other authors and artists in Los Angeles County say they are delighted to learn that Casa0101 plans to finally purchase its East First Street building after decades of paying rent there and at a previous location a block away. That purchase is expected to be supported in part by a long-term, low-interest loan from the California Community Foundation, along with help from other philanthropies such as the Perenchio Foundation.
The purchase would be a mark of financial stability for the arts complex, which includes a 99-seat theater, a classroom and an art gallery. It nearly closed eight years ago amid money woes even before the Covid pandemic devastated performing arts organizations across the country. It survived and now produces five or so major shows a year; those include Latino-themed works such as “Fernandomania,” short plays in English and Spanish highlighting baseball star pitcher Fernando Valenzuela’s career as a Dodger and its significance to Mexican-Americans, as well as such family friendly musicals as “The Prince of Egypt.” The casts are mainly Latino actors.
Its mission statement declares that Casa0101 nurtures “the future storytellers of Los Angeles who will someday transform the world.” It offers low-cost or free classes in acting, singing and dancing to area youngsters and teens, some of whom have gone on to successful stage, television and movie careers
Owning its home would be “incredibly important” for Casa0101, allowing it to avoid possible displacement and gentrification, said Flores, whose drama “Soul Sacrifice” has a month-long world-premiere run through June 21. The purchase would help the theater to “lay down roots in the ground and absorb all the nutrients of that community and tell the stories that will help the theater blossom and bear fruit,” she explained.
According to its executive director Emmanuel Deleage, buying the building would bring a much-coveted “sense of permanency” and powerfully aid its mission “to develop Latino stories that usually have been shut out at other places.” As Covid and artificial intelligence have upended society and arts organizations, it is very important to ensure “a bedrock of stability” for the in-person interaction the theater provides, Deleage said.
Lopez, who remains Casa0101’s artistic director, founded it after other theaters rejected her early work. Her “Real Women Have Curves” – which chronicles the struggles and joys of East LA immigrant seamstresses – has had five productions there. It became a popular 2002 film she co-wrote and a 2025 Broadway musical that is scheduled to be performed next year at the Pasadena Playhouse.
“Real Women” sold out for much of Its recent run. After more than a year of intense immigration raids, “it all of a sudden became much more relevant than the last few times we produced it,” Deleage said
Ticket sales make up only about one fifth of the organization’s annual budget, with much of the rest coming from government and private foundation grants and donations. While the organization is on a more solid footing than it was eight years ago, “it’s always precarious. It’s a constant challenge to raise money,” Deleage said.
Álvaro Daniel Márquez, senior arts and culture officer at the California Community Foundation, said that Casa0101’s mission fits squarely with the foundation’s own efforts to boost equity in education, housing, health and the arts in Los Angeles County. The foundation supports non-profit arts organizations that bring “creativity and self-expression to underserved communities” but which need more funding and often get a chilly reception from commercial banks, Márquez explained. Casa0101 “tells stories about people at the margins of society,” he said.
But even with the foundation loan and other support, the theater will still “have an urgent financial need to ensure long term stability,” Márquez acknowledged.
Located across from the Los Angeles police department’s Hollenbeck station, the building had once housed a boxing gym and a Japanese Buddhist temple. The property now includes an operating pharmacy which would pay rent, a financial boost at least in the short term. Later on, Casa0101 might expand into that space for a café and another classroom to train young actors and hold workshops for young writers
Through July 2, the complex’s art gallery is exhibiting paintings by the late Bonnie Lambert, in a show entitled “Corazon y Alma. (Heart and Soul).” It recently displayed photography of Luis J. Rodriguez, author of “Always Running: La Vida Loca: Gang Days in L.A.” his memoirs of East L.A. gang life, which was adapted as a play at Casa0101 seven years ago.
Other staged works have included: “Brown and Out,” festivals of writings by and about the Latino LGBTQ community, and other plays by Lopez, such as “A Woman Named Gloria,” about the late East Los Angeles political leader Gloria Molina after whom the auditorium is named. Arthur Millers’s classic tragedy “Death of a Salesman” was performed in 2023, untraditionally cast mainly with Latino actors yet still addressing universal concerns of economic insecurity and splintered families. Readings, dance recitals and film screenings also continue in the facility.
The theater’s name – pronounced Casa Zero One Zero One – derives from the Spanish word for home along with computer numbers that reflect Lopez’s initial intent to produce digital video. The title stuck although the emphasis remained on live performance.
“Soul Sacrifice,” a six-actor play directed by Kenneth Castillo, tells the wrenching story of how one of Flores’ brothers was drafted to fight in Vietnam, where young Chicano soldiers died at disproportionate rates. The brother came home with deep trauma that tore the family apart. Another brother joined the Chicano community protests against the war and social inequities.
“We weren’t the perfect family but the family that went into it did not come out the same way. We were all traumatized,” Flores said.
To further connect with audiences, she created a large, brightly flowered Day of the Dead style altar in the lobby to honor veterans.
The director Castillo, a veteran of both stage and film work, said Casa0101 “was my dream place to have it produced. Telling the story of the community in the community is incredibly powerful.” He expects the audience will feel a strong connection because of current ICE raids and the U.S.’s involvement again in overseas wars. Recounting the history of Chicano protests in the Sixties and Seventies, he said, will show that “we need to be united against attacks against our community…. I hope it reminds people of the resolve we used to have and we so desperately need again today.”
– Larry Gordon
