Culture Clash in AmeriCCa headline performance at Texas Tech

The Los Angeles-based Latino/Chicano trio Culture Clash will perform at 7 p.m. Jan. 17 in the Allen Theatre in the Texas Tech Student Union Building.

The performance is sponsored by Texas Tech’s Cross Cultural Academic Advancement Center and the Office of Institutional Diversity. Admission is free. However several organizations are selling $5 tickets to support scholarship funds. This ticket guarantees VIP Seating and admission to the VIP reception following the performance. The Cross Cultural Academic Advancement Center and the Office of Institutional Diversity can provide a list of groups selling tickets, or tickets can be bought through the office and the proceeds with be divided among the participating groups. The office can be reached at (806) 742-8681.

Culture Clash in AmeriCCa members Richard Montoya, Ric Salinas and Herbert Siguenza have been developing the show for several years, incorporating material drawn from in-depth interviews with people from every region of the country. The result is a continually fresh examination of American consciousness in flux, split and stunned by war and terrorism, alternately shocked and bored by sex and sexuality, and equally proud of and perturbed by the country’s reputation as a great melting pot.

The revolving characters and scenes in Culture Clash in AmeriCCa represent the diverse population of the country it skewers and celebrates. Recent performances have included scenes of ghettoized immigrants in San Diego, a Muslim taxi driver in Washington, D.C., a bitter but clear-eyed Vietnam veteran who trades American life for life in a Mexican border town, a young Asian man part of the hip-hop generation who embraces the gang-thug life as a fashion statement, a transgender sex educator, and two white lesbians experiencing isolation among their new suburban neighbors and most recently characters drawn from interviews with Katrina refugees living in Houston.

"This is what we do all across the country," said Montoya. "Transcending the early ideas of what ‘Chicano theatre’ was to be. We venture outside our own barrio and into yours, to peel back the layers of what makes Lubbock tick and talk."

Formed in 1984, Culture Clash fills a unique role in American theatre. Hailed as "the Marx Brothers meet the Rolling Stones," by American Theatre magazine, these acclaimed social anthropologists have dug deep into American culture, creating memorable new plays and characters. Since the group’s genesis in San Francisco’s Mission District, these sociopolitical satirists have written more than a dozen plays.

Culture Clash’s work has ranged from sketch comedy to an adaptation of Aristophanes, to a reworking of the late Frank Loesser’s long-lost musical, "Señor Discretion, Himself," which had its world premiere in 2004 at the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. During the past several years, Culture Clash has focused on site-specific theatre, weaving into an ongoing dramatic tapestry personal narratives culled from interviews with homegrown residents. Theatre companies in Miami, Washington D.C., New York, San Diego, and San Francisco have commissioned performance pieces specifically for those cities.

CONTACT: Jobi Martinez, director, Cross Cultural Academic Advancement Center, at (806) 742-8681.