Watts Village Theater Company (WVTC) presents workshop readings of Clover & Cactus by Beto O'Byrne. Clover and Cactus marks the newest addition to the company's Black Words on White Pages series--created by Artistic Director Guillermo Aviles-Rodriguez to showcase the work of emerging playwrights of color in Los Angeles. Created as a play with music, Clover & Cactus is in keeping with WVTC's tradition of dramatically exploring and interpreting historical events that explain metaphorical themes connecting present-day Watts and Los Angeles. Clover & Cactus takes into account the plight of everyday people and is an examination of faith, culture and identity transcending race. Playwrights Jorge Huerta and Carlos Morton serve as Black Words on White Pages mentors, providing dramaturgical feedback.
Clover & Cactus, set the night before the final battle of the Mexican-American war, sharply explores the historical issues that helped draw a group of strangers from opposite sides of the world together, discovering common bonds, and the worth found therein. In the late 1840's approximately 200 United States soldiers defected from the American army to fight for Mexico in the Mexican American War. These mostly Irish soldiers came to be known as Los San Patricios (the St. Patrick's Battalion).Directed by: Guillermo Aviles RodriguezVideos