Mexican Day at Rogue Machine Theatre

Unprecedented in Los Angeles theatre, award-winning playwright Tom Jacobson has created a trilogy of plays based on local history, and simultaneously produced by three theatre companies. Mexican Day is being presented by Rogue Machine, opening at 4pm on Saturday, May 26, 2018.

Lines are meant to be crossed. In 1948, Los Angeles Tribune reporter Hisaye Yamamoto puts her job at risk when she joins forces with civil rights pioneer Bayard Rustin to desegregate Bimini Baths. Will it be a new beginning, or the beginning of the end?

“Los Angeles history is underexplored,” observes playwright Tom Jacobson. “The core of all three plays is based in absolute truth, examining conflicts related to race, gender and sexuality. Although elements are fictionalized, four of the characters in the trilogy were real people strongly represented in the historical record. I was able to use the actual writing of Hisaye Yamamoto, Bayard Rustin and Everett Maxell as inspiration for those characters, some of whom appear in more than just one play in this trilogy.”

From 1902 to 1951 Bimini Baths was the premiere hot springs resort in the city of angels, serving everyone from movie stars to maids. Admission was just 25 cents, but only if you were white. A tragedy to triumph epic, this new play trilogy The Ballad of Bimini Baths (Plunge, Tar, and Mexican Day) traces 50 years of social change in Los Angeles.

Tom Jacobson is L.A.’s most acclaimed historical playwright, known for weaving threads of history, humor, sexuality, and religion into his story telling. Selected works include Walking to Buchenwald at Open Fist (TOP TEN – Stage Raw), The Devil’s Wife at Skylight Theatre Company (“pitch-perfect comic timing” – LA Times), the award-winning Bunbury, Tainted Blood, Ouroboros and The Friendly Hour at the Road Theatre Company. Twentieth-Century Way premiered at The Theatre @ Boston Court and the New York International Fringe Festival (five Ovation Award nominations, four Los Angeles Drama Critics’ Circle nominations, one GLAAD Award nomination, Fringe Festival Award for Outstanding Production of a Play, PEN Center Award for Drama), moving Off-Broadway to Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre. Additional awarded work includes House of the Rising Son at Ensemble Studio Theatre/LA (Los Angeles Times “Critics’ Choice,” winner of two LADCC Awards, and GLAAD Award nomination).

“This play uses L.A.’s history to bring insight to the L.A. and U.S.A. of the present,” notes director Jeff Liu. “It also celebrates the pioneering author Hisaye Yamamoto and civil rights legend Bayard Rustin and in some small way continues their story, which turns out to be our story.”

Jeff Liu adapted and directed the Pulitzer Prize nominated play Yellow Face by David Henry Hwang for the YOMYOMF Network on YouTube, his two-part film premiered at the Los Angeles Pacific Asian Film Festival in 2013. Selected theatrical credits include the LA premiere of Chinglish (Critics’ Choice – LA Times), which became the highest grossing play ever at East West Players, the world premieres of Terminus Americana (Ovation Award nominee for Best World Premiere) by Matt Pelfrey, Texas, Solve for X by Judy Soo Hoo, The Chinese Massacre (Annotated) by Tom Jacobson, and Ixnay, Wrinkles, and Slice by Paul Kikuchi. He is a member of the O’Neill National Directing Fellowship cohort of 2016.

Cast: Darrell Larson (as Everett Maxwell), Jully Lee (as Hisaye Yamamoto), Jonathan Medina (as Zenobio Remedios), and Donathan Walters (as Bayard Rustin).

MEXICAN DAY is part of a trilogy called THE BALLAD OF BIMINI BATHS, which includes PLUNGE, running simultaneously at Son of Semele Theater, 3301 Beverly Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90004, and TAR at Playwrights’ Arena in Atwater Village Theatre Complex, 3269 Casitas Ave. LA, CA 90039. Trilogy reservations: http://www.biminitrilogy.com MEXICAN DAY by Tom Jacobson opens at 4pm on Saturday, May 26th and runs at 8pm on Fridays and Sundays, 4pm on Saturdays through July 1, 2018. Pay-What–You-Want on Friday, June 1 ($5 minimum starts 7pm, at box office only). Rogue Machine is located in The Met, 1089 N Oxford Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90029. Tickets are $40. Reservations: 855-585-5185 or at www.roguemachinetheatre.com