San Jose Stage to Present World Premiere of Luis Valdez's VALLEY OF THE HEART

San Jose Stage Company in partnership with El Teatro Campesino kicks off the New Year with the highly-anticipated World Premiere of Valley of the Heart, by internationally renowned playwright, director and producer Luis Valdez. Directed by Valdez, this American love story is deeply rooted in the fertile Santa Clara Valley and runs February 10 through March 6 at San Jose Stage Company. The fight to maintain dignity, identity and family are at the heart of this sweeping epic that illustrates the ironic divide between America's ideals and its actions in what the San Jose Mercury News says is a "multicultural touchstone," and the Los Angeles Times says "We need memory plays as powerful as this one ... a quintessentially California play, written by a master of the genre."

"I think of this play as a Kabuki/Corrido because it blends both cultures. I wanted to capture the multicultural fabric of life in this state," said Valdez. "There's a triangulation in the play - that if you take the Japanese-American experience and contrast it with the Mexican-American experience, what ties them together is the American experience," added Valdez.

On the heels of WWII, the Yamaguchis and the Montanos are two immigrant families struggling to provide a future for their American-born children after the Great Depression.

The emotional stakes intensify when the families' oldest children, Teruko played by Melanie Mah, whose Off Broadway credits include 4,000 Miles at the Lincoln Center Theater, and Ben played by Lakin Valdez, who recently starred in ACT's critically-acclaimed, Between Riverside and Crazy, fall in love. But the attack on Pearl Harbor and the government's Japanese-American internment camps threaten everything the families and young lovers have built and believe in. The imprisoned Japanese Americans confront issues ranging from patriotism, rebellion and heroism while Teruko and Ben fight to maintain their love in the face of fear, war, and separation.

"I'm extremely proud and excited to partner with Luis and El Teatro Campesino on such an important and sadly relevant story that needs to be told." said Randall King, San Jose Stage Company's Artistic Director. "This story speaks not only to the grim period of World War II, it underscores the current national struggle to define 'What does it mean to be an American? Who is allowed the comfort and shelter of our freedoms? Where do the lines of public safety and discrimination intersect?'

"Our partnership is the culmination of many rich conversations with Luis about the role live theatre plays in building and sustaining community and engaging that community with a sense of activism," added King.

Luis Valdez's Story

The story of survival is deeply personal to Valdez, who The New York Times once called the hero of Latino theater. This powerful story is in essence autobiographical. In the mid-1940s, Luis' Dad supported his family by working on a farm in Delano, California that was owned and operated by a Japanese family. The family was ripped apart because of the United States government internment camps (Executive Order; 9066) during World War II.

Luis never forgot this family, his early childhood friends, or the discriminating heartbreak they endured, which ultimately forced the Valdez family to relocate to San Jose in search of work outside the migrant stream. This experience shaped Valdez, who would later channel his sense of justice and passion for the arts into teaching farm workers to perform on the back of flatbed trucks on the picket lines with Cesar Chavez. This was the birth of the El Teatro Campesino theater company.

Photo Credit: Dave Lepori