Zoot Suit, A Play by Luis Valdez, Directed by Professor Kinan Valdez

The Affiliates met June 1 for dinner and a play. We had a nice turnout for this evening event.

The iconic musical drama Zoot Suit tells the story of the 1942 Sleepy Lagoon murder and the reaction by the LAPD, which resulted in the arrest, trial, and imprisonment of a group of Mexican-American men without evidence, because they were “Mexican and dangerous.”

Zoot Suit was written by Luis Valdez, a key figure in the Chicano Rights Movement.
In 1978 it premiered at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles and then went on to be the first play on Broadway written by a Chicano author.
UCSC will be the first academic theater to produce Valdez’s new version of the play.
The play is directed by his son Kinan Valdez, now a professoor at UCSC.