Arena gay club los angeles

A crowd of people dressed in colorful avant garde clothing are dancing and singing in a way that is both passionate and spiritual at the same time. The semi-autobiographical story was conceived by Abel Alvarado, whose life as a queer young man was transformed at the legendary club.

And it really helped shape an identity with me and a lot of my friends and contributed to a generation of gay Latinos from L. Alvarado spent five years working on the musical and had originally pitched it as a 10 minute play to Casa artistic director, Josefina Lopez. But after their meeting she encouraged him to write a fully-fleshed musical.

The musical tells the coming out story of Lucio, a music minister and son of Apostolic Church pastors.

Circus Disco

And I heard those beats and I danced with them. We created a movement, we created familia, we created comunidad. Alvarado first began by writing the story ina year after the club closed. He then worked on the script alongside dramaturg Patricia Zamorano, and finally on the original music and lyrics with Gabrielle Maldonado and Daniel Sugimoto.

Zamorano said that part of the work was documenting the Arena era, which is reflected in a plot filled with historical references and several characters based on real people — including L. One of the fraternal twins, Louis Campos, now runs the Arena Nights. The musical is split into two acts with an all together runtime of about minutes with 32 musical numbers.

The cast and production team received a standing ovation during a sold out opening night on June There were both moments of laughter and somberness, with much of the praise going to the lead cast who carried the heart and soul of the story. First Street at St. Louis Street. Subscribe to Boyle Heights Beat newsletter.

Frank Rojas is a native L. His work has been featured in the L. Times, LAist, and More by Frank Rojas. Your email address will not be published. Abel Alvarado. Frank Rojas. Leave a comment. Cancel reply Your email address will not be published.