Local Government matters

Not your abuela's Man of La Mancha

Norine Dworkin/VoxPopuli

Garden Theatre Artistic Director Joseph C. Walsh (left) and Nick Bazo, Education Director,  on the set of Walsh's production of Man of La Mancha, which opened Aug. 27 and runs through Sept. 19. Walsh's production updates the 1965 Broadway musical with a predominantly Latinx cast and trades the 16th century Spanish Inquisition's dungeon for a contemporary detention center at the southern border of the United States.

"Our collective history as America is that for a majority of us, our ancestors were not born here," says Walsh. "Today, this lens is the one that makes it hit home the fastest because it's the one we see on the news every night. But actually the way the country has treated immigrants is a stain on the country that has happened for hundreds of  years. So with this production, we're going back in history, and there are visual references to a whole history of  the immigrants' experience in America." For more information or to purchase tickets, visit the Garden Theatre.