Radio QGLLU - Abel Alvarado & Arena: The Music-AL

What happens when a legendary nightclub closes its doors, but its spirit lives on in a groundbreaking musical? Join us as we uncover the heartfelt story behind "Arena: The Music-AL," a vibrant homage to the house music scene of the 1990s and the experiences of gay Latinos. Abel Alvarado, an openly gay Chicano playwright, takes us on a journey of self-discovery and community that he experienced within the walls of the iconic Arena Nightclub in Hollywood. Abel shares poignant memories of friendships, identity, and the profound impact of HIV/AIDS, translating these personal experiences into a lively narrative that celebrates his comunidad. With Arena, Abel not only keeps the beat of the past alive but also amplifies the voices of those who danced through challenges to claim their identities.

Abel discusses the musical's unique blend of gospel and house music into the production. After leaving the church due to its stance on LGBTQ+ individuals, Abel found creative liberation, crafting a new narrative with the guidance of Josefina Lopez. Inspired by the trailblazing DJ Irene, Abel's journey is a testament to resilience and creativity. As we explore themes of familia and acceptance, Abel challenges stereotypes through the touching narrative of Lucio, a young man reaching out to his father. The episode wraps up with exciting plans for an "Arena" concert production and the possibility of a cast album, promising to leave a lasting impact on audiences and encouraging growth and understanding within families and communities.
Abel Alvarado
Designer/Playwright/Producer
IG: dzynabel

Chapters

• 0:05 Arena
• 13:39 Creating Arena
• 25:58 Latino Fathers and Familia

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:05

Welcome to the Out Agenda. Coming to an archivekpfkorg, well, we have another segment of Radio Q Glue podcast, a show that takes a deep dive into what the queer, gay and lesbian Latina community is talking about. I'm Rita Gonzalez.

Speaker 2: 0:24

I'm Mario J Navoa and I'm Eduardo Archuleta.

Speaker 1: 0:28

In today's episode we're talking with Abel Alvarado and his show Arena the Musical.

Speaker 2: 0:35

Abel Alvarado is a celebrated playwright and artist whose work resonates with authenticity and cultural significance. His award-winning work has been seen on numerous stages throughout the Los Angeles area, including Casa 0101, the Pasadena Playhouse, 24th Street Theater, the Renberg Theater, plaza de la Raza and the San Gabriel Mission Playhouse and the San Gabriel Mission Playhouse. His musical Arena, a House Musical has played to sold-out crowds, with raving media reviews. As an openly gay Chicano, producing the largest and longest-running festival, brown and Out is one of his greatest highlights and fulfills his lifelong mission to always amplify and uplift the voices of his comunidad that he loves through stories, music and art. His acclaimed production, arena, a House Musical, debuted at Casa 0101, bringing to life the vibrant house music scene of the 1990s at the legendary Arena Nightclub in Hollywood, california. The musical follows Lucio Torres, a young music minister, grappling with his identity and seeking freedom, belonging and self-expression.

Speaker 3: 2:04

This is Eduardo and we're here today with Abel. Welcome, abel, thank you. I'd like to ask what inspired you to write Arena, a house musical. How much Lucille Torres' journey reflects your own life experience reflects?

Speaker 4: 2:23

your own life experience. So there was a couple of things, but the main thing was on December 31st 2015, I was at the closing party for Circus Disco and Arena. Circus Disco had been open for 40 years at that point Arena for 25 years and Arena happened to open my senior year in high school. That was in Baldwin Park, california, where I was in high school, and I kept hearing about this place and that it was going to open. It was going to be this amazing club in Hollywood and I just was like, well, I'll never go there because Hollywood seemed like a world away from Baldwin Park. It's only 25 miles west, but it might as well have been on the other side of the world. And not only that, it was a gay club and at the time I was very in the closet. And lo and behold, eventually I made my way down the yellow brick road or the 10 freeway to the 101, exited Santa Monica Boulevard and I ended up at the arena. And when I walked in there and I ended up at the arena, and when I walked in there, I just could not have even prepared myself for what I saw, which was about 2,000 openly gay at that moment on that dance floor, latinos having the time of their life, and it really resonated within me. And so, in my journey, as I went there more often and made friends, it really became a place where I met other gay people, other gay Latino people, other people who lived in my community One of my best friends to this day. He lived about four blocks from me in Baldwin Park, but I met him at Arena and so it really resonated within me.

Speaker 4: 4:06

So in 2015, when it was closing and I was looking out at a sea of about 10,000 people, I just knew that this was a story that needed to be told. Stories about Latinos, chicanos who are openly gay are few and far in between, much less stories about Latinos in the genre of musical theater, which is my cup of tea, which I mean. Surprise, surprise, a gay man who likes musical theater, right, and that's what I work in, that's what I do. And so I just knew the story had to be told, had to be told.

Speaker 4: 4:49

As I walked around the crowd, I heard people crying, laughing and how impactful both of these places had been Throughout the years. I had met people at the anniversary parties who were there the first night when Circus Disco opened in 1974, all the way to young people like me at the time and then. So that night it was like a coming together of a people that's the only way I could explain it and I knew that the stories were in the stories that I was hearing, and so that is what inspired to tell the story about Arena. And the reason I focused on Arena was because of that, because it was the first gay nightclub I went to. It was the first Latino gay nightclub I went to and it really spoke to my generation of Generation X, and that's where I developed the story and the inspiration from.

Speaker 2: 5:36

This is Mario Looking at people at the closing of Circus. You must have remembered back on the people that you met there. Can you share a little bit more about your memories and in terms of its culture, the culture that you found within Arena or at Circus, or both that really informed the way you wanted to tell the story?

Speaker 4: 6:03

Yes, like I mentioned, my best friend to this day. You know, he lived four blocks away from me in Baldwin Park but I met him at Arena. He was an amazing club kid, an amazing artist, drag queen, and when we met he was just this fabulous person and he was only like 21 years old and here I was like 23 and I just was so mesmerized at how someone like him, who grew up in Baldwin Park, in the San Gabriel Valley not in Hollywood, not in the the limelight and he came from working class, you know, latino, chicano parents was so open and so just well self-assured to walk out of his house in Baldwin Park in full drag to go to Arena, right. That was very inspiring. There was other people that I met who some people who were very young, like me at the time, and were living with HIV and AIDS at the time and were living with HIV and AIDS, and some of them I would meet them and a few months later they were gone and I would ask about them and they were like, oh they, you know this was the early to mid 90s and it just that was another thing that really impacted me that people my age were dying and I would meet them, like I said, and then a few months later I'd ask about them or I just wouldn't see them around, where's so-and-so. Oh, he died and it was just like such a for a young person. You know, we don't think about death, but it was like something that became very relevant to me and other people that I met was the infamous Miss Martin. You know that was one of the first drag queens I ever saw performing. And here was this 6'3", 300-pound drag queen with crazy hair and crazy makeup, and she was everything that the world would not deem as beautiful, that the world would not deem as beautiful, but it was just a mesmerizing, beautiful experience to see her up there moving light, as a feather and kind of. You know, without saying a word about anything kind of saying telling the world this is here I am, look at me, and none of us could keep our eyes off of her. And you know, as an artist you know, that's what I've always thought is a true artist creates something that impacts people and that's exactly what she was doing in those three, four, five minutes that she was performing on stage.

Speaker 4: 8:38

I also ran into people who I grew up with that I knew that were. You know, I didn't even know they were gay and they would be there, and it was like this coming out experience with them and what it really did was you know, it's just one night a week that you would go there, but in those five hours that I would spend there, every time I walked out the doors, I had a little bit more bravery, I had a little bit more sense of who. I was, to the point where that just built and built and built and I was able to, within a period of time, come out and also live openly gay and not be afraid of who saw me and not be afraid of who was, you know, was going to reject me because I had found a new community of people, who, who? We were all in the same boat. We all, many of us thought very differently, but we had one thing in common, which was this coming out experience, yeah, and I would meet older people.

Speaker 4: 9:41

Eventually, when I went to circus, you know, I met some wonderful people who who, like I said, had been at, you know, circus the day it opened and they were friends with Jean LaPietra and they were older people and just listening to them and hearing them and, you know eventually becoming friends with them and hearing their stories of what life was like, you know being, you know, a closeted gay person and then an openly gay person in the 70s, coming to Circus Disco and feeling that they didn't have to hide in the shadows. But there was this beautiful place with beautiful lighting that celebrated who they were. It was like an epiphany to me that the coming out experience wasn't just something that I was going through, but it was something that all of these people had went through or were going through.

Speaker 3: 10:32

You talked about both circus and arena and there the music was at circus back in the day was disco, because I remember, because I went there in the late 80s, early 90s, and then house music pretty much at Arena. How did that play a role in your musical or your concept of creating this musical, and how did you go about incorporating that into what became your play, your musical?

Speaker 4: 11:07

yeah. So one of the very important pieces is that, you know, house music defined my generation generation x it was. It was something that was new to us. It's kind of like disco music inspired the generation before us. It was such a new concept. The driving beat and me, being a musician and understanding music, I really I would go to arena and one of the most powerful things I would hear was when the resident DJ, dj Irene, would shout the words where's all the Latinos in the house tonight? And the crowd would go wild. And at the time I didn't quite understand what a powerful statement and how empowering it was to hear 2,000 people responding back with yes. But it was very impacting to me. And the music. It was so new and it was like this, because house music is just an extension of disco. Right, it's just the bass beat is driven up a little bit more, it's more in the forefront and it's you know, the beats per minute are a little bit faster, and so I would go and this is the part that's true to the music. Well, lucio is raised in an apostolic home and he's the music director at his church, which is what I was at the time I grew up.

Speaker 4: 12:37

Apostolic Pentecostal. I was third generation, I'm what people say. I was born under the pews of the church and I came from a family that was music oriented. I started, you know, picking up instruments at a young age and the church really facilitated that artistry. The Apostolic Church, that Pentecostal Church, really one of the biggest driving forces is the music and by the time I was going to Arena I already had a choir. I was a music director at church. I led church services with the praise and worship, church services in with the with the praise and worship, and what I started noticing was that the house music sounded like my favorite music, which is black gospel music, and I was like, wow, the beats are very similar. The messages of hope, the messages of of having a good time you know whether it's having a good time on the dance floor or having a good time. You know whether it's having a good time on the dance floor or having a good time in the presence of God at church those messages really resounded to me.

Speaker 4: 13:39

So even I would get home sometimes and I'd be like, you know, this was before there was internet, you know, and the only way and they wouldn't play this music on the radio. The only way you could get this music would be if, you know, your friend was a DJ and you were like, oh, make me a cassette or make me a CD, and that's how you would hear this music. Because it didn't get radio play Right, because house music was considered underground music. And I would get home and I'd be like, oh, you know that song Deep Inside, how would it sound if a choir sang it? Like, how would it sound if, if I drop you know a harmony into it, it sound if I drop you know a harmony into it? And I so, from a young age, I would do that and, unbeknownst to my choir, I was throwing a little bit of that into songs we were learning. And so I immediately connected the two, which was gospel music and house music. And you know, later on I found out that house music does have its roots in gospel, as does disco. So that's why it was important for me to write this in that fashion.

Speaker 4: 14:49

House music kind of represents a breakaway from what society at large was listening to. You know, popular music and, like I said, it was underground at the time. Music, and, like I said, it was underground at the time and it was very powerful that a mujer, a Latina lesbian, was leading the charge of all of this, which is DJ Irene, who was the only resident female DJ at Arena, and she built it to what it was through her music. I I've often told her I'm like it was like your music ministry, right, because we would go there and listen to it and the music gave us the freedom to dance, the freedom to to laugh, the freedom to to just be expressive. So, yeah, that's, I connected all of that when when I started writing and I love house music because of that.

Speaker 2: 15:26

This is Mario. What were some of the challenges you faced in bringing Arena to the stage at Casa 0101? And how did you overcome them? And I also wanted to ask you what it felt like to finally see it on the stage.

Speaker 4: 15:45

So, as I mentioned early on in life, my first love of artistry was music. Early on in life, my first love of artistry was music when I left the church it was. I was never told to leave the church but when I came out it was like I was gently shown the door right and it was like, well, you can stay if you don't say that you're gay, but you can't hold ministry, you can't. And there was stuff that happened and I was right around the age when I was about 24. And my choir was going to be signed to a gospel record label and I just knew that at the time. If I signed to that, I was almost, like you know, chaining myself to it and I was never going to be able to come out. So I left all things. Music when I left the church, but I'm an artist, that's the only thing. I know. The church, but I'm an artist, that's the only thing I know. How to be in life is an artist. And I started designing and I started doing other things in artistry and then theater and I eventually started writing because I had been designing and Casa did the Brown and Out Festival and I got started getting involved in that and Josefina Lopez was very instrumental in helping me explore other avenues of my artistry. And one day I was telling her, you know about my upbringing, and she said you play the piano. I was like, yeah, and she's like, well, you need to do that more, do it again, like. And then the writing part I had shown her a short play that I had written. She's like, well, you need to do that more, do it again. And the writing part I had shown her a short play that I had written. She was like you need to write more. So she was very instrumental in that.

Speaker 4: 17:25

So when I started writing Arena one of the challenges like this is a side challenge that I started interviewing people and everyone had their version of what arena was right, oh, we were the most popular house. Oh, we, we were the most. And I, you know, and no, that's not how it went. It went this way. And someone else would say, and I was just, you know, I would just listen. And I was like, oh, my God, how am I going to tell this story without offending people? And then it was just a matter of well, take the stories and write them. And I started doing that and interweaving it with my story and my experience. And so one of the challenges was well, there's never been a house musical and I was very clear that I wanted to make it a house musical with house music and.

Speaker 4: 18:16

But when I presented it to Josefina for the first time, she just it was a very short version and I thought, oh, I'll do a 10 minute version at Brown and Out. And when she read it, she told me straight up, she said this isn't a 10 minute musical, this is a full production and out. And when she read it, she told me straight up, she said this isn't a 10 minute musical, this is a full production. He said. And she sat with me, um, and I'm forever grateful for this that josefina lopez, you know, renowned playwright, sat with me for six hours and outlined the story, helped me outline it, and we sat there at casa fina. She called me up, she said meet me at casa fina and we sat down and we ate and we and we just outlined it, and then she said write the book. Don't think about the music, write the book.

Speaker 4: 19:06

So I started writing the book, the play, and started noting where the music would go, and so it was the first time that that I was like jumping into this realm of writing a full devised musical, and so at some point I knew that I couldn't be the composer, because, although I do play the piano, I'm not that level of composing music and tracks and writing out the music, and so it was about finding someone who was as dedicated. I had went through the musical writing workshop at New Musicals Inc and fortunately, I met really good composers and I met the composer that would eventually become the composer of Arena, which is Ben Larson, and my friend Gabby Maldonado, who's also a music director at Casa, became the lyricist. So that was one of the challenges was putting a team together that really felt the story, and it was hard because some of these people are 10, 15 years younger than me. They never even knew what Arena was. So it was about getting people to understand this artist who would help me write it and getting them to understand what the story really represented, and that was one of the biggest challenges. And then COVID.

Speaker 4: 20:23

Covid hit right when we were going into rehearsals for the first workshop, and it was.

Speaker 4: 20:31

We were literally in the second week of rehearsals and producers came in and said we're shutting it down because the whole world is shutting down and you know that was really depressing, you know, because you know you see something going forward and then suddenly it's just shut down and who knows what's going to happen. And but it really. You know, the producers were wonderful Conrado Terrazas, emmanuel Deliaz they really, they really helped navigate the process of producing, of coming up with the money, and instead of taking that moment as a strike against us, they took it as a moment to rethink okay, how can we retool this? Where can we really find the money for this? And so when COVID started lifting and we went into rehearsals for the first workshop, again, that was very challenging Wearing masks do you wear masks In a musical? You have to sing In a play, you have to see people's facial expressions and those were challenges that I think the whole world was facing and as artists, we were trying to come up with solutions for all of these things. So those were major challenges.

Speaker 4: 21:41

And also there were challenges of, you know, looking for financing and other people saying or thinking oh well, this story about gay people has already been told you know, there's already rent and my response was always, yeah, but it's never been from a Chicano's perspective Exactly, in from a Chicano's perspective, exactly, it's never been based out of LA. Like, I would tell people about Circus and Arena and they had no clue what it was and I was like, do you see how important this story is? These two places were cultural high grounds for people. Circus Disco was around since 1974. It was around before Studio 54 and long after Studio 54. And it wasn't a place like Studio 54 that was exclusive, it was looking to exclude people. Circus was there to include everybody and that was one of the most amazing things that Gene LaPietra told me when I interviewed him was that he and his partner, ed Lemos they wanted to create a place where their gente, their people, latinos, could come and not be turned away at the door and be who they were. And that circus was open about 15 years before Arena. But in those 15 years so many people came through there and so many Latino, lgbt people were empowered because of that place, which led to Arena being open.

Speaker 4: 23:11

And that was one of the challenges of getting people to to understand that that that's why this story is relevant.

Speaker 4: 23:18

That's why this story. It's not just another, another cuento of a of a nightclub like people, because you know people think of nightclubs as places of debauchery and you know you know stuff that happens in the dark, but arena and circus proved to be more than that. So, yeah, so getting people to understand that was, but people who heard it and got it immediately, oh, they were just behind it. 100%. You know that first workshop, when it opened in fall of 2021, was completely sold out for seven weeks, wow. And then it was cut short at the fifth week because of COVID and the lead got COVID and five other people got, so we had to shut down literally on a Friday night if audience was getting there, which was happening a lot in theater at the at that moment. And then in 2022, the um, the premiere production it was also sold out for a six-week production and four weeks in same thing, covid just kind of messed things up, so that was challenging. You know, like yay we're going.

Speaker 4: 24:18

We're going forward, stop wait. Yay, we're going forward, stop wait. You know it was. That was challenging, you know, um, but the team was absolutely amazing of really um ensuring that I, as the writer and creator of this, and the other people on the team, that everyone was always encouraging each other with no, we have a great product here. We have a great product here. We have a great story here. We're going to keep going and you know that's what it's proven to be, because in the past four years, there has been a production or a version of the production of this show every year.

Speaker 3: 24:53

Wow, this is Eduardo again, and the themes of identity, self-expression and belonging are central to the play. What's your message? What do you hope the audience takes away from Lucio's journey?

Speaker 4: 25:10

That it really does take. There's journeys that we have to take in life right. Everything isn't just like you know, I woke up one day and I was this like proud, openly gay Latino man. It took steps for me to get there, but I had to take those steps Right. Also, one of the themes of it is the story is really about a father and a son. During the productions, I had so many gay men come to me and say that was my journey with my dad when I came out and some of them never resolved it and some of them still were working on resolving it and some of them did resolve it and you know it was very important for me.

Speaker 4: 25:58

I think Latino fathers have been long portrayed as these machistas, misogynistic, unloving people, and even right now, in this current climate, a lot of that is being said about Latinos and I, although that does exist, but I also want Latino fathers to see that change is possible, that you can love your gay son, you can love your trans daughter, you can love them because they're your children and, at the end of the day, that's who they continue to be. And familia is something that is very important to Latinos. I think it's important in all cultures, but I can only speak on the Latino experience, how familia is very, very important to us. You know, it's a unit that we feel we belong to, and to be left out of familia is kind of one of the worst things that could happen to a Latino. But I do think that we as agente, we as a people, we can define what that familia is. That familia is our parents, our tios, our siblings, but it's also your friends that you meet at Arena 30 years ago, who are still part of your life and who know your parents and who know your tias. And we're a people who really we do define familia. You know, I have so many members of my family that they're not blood relatives but they were immigrants who came to this country and had nowhere to go and my tia met them at work and was like, well, let me help you. You know I'm a citizen, but let me help you get. And we helped them and they lived at my grandmother's house and and they became part of our familia.

Speaker 4: 27:49

You know, and that is one of the strongest themes in the show, you know Lucio in the in in the story, my friend Ray he he told me how he came out to his dad and he's like I just started writing this letter and before I knew it, I had this 20 page letter that I sent to my dad and he said it was when I was going to UCLA and he said he said you know that his dad was a former gang member and he told his dad one of the things you taught me was loyalty, and I need to be loyal to you and tell you the truth of who I am. If not, I'm lying to you, dad, and I want to be loyal to you, loyal to this familia, loyal to our people. And so I took that was one of the parts that I wove in and where Lucio's writing this letter throughout his journey in this show and in the end his dad reads the letter and he says those exact words Like mijo, your letter, you told me one of the greatest things I ever showed you was loyalty. And Lucio tells him yes, and I can't be loyal to you if I'm lying to you, because lying to someone is not being loyal. And it really like resounds in the final song that the father and son sing together. It's called no Se Como. The father and son sing together. It's called no se como and the last uh, two lines of lyric.

Speaker 4: 29:08

They both say he says the dad says I don't know how to accept you and lucio says I don't know how to forgive you. And they both say together but I'd like to try. And that really hits home to people because oftentimes, as gay people, we're not saying, oh, accept us and all we who we are and all my locura, but we're just saying what can you try? You know, and I think that is like in humanity if we try to learn from each other, if we at least give the step, if we take that first step of trying, you know, there's a lot of great things that could come out of that. Relationships can be mended, acceptance can, can happen. So that was one of the resounding things through it.

Speaker 2: 29:52

Yeah, this is Mario. Again, abel, what what's next for you?

Speaker 4: 29:57

well, arena was just produced again a couple weeks ago, a few weeks ago as a concert, and it was absolutely amazing to see. I was often in musicals, because people are moving around so much and dancing and jumping while they're singing.

Speaker 4: 30:12

You know the songs come through but they don't come through as when the actors are just standing there and singing these beautiful notes and singing these beautiful melodies and harmony. So we just did that and all throughout, but especially after the concert, a lot of people have been asking where can I find the soundtrack to this? Like I want to bump it in my car, you know, because, like you know, it's Arena, a house musical. So there are some house songs in there that are from the 90s that we retooled to be in the show as musical theater, but then all of some of the original songs are written in the style of house music, but then there's ballads in there that are beautiful and people just like it. So we're looking at producing with DJ Irene. Dj Irene has been a strong supporter of the show since the beginning and now she's come on board as an associate producer and one of the things that we're exploring is Irene producing the singles of the two main title songs and then possibly even doing a cast album.

Speaker 2: 31:14

Thank you very much for joining us today, Abel. Yes, thank you.

Speaker 4: 31:19

Yeah, it's been a pleasure.

Speaker 2: 31:20

Thank you so much, and yeah, Thank you to our guest Abel Alvarado, who shared his story about making Arena a house musical. I'm Mario J Navoa and I'm Eduardo.

Speaker 3: 31:34

Archuleta.

Speaker 1: 31:35

This podcast is a segment of the Out Agenda. Radio Q Glue is a product of KPFK. I'm Rita Gonzalez and we want to hear from you. Like us on our Facebook page or email us at theoutagenda at gmailcom. You can find Radio Q Glue on all podcast platforms. Thanks for listening. Have a wonderful week and remember that being out is the first step to being equal. Now stay tuned for this Way Out.