CAFE VIDA Comes to Sierra Madre Playhouse

The next selection in Off the Page, the ongoing series of staged play readings at Sierra Madre Playhouse will be Café Vida by Lisa Loomer. This reading will be co-presented by Sierra Madre Playhouse and the Sierra Madre Public Library.

Cafe Vida follows the men and women who work at Homeboy Industries. Chabela and Luz are rival homegirls ready to leave the life and begin anew at Cafe Vida - the only place in the city that gives young women and their troubled pasts a genuine second chance to start a new life free of violence. It's here that these former enemies choose "la vida" over "la muerte" as they learn to compost, tend a garden, julienne an onion, and rock your lunch order with a smile and a heaping side of transformation. Cafe Vida is inspired by interviews conducted at Homegirl Cafe and Homeboy Industries, organizations that offer vocational training, rehabilitation, and employment to former gang members.

Playwright Lisa Loomer is partly of Spanish ancestry, and many of her plays feature Latinx characters. Among her plays are The Waiting Room, Two Things You Don't Talk About at Dinner, Motherhood Out Loud, Living Out, Expecting Isabel, All by Herselves, much more. She co-wrote the screenplay for Girl, Interrupted. She has also written for several television series, including Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. Café Vida was produced in Los Angeles in 2012.

The Off the Page reading series is produced by Sierra Madre Playhouse Artistic Director Christian Lebano and is coordinated by Roxanne Barker.

A list of events in February that complement the Café Vida reading that are being presented by the Sierra Madre Public Library can be found at http://cityofsierramadre.com

Café Vida. Staged reading of a play by Lisa Loomer. Monday, February 17, 2020 at 7:00 p.m. At Sierra Madre Playhouse, 87 W. Sierra Madre Blvd., Sierra Madre, CA 91024. This is just east of Pasadena. Parking is available on the street and in free lots behind the Playhouse and across the street. Suggested donation: Five dollars. Website: http://sierramadreplayhouse.org Phone: (626) 355-4318.