CASA 0101 Theater opened its Fernandomania Ten-Minute Play Festival on August 29, 2025 as part of its 25th Anniversary season. The festival featured the world premiere of twelve 10-minute plays that honor the legacy of Fernando Valenzuela, the late and great Major League Baseball pitcher and former Los Angeles Dodger who passed in October of last year.
Highlights of the festival include the plays La Habra Ass Foos by Don Huesos, and actors Martin Morales, Edward Navarrete, Itzel Ocampo, and Gabriela Pedraza.
It’s so fitting and powerful for this play festival to be centered around Fernando Valenzuela and to be produced in Boyle Heights. Before even getting into the specifics of these plays, there are already many layers contributing to the magnitude of this production.
As the one year anniversary of Valenzuela’s passing approaches, the recent re-amplification of anti-Latine and anti-Latine immigrant sentiment across the country (this is nothing new) and specifically in Los Angeles remains palpable. For a playhouse anywhere in Los Angeles to make a deliberate choice to celebrate the Latine community at this moment in history is bold and essential. The fact that CASA 0101 made this choice is consistent with its legacy as a catalyst for bold and impactful theatrical work. Further, it’s as if the company said it was not going to wait for someone outside the Latine community to celebrate them; it’s up to our own communities to look within, celebrate, and uplift ourselves when so many external forces are actively trying to disrupt such acts.
As I write this, I ask myself: How is it that at this time last year, so many were paying homage to Valenzuela and celebrating his contributions, yet less than a year after his passing, the Latine community he represented is being villainized? And I again turn to CASA 0101 who, by putting on this production, is rejecting such vilification.
The festival opens with the play Fernandomania Forever that tells the story of muralist Robert Vargas as he works on his Boyle Heights mural of Fernando Valenzuela. Vargas had worked on this mural around this time last fall as Valenzuela was in his final days. This play serves as the “grounding” play for other small plays to revolve around.
Linda then tells the love story of Fernando Valenzuela and his wife Linda Valenzuela, and was written by their daughter, Maria Fernanda Valenzuela. The play follows Fernando (played by Edward Navarrete) and Linda (played by Yahsa Alaniz) from when they first meet through Fernando’s passing. Navarrete embodied the humble and quiet nature of the baseball giant well throughout the play.
My favorite play of the festival was Don Huesos’ La Habra Ass Foos in which protagonist Gabe struggles with his identity and ultimately changes himself to fit the Chicano stereotype. Navarrete’s performance of Gabe in this production was a real treat to see. Navarette leaned into his comedy chops to bring Gabe to life, and committed himself to the role as he created a specific walk and speech style for the character. His performance here took me by surprise because he’d been so quiet in his portrayal of Valenzuela. Navarette showed off his range across the two plays, and was a highlight of the production.
Martin Morales was another standout performer in the festival. The actor played a total of five characters across five plays. His most poignant and heartwarming performance was as Abuelito Alfonso, who tries to connect with his grandson. Morales’ subtle acting brought the character to life, made him believable, and reminded me of my elders. Moreover, Morales’ Spanish-speaking skills were among the strongest of the cast, making his Spanish-speaking characters all the more believable.
Itzel Ocampo was also a strong actor who played a range of roles and made each one unique. She played a child named Daniel, a grieving adult sibling, and a grieving daughter. Ocampo portrayed the playfulness and curiosity of Daniel well, and brought strong Spanish-speaking skills to the role. She also vividly conveyed the grieving of the adults.
Gabriela Pedraza was another strong force in the festival who embodied four different characters, including a child named Jaime, a grieving adult daughter, and an adult friend. Pedraza brought youthfulness to her portrayal of Jaime, showcased the ongoing pain of a child who yearns for their late parent, and played a supportive friend in her role as Raquel.
While there were strong moments of acting across the plays, there were also moments of confusion and concern.
In From Somewhere by Jose Luis Lopez, Alejandro Reynoso plays Raúl, Daniel’s father, who immigrated to the United States from Mexico. In the play, Raúl speaks to his son in Spanish, and when his son responds, he speaks Spanish better. Reynoso’s Spanish pronunciation lapses continuously took me out of the play because I knew Raúl was intended to speak Spanish better than his son. I would have appreciated a casting choice that reflected the intent and authenticity of the story.
In Beisbol y Novelas, written by Ignacio Gonzalez, Jaime, a young child who grapples with their multi-cultural/national identity as being Mexican and raised in the United States, had a line of dialogue that jumped out at me. Towards the end of the play when Jaime begins to understand who Fernando Valenzuela is and the history of the land on which Dodger Stadium was built, Jaime questions how the Dodgers will treat “Mexicans” in the future. The use of the word “Mexicans” came across as a catch-all term that conflates “Mexican” with “Latine,” a choice that dangerously omits the continued presence of Latines from across the diaspora in Los Angeles, thereby contributing to their erasure from history and the culture. Needless to say, the Los Angeles Latine community is not purely Mexican nor has it ever been.
In the same vein, the play festival was Mexican, Mexican American, and Chicano-centric, save for Un Buen Heroe by Celina Martinez, which was inspired by her father who emigrated from Cuba, and Nando by Gloria Isabel Briseño, that only once mentioned the two protagonists being Salvadoran. In such a multi-national city like Los Angeles, I would have liked to have seen more plays that reflected the range of experiences, identities, and stories of the Latine diaspora.
Another moment of confusion occurred at the conclusion of No Sabo by Oscar Arguello. Here, protagonist Kid, played by Jeremiah Ocañas, learns to embrace his culture. At the end of the play, Kid began to swear at the sitting president, ICE, and their ongoing raids. This expression of anger felt like a spur-of-the-moment choice by the actor. I couldn’t tell if this act had been written and rehearsed.
The set design of the plays also created confusion. The festival depended heavily on the three digital screens to create settings for each of the plays. Though it makes sense for the festival to rely on these screens given that it contains twelve different plays with different settings, I would have appreciated a more tactile scenic design. The production made use of physical props like tables, chairs, and couches which helped place the audience in specific settings, and these alone would have sufficed.
The dependency on digital screens created dissonance: I was asked to mentally create a setting given the digital backgrounds and physical props, but it was difficult for me to remain present and immersed in the story because these two elements exist in different dimensions. I did suspend by disbelief at moments, but overall, I was distracted by three large electric screens.
FERNANDOMANIA at CASA 0101 was a night filled with the laughs, celebration, sorrow, and disappointment that make the human experience. I experienced a range of emotions through stories written, performed, and produced by local talent. The festival is strong and quality theater that has something to say about our past and current historical moments, and ought to be seen by anyone who can do so. The festival runs weekends through September 21, 2025 at CASA 0101 Theater in Boyle Heights.
