Letters from the People- LA Times

Greetings, Mr. Padgett:

This notice is rather late, I know, but I only today stumbled across the L.A. Times Pressmen's site. It occurred to me that some of your Times colleagues might be interested in the event described below, and since the editors apparently do not intend to publicize the event in the Calendar section this is our only way of reaching the daily's staff.

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The Drama department at Cal State Los Angeles will present my stage production, "Letters from the People," taken from the Los Angeles Times letters column of the 1880s, on Nov. 2, 3, and 4. The play, directed by Prof. Steve Rothman, is a series of vignettes about life in Southern California as seen by readers of the Times. All the dialogue is taken directly from the letters column; the comments of Harrison Gray Otis, who hosts the performance, introducing each subject and letter, were written by me. The production will take place at 8 p.m in the Arena Theatre, on the Cal State LA campus. It's a "staged reading:" actors in period costume but reading from the script; little or no scenery. The whole production, with intermission, runs just under 2 hours.

Since the paper didn't invite its readers to participate in the 125th birthday anniversary, we took it on ourselves to offer this as our contribution to the celebration.

The Arena Theatre is item 2A on the attached campus map. It is not to be confused with the imposing Luckman theater complex, but is located in the Music bldg. behind (east of) Luckman. There is no admission charge butthere is a nominal fee for parking.

If you or others at The Times wish to attend, call (323) 343-4118 to reserve seats, indicating what night and how many seats you'll need so that space in the small (50 seat) theatre can be saved for you.

Ralph

Ralph E. Shaffer
Professor Emeritus, History
Cal Poly Pomona

(626) 966-4304