Josefina López’s new play Eléctrico is a must-see

From left: Dustin Loomis, Robert Moris Castillo, and Timothy Willard in Electrico. (Photo by Steve Moyer)

As one of Los Angeles’s most significant theatres and a model for professional community theatre, CASA 0101 Theatre in Boyle Heights continues to celebrate its ongoing 25th season with the world premiere of founding artistic director Josefina López’s latest play, Eléctrico, with outstanding direction by Corky Dominguez.

CASA 0101 Theatre is a treasure and Eléctrico is a must see.

Eléctrico runs through Nov. 2, with performances Friday and Saturday at 8 pm and Sundays at 3 pm. Don’t miss it.

One of America’s most prolific playwrights, Josefina López is best known for her groundbreaking play, Real Women Have Curves (1987), which was adapted into an award-winning film in 2002. In 2025, it was adapted into a Broadway musical and received a total of 12 award nominations, including two Tony Award nominations. She has also created a significant body of work, and we are always interested in what comes next.

Eléctrico is a bold and haunting piece of American theatre. Corky Dominguez once again demonstrates why he is one of our finest directors. CASA 0101’s designers immerse us in this tragic and forgotten history of racial violence and lynching of Mexicans along the Texas borderlands in 1910. Eléctrico’s cast is special. These actors bring their characters to life and lead us moment by moment through the story. This is theatre at its best.

López calls Eléctrico a historical feminist western drama. It is inspired by an experience she had in an old Tucson diner having coffee with a friend and feeling like she was back in the 1900’s. In the 1900’s, Mexicans would not have been allowed in that diner. It was a volatile time of raids across the border, racial segregation, abuse of power, and lynchings of Mexicans.

Lopez had a vision of a corpse hanging from a power pole. She asked “ What if the corpse was supposed to stay up there to intimate Mexicans from fighting back and what would he do? Why would he risk his life to take it down?”

López researched the history of the time, and read the history book Forgotten Dead about the little known lynchings of Mexicans in the Southwest. She felt compelled to tell this story during our current contemporary racial tensions and anti immigrant sentiment in the U.S.

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended the Mexican American War, resulting in the U.S. acquiring for $15 million present-day California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and parts of Colorado, Wyoming, and Kansas, extending the U.S. border to the Pacific Ocean and establishing the Rio Grande as the Texas border. Mexicans in those areas had the choice of returning to Mexico or becoming U.S. citizens and retaining the rights to their land. In reality along the borderlands some of the Texas courts, the Texas Rangers, and the big Texas ranchers denied those rights and engaged in violence against the Mexicans. Mob violence led to public lynchings of Mexicans. They even sold postcards of the hangings.

Eléctrico is the story of a white passing electrician, Raymond Brown, set in the spring of 1910 a few months before the Mexican Revolution began in a small town in Texas, 62 years after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, five miles from the Mexican border. Brown is caught in a racial struggle between the whites and the Mexicans when he discovers the real reason the electricity went out.

López says “Corky Dominguez always brings my story to life by seeing beyond what I wrote and surprising me with a more powerful vision.”

Dominguez’ research and collaboration with designer Cesar Retana-Holquin, projection designer Anthony Storniolo, costume designer Patricia (Mama J) Tripp, lighting designer Alex Para, and sound designer immediately set us in the time period. This design team is exceptional.

Dominguez has incorporated corridos introducing each scene composed and played by Francisco Rivas Medina. Medina’s music and performance are outstanding.

Kudos to the entire cast.

Corina Calderon is a standout as the strong Mexican woman, Adela Borrego, whose husband who has been lynched by the local sheriff and is still hanging from the power pole.

Robert Moris Castillo’s acting is honest and sincere as Raymond Brown, the electrician, who is Mexican and passing as white. He has his own demons.

Casara Clark is an audience favorite as Darlene Tracy the Saloon Woman, and who with a little theatrical magic, transforms into the ghost of Raymond’s wife, Eliza Brown.

As Emmanuel Deleage, CASA 0101’s talented and rock steady producer says, “It is a story rooted in the past and as relevant today as ever.”

There is so much more in this journey back to a time and a history that has largely been forgotten. Give yourself a treat and see it now before it closes.

CASA 0101 Theater 2102 E 1st St Los Angeles, CA 90033

Eléctrico runs through Nov. 2, with performances Friday and Saturday at 8 pm and Sundays at 3 pm.
Box Office tickets : 323-263-7684 or available on Eventbrite.