Biographical Information:
Scope and Contents
Arrangement of Materials:
Electronic Format:
Related Materials:
Conditions Governing Access:
Conditions Governing Use:
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Preferred Citation:
Processing Information:
General
Contributing Institution:
Special Collections & Archives
Title: Richard Montoya Culture Clash Collection
Creator:
Montoya, Richard, 1959-
Identifier/Call Number: URB.CC-RM
Physical Description:
0.43 linear feet
Physical Description:
2 Gigabytes
Date (inclusive): 1989-2022
Abstract: A founding member of Culture Clash,
Richard Montoya was born in San Diego in 1959, the son of two educators. Culture Clash was
founded on Cinco de Mayo, 1984 at René Yañez's Galería de la Raza/Studio 24 in San
Francisco's Mission District by Richard Montoya, Ricardo Salinas, Herbert Sigüenza, and José
Antonio Burciaga. Culture Clash's brand of Chicano comedic theater has brought them to
renowned venues including the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, the Lincoln Center in New
York City, the Huntington in Boston, the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, The Alley Theatre in
Houston, Texas, the Seattle Repertory Theatre in Seattle, and the Mark Taper Forum in Los
Angeles. The Richard Montoya Culture Clash Collection documents theatrical works that
Montoya created and performed with Culture Clash as well as his personal creative
projects.
Language of Material:
English.
Biographical Information:
Richard Montoya was born in San Diego in 1959, the son of two educators. Richard's father
is José Montoya, poet laureate of Sacramento and founding member of the Royal Chicano Air
Force, an artist collective that served as printmakers for the United Farm Workers. The
family moved to Oakland, where his father taught at Oakland High School. Montoya attended
the California College of Arts and Crafts. His family moved further north to small towns
including Marysville and Lincoln.
Culture Clash was founded on Cinco de Mayo, 1984 at René Yañez's Galería de la Raza/ Studio
24 in San Francisco's Mission District by Richard Montoya, Ricardo Salinas, Herbert
Sigüenza, and José Antonio Burciaga. Sigüenza had trained as a visual artist, Montoya's
background was in spoken word poetry, and Salinas had performed as a break-dancer and
bilingual rapper. The group was originally called Comedy Fiesta and conceived of as a troupe
of six actors, comedians, and poets including Marga Gómez and Monica Palacios. This group
worked with Luis Valdez's El Teatro Campesino. The group eventually fragmented, and Culture
Clash was formed with four members Burciaga, Montoya, Salinas, and Sigüenza. Burciaga left
the group in 1988 and died in 1996.
Some of their best-known plays include
The Mission (1988),
A Bowl of Beings (1991),
S.O.S—Comedy for These Urgent Times (1992, written in response to the Los Angeles
Riots),
Carpa Clash (1993; carpas are Mexican vaudevillian
tent shows),
Culture Clash Unplugged (1994),
Radio Mambo: Culture Clash Invades Miami (1994),
Bordertown (1998),
Nuyorican
Stories
(1999), and
Mission Magic Mystery Tour
(2001). Many of these pieces were site-specific commissioned works. Bowl of Beings is
particularly well-know as it was filmed for PBS' Great Performances series in 1992. Culture
Clash performed their adaptation of Aristophanes' The Birds for South Coast Repertory
Theater in San Diego, California and the Berkeley Repertory Theater in Berkeley, California
in 1998.
Culture Clash's first book,
Culture Clash: Life, Death, and
Revolutionary Comedy,
appeared in 1998. This publication includes scripts of many
of their plays. In 2001 they published
Culture Clash in
AmeriCCa
, a book that explores what it means to be an American through a series of
vignettes. The book was inspired by the show
Culture Clash Coast to
Coast
, which premiered at the Japanese Cultural Center in Los Angeles.
Through the efforts of comedian "Cheech" Marin, Culture Clash developed a show for Fox
Television, entitled Fox Television's "Culture Clash." The show ran from 1993 to 1995 with a
total of 30 episodes. The comedy sketch show featured guest appearances from Edward James
Olmos, Jimmy Smits, Maria Conchita Alonso, and Dolores Huerta.
Los Boys de CC have been featured together and separately in several feature films. All
three appeared in 1992's Encino Man as Loco, Enrique, and Chuly. Montoya was in Lucky Luke
(1994), Falling Down (1993), and Hero (1992). Sigüenza can be seen in Star Maps (1997) and
Hero (1992). In 1992, they co-produced and wrote
Columbus on
Trial
, an award-winning short film.
The members of Culture Clash also work on their own theatrical projects.
Scope and Contents
The Richard Montoya Culture Clash Collection documents theatrical works that Montoya
created and performed with Culture Clash as well as his personal creative proejcts. The
collection has been divided into three series:
Plays
(1993-2017),
Troupe (1994-2022), and
Personal (1989-2023). Series I,
Plays, contains
materials related to specific Culture Clash plays. Series II,
Troupe, contains materials that were created by and for the Culture Clash Troupe
that are not part of the first series. Series III,
Personal,
contains personal materials and Montoya's creative endeavors outside of Culture Clash.
Arrangement of Materials:
Series I: Plays, 1993-2017
Series II: Troupe, 1994-2022
Series III: Personal, 1989-2023
Electronic Format:
Related Materials:
Conditions Governing Access:
The collection is open for research use.
Conditions Governing Use:
Copyright for unpublished materials authored or otherwise produced by the creator(s) of
this collection has not been transferred to California State University, Northridge.
Copyright status for other materials is unknown. Transmission or reproduction of materials
protected by U.S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S.C.) beyond that allowed by fair use requires
the written permission of the copyright owners. Works not in the public domain cannot be
commercially exploited without permission of the copyright owners. Responsibility for any
use rests exclusively with the user.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Richard Montoya, 2003, 2024.
Preferred Citation:
Processing Information:
Robert G. Marshall and Rebecca S. Graff, February 2004
General
This collection was processed in part under a U.S. Department of Education Title V
Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI) Grant.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Documents
Audiovisual materials
Photographs
Textiles