Collection context
Summary
- Creators:
- Sigüenza, Herbert
- Abstract:
- A founding member of Culture Clash, Herbert Sigüenza was born in San Francisco. 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.
- Extent:
- 6.189 linear feet
- Language:
- English , Spanish; Castilian .
- Preferred citation:
-
For information about citing items in this collection consult the appropriate style manual, or see the Citing Archival Materialsguide.
Background
- Scope and content:
-
The Herbert Sigüenza Culture Clash Collection consists of materials related to the professional and personal life of Herbert Sigüenza, including the production, performances, and publicity of the Culture Clash theater troupe. The collection has been organized into three series: Plays (1987-2015), Troupe (1983-2000), and Personal (1984-2003).
Series I, Plays, consists of articles, brochures, flyers, letters, magazines, mailings, photographs, playbills, posters, press releases, programs, publicity, reviews, schedules, scripts, sketches, stage and costume drawings, stage notes, and story boards. The materials are arranged alphabetically by the title of the play.
Series II, Troupe, consists of materials that were created by and for the Culture Clash Troupe that are not part of the previous series. Materials include articles, business documents, calendars of events, letters, performance signup sheets, magazines, photographs, and schedules of events and are arranged alphabetically.
Series III, Personal, contains personal materials from Sigüenza. The series is arranged alphabetically.
- Biographical / historical:
-
Herbert Sigüenza was born in San Francisco. His parents are from El Salvador, and the family returned there to live when Sigüenza was nine years old. During that time El Salvador fought the "Soccer War" with Honduras. A Civil War broke out in El Salvador one year after Sigüenza left the country at age seventeen.
Returning to California, Siguenza attended the California College of Art and Crafts and received a degree in art, printmaking, and silk-screening. From there he went to work at La Raza Graphics Center in San Francisco, where he was the art director, leaving after ten years. After working with graphic art to educate and organize people, Sigüenza spent the next six years working with Teatro Gusto. This association with theater led him to co-found Culture Clash.
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), Culture Clash Unplugged (1994), Radio Mambo: Culture Clash Invades Miami (1994), Bordertown (1998), NuyoricanStories (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 for 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 the 1992 film, Encino Man as Loco, Enrique, and Chuly. Sigüenza's film credits include Star Maps (1997) and Hero (1992). In 1992, Culture Clash wrote and co-produced the award-winning short film, Columbus on Trial.
- Acquisition information:
- Herbert Sigüenza, 2003
- Processing information:
-
Robert G. Marshall, Rebecca S. Graff; February 2004
- Arrangement:
-
Series I: Plays, 1987-2015
Series II: Troupe, 1983-2000
Series III: Personal, 1984-2003
Indexed terms
- Subjects:
- Documents
Photographs
Access and use
- Restrictions:
-
The collection is open for research use.
- Terms of access:
-
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.
- Preferred citation:
-
For information about citing items in this collection consult the appropriate style manual, or see the Citing Archival Materialsguide.
- Location of this collection:
-
18111 Nordhoff StreetNorthridge, CA 91330, US
- Contact:
- (818) 677-4594