Richard Montoya Culture Clash Collection, 1989-2022

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Summary

Creators:
Montoya, Richard, 1959-
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.
Extent:
0.43 linear feet and 2 Gigabytes
Language:
English .
Preferred citation:

For information about citing items in this collection consult the appropriate style manual, or see the Citing Archival Materials guide.

Background

Scope and content:

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.

Biographical / historical:

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). SigĂĽenza 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.

Acquisition information:
Richard Montoya, 2003, 2024.
Processing information:

Robert G. Marshall and Rebecca S. Graff, February 2004

Arrangement:

Series I: Plays, 1993-2017

Series II: Troupe, 1994-2022

Series III: Personal, 1989-2023

Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard

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 Materials guide.

Location of this collection:
18111 Nordhoff Street
Northridge, CA 91330, US
Contact:
(818) 677-4594
Website