Archangel Gabriel-"Come ye to Yakima and celebrate La Pastorela" As you can see the costumes are on and the lights are up so all that is needed is you all to come and celebrate.

It has been an excellent four weeks of rehearsals and we are now getting all thirty six cast members headed in the right direction. Music has been learned and the pan dulce is on order. What more do we need?

Well ahead in the rehearsals

We are now a couple of weeks into the rehearsals for La Pastorela St. Joseph 2008. All is running smooth this year as we are a bit more used to doing the thing. We hope it will be bigger- already the case with an increase in cast to 34 characters and better- better sound better scenic events, better in a word.

We have added the very talented Jen Zeyl to the design team as well as Adam Michard in the Technical Director role. Add them to Mary Kloster on costumers, Diane Baas with lights and Ashley Sparks in direction, Gaston Perez with music, Los Bailadores del Sol dancing again and you are in for a PARTY!

Today we rehearse more with the major devils and their child side kicks. Excellent.

No picture but some great news.

Well, the UnRegistered has been taking all of the DXM attention for the past months. And now it is done! What a fantastic success. All the collaborators on and off stage were terrific, we played to standing room only crowds for all three nights and we loved it. There will be more on this blog soon.

One Year in Yakima.

The home of the best tortillas in Yakima.


Since the last posting, which was far too long ago, the following items have happened-

DXM has celebrated one year in Yakima! It has been a year of happiness, expansion, development and meeting a whole lot of new people. Thank you Yakima for the year together.

We have finished the info collection for the Seattle October show entitled The UnRegistered; A 2008 Election Cabaret. Many interviews about American voting habits and voting futures in Seattle. The playwrights Andrea Allen and David Schmader are writing away on it as I write this.

The planning for the 2008 Pastorela is well under weigh. Director Ashley Sparks is in Yakima for a set of meetings as we head towards making it all bigger and better and easier to hear this year.

We are doing yet another round of community partner events in preparation for La Pastorela. Weekend retreat with young Hispanic adults, a two week drama workshop with women and their children at La Casa Hogar as well as further interviews on the immigrant experience of the white population of Yakima as well. All going to make the Pastorela 2008 that much richer.

Finally, we are now beginning with playwright Bruce Hurlbut to do research on Tieton Washington, location of our 2009 project. Great partners and a very interesting town. We will see what turns up.

And so to Puebla

I was so happy being in Puebla. We stayed at the Royalty, which is right downtown on the main square. Puebla is the most Mexican feeling town I have ever visited in Mexico. That is to say the buildings, the lights, the people all are very alive and the city has such a vibrant feeling about it. Granted we were there on Palm Sunday weekend and so was half of Mexico. And seeing the Mexicans on vacation is another part of my work. It was great to be there at the beginning of Holy Week a time of the year when everyone who can afford to goes home to be with family for the week.


Poblanos have a reputation for being very stuck up on account of the long and glorious history of the place and the beautiful buildings that line the streets. They have some reason for being proud of the latter. The photo above was taken in the small side chapel of the Dominican church. I have never seen so much gilt in my life. We were packed in there with the French of course. Yes, even more French in Puebla than when France actually occupied the city in the 1800's


Prior to the Suppression of the their order, the Jesuits had a huge college and center here. We found the church and the old college is now a state university. The above is from the church. Once again it is hard and wonderful to imagine a country with this deep a history. I am not sure why we all flock to Europe for this feeling when we could head south and feel it with our neighbors.

An excellent trip and important to the work we are doing here as I try to get a better idea of what immigrant folks here leave when the leave. What shape is the longing for return to their homes?

Oaxaca yes, that is how you spell it.

And so we went south. Six hours in a Mexican bus. Now, here we are right up against some misconceptions. Before I started traveling in Mexico the words "Mexican" and "Bus" meant "sitting on the back of an open truck on a crate of chickens." Wrong! Wrong! Ignorant Gringo! The bus system in Mexico is fantastic! Comfortable seats. Videos. Soft Drinks. A small sandwich! This is why I travel south!

We arrived in Oaxaca. The best light in Mexico fills one of the leafiest central squares. Pretty good cathedral even if the light fixtures are a bit iffy.


This town is home to one of the most elaborate Dominican Monasteries in the world. We spent hours wandering from room to room and then out into the open courtyards. The interior is so very excellent. Oaxaca is a university town so lots of life on the streets which we loved.



And of course, the food. And the churches. And the textiles. And the carvings. Whew!. Yes, there was a lot of culture, lots to see. And a lot to think about when I meet folks from Oaxaca. And there are a lot of them here in the USA.

Mexico City

Alright everyone, I am guilty of neglect, if not a whole list of other crimes against the readership. But now I am back! Back in the States and back on this blog. Yes, dang it! I'm back and I have this to say--

Mexico is so darn wonderful! I was there for just ten days and we saw so much. Mexico City again this time to the Pyramids and loads of downtown living it up. We stayed at the excellent and cheap Hotel Gillow



This is the view from the window towards the Cathedral. Oh, that Cathedral sinking into the soft ground of the old lake bad. Too much gold, to many of the faithful walking about and way too many French tourists with tiny tripoded cameras.

"Why" you might ask "are your travel fotos and reflections on Mechanix Blog?" Well, I was sort of on vacation in Mexico but more than that I was trying once more to fill in some of the cultural lacunae in my knowledge of the folks I encounter here who are from there. I am constantly putting images of churches like the one at the top of this blog together with the very modest ways many of the Mexicans live here in the Valley. Same culture just different parts. I need to remember this. And this means I go to Mexico and see more of it so I can see more of them!

And of course these are the same people who built the structures below and then restored them several hundred years later.




We were only in Mexico City for a couple of days and we then went south which will be recounted in the next post.

In case you are wondering what is next?

Ah January! The month that was. And now February flying by so fast, so fast. I have just been able to keep up with some of the very many tasks, opportunities, challenges, celebrations, aggravations and demands that comprise at day at the office of DXM. We have been putting La Pastorela to bed for the year-- budgets and bills mainly with a promise that much needs to be done for next year on it- rewrite the script and figure out the venue- the church or somewhere you can actually hear stuff? And plotting ways to hand it off to the local community in funding and organization. Can that be done? We will see.

Work on the Seattle project is now in full planning swing. The UnRegistered:a 2008 Election Cabaret is slated for three performances at Seattle University's Lee Center for the Arts on October 2, 3, and 4th. This work will come out of a collaboration between Seattle University and the residents of one of their boundary streets 12th Ave. N between Madison and Jefferson. I will be leading a class of students during the spring quarter at SU in exploring both communities and writing the script with Andrea Allen and David Schmader as lead writers on the script. And the excellent Allison Narver on board to direct.

The UnRegistered has as its goal- VOTING IN THE GENERAL ELECTION! I have been wondering why people vote and why they choose to sit at home instead? Why does democracy just lie there for some of us and for others it gets up and dances? So this is a project that asks that question and then puts the answers in a form that is a theatrical good time. Much more information to follow on these pages.

In other collaboration news- we are proud to announce that both The Seattle Foundation and The Norcliffe Foundation are supporting The UnRegistered! We are delighted and honored to receive their attention and support. Special thanks to Melanie Matthews who makes these grants happen.

We Opened! People Came! We Closed!

We produced an amazing show! Amazing from the first activities described in this blog, six months ago, to the last sip of hot chocolate and pan dulce after the performance. It was a fantastic six months, and this was just step one of the three year committment to building a Pastorela in the Yakima Valley.

The photos show a variety of moments in the play with some of our spectacular dancers, devils, angels, and all.

The show was not only pretty darn good but people came and saw it. On both nights we had between 250 and 300 folks from all over Yakima and the Valley. They seemed to like it.


After the show came down through the efforts of the entire cast and crew I put Ashley the director on a plane back to New Orleans and the wonderful Diane Baas back to Seattle after working her like a dog as the lighting/props/set designer. The collaboration on this project was unmatched by anything I have ever been a part of. Thanks!