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Five police officers were fatally shot outside Mexico City on Monday as they stopped a vehicle suspected to have been carrying members of a local drug gang. A member of La Familia Michoacana drug cartel was also killed in the attack when a taxi and van pulled up during the officers’ stop and opened fire with high-powered weapons. The number of drug-related killings across Mexico has now reached 50,000 since December 2006 and continues to rise.

As tragic drug-related violence frequents the headlines, and as Mexico’s own police force is implicated, Mexican citizens live in fear of the state and its outlaws. In attempting to capture the effects on the people of Mexico, up and coming Mexican playwright Tanya Saracho has written a new play, El Nogalar. Inspired by Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, Saracho tells the story of the privileged Maité Galvan, her daughters Valeria and Anita and their housekeeper Dunia. Greeting the family home in northern Mexico after years of living in the U.S. is a new and brutal climate and class divide due to the drug cartels. Adjusting to the new changes does not come easily for Maité and her family who continue to spend their money and risk losing their home and beloved pecan orchard to a drug cartel.

Saracho, a native of Sinaloa, Mexico is a resident playwright emeritus at Chicago Dramatists, a current resident playwright at Teatro Vista, a Goodman Theatre Fellow at the Ellen Stone Belic Institute for the Study of Women and Gender in the Arts and Media at Columbia College Chicago, an artistic associate at About Face Theatre, the founder of The Ñ Series, and the founder and former artistic director of Teatro Luna.

Critical acclaim for El Nogalar as well as her previous works has cemented her place in Chicago theater and as a rising powerhouse on a national level.

As Eddie Torres, Cofounder and Artistic Director of Teatro Vista describes “Tanya is doing some of the most comprehensive, entertaining, and politically savvy writing that I’ve seen. She’s writing roles for women that are smart and funny, but poignant and political. She doesn’t apologize for who they are, where they’re coming from, and what they’re saying.”

GUEST: Tanya Saracho, playwright, originally from Mexico, based in Chicago

El Nogalar opens on Saturday, January 28, with performances on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays @ 8 pm and Sundays @ 2 pm through March 11.

Tickets are $25 on Thursdays and Fridays and $30 on Saturdays and Sundays, except opening night which is $34.

On Thursdays and Fridays only, students with ID are $18 and seniors are $23.

The Fountain Theatre is located at 5060 Fountain Avenue (at Normandie) in Los Angeles. Secure, on-site parking is available for $5. The Fountain Theatre is air-conditioned and wheelchair accessible.

For reservations and information, call 323 663-1525 or go to www.FountainTheatre.com.