Chapter 5: Zoot Suit (1981)

According to the Center Theatre Group (2017)Zoot Suit (Valdez, 1981), “changed theatre forever…Chicano theatre became American theatre” (para. 1). Zoot Suit was the first Chicano play to make it to Broadway, and the production was a powerful celebration of the experiences, cultures, and contributions of Mexican Americans. Mixing Spanish and English, emphasizing social (in)justice, bending genres, and crafting a new musical score for the stage, Zoot Suit “was a rebuke to mainstream American culture for its lingering refusal to allow Mexican-Americans to participate in the American Dream, as much as it was a celebration of a different vision of what it meant to be American” (Rappaport, 2017, para. 8). The film of the same name is a close adaptation of this ground-breaking play and loosely follows the 1942 Sleepy Lagoon trial in which a series of Mexican Americans are wrongfully convicted of murder.