Pastorela sketch season - by Omar
One of my big regrets over the last 10 years of living in Austin is that I’ve never gotten to be in “La Pastorela,” a show that is put on almost every year by several local Latino groups. A lot of our cast members have been involved in some form or fashion over the years, but usually we’re either putting on an LCP show or holiday commitments keep me on the sidelines.
Last year, I knew I wouldn’t be able to be part of the show, but I offered to help with a fundraiser the Austin Latino Theatre Alliance was putting on for “Pastorela.” They asked if I could do an LCP sketch or come perform as Uncle Pepe or anything like that. I don’t know if was guilt over my years of neglect, or just being a ham, but I offered to write an original sketch for the fundraiser. I asked Patty Arredondo, who’d been in the show for several years, and one of our writers, Raul Garza, to help.
We pulled in some other people to appear in the sketch and my brother helped put together a video to close out the sketch. I’ve always regretted that we only got to perform the piece once, for just a few dozen audience members, because we had so much fun putting it together.
So here I share the full text of the sketch (including images) with you. If you don’t like reading, you can check out one of the poster images from the sketch (below) and the video that concludes the piece: my fictional auditions for “La Pastorela” over the years.
