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The second Celebración Artística de las Américas (CALA Festival) will spend the next month sprinkling Arizona with cultural delights celebrating the contributions of Latino heritage to our vibrant life in these Americas. New Carpa Theater Company’s The Mighty Vandals, an official CALA event, tells a gripping story of Arizona’s 1951...

By Julie Peterson

October 3, 2013

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The second Celebración Artística de las Américas (CALA Festival) will spend the next month sprinkling Arizona with cultural delights celebrating the contributions of Latino heritage to our vibrant life in these Americas. New Carpa Theater Company’s The Mighty Vandals, an official CALA event, tells a gripping story of Arizona’s 1951 high-school basketball champions, a team of mostly Mexican-American kids from the mining town of Miami who beat the odds (and beat the brilliant team from segregated Carver High) under the leadership of Ernie Kivisto, a Marine-vet coach who allegedly imported the fast break to the Grand Canyon State from his playing days at Marquette.

Theater Works hosts the closing performance at 2 p.m. Sunday, October 6, at Peoria Center for the Performing Arts, 8355 West Peoria Avenue. Tickets are $12 and $16 at 623-815-7930 or www.theaterworks.org. Find deets on other culinary, performance, educational, and art events comprising the fest at www.calaalliance.org.

Oct. 4-5, 7:30 p.m.; Sun., Oct. 6, 2 p.m., 2013

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Julie has written for the Night & Day events calendar section since 2005. As a student at Arizona State, she received the Glendon and Kathryn Swarthout Creative Writing Award and the Theatre Medallion of Merit.

Contact: Julie Peterson