Celestial Flesh

Celestial Flesh, written and directed by Rick Mitchell, produced by Urban Ensemble, is set in the 1980s, in a downtown Los Angeles church — loosely based on La Placita — that declares itself a sanctuary in order to harbor Central American refugees. As an out-of-control Cardinal commits various transgressions in the church, a parishioner inadvertenly gets involved in a major cocaine operation — led by a Nicaraguan “contra” based in L.A. — which is helping to fund weapons for the “contras,” as well as for gangs in South Central. Within the play, a radical nun and some refugees work on a show about El Salvadoran martyr Archbishop Oscar Romero in spite of increasing threats from an archconservative Cardinal, a CIA-backed drug dealer, and a Central American death squad. Nonetheless, the church’s pastor — a renegade priest who is loosely based on the late pastor of La Placita, Father Luis Olivares — along with several refugees, repel a near attack by the U.S. marines and the I.N.S and take over the church during the play’s comically surreal finale.