CELESTIAL FLESH: A Sacrilegious Comedy

lestial Flesh: A Sacrilegious Comedy by Rick Mitchell, produced by Urban Ensemble ("an outstanding ensemble," LA Weekly), is set in the 1980s, in a downtown Los Angeles church--loosely based on La Placita--declares itself a sanctuary in order to harbor Central American refugees. Inadvertently, a parishioner 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 an Central American death squad. Nonetheless, the church's pastor-- 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 final