Dear Subscribers,

It’s been a while since you last heard from us, but behind the scenes, we’ve been working continuously to get our theater reopened. Stay tuned, because we expect to have major news next month.

Right now, our biggest concern is the health and wellbeing of one of our theater community’s most venerated members, Jose Luis Mendoza Aubert.

Jose Luis, 74, has been a fixture in the cultural life of San Miguel for decades, as an actor, director, theater technician, musician, educator and activist. He was for fifteen years director of Arts and Culture at the Biblioteca Pública. Jose Luis is a playwright, and founder and director of the theater company and school La Comedia del Universo. He is a founding member of the traditional music group Fusión Colonche y Del Maguey, and teaches music to children. Jose Luis is also a cinephile, and has been a judge for the Guanajuato International Film Festival. He has worked with many of the theater companies in San Miguel, both English and Spanish speaking; for many years he was a principal technician for Players Workshop. As an actor, Jose Luis was recently seen at JC3 Chesma in the plays Macario and Blithe Spirit.

And that is only a portion of his remarkable resume.

Jose Luis is undergoing radiation therapy for tumors in his bladder and lung. The therapy is succeeding and his prospects for a full recovery are highly encouraging.

The expenses of his treatment – hospitalization, surgery and IMRT (intensity-modulated radiation therapy) – are beyond his means, an estimated 323,000 pesos (about $18,500 USD).

We are appealing to everyone in our community able to help out to make a donation to the medical fund of Jose Luis Mendoza. His friends have created a GoFundMe donation page. All donations go directly to Jose Luis’s local bank account.

If you prefer, you can donate to that same account at any Oxxo with cash or card by using Jose Luis’s bankcard number: 4189 1432 9125 3279

Thank you for taking the time to read this newsletter.