SOURCE: "The New Professionalism: Zoot Suit in the mainstream," in El Teatro Campesino: Theater in the Chicano Movement, University of Texas Press, 1994, pp. 177-205.

Broyles-Gonza̧lez recounts the development of Zoot Suit, assessing the relative merits of the various rewritings and restagings of the play.

After the 1977 staging of Rose of the Rancho the Teatro Campesino resumed work on Fin del mundo in hopes of converting it into a "hit." In the words of ensemble member (and later producer) José Delgado: "We didn't travel in 1977 specifically because we wanted to do something that was going to be a hit. We thought it was going to be Fin del mundo" (Delgado and Esparza interview, 8/10/1983).

As the ensemble began working on Fin del mundo, a parallel activity was initiated by Luis Valdez, who perhaps had a different notion of where the next "hit" would come from. Valdez (through Delgado) offered...