Congratulations to library technician Rudy Martinez and the rest of the wonderful cast in Remembering the Future: a journey through the mind of Rio Hondo College. The community-based theatre production is based on actual conversations and events that have taken place at Rio Hondo throughout the years. Five of Rio's classified staff had parts in the play with the fabulous Rio Hondo Theatre company filling out the cast. The professionalism and naturalism shown by all the actors was outstanding. Congratulations to playwright Bernardo Solano and director William Korf for providing a rich and multi-layered script and theatre experience.

As William Korf relates in the program notes for the play, "Community-based theatre is about giving voice to communities...The process for Rio's production began last year when Bernardo Solano, a college professor and playwright whose specialty is CBT, began to work with me by bringing the classified staff together to hear their stories. This is done through a seies of 'story circles': about 10 people sitting around, sharing food and drink, and answering questions about their lives, their jobs, this campus and how they intermix. About 50 classified staff attended our 6 story circles, which took place over a 6-month period in 2005. Then Bernardo wrote the first draft of the play. We held a public reading of the play in December 2005. This reading took the form of a giant circle of people in Putnam Center and so, since it was scheduled for demolition in January, we wanted to bid it a fond farewell. (Here it is late April and Putnam Center is still hanging on). In fact, the play you see is set in the ruins of Putnam Center, This seemed like the appropriate setting to have our story take place since many people in the story circles kept referring to the uniqueness of the building and the beauty of the view from the grass behind it."