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Gaytino! Born Gay, Born-Again Hispanic
by Joel Dossi, March 28, 2005

“I’m doing it all!” says Dan Guerrero, a theatrical jack-of-all-trades about his new one-man play, Gaytino! “That’s the fun thing about the show. I’m getting to use all of the skills from my many careers--as a performer, in the days when Boss Tweed ran New York; then later as an agent for Broadway; casting in Los Angeles; and then producing for the last 14 years.”

Guerrero, who was dubbed “one of the 25 most powerful Latinos in Hollywood” by Hispanic Magazine, admits that having fun wasn’t his only goal for producing Gaytino! Survival was. “How the hell was I going to make a living at this stage in my life?” Guerrero asks. “When you’re past 30 in Hollywood, they want to take you out the back and shoot you, no matter what you do here, even if you’re a writer or a producer.”

Since Gaytino! is an unqualified hit on the West Coast theater scene, don’t expect to see any gory headlines on Court TV. LA Stage Magazine called Guerrero “a master story teller,” and IN Magazine said “with biting humor, sincere drama and music drifting from English to Spanish, Gaytino! is hilarious, touching and provocative.” Guerrero’s play will be showcased in the New Works Festival at Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles on March 30.

“Even though Gaytino! is autobiographical, I really don’t think of it as my story,” says Guerrero, “I did it to celebrate my boyhood friend and to celebrate my dad. Those two are the driving forces behind Gaytino!”

Guerrero also admits he created the show as a way of informing younger generations about gay life in an earlier time. “Everybody knows about Stonewall, but there are lots of things people don’t know about gay life,” continues Guerrero. “And people also don’t know about Chicano history.”

The father of Chicano Music
Growing up as a kid in East LA, Guerrero was a second generation Chicano. His father, Lalo Guerrero, was a top songwriter and performer for the United State's Spanish-language music market. He passed away on March 16, but only after recording three songs for an album with guitarist Ry Cooder. The album is scheduled for release this summer.

“He loved swing,” says Guerrero, “but there was no way on earth that a dark skinned, Indian looking man in the 1940s was going to be able stand in front of the Tommy Dorsey Band or the Glenn Miller Band. So he thought, what the hell, and he brought swing to Spanish.” Lalo’s songs were so popular, that in 1977 they were featured in the play Zoot Suit, the first Latino-themed theatrical production to hit Broadway.

Lalo was also the first Mexican American to receive the National Medal for the Arts.

Mexican music, however, was the least thing Lalo’s son was interested in as a gay teenager. He wanted to be in musicals, so he packed his bags and left for Times Square on Valentines Day, 1962, with his best friend Carlos Almaraz.

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