Members Only: A Play About 1980s America at The Los Angeles Theatre Center

In Members Only, the long-awaited sequel to the groundbreaking Blade to the Heat, 20 years have passed. It's 1982, in New York City: the golden age of boxing, the dying gasp of disco and the flowering of identity politics. Pedro Quinn is well past 40 and still fighting, not only for championships but for the right to be himself, on his own terms. He even has a protege, a young female boxer who reminds him of his own youthful fights in and out of the ring. But when a detached retina threatens to end the only life he knows, and when old frenemies Vinal and Sarita want to make a movie about the champion he killed in the ring 20 years ago, Quinn can no longer hide from the ghosts of his past. Nor can he protect those he loves from the specter of hatred, much less the oncoming onslaught of what will soon be named the AIDS virus. He can hide in plain sight no more, and his biggest fight is yet to come. A play about an America of color, forging racial and sexual identities to the pulsating beat of Willie Colon and Blondie, on the cusp of discovery, at the edge of a plague -- Members Only can be seen at the Los Angeles Theatre Center.