Los Angeles, 1831. Arturo is a lisping, art-obsessed aspiring academic, freshly back from Spain. He returns home with the new governor, Don Rubio: blond, pompous and set on bringing back the Inquisition. Arturo’s friends try to shield him, but Don Rubio’s cruelty keeps growing.

The people of the pueblo have to decide whether they’ll stand up together. Presented as a long-lost Californio verse comedy modeled on Lope de Vega’s Fuenteovejuna, The Angels is bawdy, rhyming, outrageous fun, and a rallying cry that “angels come in every form.”