THE LEMON GROVE INCIDENT
Work in Development
The Lemon Grove Incident is a new choral-theater work by Alejandro Zuleta with libretto by David Cote, currently in development. The piece tells the story of the 1931 school desegregation case Roberto Álvarez v. the Board of Trustees of the Lemon Grove School District—the first successful school desegregation case in United States history.
Framed through a present-day narrator recounting the story to her granddaughter, the work moves between past and present, weaving courtroom testimony, memory, and poetry into a living musical drama. Interwoven reflections inspired by Langston Hughes’s vision of the American Dream illuminate the tension between two competing Americas: segregated and unsegregated, exclusionary and inclusive.
As in Zuleta’s other choral-theater works, the chorus functions as a shape-shifting dramatic force—at times community, at times conscience, at times history itself. Through layered voices, documentary text, and cinematic musical structure, The Lemon Grove Incident transforms a landmark civil rights struggle into a powerful meditation on democracy, belonging, and the unfinished promise of the American Dream.
A staged reading of the work is planned for 2026.
