4. HOT TAMALES TONIGHT (Rita, Cha-Cha, Gert)
The Great Depression has brought with it hard times, and Prohibition is in full swing— alcohol is illegal. To bring in extra money Rita has opened a speakeasy, a secret bar behind her family's tamale stand. Hot Tamales Tonight is a diegetic song, cabaret-style, and designed to entertain the speakeasy's patrons while encouraging them to enjoy themselves and to drink her booze.

4 - Hot Tamales Tonight - 1

Show synopsis— América Tropical, a mural deemed too offensive for the public, re-emerges decades after it was whitewashed. Its reappearance haunts Rita Rey with bittersweet memories of Prohibition era Los Angeles— a time when she had to fight a crooked system to save her family. Rita’s resistance gets her father, an American citizen, deported under the ruthless Mexican Repatriation policy. When Mexican muralist and revolutionary David Siqueiros becomes infatuated with Rita, his answer to her problems is retaliation. Rita is mistakenly arrested as a communist subversive, and she vows to find another way to stop a crooked cop who’s torn her world apart. The stakes are raised when it’s clear failure will mean she’ll lose everything. In the end Rita understands the ugly truth Siqueiros revealed in América Tropical cannot be whitewashed or covered up. And though progress has been made, the mural still speaks powerfully to the long way we have yet to go towards acceptance and equality.