An original play by Hartnell performing arts students is a story about community and the power of journalism.

A group of 13 Hartnell College students collaboratively wrote the play In Loving Memory, which takes the stage for two evenings this week only. The action of this murder mystery takes place in a fictional town “not unlike Salinas.” Its noir heroine is Joan Miller, whose unexpected suicide has disturbed the community – her father, boyfriend, best friend and boss, the CEO of the notorious agriculture corporation, Castillo Industries. When a mysterious journalist named Cora Cohen arrives at the funeral, a hidden web of secrecy, dysfunction, corruption and cover-ups is steadily revealed, threatening to leave no one guiltless.

“The main character is the dead person,” says one of the students, Mercedes Soto, who did all the hair and makeup for the play. Hence the title – a phrase often seen in the context of a funeral.

The Hartnell Department of Fine and Performing Arts shares space and resources with the Western Stage, a regional performing arts theater in Salinas. The students are guided by theater arts and cinema instructor River Navaille and adjunct Rachel Wohlander, who joined the department last semester. During our interview the group is just a week from performances, rehearsing and finally “getting it up on its feet,” from the page to the stage.

“We are still figuring out what the final shape of it is,” Navaille says.

“It made sense because of where we live,” Wohlander says of the decision to concentrate on a corrupt agriculture industry and workers’ exploitation as subjects. She adds that her passion is theater for social change and justice-oriented art.

The plot required someone to ask hard questions, Navaille explains. “The typical detective figure is overused. And I just really admire investigative journalism. Sometimes justice comes from just getting the story out.”

The play is free to attend and the students are excited to share it with both the college and the community.

“Whenever someone takes their life, or death happens prematurely in the community, everyone has to go through a process of questioning their final interaction with them and think what could they have done differently,” Navaille says. “We ask who is guilty, but also who is complicit in allowing people to be driven over the edge.”

IN LOVING MEMORY 7:30pm Thursday, April 20 and Friday, April 21. Media Center for Arts, Education and Technology, 901 Blanco Circle, Salinas. Free. No ticket required; no late seating. 755-0300.