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Milt Commons might have lived in San Francisco, but he left his heart in San Juan Bautista—so much so that the long-time stage manager for El Teatro Campesino willed his book collection to the San Juan Bautista City Library, where some volumes will form a new theater studies section.
“I am very excited to have this collection come here,” said Library Technician Estrella Esparza-Johnson. “I’m hoping that, if we gather things that are specifically tailored to his profession, we can highlight them and connect them with local college programs.”
Commons decided to donate his books to the library a few days before his death on Nov. 7, 2023, during a hospice visit from Esparza-Johnson and her father, El Teatro Campesino veteran and BenitoLink board member Phil Esparza.
“He knew my father used to work at the University in Monterey,” she said, “and he asked if he could help with where his books should go. My father said we could talk to the university but suggested San Juan. Milt asked me, “Could we do that?”
Esparza-Johnson said that Commons seemed pleased by the idea that the books would be where people knew who he was and where they could provide an educational resource to the community.
Commons began his career in the theater in 1950 as an actor and a stage manager, long before he began working with El Teatro Campesino during the 1979 debut of Luis Valdez’s “Zoot Suit” at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles.
He retired from the stage in 2020 at the age of 93, but his interest in books lasted his whole life. Several books in the collection were published in the year before he died.
The first part of the collection, housed in about 40 cartons, has been delivered to the library, and the process of sorting and cataloging has begun. The range of subject areas shows Commons’ interests went far beyond theater and film to include subjects such as classic and modern literature, art, poetry, history, religion, Native American studies, Western Americana, travel and psychology.
“He picked up the moniker of a gentleman scholar,” Esparza-Johnson said. “He read and wrote a lot, and he was always very well-versed in many things besides his theatrical work.”
While every carton has its share of treasures, such as an oversized edition of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” with illustrations by Gustave Dore and a copy of Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick” gifted to Commons 70 years ago by a friend in New York, there are also books that represent landmarks in his career.
The copy of “The Poetry of Yevtushenko” which Commons read from when he recorded two albums of the Russian author’s work in 1966 is in the collection, as is his annotated copy of “The House of Atreus” trilogy by the ancient Greek tragedian Aeschylus which he used in an acclaimed staging of all three plays at the Billy Rose Theatre on Broadway in 1968.
But perhaps the item of greatest local interest is a signed first edition of “Zoot Suit” inscribed to Commons by Valdez:
“To Milt, with deep appreciation for your heart and experience in the creation of ‘Zoot Suit’ from embryo to Broadway. It has been a privilege working with you across the years. May our collaboration continue. In Brotherhood! Abrazos! Luis, Easter ’92.”
According to Joanie Juster, a friend of Commons who is helping to distribute his estate, there are more boxes of materials that may be joining the ones already in San Juan Bautista.
“I’m still going through his walk-in closet,” she said, “and it has shelves just filled with boxes of things relating to his life and career. We have his original stage management notebooks, scripts, his textbooks from college with his notes and annotations and every Equity contract he ever signed starting in 1952.”
Some of the materials, including a box of playbills going back to the 1950s, are being sent to the Internet Archive to be scanned and made accessible to the public. Once they are scanned, a decision will be made as to where they will be permanently housed—and San Juan is being considered for this wealth of materials.
“We don’t want it to get lost,” said Library Technician Lead Rochelle Eagen. “We want it to become a destination and a resource not only for our local community, but for anybody coming in looking for knowledge. No one has ever been turned away from this library.”
The library is looking for help with the cataloging and volunteers may contact Eagan or Esparza-Johnson at (831) 623-4687 or apply in person.
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