Women are ready to take back the theater stage with a vengeance. For the fall semester, the Mesa College Theatre Company will be presenting Federico Garcia Lorca’s “The House of Bernarda Alba.” This drama will be running from October 10 to the 18. Showings on Fridays and Saturdays begin at 8 p.m. Sundays will have an early start time at 7 p.m.

The play takes place in the 1930s with the title character Bernarda (Amy Peters) dealing with the recent loss of her second husband. Keeping family tradition, Bernarda enforces a period of mourning for eight years. That also means no outside relationships during that time.

This doesn’t go well with her five daughters, who are between the ages of 20 to 39. Her daughters include the oldest Angustias (Kayceelyn Alvarado), twins Magdalena (Natacha Fulan) and Amelia (Malerie Silva), Martirio (Leigh Aston) and Adela (Amanda Osborn).

Tension and jealously mount up between the sisters. Angustias, unlike her other four sisters, is wealthy because she inherited the most riches from Bernarda’s first husband. Her money attracts a suitor and that angers the sisters.

Using the new translation by US Latina playwright Caridad Svich, director Juan Castro and this cast hope to bring new meaning to the play. It hopes to highlight the prejudice women go up against but also avoids stereotyping the use of women in plays as well.

“It speaks to injustice and imbalance that women through the ages still struggle against,” Peters said.

“Most of the women are clichéd negative[ly],” Castro said. “What’s different about this production is that we hope to drop the cliché and bring a greater humanity to these characters.”

Castro has been regularly directing plays for the Mesa College Theatre Company for the past 20 years. Each play he directs deal with some sort of struggle, whether internal or external, and gives the audience thoughts to question after the curtains are closed.

“This [play] in particular hits hard on the restrictions that women have experienced throughout time,” Castro said. “We try to enlighten and provoke our audience that they may rethink these many social issues.”

Even though Castro is a veteran on the theatre stage, many of the cast members are either entering their first or second semester with the company. Peters is in her second semester, but will be taking center stage as the lead character in this production.

“Bernarda Alba is very complex and is a product of her own historical suffrage in a very oppressive upbringing,” Peters said of her role. “She is angry, domineering, jealous, vengeful and terrified of family disgrace.”

This isn’t her first lead in a play however. Peters has also been the star in “Death and the Maiden” and “A Texas Romance” for the Stone Soup Theatre Company. She hopes her experience on-stage can translate not only making the play entertaining but also thought-provoking.

“Through awareness and art I hope we can make a difference,” she said.

Admissions are $5 for Mesa students and staff, $8 for non-Mesa students, seniors and military, $10 for general admission. For more information, please call (619) 388-2621.