"You'll have to excuse Mario. He's a working director," Nucky Walder says, fanning the collar of her shirt in jest as she introduces Teatro de la Luna director Mario Marcel. "And today he's really working."

Marcel puts down the hammer and shrugs, smiling at Walder. She's a spunky one -- his current leading lady and wife of almost 27 years.

It's a trait that extends to their 26-year-old daughter, Marcela Ferlito, who's backstage at the Gunston Arts Center, preparing for the first dress rehearsal of "She Returned One Night." She plays a mischievous archangel, her mom plays a dead mother, her father is the maestro and together they will live and breathe this production, appropriately a comedy about family ties.

Walder, originally from Paraguay, and Marcel, from Argentina, founded Teatro de la Luna 17 years ago, after moving to the Washington area and concluding that there wasn't "enough opportunity here for people to do theater in their own language," Walder recalls.

Marcel worked at GALA Hispanic Theatre for several years, but when Ferlito started acting as a child and Walder found herself wanting to return to a theatrical career, they started their own company.

Today, Luna stages two major productions a year, hosts an annual festival of Hispanic theater and cycles through local schools with its bilingual theater workshops.
"People like what we do because people see themselves reflected in the plays," Walder says. "The plays are reflecting their feelings and experiences."

"She Returned One Night," by Eduardo Rovner, zeroes in on a Jewish community in Argentina and a young man who can't seem to live up to the expectations of his dead mother. When he announces, at her gravestone, plans to marry a Catholic woman, the deceased matriarch rises from her grave to intervene. (Ferlito's archangel also hangs around to torment the would-be groom.)

"It's a very classic comedy of a specific sector of Latin America," Marcel says, with his daughter acting as his interpreter. "The play was written in the 1970s, a time of repression. And everything in this play carries a sense of frustration."

"The author is very clever to show a society and make you laugh," Walder adds. "But when you go home you really think about it."

All of Luna's productions are designed to be accessible to Spanish and English speakers. The performances are in Spanish, but the play is either translated as surtitles on a screen above the stage or interpreted live for audiences via headsets.

Over the years, Luna has attracted a group of devoted actors, all of whom work day jobs to support themselves and lend their nights and weekends to the theater. "It's about building a community," Ferlito says. "A community of artists who do lights, sounds, workshops. Whatever needs to be done."

Thus the family that founded Luna has grown. "I call him Papo," Walder says, patting Marcel's arm, "but everybody else calls him Papo, too."

The next moment the rest of the cast files in for rehearsal, and, as if on cue, one of them calls out, "Hola, Papo!"

She Returned One Night Gunston Arts Center, 2700 S. Lang St., Arlington. 703-548-3092. Through May 31. $20-$30. Show Saturday at 3 is $15 general admission. She Returned One Night Gunston Arts Center, 2700 S. Lang St., Arlington. 703-548-3092. Through May 31. $20-$30. Show Saturday at 3 is $15 general admission.

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