Amherst Professor Ilan Stavans' Religious Journey In Colombia Comes To The Stage

A few years ago, Amherst College Professor Ilan Stavans was on a tour of Latin America.

On that tour, he met up with a shaman friend in Colombia — and eventually participated in a religious ceremony that involved taking a powerful hallucinogenic drug with 12 other people, spending three days huddled around a clay oven in the Amazon.

He has turned that experience into a one-man show called "The Oven," which runs Thursday, Friday and Saturday at the Charlestown Working Theater.

Ilan Stavans, professor of Latin American and Latino culture at Amherst College. He tweets @IlanStavans.