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Marco Antonio Rodriguez talks playwriting for the NoPassport #3030NP salon

[Marco Antonio Rodriguez’ play Ashes of Light is part of the 30/30 US Latin@/NoPassport reading scheme. The same interview questions have been sent to each playwright taking part in the scheme by Caridad Svich.]

Caridad Svich: a false (i think) divide has been erected in some art-making circles between what is called "devised" work and "text-based or text-driven" work. This divide or, shall we call it a "gap?," has served to alienate makers of text-driven work for live performance in the field and in academia. in effect, certain battle grounds have formed that encourage oppositional thinking about this, so that we have now, in many ways, the devisers on one side of the field and the text-makers on the other.

Marco Antonio Rodriguez: The term “devised work” is defined as a form of theatre where the script originates not from a writer or writers, but from collaborative, usually improvisatory, work by a group of people (usually, but not necessarily, the performers).

No single thing should be chosen over another. Division or “gaps” in any capacity carries the potential for creative hazards. Disposing of art forms for the purposes of gimmick or temporary convenience opens a gateway for anything (viable or otherwise) to be terminated. With modern technology on the rise, who says in a few years a new form won’t arise to render devised work obsolete? Art has little to do with trend and most to do with inspiration, creation and sharing. If we are to get on board with divisive thought patterns we might as well form political theatre parties and establish constitutions to complement them… DIOS NOS LIBRE! There is beauty in devised theatre just as there is in text-based material. The question to ask is: What is the story we are desiring to tell and what is the best way to tell it?

CS: how do you deal with the positioning of your work, if at all?

Marco Antonio Rodriguez: It shifts from project to project. The demands of the story being told and the process of its creation usually determines positioning.

CS: how do you negotiate the very real dividing lines that get drawn, quite arbitrarily, and quite often, in our field in regard to art-making and its role in culture?

Marco Antonio Rodriguez: I take caution, particularly at the beginning stages of the writing process, to not impose on the material by focusing on the role I may think it could potentially play in culture. I prefer to leave that decision to those experiencing the work. I strive to tell universal and accessible stories with clarity, passion and truth. If it happens that a culture or cultures makes it their own then blessed be. In the last few years, my stories have focused mostly on Dominican and Dominican-American characters simply because that is how my stories are best served at the moment. Prior to this I was exploring Mexican and before that, Middle-Eastern. Perhaps later I will be moved to explore stories and characters from another planet! It is simply a matter of how I intuitively feel the story is best served.  

CS: as a playwright, how do you devise your own process? dramatic project (life goals as artist)? and how do you wish to live as artist in and with engagement in local and global dialogue with citizens and artists? and are there lessons you've learned you wish to impart to fellows in the field and elsewhere?

or lessons you are still learning that impact the kind of work you make or think about making?

Marco Antonio Rodriguez: It varies. I may begin a piece as an American drama then realize the story is best told in Spanish and set in Chile because that particular change will be the very thing that makes it universal and accessible (YES, even though it is in Spanish). I apply the same approach to life goals as an artist and to my engagement in local and global dialogue. 

I’ve learned to assimilate rules… then question everything. Knowledge paired with an open mind and heart has been essential to my intuitive creative process.

It is also important to understand you are your best agent. I don’t wait for opportunity. Being a multidisciplinary artist has been to my benefit. Learning editorial, screenwriting, translation (if applicable), commentary skills… A well-versed, multi-disciplinary artist is an artist that will be blessed with a healthy level of creative abundance.

CS: when you see/hear/read the phrase "US Latin@," what does it make you think of?

Marco Antonio Rodriguez: A reference to culture. I am a U.S. Latino. Interesting… Take away the grammar and it becomes: US.

CS: what is your relationship to being of or part of (or not) a US Latin@ context in your art-making or thinking about art?

Marco Antonio Rodriguez: I am born and raised in New York City, of Dominican descent. One does not topple over the other. There’s beauty and poetry in both. Depending on the story I am sharing, I celebrate the poetry of each or of neither. 

CS: as a maker of text for live performance, in what ways are you challenging or calling into question the nature of embodied speech and action when you write a given play or collaborate with fellow artists?

Marco Antonio Rodriguez: Language is rhythm. It is music. It is imperfect which makes it exciting and creates the potential for good conflict. In my most recent works such as La Luz De Un Cigarrillo (Ashes Of Light) and Barceló Con Hielo (Barceló On The Rocks) I’ve explored a cacophony of Spanish dialects: the urban versus the proper. The country Dominican Spanish versus the one in Santo Domingo versus the Dominican-York Spanish (which has its own lexicon). I write these dialects exactly as they would be spoken: broken words, truncated spelling… I challenge myself and the artistic team to embody the language at a physical and soul level. Let the rhythms of the language inform the story just as much as the spine and conflicts within the play. 

CS: what do you do when someone says to you "we don't have culturally specific actors in my town, so we can't even look at your play, even if we were to deeply admire or want to put this story on stage?'what do you say to potential collaborators and casting directors about the nature of how to cast your show and how casting can carry its own political power

Marco Antonio Rodriguez: I will explore this question from a different angle. The work I have recently been inspired to write has been in Spanish and Spanglish. Specifically Dominican. It is simply what my heart has been calling me to do at the moment. I wouldn’t expect an English only speaking actor to be cast however… I would expect ANY Latino (even non-Dominicans) to be considered in the casting process. There is this stigma that if the work is from a certain cultural place it should only be written and/or acted by members of that culture. No one can take away the direct, personal experience an artist (be it actor, writer, etc.) from a specific country can bring however, in reference to casting, it is important to remain open. Case in point: when casting the original production of La Luz De Un Cigarrillo (Ashes Of Light), we saw guys from all over the world: Mexican, Puerto Rican, Venezuelan, Argentina… Many could not dominate the Dominican dialect but it was of no consequence because I knew we were going to hire a dialect coach. We were primarily searching for the person who could bring honesty and vulnerability to a character that could potentially be interpreted as bratty and spoiled. One Puerto Rican actor walked in. His Spanish had a heavy Puerto Rican accent but he blew us away by taking good direction and bringing exactly what the character required. His approach to the humanity and truth of the character trumped everything we had preconceived in our minds or heard in his speech patterns. This only transpired because we, as a production team, made a conscious effort to see Latino guys of varying backgrounds for the role.

CS: it goes without saying that we live in a multi-lingual world. do you think our US stages (to keep the dialogue national for the moment) need reflect this? if so, how? and in your work, how do you address multi-linguality and hybrid aesthetics, if at all? 

Marco Antonio Rodriguez: Multi-linguality and hybrid aesthetics are very prominent in my current work. For example, I will write passages in Spanish then switch over to English or Spanglish then back again: proper to urban; poetic to vernacular.  “A mirror up to nature” said some guy named Shakespeare... That current mirror is a melting pot of cultures and identities. As long as it is truthfully serving the story, indeed it should reflect this.

CS: as a writer/maker for/of live performance, what is thrilling to you still about the form - this old weird creaky thing we call theatre - and why?

Marco Antonio Rodriguez: The palpable energy of a live audience, no matter how big or small, is exhilarating and can never be replaced. Also, because of its nature, theater lends itself to impermanence, which leaves room for change in form and/or execution.

CS: what ideas have you when you make work or are in the process of putting it out there about how to and ways you can create connection with your audience(S) beyond the work itself, for example?

Marco Antonio Rodriguez: There is, of course, the usual answer: Make the work accessible. If folks see themselves on stage (not necessarily their culture but perhaps a universal, human experience) it will bring them in and they will spread the word, which is the most powerful form of marketing. Targeting audiences through affordable community outreach programs (such as talkbacks) is also essential.

And then there’s another side to this: Understanding the business side of show business. The work I create is the product. Persistence, follow through, organization, networking and proper marketing for each product can lead to the building and sustaining of loyal audiences and greater impact of one’s work.     

CS: what's inspiring you these days? and/or what's troubling you these days?

Marco Antonio Rodriguez: What inspires me today has never really changed from yesterday: Human behavior: Its familiar yet ever mutating intricacies and complexities. Language is also a source of inspiration. How we put it to use. Its rhythms. Its musicality.

Ultimately, I see trouble as conflict. Conflict inspires me to take action and write!

**

Cecilia Copeland on Duende for 3030

[Cecilia Copeland’s play Tiene Duende (It has Soul) is part of the 30/30 US Latin@/NoPassport reading scheme. The same interview questions have been sent to each playwright taking part in the scheme by Caridad Svich.]

CARIDAD SVICH: a false (i think) divide has been erected in some art-making circles between what is called "devised" work and "text-based or text-driven" work. this divide or, shall we call it a "gap?," has served to alienate makers of text-driven work for live performance in the field and in academia. in effect, certain battle grounds have formed that encourage oppositional thinking about this, so that we have now, in many ways, the devisers on one side of the field and the text-makers on the other.

CECILIA COPELAND: I don’t think it’s a false divide, but the divide sets up a false hierarchy.  One thing that is relatively new, which is why it’s seen as on trend, is the flexibility of the text in film and how much more input actresses and actors can have on a film or TV shoot.  Having now directed my first series of short films with my theater company NYMadness I’ve learned the value of being loose with the script, trusting the camera and the actor or actress on the spot, but that doesn’t really translate to theatre.  In a live performance you’re not able to do five takes and then pick from those in the editing room.  In theatre the editing has to happen on the page before performance and in that it is a seemingly less creative acting contribution for actresses and actors than it is for film, but that’s not actually the case.  So much more of the medium of storytelling in film happens with the camera that the words are a much smaller part of the whole, (dare I say it) picture.  Also, there are a lot of new forms of interactive, multimedia, and transmedia theatre that require more improvisation so crafting those there is going to be more devising going on because the stories are being created based on the engagement with the media forms and audience interactions.  Those things are new, but that doesn’t make them the right medium for every play.  Some stories aren’t suited to complex media or group authorship.  I tend to work best by getting feedback from a director and by being present in rehearsal, and then being left alone to do the writing.  When working on something I know is going to be a screenplay, multimedia, or transmedia piece I know that it’s going to have to be more flexible because of the nature of the medium.

CARIDAD SVICH: how do you deal with the positioning of your work, if at all?

CECILIA COPELAND: My work is often positioned in a “Latin” context because I don’t always write straight realism and my language use is unapologetically poetic.  I challenge what realism is by showing a deeper layer of reality in that I feel is part of life, but not always verbally acknowledged.  In my play, The Wicked Son we see a Jewish family going through crises in Florida and simultaneously the poetic reality of a Palestinian woman unfolding in the Middle East.  By putting them together in the same time and space I’m purposely illustrating they are not just connected theoretically but that they are deeply intertwined in the present tense regardless of either of them acknowledging it.  Brecht theorized about deeper realities and how to convey them.  From my perspective there are many ways of going about this and typically because of my heightened language and subject matter I’m classified in the realm of Latin Theater.  Of course I am a Latina and some of my subject matter does deal with Latina/o issues and identity, but I’m also Jewish.  All of my plays address what I consider to be modern American mixed identity.  Some “Latin” stylistic classification is helpful and honest, but some of it is just a way for other people to get out of having to deal with the structure and functionality of the play on its own.  To rely on saying its “Latin” is a shorthand instead of deconstructing it from scratch.  The problem is the label’s limitations, shoving a one size fits all band, around anything written by a Latina/o or addressing with Latino/a issues when that label misses the point of the specific conventions of the play.  Not all Latin Plays function within the confines of, “Magic Realism” and it’s not fair to the playwright, José Rivera to take his term for his work and slap it on everyone else’s work.  I write Poetic Realism and it obeys its own rules that make sense to me.  Others do their own thing too.  That said, I find it very flattering to be compared to José and Migdalia Cruz or other Latina/o writers of that level of excellence, but it always comes off a little bit like a surface level compliment.  It’s like saying, “You have pretty hair and a pretty smile.” rather than saying, “You’re a kind and thoughtful person.”  They’re both meant as a compliment, but one statement is a little shallower than the other. 

CARIDAD SVICH: how do you negotiate the very real diving lines that get drawn, quite arbitrarily, and quite often, in our field in regard to art-making and its role in culture?
 

CECILIA COPELAND: It’s always challenging to be told something that is meant as a compliment and then feel like I want to argue with it, so I waffle sometimes back and forth depending on the circumstance.  I try to listen to my inner self and determine if this moment or place is the right place to express my deeper thoughts or if perhaps I should just nod at the compliment and say thank you.  I’m not a brain surgeon or a heart surgeon, but if I’m lucky I can ignite some kind of brain and heart activity that can be healing.  If society is accepting of that and wants to honor me in that capacity in any way, then great!  Mostly though I think our current values are highly influenced by the media, which is deeply in bed with a capitalist for profit value system so there’s a lot of sex noise and money noise out there that isn’t saying much other than reinforcing the status quo and it’s hard to compete with that as an artist.  A good friend once told me he felt like a canary in a cage and no one would listen to him.  He was singing his heart out, but nobody heard.  Whether an artist or not, sometimes we just have to be that canary because it’s what is in our soul.  That’s probably more of a philosophical answer, but when staring at my tax returns considering the value of what I contribute as a writer, questioning if society recognizes that in monetary terms, I have to find some kind of balance in terms of my work and the inherent obstacles in getting it to an audience, which include how I’m going to earn a living to sustain myself in the in between years while I’m not able to be a full time artist.  I wrote an entire play about this question, Between Here and There and it’s getting produced in January at Open Hydrant Theatre Co in the Bronx. 

CARIDAD SVICH: as a playwright, how do you devise your own process? dramatic project (life goals as artist)?

CECILIA COPELAND: I tend to ask a lot of questions.  I often feel like there’s something amiss.  I stare at things really hard and they seem peculiar to me or somehow incorrect.  Those things that feel unanswered or disturbing lead me to projects so I can grapple with understanding them or at least create a context to reach some kind of way to accept them as part of the world.  I go down a rabbit hole with ideas and my theatre company NYMadness keeps me constantly grounded writing new work so I’m testing out theatrical conventions and subject matter in the short form as I go deeper in the long form.  Also, at this point I am drawn to certain collaborators who know my work and ask me to do a project, which is exciting because it feels like a kind of adventure that we’re on together.  My life goals as an artist evolve as I evolve as a person.  I know I want to keep writing for the rest of my life, that I want to write for different mediums, that I’m interested in directing, and that I want to be able to earn my living as an artist. 

CARIDAD SVICH: how do you wish to live as artist in and with engagement in local and global dialogue with citizens and artists?

CECILIA COPELAND: It’s harder for me to be as engaged as I want to be creating work overseas, because I don’t have as many connections as I would like in other countries and I’m not fluent in Spanish or Hebrew even though I understand quite a lot of both.  There are challenges to be contended with in terms of bringing the work outside of the US that I just don’t have the time to overleap and frankly it’s hard enough just getting work up here as an emerging artist.  However, I lived overseas for extended periods, have family in the Middle East and Central America, and I traveled a lot so a global perspective is deeply imbedded in my daily awareness and certainly all the things I write about have tendrils that reach outward addressing how the US is placed within a broader context.

CARIDAD SVICH: are there lessons you've learned you wish to impart to fellows in the field and elsewhere?

CECILIA COPELAND: Please, don’t shut one another out, question your seasons, include women in the conversation and on stage in your plays.  I feel like the biggest lesson I’ve learned is that the less women’s voices are represented, the fewer female characters are on stage and in films, the easier it is to dismiss us as whole and devalue us in society.  It’s a malignancy in our culture that women are so invisible.  That is true to for all disadvantaged groups and our lack in the social space is having painful consequences for young women and young men.  So to my fellow Latinos I’m talking to you as a Latina.  Please don’t tramp on us when you rise.  Take us with you and listen to us as much as you listen to one another. 

CARIDADSVICH: lessons you are still learning that impact the kind of work you make or think about making?

CECILIA COPELAND: In other times there were other issues to contend with in regards to censorship so a lot of work had to be covert, and in some ways it created really brilliant stuff.  In this time in the US we don’t face that kind of censorship, but we do have other limitations.  I am learning a lot of the nature of how to navigate the constraints of the modern economy and how to write plays that can actually get produced within constrained budgets, no sets, and short rehearsal times.  Every age has its limitation and just because I’m working to change those in the long run doesn’t mean I can write with my head in the sand and then complain about not getting productions… So I’m learning to write with the hand that holds the money tied behind my back.  There are other constraints to about gender and female vs male protagonist and decisions I have to think about that get weighed play to play… We all have to face the limitations of our current society so those are what I’m grappling with right now as I seek to earn a living with my work. 

CARIDAD SVICH: when you see/hear/read the phrase "US Latin@," what does it make you think of?

CECILIA COPELAND: It makes me feel conflicted.  When I hear “Panamanian” or “Ludino” I feel like that’s calling my name, but hearing “US Latina” makes me think of stereotypes that I would rather not repeat and that feel like something I have to fight or correct.

CARIDAD SVICH: as a maker of text for live performance, in what ways are you challenging or calling into question the nature of embodied speech and action when you write a given play or collaborate with fellow artists?

CECILIA COPELAND: I think you’re asking how I’m reinventing playwriting, and if that’s what you’re asking then I would have to say that I’m not necessarily interested in bypassing language or speech.  I’m invested in those tools, I like them, but I am interested in engaging with a morality over what I see as the use of bodies and commodification of sexualized violence especially as it pertains to female bodies.  That’s not specifically text based so much as action based.  In that questioning of the morality over the dramatization of sexual violence it’s my tendency to feel that less is more, because otherwise we’re engaging in pornographic observation to enjoy the physical rush of erotic response seated conveniently in violence for supposed exploration of depth and whitewashed by the intellectual elitist trappings of ‘Art’.  If the same exact realistic depictions were played out in front of a camera and sold on the Internet they wouldn’t be so whitewashed and for me, being a highly sensitive audience member and someone who lives with PTSD, I think it’s well past time to be more careful with trafficking in and exploiting sexual violence on stage.  There seems to be very little discussion or concern about if this is causing trauma, because it’s more interesting to discuss if it’s pushing buttons.  Considering that One in Three Women has been sexually assaulted, that women in Theatre are a statistically marginalized group, it seems pretty callus and thoughtless to depict graphic sexual violence onstage without any real investigation of the impact of showing such images without any means for the audience to engage with them.  Forcing an audience to watch realistic graphic depictions of sexual violence within the confines of what is appropriate audience behavior, being passivity, coaches the audience into moral impotence in the face of violence trains us into a state of disengagement rather than encourages us into being more engaged and act on what we’re seeing in the moment. Link: http://www.oneinthreewomen.com/

CARIDAD SVICH: what do you do when someone says to you "we don't have culturally specific actors in my town, so we can't even look at your play, even if we were to deeply admire or want to put this story on stage?'

CECILIA COPELAND: To this I say, okay, I’m open to casting others who look like or can pass or are suggestive of these characters.  I come from Des Moines Iowa so I know that there are real places with real theaters who will have a big challenge finding 8 Latino/as to play roles in my flamenco play, and on top of that I need some who can dance, sing, and play guitar.  I would hard pressed to cast that play in New York because of the various specialized skills needed.  Acting is a specialized skill and just because someone can sing or dance and is the right ethnicity it doesn’t mean they can act.  I will also go for the better actor who sort of looks right rather than one who looks exactly right and can’t act the part very well. 

CARIDAD SVICH: what do you say to potential collaborators and casting directors about the nature of how to cast your show and how casting can carry its own political power?

CECILIA COPELAND:  I write plays that expand the view of Latina/os. If they have white people playing those parts it’s a statement that says a lot of things, but I would rather they have it cast with good people and give the story a chance and it will shift, we’ll make it shift.  I’m pretty sure that Othello wasn’t played by a truly dark skinned actor for a long time after it was written.  That doesn’t mean that the part and the play didn’t open the road for that to happen.  Yes I want ethnically appropriate casting, but New York is different to other cities. There are places where minorities are scarce.  That’s a reality that is just reflective of being a minority.  They play shouldn’t not get done because there aren’t enough minorities in that community to fill those shoes.  The play shouldn’t wait for the world to change to be able to do it perfectly the play helps the world change so I can be done better in the next generation.  That’s my hope as we live through centuries of imperfect casting.

CARIDAD SVICH: it goes without saying that we live in a multi-lingual world. do you think our US stages (to keep the dialogue national for the moment) need reflect this? if so, how?

CECILIA COPELAND: I think if there is an extensive amount of another language other than English in a play that the audience should have the benefit of sub or supertitles. 

CARIDAD SVICH: in your work, how do you address multi-linguality and hybrid aesthetics, if at all?

CECILIA COPELAND: Being a member of the Latin community and not being fluent in Spanish I always feel a sense of being closed out when people speak too much in Spanish so I don’t do it to my audience.

CARIDAD SVICH: as a writer/maker for/of live performance, what is thrilling to you still about the form - this old weird creaky thing we call theatre - and why?

CECILIA COPELAND: Your question supposes a lot of prejudice against things that are old and I don’t really carry that.  I do carry a distaste for ideas that don’t allow for people to rise or expand themselves.  Theatre allows for change in a lot of ways and that’s exciting.  I also think that because we’re dealing with smaller budgets and smaller audiences we can take bigger risks that can grow into a bigger audience.

CARIDAD SVICH: what ideas have you when you make work or are in the process of putting it out there about how to and ways you can create connection with your audience(S) beyond the work itself, for example?

CECILIA COPELAND: I believe in social media to engage younger audiences. I believe in having more funding for arts programs in schools and the research shows that having arts programming in school improves the overall achievements of the students.  It also improves their lives and deepens their humanity.  I believe in making theater free for young audiences and for including things like free wine and or beer for young twenties.  We live in a seriously economically disadvantaged time for artists and audiences.  The less tickets cost the more people will see a show. This makes it harder to earn a living as an artist because then the funding for production has to come from private or government sources.  Using free methods on social media to find the right audience is totally possible, because there are all kinds of communities that exist online and tapping into them in a modern age is very possible.  However, we need artists with the ability to do this or to speak more truthfully artists who can afford the time to invest in doing it and we need marketing people who are great at it, but again that comes down to funding.  More funding is needed all around.  We need to prioritize Art as a means to itself instead of just as a profit-making venture, but we live in a capitalist system.  Right now the Arts are caught in a political war, like anything that needs funding, but I don’t think theater is going away.     

Link: http://www.education.com/magazine/article/What_Drama_Education_Can_Teach/

CARIDAD SVICH: what's inspiring you these days? and/or what's troubling you these days?

CECILIA COPELAND: A lot of things trouble me.  I could write entire plays about all the things that trouble me… and I do… so I just can’t even start to answer that without coming off as glib. 

What’s inspiring is seeing how many other people feel frustrated with some of the same things and who are speaking out as well.  What moves me is seeing that people will stand up for the issues they are concerned about and the stories they need to tell no matter how big or small, that they raise a flag with honesty and bravery to say, “This is wrong/right/beautiful/scary…” or my personal favorite, “You are not alone.”

Check out this feature on In The Time of Butterflies in San Diego! 

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/dec/31/time-of-the-butterflies-rep-preview/

ART, ACTION, RESISTANCE, AND A BIT OF PLAY

(Caridad Svich’s new play ARCHIPELAGO is part of the 30/30 US Latin@/NoPassport reading scheme. Fellow 30/30 schemer playwright Elaine Avila interviewed Svich for this blog at #3030NP)

ELAINE AVILA: What is 30/30 and why did you develop it?

CS: 30/30 is a national reading scheme initiated by NoPassport theatre alliance and press in partnership with producer Dominic D’Andrea (of One Minute Play Festival) to showcase the breadth and depth of some of the terrific US Latina/o writing for live performance that exists in American theatre. Really only the tip of the iceberg of voices that need to be heard and seen on our stages.  It is a scheme that offers 30 plus plays to venues nation-wide between October 2013 and May 2014 to host script in hand readings at venues, be they theatre, colleges, living rooms, etc – and allow venues and artists to collaborate with other venues and practitioners in their city and region, as well as across the US. So, it is in principle a scheme centered in artist advocacy, getting some new works out there in the world, and perhaps stirring up a dialogue about what is and what can be US Latina/o theatre – if we think horizontally instead of vertically about programming, showcasing new work, and thinking too cross-generationally about the depth of our writing voices.

ELAINE AVILA: 30/30 has already begun, starting with Teatro Paraguas/Daniel Banks in Santa Fe, New Mexico.  Can you describe how theatre artists, theatre companies, institutions can get involved?

CS: Companies, artists, students and more can get involved simply by checking out our webpage at http://www.nopassport.org/3030-us-latinao-theatrenopassport-reading-scheme and reaching out to either Dominic or myself at twitter hashtag #3030NP or at the email 30playsin30days@gmail.com

ELAINE AVILA: It was recently suggested on Facebook that 30/30 be sent to theatres that continue to program seasons without any Latin@ writers.  Is this how you originally imagined 30/30 might work? Has there been any surprises in how people implement this dream?

CS: Actually I did not imagine that this is how it might work. Honestly, for me it’s about advocacy and awareness of new writing, especially from US Latina/o artists. I still think, despite the fact that some work does get produced, it is few and far between compared to the wealth of work that is being created and how remarkably diverse it is in terms of aesthetics, form, and content. I still think there is a very narrow definition of how the industry perceives US Latina/o work, let alone ‘Latinidad.’ Anything we can do, by making, producing, generating theatre actions – I think helps change/upend, even a little bit, limited definition(s).

ELAINE AVILA: I love the diversity in subject matter and style in 30/30. This does a great job of expanding the definition of a Latin@ play. What are your thoughts on expanding definitions and arbitrary distinctions?

CS: Well, I think the question always is: what is a play? Period. Who gets to define that and why? I think a play is an event in space. Irregardless of whether it is linear, nonlinear, realistic, abstract, surrealist, etc. There is the human figure – or a hologram or a puppet or a robot (depending on the kind of piece you are making and sharing with the world) and space and time, and an event occurs, and we call it performance or theatre. Definitions of what is a US Latin@ play have accrued over time and there are categories of work historically that are aligned sometimes with socio-political and/or aesthetic movements: la Raza movement, the spoken word scene, Off-off-Broadway movement and its birth, and more. Expectations have emerged about what is a US Latin@ play and usually they have to do from a very narrow perspective, I think, with either “urban” themes and vernacular, border (US Mexico particularly) plays and “magic realism.”  But of course, there is such a wide range of work being made and artists of Latina/o background (or born in Latin America but residing in the US) approach the page and stage in multiple ways. I think distinctions placed arbitrarily on works of art can be damaging to understanding what the art is and can be. The more definitions can be expanded and in effect, I would argue, stripped away – define the work on its own terms, meet it for what it is – the healthier an arts ecology we will have in this country.

ELAINE AVILA: You discussed how you see your dual role as playwright and leader when I interviewed you for this article: http://www.howlround.com/invitation-erik-ehn-caridad-svich-and-their-collaborators. Part of your dual role involves operating NoPassport press and developing what you call  “schemes.”   I’ve noticed that your schemes began with you as the sole playwright (The Way of Water, Spark) and now include many writers (24 Gun Control Plays, 30/30).  Can you talk about this shift? Why have you made the models so inclusive? How has this affected you?

CS: Actually, the first schemes I initiated before NoPassport theatre alliance and press was even a concept were multi-writer schemes. In 1999-2000 I initiated, edited and curated and co-authored a collaboration called SAINTS, SINNERS AND IN BETWEEN which involved the creation of a performance text with 15-plus playwrights from across the country, which we wrote via email together and then reading of the piece were held in various cities and at the Los Angeles RAT conference. After that project there was one called RETURN TO THE UPRIGHT POSITION, which was also written via email six months after 9/11 with 12plus playwrights from across the US. This performance piece was then read at various venues on the first anniversary of 9/11 and has had other stagings since then at colleges. In between there were multi-author projects on the Iraq War and the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina conducted with student playwrights and professional dramatists. I do think of these projects as very much part of what re-stirred me to initiate schemes with NoPassport. I started with THE WAY OF WATER because I wanted to make myself the guinea pig, as it were, for this new incarnation of multi-platform, horizontal theatre action, because I felt that if for some reason it did not take off, then it’d be only my butt on the line and not those of multiple colleagues. The fact that THE WAY OF WATER scheme went international and generated such momentum in the 2^nd anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon BP oil spill disaster with fifty readings around the world and features on local NPR stations, and articles in the Huff Post, American Theatre and more was staggering to me. I thought: okay, was this just some fluke? Some case of serendipity? So, I put myself on the line again with SPARK in November of 2012. Almost as a dare to myself as an artist, and also because I very much wanted to be part of a larger conversation about the fate of women coming back home from serving in war and how families cope with aftermath on the homefront. Thirty plus readings occurred across the US and abroad in about a month’s time, much to my astonishment, after placing the initial open call. I was emboldened by these two experiences to then “test out” collective theatre action/consortium ideas with more writers, which is how Gun Control Theatre Action and 24 Gun Control Plays began in January 2013. In a sense, GCTA brings me back to the first projects in 2000 and 2001 in the spirit of collective creation, community building and perhaps trying to generate new ways of changing what has become, in many cases, “business as usual” for certain kinds of theatremaking in this country.  

ELAINE AVILA: You recently participated in the largest gathering of Latina/o theatre artists since 1986 at Emerson College in Boston. How did being at this gathering affect you?  As an instigator of the NoPassport Convenings, you recognize the power of this kind of coming together.  Was this gathering different somehow?

CS: It was fascinating to be part of the Latino Theatre Commons Convening in Boston and I was honored to be invited to be part of it.  It was, as always, great to be in the same physical space with terrific artists and get to jam on ideas. The focus of the convening was very much about US Latin@ theatre within the wider US theatre landscape. I have always considered NoPassport’s mission to be, well, less identity-driven. One of our conferences focused on US Latin@ theatre and there is a strong and vital component of NoPassport that is devoted to the advocacy, publication and production of US Latin@ theatre/performance, but I do not see it as our only focus. So, for me, that was an essential difference between the convening in Boston – beautiful and focused as it was – and NOPE’s mission overall.

ELAINE AVILA: In your article, http://nopassport.org/blog/csvich/11/13/how-about-now-us-latin-theatre-caridad-svich, you mention that two questions loomed large at this National Convening: “Where will US Latina/o theatre-makers be in 30 years? What will 2046 look like?”

You call for us to create vision for the immediate.  I began to recognize the limitations of these two questions, how they strike me as “corporate,” and something individuals who run theatres, various institutions and universities might also be facing. In your TCG National Conference address on Artistic Innovation last year, http://www.tcgcircle.org/2013/10/caridad-svichs-opening-remarks-on-artistic-innovation/ you also call for an immediate and achievable response, like allowing for a single slot in a season that can be responsive and open.  I love this idea of the immediate response, no matter how big or small. Can you discuss this a bit for the 30/30 participants?  How can they make the next step?

CS: I definitely think none of us know where we will be in 30 years, let alone what the field will look like. I do think replicating “business as usual” is a dead end. Art making has always been about challenging the status quo. It is easy to forget especially in a late capitalist, consumerist, surveillance-driven culture, but I think we have to do everything we can to challenge the ease of slipping into language and practices that pretend the machines we have created and with which we are complicit are functioning in perfect order and that, you know, for example, it’s okay if every new play gets three weeks or less of rehearsal for a premiere production and that actors jobbed into a process can become a company overnight.  That’s b.s. And we all know it. Deep down. And yes, miracles sometimes happen but really…. Really… what is the deep practice of this cultural work that we do? That is the crucial question.  Another response I think is immediate actions – fast n dirty theatremaking – that is about bucking systems on place. The system that has allowed cultural gatekeepers to generate dividing lines between the work, the artist and the communities the work could engage with and in, and also has affected best practices.

ELAINE AVILA: I feel a great affinity with you because your work as a playwright is so diverse—inspired by classics, contemporary issues, music, and the personal.  We, as playwrights, are sometimes asked to make ourselves a ‘brand’ in order to make our work legible to theatres. How do you negotiate this?

CS: I don’t think of myself as a brand. But I know that in a market driven culture, we are asked to negotiate this all the time. Writing is freedom. The imagination can go anywhere. As soon as you place limits on it and what art you can make or not censorship sets in. Some people only know my work as someone who reconfigures and/or responds to classic playtexts or novels. Some only know me as a translator. Others perhaps as writer of plays that operate within the realm of hybridity and syncretic aesthetic. Some only know me as editor or essayist. I always feel as if I am renegotiating my creative identities depending on who my audience, perceived or not, may be.

ELAINE AVILA: Sometimes theatres, in the process of either building a relationship with us and/or clarifying a rejection (hard to tell the difference sometimes), will make comments. These comments can be frustrating and hurtful—sometimes revealing limiting beliefs about race, gender, and theatre.  Do you think we can we turn these conversations into creative opportunities? Or do you think it is a matter of learning, ‘this is not the home for my work?” Do you have any stories of turning this around?

CS: Well, there was one theatre that shall remain nameless that had sent me a rejection letter for a play and then six months called me up saying they had found my play and wanted to produce it on the spot. So, the letter that was sent from one desk in that theatre’s office didn’t make it to somebody else’s desk, and that other somebody somehow still had the play in their hands, and fell in love with it. I always think about that, because it was a real lesson – a strange one- about how weird this business is. You just never know. Some theatres will work with you and you feel at home and then you realize that the home was merely temporary. Other theatres actually say “this is your home.” Others just want a “product.” I think irregardless you have to find the will and fire within yourself to keep making the work somehow. Sometimes that means finding your own tribe, which may be a nomadic one.

ELAINE AVILA: Advice for anyone starting their own schemes?

CS: Make lists, keep your files in order, follow up on everyone and everything and never give up!

ELAINE AVILA: What is next for you as a writer? What are you working on, dreaming of working on next?

CS: I am working on seven different projects. One of which is a series of plays that explores modernity and language and the self. Another is inspired by the work of Derek Jarman (producing collaborator is force/collision in D.C.) and another is focused on gaming, time travel, and holodeck narratives. And another is just a naughty play. J

New from Seagull Books Performance Series: INSTRUCTIONS FOR BREATHING AND OTHER PLAYS by Caridad Svich 

http://www.amazon.com/Instructions-Breathing-Other-Plays-Seagull/dp/0857421115/ref=cm_sw_em_r_dp_jG-Rsb01ATJKD022_tt

Alejandro Morales talks art-making for 30/30: US Latin@/NoPassport reading scheme blog

[Alejandro Morales’ play On Rachmaninoff’s Birthday is part of the 30/30 US Latin@/NoPassport reading scheme. The same interview questions have been sent to each playwright taking part in the scheme by Caridad Svich.]

CARIDAD SVICH: a false (i think) divide has been erected in some art-making circles between what is called "devised" work and "text-based or text-driven" work. this divide or, shall we call it a "gap?," has served to alienate makers of text-driven work for live performance in the field and in academia. in effect, certain battle grounds have formed that encourage oppositional thinking about this, so that we have now, in many ways, the devisers on one side of the field and the text-makers on the other. devisers are seen as being on trend, text-makers are seen as behind the times. it is exactly this kind of oppositional thinking that can be so damaging not only to those of us making art but those on the "outside" perceiving what is happening in art. (more on that later).a) how do deal with the positioning of your work, if at all?

ALEJANDRO MORALES: I really haven’t.  All of my work began with me and I sought out development and production opportunities for it.  I did have a long relationship with director Scott Ebersold, however, and we shared many aesthetic values so in many ways I would craft plays that I knew he would want to direct.  We also co-produced these plays so I was very much involved in the complete presentation of my work from page to stage.

CARIDAD SVICH: how do you negotiate the very real diving lines that get drawn, quite arbitrarily, and quite often, in our field in regard to art-making and its role in culture?

ALEJANDRO MORALES: I jumped around these lines a lot out of necessity.  No major theater with money was producing me despite being a favorite with many of the literary managers.  I had to hustle to get my plays done.   I was very lucky to have been trained as an actor, director, writer, dramaturg and designer during my undergraduate work at NYU, so I pretty much did everything I could possibly do in addition to writing the play. 

I will say something in terms of the culture of theatermaking and criticism regarding the way I put on my work.  Very often there were these assumptions from critics about what Scott did and what I did.  Not to take away from Scott’s incredible work on my plays, but often I would read critics giving Scott credit for elements of the play that were written in the script (one example was a dance number I had written into a play).  My plays have always been written with the intent that there would be some sort of production concept around it.  I always work with writing in performance conventions, style, suggestion for design or production elements, etc.  I envision an entire three-dimensional experience in addition to the characters, plot, theme, etc. and I try to make it all a cohesive whole.  With each play I’ve learned more and more how to structure my scripts to give readers as many clues as to what my vision is (and really I am not all that avant-garde) but I am not sure if there are people making decisions at agencies or theaters who know how to read plays this way.

CARIDAD SVICH: as a playwright, how do you devise your own process? dramatic project (life goals as artist)? and how do you wish to live as artist in and with engagement in local and global dialogue with citizens and artists? and are there lessons you've learned you wish to impart to fellows in the field and elsewhere? or lessons you are still learning that impact the kind of work you make or think about making?

ALEJANDRO MORALES: I have tried very hard (along with Scott) to create my own process.  I have always wanted to work in the way Caryl Churchill and Max Stafford Clark did with Joint Stock.  Scott and I have always had this as an ideal, but the reality of paying for rehearsal space and actors always collapses the process.  Not to mention, I am not sure if the actors we had access to were always willing to work this way.  I felt the realities of producing work off-off Broadway on an Equity Showcase contract really defined our process. 

Not to mention, there was the reality of Scott and I having day jobs and other responsibilities, so by the time we had planned to meet and discuss a project, I am well underway with the script and we’d be back to the traditional mode of working.

One thing we really wanted to do was begin working with actors and designers right away and get them committed to projects in their infancy so we could get talent in on the ground floor and they would have some sort of ownership of their role and process (in exchange for the pittance we could pay them with our budget).  Again, the reality of scheduling, people needing to make a living, etc. would jettison this and many times we’d have to end up recasting projects due to conflicts. 

Lastly, I would also say that the traditional play model is so prevalent that it is easy for it to become a default.  Scott and I were always experimenting and trying to reinvent the wheel and without mentors or folks who could show us how to do it at the off-off-Broadway level, while working day jobs, etc. we just ended up falling back on what we knew.  It was a vicious circle.

I’m struggling with my role as an artist in the local and global dialogue, to be honest.  I felt that I could never quite do this at the level I wanted to as a playwright and I have burned out lighting the proverbial candle at both ends.  I’m working with prose at the moment as a way to refresh the muse (and because I just think my canvas kept wanting to grow and grow and I wasn’t seeing opportunities for me to do that on a production level in theater).  I feel my aesthetic concerns around cultural and sexual identity are important.  My play On Rachmaninoff’s Birthday feels incredibly timely with the anti-gay policing going on in Russia at the moment and I would so want this play to be out in the world speaking to people about the effects and repercussions of sexual repression by the government and society.   I am saddened I have no idea how to make it part of the conversation, but I hope that perhaps prose with the ease of print on demand and e-books might help me to bring these issues to a wider audience.  I think there are stories about the breadth of the Hispanic/Latino community in the US and the LGBT/Queer community around the world that need to be heard not just by those respective communities, but everyone.  These stories are human stories and they need a very very very wide audience.

CARIDAD SVICH: when you see/hear/read the phrase "US Latin@," what does it make you think of? what is your relationship to being of or part of (or not) a US Latin@ context in your art-making or thinking about art?

ALEJANDRO MORALES: I have never seen Latino spelled with an ampersand. I Googled the term and saw it is a gender neutral term which I really like.

I personally refer to myself as US-born Cuban or Hispanic even though I know I am also Latino.  I think that the Latino umbrella is very large (something many non-Latinos don’t understand) and there are elements of the Latino experience that may be true for me which may not be true for others and vice-versa.  I’ve been claiming Hispanic (even though it may not be the most PC thing to do) because my family does have strong Spanish ties and artistically I am definitely a son of Lorca so it’s something I want to honor. 

I do also feel that being a South Floridian and a New Yorker is a very big part of who I am.  Both places are places of incredible cultures clashing, improvising and collaborating.  I grew up feeling weird that I wasn’t like the people on TV.  I spoke two languages and they spoke only one.  I grew up navigating my way from one culture to another (and boy that has led to some interesting formative experiences), so I am incredibly comfortable with living in a multi-language, multi-cultural environment.  So much of my work incorporates multiple languages, translation, and/or appropriation.  Growing up in the US in a Cuban immigrant family really helped me see from the get-go that US culture is not homogenous.  People approach the American experience from different points of view, which is something someone should inform Fox News about.

CARIDAD SVICH: as a maker of text for live performance, in what ways are you challenging or calling into question the nature of embodied speech and action when you write a given play or collaborate with fellow artists?

ALEJANDRO MORALES: Honestly this changes from play to play.  Like I said before every one of my plays carries with it a seed for how the text exists in performance.  My last play was pretty straightforward textually, but the characters spoke Russian and Spanish and we needed to hear all of it in English, so I had to devise a convention for the use of accents to denote when a character was not speaking their native tongue.  This is written into the play. 

Having my plays carry a consistency in the language is key.  Again, I am an artistic son of Lorca’s, so looking at the plays as poems laced with motifs is something I always strive for—maybe the audience isn’t conscious of this in the language, but I think this gives a play a texture that a director or actor or designer can latch on to.   I also say that I work musically.  The work of Stephen Sondheim was an early influence (and lately I am listening to a lot of opera).  Studying the way he laces structure into his scores taught me a great deal about the use of details to tell story or reveal character.  I always tried to give the actors dictation by using line breaks, verse, or pauses that are written into the dialogue to incorporate a dramatic musicality to the text.

I think when I go back to writing for the stage, I would like to work more with music.   There is something about the idea of characters getting arias that I would love to explore.  I worked more with monologue in my earlier work and I have moved away from that.   I would love to figure out ways to open up pure emotional expression using text and music, in the way an aria de capo by Handel or a coloratura mad scene by Donizetti might. 

CARIDAD SVICH: casting is a tough and thorny aspect of our art and business. i think we all know plenty of terrific actors who wait and wait for that one or two gigs every year that ask for their "type" to be cast. i am personally of the mind that the more expansive casting can be, especially in theatre, which is, after all, not a photographically representational art form but an abstract one in its essence, the richer an audience's understanding of the form can be. but i know that this may not be everyone's pov. understandably. what do you do when someone says to you "we don't have culturally specific actors in my town, so we can't even look at your play, even if we were to deeply admire or want to put this story on stage?' what do you say to potential collaborators and casting directors about the nature of how to cast your show and how casting can carry its own political power?

ALEJANDRO MORALES: This is tough.  I write gay characters and Latino characters a lot.  I also like to write for women who are not ingenues.  These are the people who live in my head and I feel obligated to make sure they get to live on stage (as we all should).  I do everything I can to make sure this happens.  Again, in the world of off-off-Broadway Equity Showcase, this can get really tough.  I even wanted to just start writing culturally non-specific characters because it was hard to get appropriate actors who could do my work.  That became very hard for me because … well, cultural identity is something I write about . . . so how do I write these culturally non-specific characters?

I have often felt limited as well from writing about certain subject matter—particularly the body and the way culture defines gender, power and beauty around certain physical attributes and that starts to winnow down my casting pool big time. 

It’s tricky because as a producer beginning a draft I will think “can I cast this?” and writing based on what I can realistically do as a producer just doesn’t work for me (sadly).   I need to write from a place free of these practical consideration and make productions that result from solving the challenges plays free of practical considerations pose.  Please see what I said about burnout earlier.

CARIDAD SVICH: it goes without saying that we live in a multi-lingual world. do you think our US stages (to keep the dialogue national for the moment) need reflect this? if so, how? and in your work, how do you address multi-linguality and hybrid aesthetics, if at all? 

ALEJANDRO MORALES: As I’ve mentioned before I do this all the time.  My reality has never been multi-lingual.  I have always juggled not just verbal language but unspoken cultural languages as well.  I have always been translating ever since I was a kid (when my kindergarten teacher couldn’t pronounce Alejandro, I became Alex until my 30s).   My father was an opera fan and I grew up looking through his records and seeing these libretti that contained the text in Italian, French, English and German.  I now go to the opera and part of my experience at the Met is navigating the Met Titles in front of me as I follow a performance.  In Japan, I went to a kabuki performance and watched two plays with a headphone commentary going on in my ear.  My brain can function with these two different language tracks going on at the same time.

There is no way my plays will not reflect this. 

I think about Junot Diaz writing about the copious amounts of Spanish in his novels and the criticism he has received for this and he said, “Motherfuckers will read a book that’s one third Elvish, but put two sentences in Spanish and they [white people] think we’re taking over.”  Reading this helped me deal with a lot of the narrow minded criticism of my work including multi-language text. 

This multi-language idea isn’t limited to national languages.  I try to have the language of music or movement or visuals live in my work.  As a writer, I take umbrage at the fact that dialogue is the only language I should concern myself with in the script.   There are many languages I can use to tell my story and I try to employ as many of them as I can

CARIDAD SVICH: as a writer/maker for/of live performance, what is thrilling to you still about the form - this old weird creaky thing we call theatre - and why?

ALEJANDRO MORALES: I’m a little down on theater at the moment and most of the live performance I am seeing these days is opera, which music snobs be damned, I consider to also be theater.   In opera, I have experienced time stopping during an aria in Giulio Cesare or the experience of falling in love in La Traviata or what it is like to touch the divine in Wagner’s Parsifal.  I just don’t see this too much in contemporary theater, despite theater being more than capable of giving us these experiences.  I don’t know how to describe the quality of these experiences and why they are different from much of what I have seen produced on and off-Broadway in New York City . . . but it’s what I want to put in my plays.  It’s what I want to give to my audiences.

CARIDAD SVICH: what ideas have you when you make work or are in the process of putting it out there about how to and ways you can create connection with your audience(S) beyond the work itself, for example?

ALEJANDRO MORALES: I honestly don’t know.  I feel alienated from the theater these days.  When I used to have these conversations on Twitter or on panels I got exhausted from all this need to be relevant.  I feel like arts education at early ages for children, cheaper ticket prices and a focus on creating an authentic emotional experience and more arts funding would be a start. 

I don’t think we need to allow texting or tweeting or twerking in the audience.   I don’t think talkbacks are the way either.  I think these conversations are about trying to squeeze blood out of a stone. 

I feel that it could be text-based play theater might be a thing of the past in this era of online life.  Why would someone go pay all this money and sit in a room for 2-3 hours to get a dramatic narrative when they can get it on Netflix?  Maybe this goes back to this devised work question above—is what is going to get people into the theater more of an immersive experience like Sleep No More, The Lily’s Revenge or some site-specific thing that challenges the way we commune in public to experience a story?  Perhaps it needs to go back to the beginning and function like the Greek plays did, as a means for creating some mass catharsis through ritual? 

CARIDAD SVICH: what's inspiring you these days? and/or what's troubling you these days?

ALEJANDRO MORALES: I am inspired by opera.  I am inspired by the advances in LGBT rights.  I am inspired by fiction.  I am inspired by Andre Aciman’s Call Me By Your Name which I would give my left something or other to get close to the brilliance of that writing.  I am inspired by American Horror Story: Coven and the fact that camp is alive and well in American culture.  I am inspired by feminists.  I am still inspired by Lorca, Chekhov, Tennessee Williams, and Sondheim.  I am inspired by amount of love I see amongst my peers as we try to keep ourselves writing. 

I am troubled by what is happening in Russia and India and Africa with LGBT rights.  I am troubled by the religious right in this country and the mockery they make of spirituality.  I am troubled by how much more we have to go to be liberated of the patriarchy.  I am troubled by the lack of poetry in our theater and cinema lately.  I am troubled by the death of the great American artform of musical theater and the jukebox shows that have replaced it.  I am troubled by the economy and how capitalism has lost the plot.    I am troubled that we are more connected to Facebook than to nature. 

Edwin Sanchez talks art-making for 30/30: US Latin@/NoPassport’s reading scheme

[Edwin Sanchez’s play La Bella Familia is part of the 30/30 US Latin@/NoPassport reading scheme. The same interview questions have been sent to each playwright taking part in the scheme by Caridad Svich.]

Caridad Svich: a false (i think) divide has been erected in some art-making circles between what is called "devised" work and "text-based or text-driven" work. how do deal with the positioning of your work, if at all?

EDWIN SANCHEZ:  I jump from one medium to the next.  Plays, film scripts, I just finished my first novel.

CARIDAD SVICH: how do you negotiate the very real diving lines that get drawn, quite arbitrarily, and quite often, in our field in regard to art-making and its role in culture?
 

EDWIN SANCHEZ: I simply ignore these lines.  Who’s making them up?  Who’s deciding "better like this, better like that" "this is art, this is not art" I think to pay attention to this is to take away time from your work.  At the end of the day it is about writing the best and most honest work you can.  One’s voice can grow and change with time but it shouldn’t be
beholden to what’s trending at the moment.

CARIDAD SVICH: as a playwright, how do you devise your own process? dramatic project (life goals as artist)?and how do you wish to live as artist in and with engagement in local
and global dialogue with citizens and artists? and are there lessons you've learned you wish to impart to fellows in the field and elsewhere? or lessons you are still learning that impact the kind of work you make or think about making?
 

EDWIN SANCHEZ: When I’m working on something I try to write ten pages a day, in long hand.  I let it wander a bit, let it find where it feels right to me.  And I’m always watching people.  Moments of theatre are happening all around us, all the time.  I’ve learned so many things as a writer, that sometimes even when you aren’t physically writing, you are writing. 
That it’s sometimes hard for people to get that you’re writing when it just seems to them that you are staring into space or nodding your head.  And that sometimes you have to push yourself to write.  As to the kind of work I want to write it is always, for me, character driven. That’s what fascinates me.  That, and I always have a question I hope to answer by the time I finish the piece.

CARIDAD SVICH: when you see/hear/read the phrase "US Latin@," what does it make you think of? what is your relationship to being of or part of (or not) a US Latin@ context in your art-making or thinking about art?
 

EDWIN SANCHEZ: It makes me think of a community of writers.  To some it may seem as a way to put us all in a neat little box, and I think it has been used to do that, but I also know that when I’ve participated in events with other Latin writers I feel very proud and happy to be in their company.

CARIDAD SVICH: what do you do when someone says to you "we don't have culturally specific actors in my town, so we can't even look at your play, even if we were to deeply admire or want to put this story on stage?' what do you say to potential collaborators and casting directors about the nature of how to cast your show and how casting can carry its own
political power?
 

EDWIN SANCHEZ: I’m very much in favor of color blind casting in as many instances as possible, but some characters are written with a culturally specific character and to ignore that is to not fully realize the work.  I’ve faced, many times, places that will say "we just don’t have Latino actors", what I find it usually means is "we’ve never had any come to any audition so we don’t know of any"  Perhaps the reason they don’t come is that they don’t think they’ll be considered for a role that isn’t Latino.  I was very proud that after a theatre had done a play of mine, with four Latino actors (all of which had to be brought in from out of town) they cast one of the actresses in their upcoming Shakespearean play.  Would they have even have thought of using a Latin before this?  I don’t know.  I know that they were impressed with the quality of the acting and at the end of the day that’s what matters.  One more anecdote, some years ago a theatre did a reading of ICARUS, a play of mine, in Los Angeles.  Apparently it went very well because they wanted to do a full production.  However the two leads, which were very specifically Latino characters, were read by two non Latino actors.  Very well know actors, and very talented.  When I informed the theatre that I really could only have Latino actors in those roles we reached an impasse and the production fell through.  One of the reasons I became a writer was because I didn’t see myself or people like me on stage, so that is very important to me.  I have seen Latino actors/actresses give performances that have blown me away, so I have to and want to honor their craft and talent and be a part of their journey.

CARIDAD SVICH: it goes without saying that we live in a multi-lingual world. do you think our US stages (to keep the dialogue national for the moment) need reflect this? if so, how? and in your work, how do you address multi-linguality and hybrid aesthetics, if at all?
 

EDWIN SANCHEZ: Honestly no.  I don’t do much in my work, but I have seen and read others who do it beautifully and seamlessly.

CARIDAD SVICH: as a writer/maker for/of live performance, what is thrilling to you still about the form - this old weird creaky thing we call theatre - and why?
 

EDWIN SANCHEZ: The fact that it happens while we are all breathing at the same time. Film is beautiful, but the actors are on celluloid and what you see is what the next audience will see, and the next and the next and world without end. But theatre, is happening as we breathe.  The moment when the audience falls silent, when it gasps or laughs is this communal
experience that is unlike any other.  The fact that each performance is slightly different from any other.  That’s magic.

CARIDAD SVICH: what ideas have you when you make work or are in the process of putting it out there about how to and ways you can create connection with your audience(S) beyond the work itself, for example?
 

EDWIN SANCHEZ: When Hartford Stage did my play DIOSA, they very specifically hired a separate Public Relations person to do outreach to the Latino community.  It worked.  Like gangbusters.  DIOSA became their second biggest money maker of the year (after Christmas Carol, and nothing beats that!)  What I noticed was that whole families came.  That’s important.  Have parents and their kids come and afterwards engage them in a dialogue about the play.  Sometimes people feel that "art" or "theatre" is going to be something they won’t understand.  Encourage them to talk about what they saw.  There are no right or wrong answers if they are being honest about what they saw.

CARIDAD SVICH: what's inspiring you these days? and/or what's troubling you these days?
 

EDWIN SANCHEZ: Without question, teaching is inspiring me as a writer.  I teach at ESPA at Primary Stages in New York and I’ve had some really amazing students.  Their talent is both humbling and exciting.  What’s troubling me?  I want to see more of us, in every medium.

Michael Mejias talks about keeping the dramatic question alive and more for NoPassport’s #3030NP salon

[Michael Mejias’ play Ghetto Babylon is part of the 30/30 US Latin@/NoPassport reading scheme. The same interview questions have been sent to each playwright taking part in the scheme by Caridad Svich.]

CARIDAD SVICH: a false (i think) divide has been erected in some art-making circles between what is called "devised" work and "text-based or text-driven" work. this divide or, shall we call it a "gap?," has served to alienate makers of text-driven work for live performance in the field and in academia. in effect, certain battle grounds have formed that encourage oppositional thinking about this, so that we have now, in many ways, the devisers on one side of the field and the text-makers on the other. devisers are seen as being on trend, text-makers are seen as behind the times. it is exactly this kind of oppositional thinking that can be so damaging not only to those of us making art but those on the "outside" perceiving what is happening in art. (more on that later).  how do deal with the positioning of your work, if at all?

MICHAEL MEJIAS: Admittedly, I was unaware of the Sharks v. Jets nature of things, now that I do, it’s head-scratching; especially, when you consider devisers have been around since, at least, 1947 (the Living Theatre). You’d think the conversation between both parties would have grown beyond dissention. Personally, as a playwright, I’m interested in alchemizing some of the techniques routinely used by devisers into new play development methodologies. I think there is a lot to be gained there.

CARIDAD SVICH: how do you negotiate the very real diving lines that get drawn, quite arbitrarily, and quite often, in our field in regard to art-making and its role in culture?

MICHAEL MEJIAS: I’m uncertain who is drawing the lines or how often they are drawing them. I’ll tell you what, whoever is doing the drawing needs a new hobby. Maybe yoga? In any case, I suppose the point to consider here is the role theatre plays in our American experience and in our Latino communities in particular. Theatre ranks behind music, movies, television, video games, fashion, clubbing, and stand-up comedy with regards to how impacting and regular it is in our life. If we surveyed our communities, theatre might rank behind shit like glass blowing and yodeling. So, whatever the role is that theatre is currently playing in the Latino community, I expect it’s a pretty small one. That’s a big problem and this is why:

1. If we agree in the uniqueness of theatre to tell our stories, if we agree that theatre has the power to move us on a personal level, raise our level of discourse, trigger civic action, challenge social norms, and tackle taboos, in ways other disciplines can’t, then, I expect we agree the absence of theatre in our Latino communities is culturally, socially, and politically disadvantageous to us moving forward.

2. If there isn’t a regular and robust Latino theatre audience in NYC and across America, there isn’t much incentive to hire Latino actors, directors, and designers or do plays by Latino playwrights that share our diverse points of view. If this happens, and Latinos remain only nominally represented on American stages, then, an important, vital, and vibrant plotline in our national narrative is omitted. It’s on us – artists and audiences – to discourage that. We have to respond to that.

My response was to co-found a playwright’s theatre, the Dramatic Question Theatre (DQT). The DQT member-playwrights make both the artistic and business decisions and have stake in its future. Beyond developing and producing plays that regularly speak to Latino, African-American, and others on the margins of the American experience, we’ve implemented audience-building initiatives with enrichment programs like Girls Write Now, Harlem RBI, Urban Art Beat, and LitWorld. Ideally, these partnerships will build our theater audiences of the future. My fingers are crossed.

CARIDAD SVICH: as a playwright, how do you devise your own process? dramatic project (life goals as artist)?

MICHAEL MEJIAS: Chiefly, these days, my process involves a whole lot of reconciling. I’ve written 26 plays and each, in its own way, has been a fucking drag for me (albeit, on the road to being something joyous for me). I never devised it this way, it is simply what has happened and, after several decades of struggling against it, I’m reconciled. I’m reconciled I’m simply not going to sit down and type out a play over a rainy weekend. I’m reconciled whiskey won’t make me a genius. I’m reconciled I don’t always have the best ideas. I’m reconciled I’m not the smartest guy in the room (My girlfriend is!). I’m reconciled I’m not the starting centerfielder for the Yankees or the author of The Catcher in the Rye.  For me, clearing out all that space in my “closet” advances my process. Beyond that, on a more practical front, since I’m one of the decision-makers at DQT, I know my plays have, at the very least, a customized development platform in place and in waiting; that is to say, I don’t have to keep my fingers crossed in the thereafter that my play is picked for development by some other entity or have to solicit anyone else’s interest.

CARIDAD SVICH: and how do you wish to live as artist in and with engagement in local and global dialogue with citizens and artists?

MICHAEL MEJIAS: Mentoring is a dynamic way for me to engage with community. Lately, I’m feeling a need to find more ways to connect to young people; specifically, Latino and African-American interested in playwriting. On behalf of the Dramatic Question Theatre, I’ve reached-out to educational enrichment programs, for instance, the Wadleigh Scholars Program in Harlem, with the hopes of establishing a young playwright’s workshop.

CARIDAD SVICH: and are there lessons you've learned you wish to impart to fellows in the field and elsewhere? or lessons you are still learning that impact the kind of work you make or think about making?

MICHAEL MEJIAS: There is agency in starting your own non-profit, community-building around your work, and self-producing. The member-playwrights of the Dramatic Question Theatre have benefitted from this model. DQT playwrights have won national awards, have been invited to speak at local public schools, been signed by agents, and are the recipients of grants and fellowships. The plays have received positive notices from many relevant media outlets and are performed to sold-out audiences. It’s a model worth serious consideration; especially, if you regularly find yourself outside the current play selection-making metrics.

CARIDAD SVICH: when you see/hear/read the phrase "US Latin@," what does it make you think of? what is your relationship to being of or part of (or not) a US Latin@ context in your art-making or thinking about art?

MICHAEL MEJIAS: Immediately, I think that there are a lot of us all over this city (New York), this country, this continent, and the globe. I also think we’ve a lot of purchasing power; so, how do we best exercise our financial influence? As it stands, Latinos aren’t purchasing theatre tickets at the same rate as our white counterparts; so, we, as Latino theatre artists, aren’t as represented on our stages. Let’s not ignore the correlation. The good news is that this is something we can fix by being a regular presence on the American theatre scene. I’ll invite everyone to explain this to both friends and family members. Our steady participation on this front will translate into more professional opportunities for Latino artists and increase our cultural currency. I know I already said this, but it’s worth repeating.

CARIDAD SVICH: as a maker of text for live performance, in what ways are you challenging or calling into question the nature of embodied speech and action when you write a given play or collaborate with fellow artists?

MICHAEL MEJIAS: Embodied speech and action is how you might define a character in a play. So, what I think you are asking is how do I write my characters? I’ll answer that: Routinely, when I write a character, I start with someone I know. As the character evolves, I’m delivered to a point wherein I no longer need the original source material. I no longer need that someone I know. The character has his/ her own way. Even though I’m the playwright; sometimes, I don’t know exactly what that means: HIS/ HER OWN WAY. What is that? However, when my collaborators arrive – the director, the actor – we drink many, many coffees and figure it out.

CARIDAD SVICH: casting is a tough and thorny aspect of our art and business. i think we all know plenty of terrific actors who wait and wait for that one or two gigs every year that ask for their "type" to be cast. i am personally of the mind that the more expansive casting can be, especially in theatre, which is, after all, not a photographically representational art form but an abstract one in its essence, the richer an audience's understanding of the form can be. but i know that this may not be everyone's pov. understandably. what do you do when someone says to you "we don't have culturally specific actors in my town, so we can't even look at your play, even if we were to deeply admire or want to put this story on stage?'

MICHAEL MEJIAS: Well, I know a ton of talented “culturally specific actors.” They’re experienced and well trained. So, I’d place the load on myself to make it happen. I’d be quick to recommend these actors to the theatre that’s interested. Further still, if they’re still game, I’d raise the completion money necessary to transport and house them for both the duration of the rehearsal period and run of performances. It’s also worth mentioning, Latinos are the fastest growing group in the U.S. We’re arrived at the point where it’s simply good business for American theatres to have an apparatus in place for casting diverse plays.

CARIDAD SVICH: what do you say to potential collaborators and casting directors about the nature of how to cast your show and how casting can carry its own political power?

MICHAEL MEJIAS:  For me, the casting conversation is always about how to best tell the story of the play and who we feel is best suited to the task. I don’t know if I’m looking to make a political or socio-political statement in this sense, probably not. I want the actors I want, but that has more to do with my overbearing personality than anything political. That said, since every play is inherently different and comes with its own specific needs, it’s difficult to conclude there’s just one true way to cast. Ideally, the play receives many productions; this way, many different casting philosophies can be practiced.

CARIDAD SVICH:  it goes without saying that we live in a multi-lingual world. do you think our US stages (to keep the dialogue national for the moment) need reflect this? if so, how?

MICHAEL MEJIAS: Although I’d like them to, until there is an economic incentive, I don’t think the regional or major NYC stages will see any real need to move away from their current practices. Like I’ve said throughout this interview, we need demonstrate our purchasing power. In the meantime, what’s wrong with building a coalition of new, smaller theatres that are about diversity and inclusion? In the meantime, let’s contribute, in big and small ways, to the fortification and general well-being, of our small and mid-sized theatres that are about our experience?

CARIDAD SVICH: and in your work, how do you address multi-linguality and hybrid aesthetics, if at all?

MICHAEL MEJIAS: Since personal experience is my primary source material, my plays are regularly informed by my Nuyoricaness, my Catholic upbringing, and my Bronx childhood. My work is also informed by my love of books, movies, TV shows, and 80’s music. Consequently, the way my characters express themselves reflects all that: My characters speak Spanish, English, and Spanglish. Language, the way they express themselves, often affords insight into whom each character is or who each character wants to be. Oh, yeah, there is also a lot of cursing.

CARIDAD SVICH: as a writer/maker for/of live performance, what is thrilling to you still about the form - this old weird creaky thing we call theatre - and why?

MICHAEL MEJIAS: Writing is lonely stuff; so, it’s great when you get to the point you can invite others to participate. For me, that means getting my director, Gregory Simmons, involved. We’re both chatty-as-all-hell. We’ll routinely close cafés, restaurants, diners, you name it. We’ll discuss every word, every beat, every scene, and every act. I go home and re-write like crazy. Then, we start again! A little later in the process, actors get involved and the play changes some more. I love that theatre can work this way.

CARIDAD SVICH: much is made at theatre conferences (esp) about where and how will we find the new audiences for the work. i think i have been hearing this for about 20 years now. and every year new marketing approaches are discussed and studies are done and surveys get passed around and so forth. lots of data gets crunched. but there is a bottom line, I think, and you may disagree, but what I see as the bottom line is: if you change the programming, lower ticket prices, do work for free even (see Mixed Blood's radical hospitality model), move out of the building(s), maybe just maybe that elusive "new" audience may be nurtured. but it ain't gonna happen sitting inside the building thinking about it or tweeting about it either. okay. wee rant over. but seriously, what ideas have you when you make work or are in the process of putting it out there about how to and ways you can create connection with your audience(S) beyond the work itself, for example?

MICHAEL MEJIAS: Since we haven’t a building, it was easy for the Dramatic Question Theatre to recognize the importance of doing work in spaces our target audience already collected in (like bars); and, to that end, in our first two seasons, we presented the Bar Play Series – plays set in

bars, performed in bars. The tickets were very reasonably priced, as, of course, were the drinks. A lot of our current supporters were introduced to DQT through the Bar Play Series. Nowadays, they even go inside buildings, with traditional theatres in them, to see our plays. Also, it’s easier than you might think to get a venue’s cooperation. Remember, in a recession economy, there is equity in being able to deliver 40 people a night for 16 nights to a bar, restaurant, café, museum, art gallery, night club, etc. We’ve been successful in trading off of that and, as a direct result, grow our audience.

CARIDAD SVICH: what's inspiring you these days? and/or what's troubling you these days?

MICHAEL MEJIAS: I’m inspired by expertise. It could be in anything; you can be a rodeo clown, slight-of-hand artist, or a beekeeper. If you’re expert, you’re bad-ass in my book. While I’ll stop short of calling it troubling, I’m bored by the over-abundance of irony in plays; its overuse is the skinny jeans of literary devices. One day, fingers crossed, these guys are going to look back and feel like assholes for confusing it for cool.