latinxcastingmanifesto

[latinxcastingmanifesto]

Your questions answered

Recently you tweeted us questions. Gabi and Quiara spent a day eating lunch, sunbathing, and responding to what you asked:

@gmorningstunner: If you are an Afro-Latinx woman, and you look more African than Latina, how likely is it that you will be cast as a Latinx role?

A casting director cannot legally ask about your identity when casting. But if you want your identity to be known, you are free to and encouraged to share it! So, please do go audition for those Latinx roles, and consider sharing your identity on your photo/resume for that particular role.

Self-designation and self-id is an under appreciated casting tool! And trust me, the director, writer, and casting director want as much information about you as possible! But they’re not allowed to ask, plus if they have a more limited sense of the Latinx diaspora then they really may not know.

QUIARA: For writers, we need to consider ourselves producers, too, and push very hard for Afro-Latinx casting as normal and not exceptional. I have had to educate producers and casting directors that the cousins in my Elliot Trilogy plays, well, one cousin can be a black Latina and the other cousin a white Latino, and that this reflects the reality of many Latinx families. Many producers and casting directors didn’t know this and it was absolutely my job to advocate for the truth and integrity of my work. I have given up expecting other people to know my truth and reality, and I say it aloud and clearly and with love and as early in the process as possible. Say these things at the very first meetings, or it may be too late.

Another call to action for playwrights: designate on the script that your casting must include Afro-Latinx. Or say that loud and clear on the first casting conversation.

@SalvadorVasqu10: Why are stories of the latinx community still to this day some of the most un-produced works? How can we make Latinx stories more accessible to all? When are you and @TanyaSaracho gonna team up for a musical?

Who picks up a play and reads it? Not necessarily our family members.

Call to action: professors, help us spread the word about Latinx work by assigning Latinx reading.

Call to action: artists, we need to produce our own work and each other’s work in order to get it to the community. Downtown institutions are our allies, but if we rely exclusively on preexisting production pipelines, the community will remain on the fringes. Our assignment is to figure out how to center the community as artistic creators and producers.

Call to action: we are the living library. Keep creating and producing. We need a few more generations of this work. We need to reach a critical mass.

Call to action: swap reading lists with your Latinx theater allies. Spread the word about the work you know.

(As to Tanya Saracho, I can’t wait to world-build with that FEROCIOUS artist. Till then, I’m blessed to call myself a fan and ally.)

@dbirdsoprano: How can we do more to address the imbalance of privilege in representation onstage?

Call to action: playwrights, literally address it. Write poor characters, working class characters. Write non-college-educated characters. Show various family structures. Break silence.

Call to action: producers, invest in the leadership of POC. Not internships, top positions. Scrutinize and criticize seasons centering wealthy and well-educated characters.

Call to action: universities, teach about professional sustainability (grant-writing, for example) in addition to art curriculum so poor and working class students can stay in it for the the long hall and we don’t lose them for financial reasons.

@AlexChurchyG: As a Young Latina director, who can I look to for role models in an industry of old white men?

WOCA  (Women of Color in the Arts) is a mentorship program for women of color in the theater.

Latina women have been directing plays and kicking ass. Latinx Theatre Commons is a phenomenal community of Latinx theater professionals including working Latina directors.

If you network with someone, follow up. It is not their job to chase you. Chase them! Invite them to coffee! They may say no. But they may say yes.

As Latinas, we’ve been trained to not ask for help. To be caretakers and never be on the receiving end. Stop it! Our spirits can ask for help.

@LaMeraFeli: I’m not in theater myself but have a daughter… can we talk about body type? Roles for the llenitas and the gorditas?

Make sure your daughter knows how to write. Make sure she’s jazzed about producing. If she’s sitting around waiting to get cast in gordita roles created by others, it’s not gonna happen or it will be brutal.

She should write her own stories and act in them. Or she should find a writer friend who gets who she is and ask them to create monologues for her.

Teach her to find her village. She’s not gonna do it alone.

Gabi literally started an entire theater company for this reason. Power Street Theatre Company. They are amazing and breaking new ground in Philly. Come to Philly and join their journey. Or create something like that in your own backyard.

@itsnikkig_: When are we going to start casting some fat Latinx actresses?!

Now. Writers, put ALL BODY TYPES in your actual character descriptions. Producers, put ALL BODY TYPES in your casting calls. You have to write it in as a clear directive or it will be more skinny bodies, always and forever.

@starmacosta: Is hiring an agent necessary? My mom does most of the work when it comes to booking or auditions…

GABI: I’ve always had that question myself. In Philly most of the actors I know don’t have agents. This may be contingent on where you live.

QUIARA: Find local working actors whose career you admire and ask them. For playwrights, no an agent is not necessary until you have a production contract in hand, or an offer from a producer. Then you get an agent. Before then, you have to get your own work produced. Use google to figure out which theaters have produced work that most resonates with your own. Submit your work to them. Or find your fellow travelers, find your village, and produce together.

@saybarra: How do we make space for aaaaalllll the variations of what it means to be Latinx in this country? In casting, in writing, in subject matter, in form, etc etc etc etc

The Latinx Theater Commons is very diverse in terms of pan-Latinx community. Find organizations doing the work, and they may not necessarily be theater groups. They may be drum circles, community college teachers, prayer circles. If you really can’t find a space you need, then it’s time to create the space. Bring the space into your living room or local park. We must always be creating space.

We are a diaspora, so how do we both engage all the specific variations of who we are while also embracing fluidity and openness? Those with more cultural leverage can use that to create spaces for underrepresnted Latinx stories: for instance, Latinx queer stories, Latinx trans stories, Afro-Latinx stories, biracial stories.

@zjriv: How do you manage your ideas? Every time I get writers block it’s because another comes along and I can’t stop thinking about it. Then another idea. Then another idea.

QUIARA: Sometimes you get 30 pages into an idea and can’t take it any further. That’s ok. Let it go. Let the new ideas continue to blossom in your imagination at their own speed. If they are still growing six months later, there may be a play there. Write what is speaking to you most today. No need to ignore it. The other stuff will still be there tomorrow. But also, letting ideas blossom is enough, they do not always need to be written out yet. I just had new insights for a play I thought up in 2003. I had forgotten about the play completely and then it tapped my shoulder over 15 years later.

@sleeplessinmit: What opportunities are available for presenting blended-language or Spanish-language works of theatre? What tools are available to make them accessible to all audiences?

Repertorio Espanol in New York has been doing this work for a very long time! Reach out to them and ask if they know of other bilingual theaters in your area. Ask what tools they use for this work. Suerte!

Also check out Spanglish theaters in your area. Miracle Theater in Portland, Power Street Theatre in Philly, Urban Theater Company in Chicago are just a few. Make allies and seek out mentors!

@omixmix: my plays are nonrealistic and include Spanglish. How do I shift attention to working on my style of nonrealism when everybody else seems to latch on to the “challenges of a foreign language”?

See above answer about Spanglish theaters. There are probably some in your area!

Also, stick to your guns. Live your truth, speak your truth, write your truth, and that’s what matters. You don’t need anyone’s permission to create, and you also cannot control others. Articulate to yourself and others why this work speaks to you and is important to you.

QUIARA: I have had to get into a deep practice as a playwright that I have no control over an audience. I only have control over the words I create. I have to believe in my writing, whether or not it’s what people want.

@ajdm: How do the Iberian colonial conquests in what we now call Asia (east, south, and Pacific) and those diasporic movements figure into this conversation?

Exactly. They do. What about collaborations and bridge-building between local Asian theater groups and Latinx theater groups? This would be fire. Let them know you’re hungry for this. Let them know how you willparticipate in bringing this question to the stage!

For instance, Power Street Theater Company (Gabi’s company) supports the Asian Arts Initiative. Gabi attends their town halls, though she’s Puerto Rican. She listens, observes and supports. And when she’s invited to share, she does. World building together, and doing the work.

Showing up for each other.

@alejandroraya_: I find casting requiring Latinx are given less reach than castings for other POC. Many projects in need of POC are often wide searching, but it seems casting for Latinx feels somewhat inaccessible. How do you feel casting directors can create larger reach for Latinx artist?

This is not necessarily true about other POC groups. A lot of communities have limited casting access and are underserved. This may be for budget reasons, and also because the roles simply aren’t being produced.

Create a list of all the Latinx folks you know, find out who the casting director is, and send it to them. Are there Latinx casting lists and resource groups in your area? The Kilroys did this cool experiment about creating a visible google-searchable list of unproduced plays by womxn. This may be a neat thing to do in your area for Latinx actors. The internet is a great tool for harnessing visibility!

@mingarla: If you don’t sing and dance as a Latina actress, is there any chance of finding work in theater? Seriously thinking of giving up my Equity membership.

GABI: I seriously relate to that.

QUIARA: This is hard. As a playwright, I have recently pressed pause on my playwriting life. For various reasons. It’s ok to step aside. I think life as an actor must be hard, because you’re at the whims of writers, producers, directors, etc. However, if you’re an actor who’s also a writer, designer, producer, then you can start to create work for yourself.

GABI: Another option is to find other paying jobs that sustain you, that you love, because you will need that income. If you’re only sustained by being an actor in someone else’s thing, then the reality is that’s a hard road.

[latinxcastingmanifesto]

On diversity panels

Quiara Alegría Hudes: Can’t stop won’t stop! Right up front I need to say something. A) Please don’t ask me to come strategize about diversity in your white institution for free. Don’t ask me to do your work, unpaid. B) Diversity is not a fellowship, apprenticeship, internship, or panel. It’s a Board seat, it’s the Artistic Directorship, it’s the directors and playwrights you hire. There, I said it! Also, hi Gabi, how are you?

Gabriela Serena Sanchez: Diversity is also the audience members, okayyy?! Who are we doing the work for? Who are we presenting the work to? [laughs, pounds the armchair] You stole my thing. Cuz I was gonna say that! The only time the theater community in Philadelphia has called me into their spaces has been to speak on panels. Without pay or a f***ing thank you card.

Q: Who are these panels for?! Enough panels! I got Netflix to catch up on!

G: [laughs] These panels are for an institution to say, “See? This is how we’re doing diversity, equity, and inclusion! We’re having a conversation, once a year, check! Give me that money, I’m serving ‘diverse folks.’” Put that in quotes. [laughs]

Q: We have gotten far from casting, I fear.

G: [laughs] No, we’re getting to the root of it, which is leadership.

Q: Ahhhhhh!

G: Okay?!

Q: Scary to talk about, right? Speaking up to those near the levers of change? I admit, it’s embarrassing, but I am scared to bite the hand that feeds me. But that’s such a script, such a lie, because I feed! I create meals!

G: I wanna validate that. That’s real, especially for so many of the actors of color in Philadelphia that sometimes piss me off because they’re not as radical as I want them to be.

Q: Wait wait wait. I don’t want to call out actors of color. Like it’s not hard enough working that racket in a white machinery!

G: I’m not calling them out, I’m calling them in, cuz it’s the truth.

Q: But don’t actors of color have the right to be just as lame and ethically mediocre as white actors?

G: Yes! [snaps] You called me on that shit.

Q: What you’re envisioning, though, is that when POCs get our feet in the door, that we hold that door open for one other to walk through. That we use whatever platforms we have to shine light not just on ourselves, but on others. It’s not a dog eat dog vision, it’s a community rising together vision. One of my favorite communities in my life is the Latinx acting community.

G: When you’re leadership… true leadership is being willing to be called out and to call people in. To how you can do better. Even as a person that faces oppression in different ways throughout my lived-in and embodied experiences, I’m willing to acknowledge that I live in comfort and privilege sometimes, too. So why is it so hard for people in leadership positions to do that? Isn’t that a part of growth?

Q: Philly’s a stunningly diverse city. If that’s not onstage, if there’s such a thing as a token, then the math is off. If an alien went to see theater in Philadelphia they’d have no idea of the reality, richness, and history of the city.

G: I wanna call Philadelphia out for not producing your work. We’re not sustaining the amazing artists that we have there. People like you have to go elsewhere to get your work produced.

Q: I’ve been produced there.

G: Think about if Philly produced your work when you started. I wouldn’t need Power Street because there would be more representation. You name streets in Philadelphia in your plays, for Christs sake! And we’re not producing it? That’s pathetic.

Q: Heights had a magnificent production at Walnut. Fugue had a beautiful production, and Water By the Spoonful was produced at the Arden.

G: After you got the Pulitzer. None of that happened before the Pulitzer.

Q: Fugue was before the Pulitzer.

G: That was an independent Latino director and producer who did your work of his own accord. None of the major institutions in the city touched your work until the Pulitzer.

Q: Philly Young Playwrights. They did my first play. They are the most diverse theater in Philly I know of, though they’re working at the high school level! Look, my early work was rejected by Philly theaters, and I moved on. I didn’t ask for a second chance. Life’s too short, I found other people who embraced my vision.

G: Thass right! [snaps] Quote me on that shit again! [laughs] How about designers?

Q: It’s important to have true representation at all levels of the creative and business process.

G: They create the world we see. They’re sitting at the table with the producers and director. They get paid well, so we’re talking about equity, too, sustainability. I’m also wondering about the nurturing. Who nurtures designers of color?

Q: We need trickle down truth. If your executive and creative leadership looks like the city you live in, then there’s a better chance that their assistants and apprentices will also reflect the city you live in.

G: Dale!

Q: Next time I want to talk about all the Latinx actors I love.

G: I want to talk about the Latinx leaders I love.

Q: The Latinx love episode. Next time!

[latinxcastingmanifesto]

Episode 2!

Quiara Alegría Hudes: We’re baaaaaack.

Gabriela Serena Sanchez: We didn’t hear your voice enough in the last one, so let me ask the questions now.

Q: Uh oh.

G: I’m interested in your power in the audition room as a Latina playwright. What does that power look like taste like feel like smell like?

Q: You create all these roles, you get to defy the stereotypes. My ideal cast looks like my flesh and blood family. Thunder thighs and chicken legs, light skin and dark skin, kinky and silky hair. [Gabi laughs]

G: What has it felt like when folks that model your world come into the audition room? When you see someone who looks like [our cousin] Odette or Gabi?

Q: Radical. There’s this prevailing notion that actors should be traditionally beautiful to land lead roles. I wanna smash that with my playwriting boot. I also love to cast light and dark-skinned actors as family members because it reflects my experience--even if it confuses people. They’re like, “They don’t look related.” And I’m smiling, going “yes they do.”

G: [laughs] My experience with you my whole life. People never thought you were my sister cuz we didn’t look alike. And when I have told people… “Reeeeeally? But you don’t have both of the same parents, right?”

Q: People always think [my stepfather] Pop is the biological parent because he’s the lighter one. Wrong!

G: How do we define family?

Q: The first time I got to Hispanic Playwrights Project at South Coast Repertory… It was the biggest Latino space I’d seen outside of North Philly. My family had grown.

G: What about colorism within Latinidad? There are black Puerto Ricans, light, and everything in between. What does it mean to be a light skinned Latina?

Q: At ten years old, some people gave me more respect and deference than my darker-skinned adult mother. Being a light-skinned Latina has meant that the white world has often told me, “We’re teammates, but she’s [mom’s] not.” I have had the privilege of being deferred to, being trusted, based on how I present to strangers in powerful positions. No one has ever given me a sideways glance because of my skin, and then a split second later they’ll look at people I love in much more labored ways. So circling it back to casting, I get my foot in the door of these powerful, predominantly white institutions, and I bring in the diaspora.

G: Yeeees. At my previous job, other Latinas told me, “Oh, you got that nappy hair,” or called me “gorda.” Those are terms of endearment in our culture, but it also comes from a place of colorism. My next question… having fun? [laughs, rubs hands together mischievously] Have you ever experienced someone saying something problematic about an actor during casting?

Q: With weight and notions of beauty I can feel heteronormative and white-normative narratives emerge. I’m sensitive to that, coming from a family of larger women. I take it upon myself, then and there, to recalibrate that needle and assert more intersectional notions of beauty--and also to reject the relevance of beauty altogether.

G: Is it appropriate to cast Latinx folks outside their own national identities? A complicated question...

Q: In an upcoming project I have cast Panamanian, Cuban, and Mexican actors into Mexican American and Peruvian roles. Being Puerto Rican, I was nervous to create a Mexican American role. I’ve enlisted help from Mexican American leaders and artists. I want to be rigorous and learn--and to correct my mistakes.

G: What about actors who audition outside their ethnicity? Would I, Gabi, be able to go audition for a skinny white girl role? Is it cool for white people to audition for Latino roles?

Q: Honesty in the self-selecting process is crucial. Integrity, people! Last year, Chicago’s Latinx theater community was furious because a professional In the Heights production had a white, non-Latino Usnavi. In a city with a historic, thriving Boricua community. There are so few leading roles for that talent pool--why deny Latinx actors a rare opportunity?

G: Have there been producers who disrupt the casting process?

Q: A Latino role means a Latino actor. Sometimes I have to remind folks. They’re making lists and they sneak in a non-Latino actor. In regional theaters, sometime a producer will say they do not have access to Arab American actors, for instance, and I remind them that the play must be cast appropriately or not be done. (I give educational productions more leeway.) A Shakespeare company wanted to do a play of mine. There was a Latina director they had been wanting to work with and they felt this was the right opportunity. I called them out--why haven’t you had her direct Romeo and Juliet, huh? Like, don’t clump all the POC’s together at once and then ignore us the rest of the year.

Next episode… we blow off steam about all the diversity panels we get asked to do for free. Show us the $$$$!

[latinxcastingmanifesto]

Episode 1!

Starring Gabriela Serena Sanchez y su hermana Quiara Alegría Hudes! Drum rolls and snaps, por favor!

Quiara Alegría Hudes: Hi, I’m Quiara. I’m a light-skinned Puerto Rican playwright whose ratio is half-Boricua, half-Jewish. I wrote works like In the Heights, Water By the Spoonful, and Miss You Like Hell which is coming up at the Public Theater in New York.

Gabriela Serena Sanchez: Hi I’m Gabriela, Quiara’s younger sister. I’m a darker-skinned full-on Boricua actor and producer who founded Power Street Theatre Company in Philadelphia. Our next production is Las Mujeres in March.

Q: Over the years we’ve had many fruitful conversations (okay, heated debates) about the joys, prides, and ethical implications of casting Latinx shows.

G: Thas riiiight.

Q: Because casting is not a transparent process, we thought it might be valuable to bring those conversations public. Welcome to Latinx Casting Manifesto!

G: Whattup mi gente!

Q: This started in California. You were attending a workshop of my new musical. The lead character was half-Latina half-white.

G: And you had cast a white actor.

Q: Who was very good by the way. And you told me one night after a public presentation,  “Quiara, if you don’t cast a Latina in this role, I’ll never forgive you.” You said, “There’s so few roles out there, to deny us one this big is just unfair.” Based on that truth bomb, we have now cast a phenomenal Latina actress in that role. Playwrights are job creators, and I try to consciously hold myself accountable for what roles I create and how I fill them.

G: And when you come up short, I hold you accountable. [laughs]

Q: Gabi, as a producer and actor, you’ve been on both sides of the casting table. What do you wish Latinx actors knew about the process?

G: That the director and producers are rooting for you to succeed. So get into that awareness of your power when you walk into the audition space, find self-empowerment and confidence to keep pushing through.

Q: What is an actor’s power?

G: Your power to walk confidently in a room and take up space. How are you introducing yourself to people? That couple of seconds is so critical. It shows the auditioners: do they want to work with you, beyond your talent? Are you passionate, confident, on time, prepared?

Q: Have you always been that powerful walking into a room?

G: Oh no. That power really didn’t come until I sat on the other side. I remember going into a room and thinking I’m not dressed appropriately because of my body shape, being a plus sized woman. Should I straighten my hair or have it curly? Put on makeup or no makeup? Assimilate my native tongue (Spanglish Philly jawn)? How much do I have to pull back? That fear takes over, you can’t be your full self, your best self, you’re worrying too much about who you should be, being enough. Especially when you’re the only POC waiting in the audition hallway, or when the folks behind the casting table are all men or all white people. How do you hold your power and truth in that space?

Q: Straight hair or curly?

G: Before, I pulled it back so it wasn’t lioness hair. Now, curly! My friend, who is white and a hair stylist, told me I should straighten my hair for one particular audition, that it would look more professional. White culture teaches us that having straight hair is code for professional.

Q: We internalize those lessons deeply. Makeup or no makeup?

G: Mm… [grins] Bueno, I love my makeup so… [laughs]

Q: What are your insecurities?

G: Cold reads, that’s number one. Am I smart enough for this space? What happens if I mess up in front of all these people and they’re like, “She couldn’t read this word?!”

Q: Any other casting insecurities?

G: Being the only POC in a space, in a rehearsal process. I’ve always made a career choice to work in communities of color. I went to a diverse university and high school. I’ve never been in a space for an extended period of time with just white folks. So my fear is that I’ll be the angry Latina in the room or I’ll have to educate folks at my emotional expense. Childhood memories of navigating white spaces have been through you, Quiara, in a lot of ways. As much as those spaces were loving and affirming, I still didn’t feel as comfortable as being on Abuela’s block. Scrabble wasn’t my thing, you know? But then I learned different skills to navigate those spaces, found commonalities--I like poker! I was always aware of how different I was in those spaces. I don’t think people made me feel that way, but, for example, I was super chubby, you know? I always felt more self conscious about my weight around white people than around POC’s. My body takes up space and I can’t help but be conscious of that. How I move my body, how I wear the right clothing to suck in the fat. [laughs]

Q: Can you describe the audition rooms where you’ve felt the most good and full and able to take up space?

G: I don’t think I’ve ever had that experience. That’s why I created Power Street.

Q: For readers who don’t know…

G: Power Street is a fierce multicultural theater company dedicated to empowering marginalized artists and communities of color in Philadelphia and beyond. Also, when I think about taking up space, I think about Scape-ing, a devised work about the landscape of hate. It’s the most vulnerable I’ve been onstage. I was playing myself, I was playing Gabby. I didn’t have to audition for that, Kaleid Theatre Company gave me the role--a special gift.

Next blogalogue soon… Gabi turns the tables & starts asking the questions.