 but also of a first phase of the Latino theater comments. Tonight, we have also been witness to a particular portrait, the portrait of an artist as a creator. We have seen wonderful work and wonderful artists creating new worlds. And so tonight, we will begin to honor those creations. And we will do that by participating in the weaving of a collective story is what we are here to do. That weaving of a story is a changing of the American theater. And that story, the changing of American theater, is at the heart of the story of the Latino theater comments. Woo, woo, woo! And so to begin tonight, and this ceremony, and this story, it is fitting, given this festival of playwrights, we return to a playwright, a woman who had the vision as a playwright to create stories, but also in her position as a resident playwright, to use that position, to dream a collective dream for all of us. And so tonight, we'd like to have our first speaker come up. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the visionary Karen Sakali. Woo! The frustrations that you could get there. And my dad would say, you know what? Every single person in all these cars has somewhere they're going to go. So my sister and I would sit there and we'd see the girl with the nose pressed against the window in the other car, who would say, well, she, her pigtails are magical. When she goes home, maybe she can fly. And the man in the car next to us without teeth, well, he'd had a revenge vendetta with a dentist. He started making stories. And I have seen he had a epiphany that all of these people, all of these stories, they were stars in their own lives. They're protagonists. They were the stuff of legends, all of them. And then I moved to the States, where the traffic went faster sometimes. But the stories started losing vibe. And so me, our story, we're not the stuff of legends. We were in the background. We were the extras. We were the afterthought. And that's a scary place to be because then you don't feel that ownership of your story. You don't feel that you should be the one who wins the girl or wins the prize or values your life. So starting to take ownership of our story started to become really important, not just for me, but for my sister and then for my friends. And then I realized that all of us started feeling like this. What's special about this movement is that it's moving constantly. Not one person owns it. It belongs to all of us. There was eight people that got together. Some of us didn't even know each other. We had no agenda. And we said, what would you do with your fellow artists if you could? And in those 24 hours that we talked, everything that we dreamed was impossible has come to fruition. And... Woo! Woo! Woo! Eight people. You're here. Can you raise your hand? Okay, there you go. And then from there came the encuentro. And then from there came this. And each time the circle keeps opening and opening and opening because there's a lot of room on this highway. Woo! And there's a lot of stories that need to be told. And we might be going in all different directions, but the destinations are all important and the journey is one that we have to take together. So this is just the beginning of a long road and we better get used to being this protagonist of every place. Woo! That doesn't stay in one place. It isn't owned by one person. That doesn't stay in one building or one town or have, you know, institutional prominent. So that we can volley it and volley it and volley it. And I'm ready to volley it to somebody else. So I hope somebody catches the ball somewhere else and we keep throwing it around. Thank you so much. Woo! Thank you, Karen. Now we'd like to just take a moment and ask everybody who's in the other room if you'd like to come forward with your chairs for a second so that people can see. Please take a moment. If you'd like to bring your chair forward, feel free if you'd like to grab a chair. Over here. Please take a moment. Or you can scoot in this plenty of space. We just want to get chairs in the front here so that people behind you can see. Chairs in the front. So good. You're not sorry. If you can't see, make it happen to you again. Oh, that's right. They're not even taking it. I'm going to leave this here. Is that okay? That was a hard call. That was tricky. Tricky. You were good. So you keep moving while we continue our program. A few moments ago, I asked you to imagine that we were all participating in the portrait, the portrait of the artist as a creator, as given voiced by our beautiful playwrights assembled here tonight. Right now, I'd like you to take a moment though and we're going to imagine a new portrait or it's actually an older portrait. It is the portrait of the artist as an advocate. And we have selected five honorees tonight that we'd like to share and introduce to all of you, though most of them, all of them need no introduction. But these five individuals embody the spirit of the artist as an advocate. So what does that mean for us? Well, it means that all of us are not in a vacuum. It's that we all need supporters, supporters of the art, supporters in our career, supporters in places. And these five particular individuals at one point shepherded four different programs that are responsible for nurturing the new voices that are present in this room today. We acknowledge that we all stand upon the soldiers of giants and we have numerous giants present in this room. And tonight we acknowledge these five as our giants as well and the programs that they shepherded and gave to us as gifts for future generations. So we will begin first with the story briefly of the Hispanic Playwrights Project. And a person who shepherded it for many years. A play festival founded in early 1980 by Jose Cruz Gonzalez to nurture and promote new Latino plays and playwrights. And in 1997, Juliet Carillo was named as the director of the HPP. And she served as the director until it closed in 2004. During her tenure, Juliet shepherded dozens of Latino plays into the field and gave many Latina writers opportunities to develop their work and gain national recognition in the process point. Additionally, she offered Latina and Latino directors and dramaturgs and asked actors opportunities to work with their fellow playwrights at the HPP, creating a national nexus for Latino theater. Since 2004, Juliet has continued this work of promoting voices and visions of Latino playwrights and projects. As a director, she has directed shows critically claimed premieres and revival productions in theaters across the country, such as the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the Mark Taper Forum, South Coast Rep, Yale Rep, the Denver Theater Center, and Seattle Repertory, to name a few. And as a member of Cornerstone Theater, she has developed work and given voice to communities who may not have ever seen their voices appeared on the stage. And so this spirit that she has for nurturing generations and for championing the voices through powerful art is present also in her work as a member of the Latino Theater Commons. And so she is a deep inspiration to all of us. So in recognition of her passion, spirit, imagination, commitment, the LTC. There we go. Deeply, deeply honored to receive this award from an organization that is so near and so dear to my heart. I was in the elevator recently here in the building and the brief discussion turned to how LTC changed our lives. It certainly has changed mine. I think they're used to do so even in this very moment. I cannot accept this award without acknowledging the remarkable Jose Cruz Gonzales, who had the insight. It was a close and Hispanic players project as an initiative at South Coast Repertory back in 1986, actually. So I showed this award not only with Jose, but also the founding directors of SCR, David M. and Martin Benson, who gave the program support and life for 19 years. One of the revelations I had while producing the workshops of so many incredible playwrights during this time was that we were not only nurturing Latino and Latino playwrights, we were nurturing an entire community. Even though we only met a couple of weeks a year, I saw credible growth spurts during that time. And the playwrights, directors, dramaturgs, actors, it was deeply invigorating. And the word continued. So many people here in the audience have participated in HPP this time. Fantastic. After HPP shut down, I went into mourning. But I also knew I needed to take time away from the community, find my path as an artist. But when Karen Zangadius put out the call to action, she threw down the gauntlet. It came at a perfect time. I'm thrilled to have the opportunity to join a movement that is changing the world in a Palabra at a time. I also want to take this moment to thank Lisa personally for retiring this enthusiasm at them. Yes, it was an LTC event created and supported by a huge group of people, including our superstar producer out of the Gale Fagel. Yeah! Yeah! I'm so glad that it was recently that the vision and the courage to make it happen in such a short period of time. It's a program that they jointly shepherd. The Latino Theater Initiative. In 1992, Center Theater Group established the Latino Theater Initiative to reflect the Los Angeles Latino population by producing new Latino plays. In 1995, Diane Rodriguez and Luis Alfaro were named co-directors of the initiative. During their seven-year tenure, they developed dozens of plays and commissioned over 50 new Latina Latino works as part of the year-round program. And in 2003, Luis was appointed the director of new play development at Center Theater and Diane continued with the Latino Theater Initiative until 2005 when the program ended. In the years following the Latino Theater Initiative, Diane has emerged as the ultimate artist as advocate, nationally and internationally, within her position as Associate Artistic Director for Theater Center Group and as the board president of Theater Communications Group. She has served as a mentor to many generations of new Latino artists, nurturing their work, their voices, and their leadership. There are many people here who consider her a mentor, myself among them, but as a director, she has also developed the work of famous playwrights, Nilo Cruz, Lynn Cottage, not excuse me, John Lekisander, Jose Cruz Gonzales, Octavio Solis, Culture Clash, Oliver Mayer, Nidale Cruz, and Ceri Moraga. And she has received best directing nominations for her work on Spigarama and Culture Clash's Border Town. She is also an OB Award-winning actor, playing multiple roles in numerous works and receiving credit and awards. And here in Chicago, she is no stranger to the theater scene. Her work as a playwright has been produced by Teatro Luna at the 16th Street Theater and is nominated for a recommended Jeff, the Jeff recommendation, excuse me, for her play, living large in a mini kind of way. So she lives the dual existence of artist and leader. And a testament to that is her recent nomination by President Obama to serve on the National Council of the Arts. Yeah! Woo! As a champion of New Latina Plays and New Latino Voices, the LTC presents the Carnival 2015 Award for Outstanding Advocacy to Diane Rodrigues. I mean, I do a lot of things. And sometimes you will say, you shouldn't do a lot of things because you can't really master any of them. And I've really, really tried hard to be good at a lot of things. Not good at everything, but good at a lot of things. And it takes a lot of work. And one of the things that I love, when I direct, there's something that happens to my solar plexus. It's really weird. And it's like, because I like to do finishes on walls and stuff, you know, like marble eyes and all that. And it's like my painting. It's like something happens in my solar plexus that I just kind of like go in a zone and then I just trust that I'm gonna create something. And that feeling has taken me to other places. And so as a, you know, an activist and as somebody who really believes that I value three things tremendously. And one is the thing of opening doors because I've had, like so many of you, many, many doors that have closed to me. And I'm like, okay, all right, cool, cool, cool. I'll figure out, you know, Richard Wonthry always teases me that, you know, I'm the queen of strategizing. And it's true, I mean, I pull back, look at the bigger picture and go, okay, I'm gonna go around, I'm gonna find an open door, I'm gonna open it, and then I'm gonna hold it open for more people to come through. I was like, I'm there to open doors and I'm not gonna quit, I'm just not gonna quit. If I have access, I'm gonna be there to open those doors. The second thing is I feel like sometimes I have to be like a boxer, right? And I'm duking it out, right? And I get thrown down. But I feel like I'm a champ, right? Now a champ, not in the ego way, but a champion for my community, right? And I'm like, okay, I'm gonna get up. I'm gonna get up and I'm gonna fight and I'm gonna win, right? Because I'm not doing it for myself, I am, I am, but I'm doing it for everybody too. And it makes me stronger, right? So that's the other guiding principle. And the third one is activism. And when you have a generosity of spirit to your community, they will give back. And I feel that's happening right now. I feel that I've given and it's coming back. And I have truly, you know, in the theater, you know, the concept of being like Ash, which you know, has become, you know, the truth of it is a beautiful thing because I look at you and you are me and I am you. And if you give, because you're giving to yourself and you will get back, and that spirit will carry you for the rest of your life and you will never be alone. Because you have a spirit, you have a community that supports you, and I am extremely comforted by that. So thank you all so very much. Thank you. Thank you. Hello, T.I. And that is the man who is known as El Maestro, affectionately to his numerous prodigies, Luis Alfaro, throughout the country. Those of you who have produced his plays, shout it out, who has produced his plays. Yeah. His voices have graced the stages, but he is known as a great chronicler of this story and of communities, where he goes teaching and also spreading the word and recording our story in the here and now. Most recently, he has become the resident playwright at the OSF, and there this nurture new voices for the American stage, as well as bringing stories and visions that have not been seen to the American stage. It is with great honor that we bring the Maestro up and in recognition of his ongoing leadership and vision, chronicling our stories as a Maestro of our field and of our people, we honor Luis Alfaro. Thank you everybody, I'm so glad to share, I have to share seriously to say that we joined a program that was already in progress and it was run by Jose Luis Valenzuela and Evelina Fernandez, so we're really happy because although we had a long and really extraordinary history, we had the amazing pleasure of having a scholar create a book about our program and with Dr. Chantel Rodriguez. Dr. Chantel actually did her work. I'm at the taper, I'm so proud to say that we gave 48 Latino artist commissions and we did 184 different produced events. Can you believe that? So that was an amazing extraordinary time. But I just wanted to say something really quick about that experience because it was bittersweet and I'm really, really grateful for it and the lesson that I learned was that even though I left and it was hard to leave, I had a great mentor in Irene Fernandez and it was Irene really that guided me through an amazing experience about moving on and how important it is for us to move on and to have movement, right? And to keep our careers going and to keep writing and to not stop the work and I had an amazing experience at the taper many years ago with the staff one year where people were very angry at us for certain artists we were producing and they said, you know that person is not gonna give you the Pulitzer Prize. And I said, you know what? That is a Pulitzer Prize winning playwright. We are six plays away from the Pulitzer and if we think about that, it's our job not to be supporting those writers, those young artists in the room right now who are six Pulitzer Prize winning plays away from the world. That's right. I came to art because I wanted to change the world. I was always lonely as a writer when I was first starting out. To be a young queer Latino in downtown LA was really hard because it took the Latino community a hard time to embrace the queer part of me and it took the queer community a long time to embrace the Latino part of me. So if you guys know my early career I used to wear a little black slip when I looked good in a black slip and I would go do Latino events in a black slip everything I remember is that. And then I would go to the other events and do my Latino work at the queer events and I think that's our job. Our job is to be the diplomats. Our job is to break open those doors. Our job is to always say yes. So I get in trouble a lot because I say yes a lot but I think that's our job to say yes. Si se puede. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. It was unparalleled and a more contemporary story but no less potent. When Bill Rouch was named artistic director of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in 2007 he brought along his long time collaborator and fellow cornerstone theater ensemble member Christopher Asimov. The award-winning scenic and costume designer Christopher joined the OSF as associate artistic director in 2011. Alongside the OSF company member Armando Durán Christopher shepherded and founded the Latino Play Project at OSF dedicated to developing new Latino plays many of which have gone on to full productions at OSF's regular season. As a designer, Chris designs three shows a year for OSF and his design work has appeared across stages throughout the nation. Seattle Rep, Arena Stage, Yale Rep, Lincoln Theater Center, Mark Taper Form, Berkeley Rep, San Diego Rep, La Jolla Playhouse, Denver Theater Center and here in Chicago, the Goodman Theater. Woo! In 2013, Christopher the leader was named Arts Commissioner of Oregon joining eight other colleagues statewide and in 2014, the show that he designed the sets for All the Way, won the 2014 Tony Award for Best Poem. Woo! A community of artists, all artists to reflect and make meaningful change within the nation. The LTC presents the Kanavan 2015 Award for Outstanding Advocacy to Christopher Acibo. Woo! Pacing back and forth, completely nervous about this music. I'm going to go to the San Francisco Giants. Yeah. I think I want to talk a little bit about LPP. It is a direct descendant of Latino Theater Initiative and the HPP two programs that nurtured me as an artist coming out and trying to figure out how I fit into a community and it offered a space to be an artist, it offered me a space to be myself and to build arts in a very, very profound way. Oh, I'm so nervous. There's something about speaking in front of your community that's both exhilarating and also like humbling, so I think those two things are happening right now for me. Thank you so much. LPP, as I said, is a direct descendant of those programs and wanting to create a space for artists to come and create their work. And it's on a trajectory, I think, LPP, much like that satellite that just took pictures of Pluto and sent them back. We are on a discovery, on a path of discovery and a lot like Pluto, Ashland is this mysterious outlier that is shifting its orbit. And also very difficult to get to. But unlike Pluto, there are very few Latinos in Ashland, Oregon and in fact in the Pacific Northwest. There are more Latinos than on Pluto, I think. So unlike Chicago or Los Angeles or Orange County or Dallas or New York or Miami or all these cities, the Pacific Northwest has to search for community. We have to have intention to find the Latinos and the artists of color that are in that part of the world. So LPP was born from that need, I think, from the need to build community and find the mirror image of yourself and find the greatness that we have for that collective artistry that we have. So I want to thank you all for allowing me to be on that great journey, that path of discovery with this program and for this great recognition. Thank you so much, appreciate it. Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! What's the prize, Siebel? Woo! Woo! Now we travel from Pluto, Pacific Northwest, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, back here to Chicago. Woo! The man who claims this place as home and a program that still continues to this day. So in 1990, building on the shoulders of a nation, burgeoning Latino theater scene in Chicago, Henry Godinas, alongside fellow actor, Eritoris, founded Teatro Vista to create opportunities for the Latina and Latino artists here in Chicago and also to provide a platform for new work. In 1990s, Henry joined the Goodman Theater's Artistic Collective, where he has served as an artistic associate ever since. And in 2002, he used this position within the Goodman Theater to establish the Latino Theater Festival at the Goodman Theater, bringing dozens of local, national, and international Latino artists to the Goodman Theater's stages. And as they say, the proof is in the pudding. Henry's successes as a passionate advocate for Latino theater at the Goodman have resulted in countless Latina world premiere productions and regular integrated Latina and Latino programming on the Goodman's venerable stages. And apart from his work on the Goodman stage, he is also an associate professor at Northwestern, which speaks to his commitment to developing and the training of future generations of Latino theater artists. As a professor, as a director, nationally. And so, in recognition of his ongoing national advocacy for Latino theater, and as advocacy that is central to Chicago theater, the LTC presents the Carnaval 2015 Award to Henry Godinus. Woo! There'll be dreadlocks on this ground. Okay, first things first. Ginan was talking about giants among us. There are many giants that have made it possible for the five of us to do what we do. There are two giants among us, in particular, that we have to name names. It's very important to me. The first, of course, is the godfather of Latino theater, Luis Valdez. Yeah! Latino theater, you know, without mentioning Luis's name. The second giant among us is Jorge Huerta. Another pillar is of my success, whatever that may be. Because I don't believe in suffering alone, whatever I've done in the city of Chicago is because of many amazing artists that I have been very fortunate to work with. So I'm gonna make some of them suffer with me. These are long, long-time members of Teatro Lista and beyond, so I'm gonna call you, make you come up here with me, Teatro Lado. Woo! So Lisa, I have to thank you, and I have, did she wake up? No? Anyway, anyway, I have to thank Lisa and Karen Zacarias and everyone, all the members of the steering committee of the LTC, or the LTC, that too. What's up, guys? What's up? For making this possible, look at this room, look at these faces. You know, where's ICE? I'm sure they were out there somewhere. Oh, no. 25 years ago, when we started Teatro Lista, we could only dream of this, you know. We felt so isolated in Chicago. We knew that in Los Angeles, the Latino Initiative existed. You know, we knew about the Hispanic Playwrights Festival. We knew about ENTAR, but we felt so siloed, so alone. And we could only dream about this. And so to be here, standing here, looking at all your beautiful faces, you know, it's like I'm ready to explode. So thank you for making this a reality. You know, I wouldn't be here, none of us would be here if it wasn't for the playwright. Okay, and it seems to me that, given what the Carnaval is about, it's only appropriate that I use this opportunity to put a challenge out to all of you. And these last few days, I've just been just amazed looking at all these young faces, you know. These young actors, and these young directors, and these young producers. Freaking Dallas, man. I grew up in Dallas. I couldn't dream that there would ever be a Latino theater in Dallas. So David, thank you. Woo! And you know, it's, you know, we would be nowhere without the playwright. And it's so fitting that in this opportunity, this Carnaval, that I issue a challenge to all of you, you actors, and directors, and producers, to support these young playwrights. Georgina, what an honor it's been to work on a play. Woo! These are amazing playwrights, you guys. Produce them, direct them, act in them. Knock on doors, fuck borders, fuck labels, ignore them. Don't pay attention to them in any way. Go to knock on every door and any door and demand these plays be produced. Produce them, do them yourselves, or demand that people produce them. We belong everywhere, in the community, in the biggest cultural institutions of every city in this country. We have to do that. That's your mission. So the, you know, the five of us, and I am so honored to be included among this group of my friends, my colleagues, my heroes, you know, we have done what we can and we've passed the torch to you. And now it's your job to go out there and kick ass, you know, and because of Luis and because of Jorge, we've been able to do, you know, and many, many others, do what we've done and now it's your turn, you know. So go out, go out and do it. And thank you so much for being here. Applause for our class. The members of the Latino theater commons have talked about it. There's a giant among us as well in the room who's standing right there. You get to be a dream and then you wake up. I don't have any words to say. I've said all my words this weekend. I just want to say I am honored to be a crown wearer. I didn't expect it. I am, you know, people keep congratulating me. This wasn't me. This was the collective. And as I've told many people, you know, I and my husband will attest to this. I've generally been a kind of top down leader. Like, you're going to do what I say and that's how it's going to go. But the collective that I've learned, the commons mentality that we've learned from Polly Carl and HowlRound and that we, and also of course from the many, many Latino theater movements which have all been about collective, I believe in my heart of hearts and the power of the people to take matters into their own hands. Somebody said to me earlier in another meeting, you know, have we done everything we set out to do? This was just at the end of a meeting. I was like, we always do. Thank you so much for doing everything we set out to do when we're going to continue doing it. In that image, our five giants and our six giants here, the artist as advocate, and I'd like to reflect back Henry's words and the challenge for all of us to become producers and creators, but also to support these 12 playwrights that appeared before us today. So playwrights, please stand up, advocate. Should we have them come up the playwrights? Playwrights, please come up. We are going to do a sliding participatory event so that the playwrights can hear, see the breadth and depth of the commitment to their particular work from all of us. And so those of you who saw something interesting this weekend, passion, raise your hand and make some noise to companies that are interested in establishing a relationship with each of these artists or one of those artists and make some noise. In producing one of these playwrights in your theaters in the next three to five seasons, step forward, raise your hand and make some noise. Into our theater. Companies have embraced your work and your visions. Around of them. And actually Olga put out the call to the members of the steering committee. This crazy idea. How many companies would commit writers hadn't been selected yet? The writers hadn't been selected yet. Sight unseen to producing a play by each of the playwrights we're gonna select sometime in the next three seasons. And you know, that call went out and we were like, well, I don't know, maybe, you know, I don't know what's gonna happen, maybe, I don't know. By the next day, right? By the next day, 24 hours, 18 theaters. 18 theaters had raised their hand and committed sight unseen to producing the work of the playwrights that would be selected for the Cardinavao. And those theaters are, shout out your names. Milagro. Teatro Tiro, Tiro Copalino. Teatro Juanjo. Teatro Prometeo. Teatroista. Gala Hispanic Theater in DC. Cara mia theater company in Dallas. San Antonio Latino. El Teatro Campesino. Teatro Vivo, Austin, Texas. Aurora Theater in Atlanta, Georgia. Intar Theater, New York. Su teatro in Denver. Goodman Theater. Oh, Gordaland Theater. Gordaland Theater? Gordaland Theater. What else here? Teatro Luna. I have to say, I mean, really. So in the next three seasons, we know we're going to have these playwrights, we're going to have productions at one of these 18 theaters. And those of you who joined just today and said you were going to do it. So thank you. Thank you. Power to the people. Power to the artists. Let's drink some more. And that's it for all of us.