 everybody here, back to the Martin Siegel Theater Center at the Graduate Center CUNY in the middle of Manhattan in Midtown, it's 12 o'clock and a beautiful sunny day and the first bulbs are seen outside at the trees and the flowers are coming out. So I think we might have a cold winter behind us. It's the first Siegel talk we have here this season in the spring, we're starting our programs going to have a look at our websites. And today we have a conversation with a playwright from Spain, from Madrid, Paco Bezera. Paco, thank you for joining us. And also his translator, Anton Pujol, who is based in North Carolina in Charlotte. And we will talk about the work of Paco in general but also about the work that's currently being shown at home page here in New York City, the little pony who was translated by my late colleague, Marion Peter Holt. And so we will learn a little bit more about contemporary theater in Spain, the Siegel Center Bridges Academia and Professional Theater International and American Theater. And this is one of the many things we do where we listen, we give a forum to playwrights who are really of significance, but as we learned have never been shown in the US and his plays have been done in 10, 12 different countries. So it's a big honor to have you with us, Paco. Where are you at the moment? And what time is it? Now it's five in the evening and I am in Almería, the south of Spain, Almería, in front of the sea. Okay, do you live there or you're working there now or? Now I am at my parents' house. They live in the south, in Andalucía. Andalucía is a place of Spain. It's a part of Spain, the south. And I have not house, my own house now because I travel a lot and I live my old house. And now I am a little bit nomad. Fantastic. Well, really, thank you. Thank you for taking the time to join us. And with us we have also Paco's translator for the latest edition also, I think the Cutting Edge Spanish Theater today. Anton Pujol, Anton, where are you now? I'm in my office at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte. Charlotte. So you are now the translator, the late Marion Peter Hull translated some of the work, especially the one, The Little Pony. But so let's go back to Paco Paco. How did you get started to work in theater and for theater? Was it in the town where you are now? Is that your old room where you wrote the first place? Well, I was born here, yes, but my first place, I think I wrote my first professional play in 2003, 20 years ago. And you already were in Madrid. Tell us a little bit, how did your artistic career develop? How did you get started in theater? I started in theater by the Literature, because at the first I became to write theater and winning several prizes is the way. So you started as poetry and now as a novelist before you wrote theater? No, no, no, never. I only write theater. I never wrote a novel, neither poetry. I only write theater. So you went to a drama school or theater school in Spain, or did you study it? How did that happen? When I was 19, I traveled to Madrid to study in a private academy of acting. And then I started to study dramaturgy. It's the dramaturgy for years in a public school. I studied to write theater. Why did you decide to become a writer, not an actor or a painter? I don't know, it's a mystery. I really don't know. I've never read too much. I don't know why I choose writing and not acting or directing. I've never... How do you say, I've never directed any of my works in theater? He never directed any of his plays. So tell us, what were your first plays about? The Name is Venta Quemada. It's about a girl who arrived in a town, a girl who didn't speak during the whole operation. And it's a girl that arrived to a town and she never speaks one word. I read... I was discovering Alfred Hitchcock. He was discovering Alfred Hitchcock? I had seen that Psychosis had made a film where the protagonist died at the first 20 minutes of the film. In Psycho, the character dies in the first 20 minutes. I thought... I had never seen anything like that. I thought that was original. It impacted me. He was very surprised by it. I thought it would be possible to write a work, a film where the protagonist didn't appear. It wasn't that he died at the 20 minutes, but that he never appeared in the film. And he wanted to write a play where the main character did not only not appear, not talk, not nothing. And that's the first work to write a work where the protagonist doesn't exist. And that's the first play, a play where the main character does not exist. Mm-hmm. And... And so, you are a Spanish player. A European playwright. Growing up in Andalusia. Did that inform you? What's the world you write about? Or was it a Madrid play? How did it... What worlds are you writing about? What are you interested in? He's come to realize... He writes on the rural stage. Let's call it this way. And then the other part of his plays, on the cosmopolitan stage, it reflects his 20, 30 years that he's lived in Madrid. He hears his life. He goes from the countryside to Madrid, to the urban, back to the rural. Mm-hmm. So, let's talk about a play... You won a Spanish theater award before. I die, I die not, I think, in 21. And then it was banned right away. Tell us a little bit. What happened? Well, a political group intervened in the programming of a theater. There's a public theater and a group of politicians decided to... They decided to make a choice. And before the announcement of the new season, they decided to cancel his play. Then they promised him that the following season, he would be part of the season. The director called him, the director of the theater, saying that the politicians she was serving told him that they would never allow this play to go on. Mm-hmm. Anton, you translated the play. Tell us a little bit what it's about. Santa Teresa, I think... I die for I die not. I think it's one of his greatest plays. It deals a lot with what being Spanish means. Santa Teresa is a historical character. And in the play, it starts with what I call the cyborg Santa Teresa, that she kind of... Her body was completely cutting pieces and it was taken to different parts of the world, and she starts recomposing herself. And as a saint, like, she was, I guess, a saint cut up. But she was a very problematic saint. She was somebody who was very honest, completely open about her ideas. Absolutely criticizing the church, the inquisition. A really gutsy character for the time. And the play starts and she recomposes herself and she realizes it's the 21st century in Madrid. She realizes what the politicians have done with Santa Teresa, which has nothing to do with her values. And then the whole play starts. And for a lot of people, and that's why it was canceled, people because she takes drugs, she's a homeless, she becomes a prostitute. But for a woman without any means, that's probably her only solution. So that's about it. So it had a very strong reaction, which means the theater means something. We had Indian playwright Abhujak Majumbar here on some of our programs, and also his place once in a while gets banned. And he says he often wonders if theater makes a difference, if it's important or not. And he says so much happens on TV and television, nothing gets centered. My place gets centered because they mean something and they're important and they change the world. And what did it mean to you, Paco, to learn that your play was centered in a way by a progressive, I guess this is a progressive theater? How did you react? How did you react? Did you ask Anton? When this happened to me? When they canceled you? I reacted with a lot of shadow, it was going to be two years. I was very surprised. It happened to me. In the history of democracy, there weren't many cases of theater censorship. In the history of the Transition Democracy, since 1975, there had never been one censorship case. I didn't know about it, but at that time it was an isolated case. It was an isolated case, the first case. The surprise was when months after mine, there was a censorship case. However, after this... Not a single case, but 14 or 15 cases that have censored the most conservative parties. After his case, there's been a huge wave of cancellations and censorship, more than 15 plays. And a lot of issues are happening because of the extreme right, VOX. That's a political party called VOX. So, on the one hand... I mean, on the one hand, I was very disappointed that this happened, but on the other hand, it gave me a bit of calm, because all those people who could somehow think that my case was an isolated case, that I was lying, all the state of censors came to corroborate that my case wasn't the first of a censorship wave that was going to come. And then he was kind of relieved because in so many censorship cases, came to fruition, he kind of felt relieved because he was not the only case. And he was making things up. Was there an outcry from the theater community or... He asked if the theatrical community supported you, if the theatrical community complained a lot? Well, not a lot. Not really. It was a very controversial case for the people of the theater, because maybe... Because maybe my cry and my protest has evidenced the silence of many people who would have to have spoken, and since they haven't, in the end, my cry has evidenced their silence. Since a lot of people that should have talked never talked, never came to his board, I mean, that put the whole theatrical community and kind of unveiled the theatrical community. It was a manifest and they came in favor, but not too many. Not too many. Yeah, it is a disturbing sign. I think in New York we also once saw the play, I think it was called Holy Shit by Inigo Ramirez, if I remember right, where people got attacked on stage, also by the religious right wing, there were even bloody noses, but as far as I remember, it was continued. It was not a censored, it was not taken off from the stages. Is something changing in the Spanish cultural theme in the theater scene? Yes, some things are changing because we have a new extreme right party in many of the cities around, and they have a lot of power, and they're getting more powerful. In fact, one of those, one of the cultural deputies of this ultra-ultra party was the one in the Madrid assembly publicly touched on the work I wrote of Dañina and Esperpéntica. There was one of these Vox parliamentary men who really criticized his play as... Esperpéntica. Esperpéntica, no. You know, like being like a freak show, and it's not at all what it is. And it was a work that damaged the image of Spain. And it was a play that tarnished the Spanish image. Yeah. Paco, you're an internationally known playwright, right? Your plays have been done in 12 countries. Maybe you know the numbers. You're disappearing. I can't hear you. Can you hear your default mic? Yes, now, yes. Yeah, now what? So, is it better? So, Esio, Anto, where does his work fit in in the Spanish literary scene, theater scene? Me pregunta dónde encaja tu teatro. I think he's really a voice of his own. En el teatro español, yo creo que tú eres una voz muy particular. I think, because each of his plays is kind of different from the one before. There are topics. There are themes that we can... Tell us some of the plays. Tell us, and very shortly, what they are about. Venta quemada dentro de la tierra, which deals with... Which is a great play. I think it's one of his masterpieces. And it deals with the rural world where there's something happening. There's a lot of immigration problems. Immigration problems appear throughout. Problems about foreigners coming to Spain. There are problems with all kind of minorities. Then there's grooming also, which I think is also a great play, which refers to grooming. And he kind of questions. Grooming in a sense of grooming. Of somebody who goes and pretends to be somebody else to catch a minor. And I think it's a very interesting play. And he really puts... He really questions a lot of our behaviors. He questions what society deems normal or not normal. And why do we call some behaviors normal and some others not? So then there's El Señor Ye, which deals... It's a beautiful play where you have Chinese immigrants living at the bottom of and then some old Spanish women and something happens that I'm not going to reveal. Then there's another play that I like, which is... ¿Cómo se llama? Ahora empiezan las vacaciones, which is The Pelican by Streamberg. And he did a great adaptation and there was a beautiful production in Madrid. That's a play that has not been seen much, but I think it's another... It's an adaptation of The Pelican. And I think it worked wonderfully. He said that in modern Madrid and all those issues that Streamberg plays with, I think resonate very well into our society today. And then he's got also Eddie Porrey, Medea... Fedra. Which he kind of looks at the old myth with a modern prism. And I also think those are very good. And I think that's it. ¿Me olvidan alguna? Seguro que sí. Alguna, pero está bien. So he's one of the more visible playwrights in Spain. So this kind of censorship scandal, the theater taking a decision, an artistic decision to present a playwright and then taking it back because of political pressure, which is indefensible in our eyes. It's shocking. Your plays are very successful. They are shown on European stages. Tell us a little bit what theaters are... What countries, what theaters are showing it. Anton? ¿Has entendido la pregunta? Sí, bueno, que sería un éxito eso en Europa. No, tu teatro ha tenido mucho éxito. Por toda Europa. Also Pequeño Pony, Shanghai. Sí, o sea, en Estados Unidos creo que es la número veinte. Es la vigésima producción que se hace en el mundo. Esta la de Estados Unidos. Pequeño Pony's production number twenty all around the world. Sí, se ha hecho en Chile, se ha hecho en China. Chile, China. China, Italy and England. Now there will be new productions in Canada, I think. And yesterday I saw for the first time the cinematographic adaptation of The Little Pony. In a German production. Oh, that's true. Yes, they made a film of The Little Pony. And yesterday night I saw for the first time via a link, internet link that they sent me. And I think the premiere there will be in this year. Perfect. Fantastic. There is also a very good adaptation of Grooming, a movie adaptation of Grooming. Yes, there are two films about two of my plays. And I am working in the third adaptation for a new film. And now I work more in cinema than in theater because in theater after they banned me, how do you say? I have problems to stay on a stage. So is the fact that you don't have a home, you have now a nomadic existence, is that related to that feeling that you have, to that experience of being censored, being banned or not having income through theater? Or is that for you being homeless in your own country in a way? Is that a choice? Is it an artistic choice? Well, it's a middle. I have been in theater for the last 10 years. In the last 10 years? I have been in theater every year in Spain, in Madrid. He had an employee every year. And since I publicly denounced the censor case two years ago, I haven't been in theater again. And in two years he hasn't done anything since the moment that he complained about this treatment. However, outside of Spain, he's very popular. Incredible. And it's something one might expect, you know, in conservative Hungary, in Russia, Iran, Iraq, but it's shocking to realize and to hear that it's one of the most well-known writers and most respected writers from that country of Spain which has such a great tradition. It's one of the great world powers in a way, you know, going back to golden age, you know, and that it treats its playwrights in such a fashion and it's not a good sign. Paco, tell us, why do you write, why for the theater, if you did, why do you think it is important? I write theaters to question issues and so that they can make people think and that they can use their critical judgment. He never says who is he in favor of. And the audience has to choose or judge. They have to judge what's right, what's wrong and he tries not to immerse himself in that, you know, it's up to the audience. So are you a political playwright in that sense? He stresses his political persona as a person but not as a playwright. Theater is not for him to broadcast his ideas. That is quite a big statement. Tell us a bit, how do you write? Do you sit in cafes? Do you at home? Do you have a typewriter or a computer? How is your day structured? You said I write a play every year. What is your process of writing? He's always heard that some people always need to have the same place to write and they need to have a lot of discipline to write. Do you realize that his office is his head? He can write anywhere where he happens to be. Right on the beach, on the mountains. City and the town. On the plane. At the airports. Even in a disco, if he has an idea, he grabs his cell phone and he starts jotting down all his ideas. I think one of the... The opposite of an inconvenience is... What? The opposite of an inconvenience is a... a favor. I think the positive side of it is the favorable side or the advantage. Sorry. I think the advantage... I think the advantage of being a playwright is that you don't need to have a place to work. So you can write anywhere. So we can imagine you in a day in Madrid, you go from your home to cafes, at different places, an exhibition, way to an airport and you will always be writing. You know, almost like a painter who takes sketches all day long, whatever. He sees, what are your influences? Who influences you? What are your influences? Who influenced you as a writer? Who do you look up to? Well... I have a great influence on the Greeks. Greek playwrights, classics. It says some names. Euripides. Euripides, Sophocles. Sophocles. I think you don't need anything else. I think the great classics, you have it all there. All of theatre is in the classics. Aristotle just summarized everything that we needed to know. I think that we don't even need to read Shakespeare to understand what theatre is all about if you've read the Greeks. I think that reading Sophocles and Euripides... Sophocles and Euripides. Everything that we write nowadays is already in Sophocles and Euripides. So in a way, the adaptations and reinventions of existing stories you tell. Are you a Spanish playwright? Would you call yourself a Spanish player, a European? How would you... How do you see your identity? Or do you have one? The first play that I ever read was Yerma by Lorca. Lorca was born in Granada and he was born in Almería, which are relatively close cities, both in Andalucía. We both have a lot in common. I think a lot about Lorca, I mean... A lot of things in common. We're both people, we're boys, we're homosexuals. We were born in a rural town. And they went to Madrid to study and learn. And they've finally been censored. They've been both censored. And now in Florida they've censored the House of Bernarda Alba. I think it's not a matter of Spanish artistic censorship. I think it's a case that's been going on all over the world. And the proof is that just in Florida they've just been censoring Lorca right now, months ago. Yes, they've removed it from the libraries. Yeah, yeah, it's true. So we see your inspirations. Tell us a bit about the process of translating. Since we have a translator here, we actually helped to produce your play, The Little Pony. And we will talk about it later. My colleague, my late colleague, Marion Peter Holder, was a great translator, a great mediator, a bridge between Spanish, the Catalan Cedar, of course, especially. And so did you, and we all respected him, we published books with him. Did you collaborate with him and also with Anton? How are your collaborations when it comes to translation of your text? How do you think about it? He never met Marion Peter Holder. But he did have communication with him on the Internet. He had our emails, the exchange emails. He was only an expert in Catalan authors. He was the little pony. I had the illusion of doing this with my text and he asked me if I could do it, although he was not an expert in translating from Spanish, but from Catalan. Even though he was not an expert in translating from Spanish, but Catalan, he wanted to translate The Little Pony. So he saw, excuse me, go on. Permission, go ahead. So did he come and see the play? He saw the play. He never saw the play. But he read it and felt connected to it. Do you remember specific translation questions you were working on, struggling with, with Peter, Marion Peter? Does he remember that he asked him anything? Yeah, we think it's a very, very good translation. Anton, how is it for you? You translated more of his plays. You also have this ontology cutting-edge Spanish theater. Tell us a little bit, what is your approach when it comes to translating work that does come from a different country, from a different continent, inspired often by a context that is not as well known here? For me, there was a very important thing that Paco Becerra does, the playwright. And I've always been very interested in. He never attends rehearsals. He doesn't really care. He says that my theater is to be read. And that's very, very important. He doesn't care about the production. He doesn't care if it's because directing it, the actors, not important, the directors and the actors. That's not his job. His job is to write a play, to be read. And I took that in my translation as, I hope that I do the other linguistic translation. I'm very faithful to the original. But then I hope that the dramaturg, the director and even the actor, give it their own voice. Especially when you're translating into English, any phrase, if it's spoken in New York, London or Melbourne, it's going to sound completely different. So I would like my translation to be the stepping stone to create their own Becerra world. So that was my style, very, very respectful. And also, I hope that they get their own imprint. You know, their own, I mean, we know how different it is when you have different actors read the same monologue or the same text. You know, so absolute liberty for the people who envision something different. Tell us a bit about his technique of writing or the rhythm. What makes him special? Is it different from other writers you translate? Well, what makes Paco Becerra a Paco Becerra? I think he's very real. He's very alive. He always leaves you questioning. He's not afraid. You're not afraid of anything on your place. He's not afraid of anything. He really takes you to the edge. And then he kind of leaves you dangling. You never know who's right, who's wrong. And he just, for example, one of my favorite plays that we haven't mentioned, Lulu. Lulu starts with kind of a biblical retelling of the story of Lulu. And then it transforms into something completely different, completely shocking. And I think also I've seen three productions of grooming in different countries. And I've seen two productions of Pequeño Pony in Madrid and in Barcelona. And they were completely different. The Barcelona production, the production of Barcelona de Pequeño Pony was very different from Madrid. Of course, I never write, I never name the stage. I don't write for the theater. I'm a writer and I write dramatic literature. He writes dramatic literature. He's not a playwright. He doesn't write for the stage. I never talk about the stage nor how the works have to be done. There's never any indication of how that has to be done on stage. There are no stage directions. There are very few descriptions of the setting. I never write the stage. I'm not interested in the theater. I'm interested in conflict, ideas. I write about the ideas. He writes about the ideas. But not how those ideas are materialized in the scenario. But not how you visualize those ideas on a stage. And that's why I think he's so interesting. And because any of his productions will be completely different. So you come up first with a question, an idea or a painful moment in a person's life or in the history of a country and then you write a play around it. How does it originate? How do you start? Sorry? Like when you start making work. How do you start thinking? I understand that theater has to be dangerous. Theater has to be dangerous. and it has to be transforming. He has to be transforming. an рисful We have to present a conflict. You've got to present a conflict. It has to be a conflict a conflict that drags the audience and makes them think, what would I do if this? Intento que ese conflicto sea lo suficientemente angustioso y problemático, que haga que en el espectador Full of anguish, very problematic. Que haga que en el espectador se produzca una catarsis y una transformación. So there's a catharsis for the audience. There's a transformation. Y que salga distinto pensando completamente lo opuesto de cuando entró. And maybe they leave thinking completely different from when they enter the theater. También intento que todo aquello que el espectador pensaba que le parecía horrible al principio de la obra, al final... And everything that the audience thought it was horrible before. A que al final le parezca afectable. That maybe at the end it's acceptable. Y al revés que todo aquello... ...le parecía aceptable, que al final le parezca horrible. And everything that seems acceptable at the beginning, it's now not acceptable. Para que al final el espectador salga más confundido de lo que entró. So in order to confuse the audience even more. Creo que esa confusión es la que nos hace ser grandes como seres humanos, crecer como seres humanos, la confusión. That confusion makes us better human beings, makes us grow. He hates plays that give the audience what they wanna hear and what they believe is true. He hates them. That's why he never gives solutions. Somos políticos en ese sentido. We're not politicians in that sense. Somos políticos en el sentido de hacer reflexionar a la gente sobre aspectos que tienen que ver con el tabún, con las cosas que no se pueden decir y con las que no solemos hablar. Creo que escribo mucho acerca de todo aquello sobre lo que nadie te va a hablar ni en la escuela. He writes about things that are not talked about. They don't talk about it in schools, in your own marriage. Here is the last space where you can talk about what's not allowed to talk anywhere else. And not even theater anymore. Now that's very powerful, almost like a doctor and the patient has something that hurts and the doctor puts his hand on it and it hurts even more. It shows where's the pain, where's the wound, what is sick, what's not working. So it's quite impressive. How do you write many drafts? Do you work with actors to improvise in between? Do you have it all in your head, like a check-off? You think for weeks, don't write anything and then you write. How is your method of writing and rewriting? He's never tried out the text with the stage or with actors, never ever. He's a pure writer in the sense that he just writes. The draft is the one that comes out right away. Like you sit down for three, four weeks. Or is it like how long do you work? How do you struggle? How long do you go through the cafes and airports and discos? Give us a number. Hundreds of drafts. One has the feeling it's a musical composition. You know how the words and sentences play with each other. And now as soon in a minute or something, we will be joined by Kimberly Ramirez, who's directing the little pony here in New York City. In Marion Peter Holt's translation we did an excerpt of the scene. And when we did the memorial evening celebrating the life in the work of Marion Peter Holt, the audience was very touched even by the excerpts. We have a small festival that's called the Prelude Festival. And we did a full reading by just a stage reading. And again, there are people in the audience, as well as the actors felt so moved. And said, this has to be done. It's shocking that this play has not been done. It's a play about a little boy that wants to bring his knapsack, a pink knapsack with the little pony and the unicorns in it to a school. And a big problem starts off harassment, but also between the parents. We just see the mother and father talking in the living room over a couple of evenings discussing how the development of this kind of tragedy, again, that we witness. So it's the first time, if I understand right, is it really true that a play by Paco Bezera is being shown in the United States? Is that true? Yes, it's the first time. Which is also shocking and shows how isolated we are, especially giving the large Spanish population. I think in the Bronx, I think up to 60, 70% of audience, of audience, I say, of people living there speak Spanish. It's the highest, one of the most spoken languages here, but very few plays and next to some theaters who dedicated their never Spanish subtitles in theaters. So such a highly regarded internationally renown and celebrated playwright hasn't been done. It's going to be shown this weekend and next weekend a torn page, a small living rooms theater, beautiful space that Tony Torn keeps up. And I tell everybody, go and see this. You sit up close to the two actors, only 20 seats and they have no know how many are left. And we heard of some people, audience members crying after the show, people staying, writing letters. So it's quite something. I'm asking Emily, do we have Kimberly? Is she there? The director? Is she joining us? Kimberly, hi there. Tell us a little bit. You put the little pony together. You helped us to organize that event for Marion Peter. What does this play mean to you? You teach your professor of theater also. You're a playwright with Cuban American roots. Tell us a little bit. Why do you want to direct this play? My Spanish is very limited. So I'm going to speak Spanish in English because we don't have a lot of time. This play was translated by our dear colleague, Marion Peter Hall. It was his last translation and it meant so much to him. It was a very special project that he wanted to translate because he was primarily a translator of Catalan playwrights, but he felt so passionate about this final piece that he really wanted to bring into life and he could identify a lot with Timmy, or who in the original, Timmy's name is Luismi. I think the original character is Luismi. So very much unlike Anton's recent translations, which I also have, Anton is very careful not to change character names in the translations. And Marion felt it was really critical to have names that feel like they could be back where the source material was in North Carolina. So it's that DNA in Spanish is a very common name in the U.S. as well. Irene and Jaime was changed to Daniel and Luismi is Timmy, which is like a really common kid name in the U.S. And I feel like Marion felt he had so much in common, kind of a kinship, a spiritual identification with the source material, which was Grayson Bruce and Michael Morones, the kids in North Carolina in 2014 who were not allowed to simply express themselves. Yeah, and that kind of catastrophe, tragedy that develops is based on a real case of a child committing suicide in a school. And so we are witnessing that, but just through listening to the parents with an open ending. It's brilliant how the, in Bako's writing, how we come to know Timmy through exposition, through the dialogue of the parents, and through a portrait that is just the best opportunity for a projection designer, a set designer to create these glorious changing portraits of the child throughout. And we feel his presence, we feel like he could be anyone, anyone of our children or anyone of us. It's such a universal character and such a powerful message. I've been teaching this play since Marion passed away. And before he passed away, he really wanted a U.S. production. It was one of his last wishes. He emailed all of us. He said, someone has to do the U.S. premiere of my English translation that they did in London. I regret it didn't happen when he was alive, but of course we have the COVID-19 pandemic. And we are slowly building this from the memorial that we did for Marion, where we did a couple of excerpts of scenes. And then we did a staged reading at the Prelude Festival in the Siegel, with the Siegel Theater Center. And now we're doing a workshop in the salon of Tony Torn, who is the son of Geraldine Page and Rip Torn, two American actors. And we're slowly building this project. Can I ask a little bit about Marion? And Montgomery, how did you meet them? And how did you put them together? I met the actors at another legendary New York house of Edwin Booth, the great American actor who dedicated in the late part of the 1800s a house in Gramercy Park to the theatrical community. It is now The Players, which is a club for theater patrons and practitioners and arts enthusiasts. And we are on a committee for equity and diversity and inclusion at The Players, the actors and I. So we met kind of united by that passion already of inclusion, representation and fighting for equal rights and freedom of expression. So when the idea of the memorial excerpts came, I had those two actors in mind because they knew their commitments and their passion to begin with. Right. Let's maybe go for a moment back to Paco Paco. The inspiration of the play, did you read about the kids in Carolina who killed, tried to commit suicide or did? How did it start? Was it already in your mind the play and you looked for a request? How did the idea start of The Little Pony? I read in a newspaper the news about a principal of a school who forbidden a child who is in the school to go enter the school with a backpack of My Little Pony. It's the only thing that I've read because the news, they are not too long. It's only the principal of a school forbidden, a child who is in the school to enter at the school if the child go with a backpack of My Little Pony. And I was thinking about this immediately I thought that there are a good play there because I became to thinking what can be happen behind this law of the principal and all the play I think is all my thinking about how a principal can, how and why a principal of a school can or want, why he want to forbid this thing and how this law go to the parent's house of the children and what happened in the house and I became too great and I was one year and a half I think writing the play, I wrote the play in one year and six months more or less. And as we now know in hundreds of drafts, incredible. So is this, I want to repeat it if I understood it right. Of worldwide this is one of the top 20 plays performed on stages, you said? This is the number 20 in the world. You say production, your production is the number 20. 20, in the world. In the world, yes, it's the 20 but in countries, I don't know if it is or is 20, yes, it's, no, no, not 20 countries because in Greece, for example, there are four productions of Little Pony and in Poland, there are three productions. Is the number 20, how do you say 20? Production number 20. Production number 20. In the world but I think is the, maybe the, I don't know. I don't know the number of the country but it is a 20 production, production number 20. Yeah, now really it's an exceptional play so well written so well composed, asking the question. We witnessed these two, the parents, those two, Yeah, I thought in the... I thought in the soul episode, I thought in the soul episode, I thought in the soul episode, you thought about the absent character? Romano in the House of Bernardo da Alba. I also thought about Sebastián in the last summer of the last summer of Tennessee Williams. Sebastián in the last summer of Tennessee Williams. Well, I thought that suddenly he came to me. He came to me because the protagonist of the play had to be the absent character. He told me that the little boy had to be the absent character in the play. And I also came up with the idea of putting that picture as Kimi commented. To put that painting. That I also had to do a little bit with Dorian Gray's portrait of Oscar Wilde. Yes, Dorian Gray's reminiscences. It's very funny because in some countries they haven't read the work and they congratulate the scriptwriter saying, but a great idea of the scriptwriter who has put the absent character in a, as if it were an idea of that production, only what happened to him in a determined country. In some countries the critics have not read the play and they think that that's been part of the the director, the directors, pretty like that. It's an original idea of the staging. Amazing. Kimi tell us that it will be coming slowly to the end, but how did you decide to stage it? What did you struggle with? What was easy? What was complicated? The portrait was easy. I mean, Becerra's stage directions are so meticulous and they're expertly translated by Marion and we really followed them to the letter and we have a gorgeous projection design that really grounds the actors. The day that I brought the projection design, we found something like it just we rehearsing I think in Frontkentra's living room at the time and I brought the projection design and immediately something clicked for us. We could feel the narrative just exploding and it was, it's brilliant. The small projection is maybe like 20 inches times 40 inches. It's almost like an oil painting, a living one. Yeah, so tell us about the work with the actors and the words, what lines, what was complicated, what did you... It's been a really natural process. I can't really say that anything, I think the most challenging thing has been for the actors to transform into these characters, especially the performer playing Irene is nothing like Irene. None of us feel... We're a collective of creative people who are not gender conforming and the actor playing Irene so deeply understands Timmy and not so much Irene but they can get there through the process. In rehearsals, we did some improvisation for the offstage character because it's so brilliant that we don't know Timmy, that we don't see him, that we only hear him sound design and the portrait but we did some improvisations where the actor Marissa, who plays Irene played Timmy in rehearsal and we had some of those conversations between Daniel and Timmy about whether or not to take the backpack to school to take the Batman backpack. We improvise those off-stage scenes that are referred to only expository and I think that really deeply informed our process here. Yeah, so we'll see, we had like one weekend opening but it is something what we always try to do to introduce plays that are overlooked for the wrong reasons and we do not hear enough voices from around the world. Musicians listen to world music, it's vitally important to them and often I think the US is, it's an island, it's a gigantic big island in a way but it is an island and we do not listen enough to the voices from the world around of us also to realize that the big problems that we are facing whether it's climate change, homophobia, violence, violence against women, they are planetary problems. They are global problems and I think this place is a good reminder of the universality of this and I think it's deeply touching and so congratulations, you know, Paco for writing this work that is now being shown here. Will you come and see it? Will you fly over? I don't know. Let's see, we hope. Maybe another time, maybe someone will pick it up and put it in the next stage. So anybody who might be interested, you know, come and see it. So Paco at the very end, what are you working on at the moment? What's your, on draft 78 of what new play are you? What are you thinking about at the moment or is it film? I'm working in a film but I am working from the last 15 years in a, sorry, in a new play. In a new play that I started to write 15 years ago and I am still writing. What is it about? It's difficult for me and it's the reason is because I, it's hard and I spend a lot of years writing this because it's very ambitious and I think my mind from 15 years ago can, it's not, it's not, it's not, it's not, it's not, it's not, it's not, it's not, it's not, it's not ready. It's not ready. It's not ready. I think from 15 years ago there are no ready, was not ready for, for write what is in my imagination and I think I am, lo estoy consiguiendo, how do you say? He's getting through it. Yes, he's getting through it. He's a man who returns to his village 20 years after he left or 30 years, I don't know very well. Returns to his town 20 years after he left and when he returns he discovers that everyone treats him as if he had never left. And everybody treats him upon his return like he had never left. Everybody's treating him like he had never left. And he starts thinking if somebody has taken his identity. But he, but nobody stole his identity, he really stayed. Oh, it's not really him. But there was a part of him that stayed behind. And he started thinking if somebody has taken his identity. But he, but nobody stole his identity, he really stayed. And this little part of him kept living in the town. And now when he went back to the other life, he cannot. He is forced to live the life that he left behind. So he has to live the life that he would have lived if he had never left. Amazing. Well, for sure, this is a, a scope of character. What are you working on, Anton? Are you translating at the moment? No, I have a translation commission, but I don't think I will take it. You know, I think I'm going to relax for a while. Well, so, you know, thank you, thank you both for sharing and thank you for being here. And, and I also wanted to mention them of the actors, you know, Montgomery Sutton, Marisa Kovarmi, Teresa Soroka, was assisting in the direction also is the stage manager of that show, which turns out to be the very, very first workshop production or production of the Parkour Bitsera play here in the U.S. and the Little Pony. I think given the political climate in the U.S., also especially in Florida, where you cannot even say the word gay in classrooms or many other things, you know, though this is also putting the finger on a place where it already hurts. And so thank you both and thanks for howl around for hosting us. Emily for being such a good host, Vijay, everybody, and I hope to see you soon again at some Seagal Talks to our audience members. Thank you for taking out the time of your life to listen to this. And I hope to see you one day all in life at the Seagal Theatre Center. Thank you.