 When we get started, I just want to invite you, there are a few empty seats open here because we're trying a bunch of different formats as we go through the Guentho and Guiz Tortuglias and this one, we're trying to have more of a group conversation. So if you feel so compelled, you want to join the conversation, we'll be closer. Please feel free, there's a couple of extra empty seats. Otherwise, stay where you are. People will be coming in later for shows that are giving out. People will feel free to leave. This is very casual, right? It's all about conversation. And if you're here and you just like to leave, it's okay too. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. You can all wash your hands. Good job, thanks for your answer. So I'm just the high man here, so I'm here to get our energies up. I just want to ask a question because I've seen quite a few of your faces at the events, right? So I just want to kind of get a sense. Who's seen what? What's been surprising? Do you have anything you want to share with us today about anything you've seen over the last few weeks? Any hands? Okay, right over here. I don't speak Spanish. If somebody coming into a theater experience, like walking into a show with language I don't know and being able to follow that intention and stuff like that, I've noticed there's such... It's a lot easier than what I thought it would be. Language is a really good, scary thing for me. And I've really appreciated the craft and I can really see it and notice it without knowing what the words are. The intentions are still there. And it's something that's really nice and it's something that affects me, really, really deep. That's amazing. Thank you for sharing that. So that may inspire anybody else to share anything else they've seen or felt as they've encountered any of the plays. Something that's been really striking to me is going into the lobby and hearing all of the conversations about maybe why this show or why that show, and that's been really fascinating to hear. And I would really encourage us, as we go through this panel, moderated by Namio, to really feel empowered to ask questions and to challenge each other as we go through this. It's an ongoing conversation. And so even if you're up in these seats, you can still talk and participate with us, okay? Yeah, Alex, I'll say something. Yes? Having, like, wanted to get a bit around a lot of the festival I listen to all day, but having to laugh at it as an artist because we do our work long, we get less exclusive. I really want to applaud everybody here at the Los Angeles Theatre Center for the, and everybody who's all in the whole organization of the inclusive nature of the Holy Gwendolyn. Not just culturally, but also in terms of likewise. It's great to see, you know, the next generation of a piece as well as the bit that I listen to everybody in between. So I think that's something remarkable that should be read. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thanks. I encourage you guys to join us at any point during the Gwendolyn throw after this event, maybe later in the evening in the vault. That's kind of the home of our circle of scholars. It's where our treasures are. Tiffany and Jorge and Chantel work very hard to make this space as welcoming as possible. So if you need a place to talk about the work, want to be in a little bit quieter zone than upstairs while music playing, please come join us in the vault. We also want to share the Lethigo Theater comments as one of the partners in this festival. We're producing all of these in Gwendolyn. I'm sorry, all of these tertulia events, which are also being live streamed. So if you want to tweak along and join the conversation, please hashtag Capri Onda, hashtag New Play, hashtag in Gwendolyn 2014. I'll be following all of those. If you're a little shy, I want to be asking your questions or want to repeat some words back. I also want to share that in two weeks during the final weekend of this in Gwendolyn, we'll be having a national convening of Lethigo Theater comments. This convening is completely open to everybody who's interested and wants to attend. All you have to do is buy tickets at the LATC box office, okay? So we have questions about those kinds of events. They're all in your program. They're all listed there. And they're all for people who are interested in Lethigo Theater as artists, advocates, scholars, administrators, and we welcome you all. Okay, without any further ado, I'll give you Daniela Piz. So the way we're going to conduct this conversation today, it would be each of us will introduce ourselves and talk a little bit about our experience with the theater in Español and focus it particularly in the work that a lot of you have been seeing, that's in Español and some of the work that's coming in the next two weeks. First of all, I want to thank Regina, Garcia for championing this tectulia. When she asked me to moderate this, because she was unable to come for this, I was reading a book by Rosario Castellanos Palvalunca Nara. And the first sentence in her novel is, And then in rage, they dispossessed us. They snatched away the thing we had most treasure, the word, which is the vessel for memory or the vessel of memories. So I thought that was so appropriate, because we're talking about doing theater in Spanish here, but also realizing that Spanish is also a colonizing language in the Americas. So, my name is Daniela Piz. I'm from Mexico. I, the show that I brought with patients' fortitude and other antidepressants is not in Spanish, but I do direct a lot in Spanish at the Miracle Theater and a couple of independent companies. And I'm very passionate about the need for this type of theater to be readily available to the communities here. So I'd like to introduce by me, or let's start with Rubén. Rubén, I'm a Vísica Morúa, an artistic director, a group of theater cinemas. I've been here before. I've been here in general. I was born in Chicali, in Chicali, Mexico, because I don't know how to speak. I grew up in Tabila, Puerto Rico. Oh, I was speaking Spanish. I was speaking Spanish. I feel like, like, René Pérez in Calle 13, when he was here last weekend, or two weeks ago, he was super sonic. As he addressed the public, he said, well, I'm not sure how to address you, in Spanish or in English. And I think someone later on addressed that and said, well, I don't know, but this is the perfect time to learn Spanish. If you don't, but... Let's do it in English. Okay, so, I'm René Pérez, and I'm a professor at Pomona College, which is a journal dedicated to the Hispanic theater. And that's it for now. I'm Anthony Rodriguez. I'm the Producing Artistic Director for the founder and Producing Artistic Director of Aurora Theater, and our Spanish language division, which is... My name is Eva. I'm from Mexico City. I am Associate Artistic Director of Borderlands Theater, Director of Maria Circular Dance, that's playing. Great. Welcome. Thank you. It's an honor to have you here. Can each of you talk for about five minutes on three minutes? Ten minutes? You want ten? On... I know what your company does, their mission, is it all in Spanish, who your audience is, the difficulties of producing, or the challenges of producing Spanish or in English? That's kind of the second... Go ahead. Well, first, yes, same question for everybody. We do it in Spanish because, well, I'm Mexican. I love my language, and that's who I am. I don't need authorization to do it. I'll do it, and there's a community in Los Angeles. In Los Angeles, we are over 40% Latinos, and most of them, a good chunk of them, speak Spanish. Especially where the Frida Calotillo is located, about 90% of the people speak Spanish, well, English. So there are recent immigrants that we started. The company was started by Anibal Aprile, Argentinian, Yvette Cruz, Puerto Rican, Rubén Manichone, Argentinian, and José Salgado, Cuban. In 1987, I joined them in 1988. At the time, they presented all in Spanish. I actually was the one who started bringing by Anibal Aprile into the company, and the reason was because we all have friends or family that were second, third, fourth, fifth generation, and they did not feel very comfortable with Spanish anymore, or they were married, living whatever, with people who did not speak Spanish, so they wanted to come. So we started doing it, and we do all our shows, most of our shows in both languages. Mainly, we get the plays in Spanish, even when I write them. I write them in Spanish, and then I have my translators, one of them here in Mueller, to translate them into Spanish, into English. We have a community that likes it, craves it and comes to see it. Most of our performance in Spanish have more audience than we want in English. We are better known for Spanish theater. Usually we do, let's say, four weeks of communication. That is our community. Our theater not only houses but also collaborates with a lot of organizations, the organizations that present exclusively in Spanish, like Taller, Acabal, Catalecos, Quetristas and we're getting one as a ring. So, most of the audience that goes to our theater take all the space in Spanish. So that's what we do. The challenge sometimes is challenging to do more of a part there, because our community is much more conservative in that in those regards. Also sometimes it's hard to get actors there are trained actors in the Spanish flu. Sometimes we have to sacrifice and somebody criticize me once because I used an actor who wants to play a Mexican part. I don't even fuck about it. I have worked with pretty much every nationality. Even when a lady was Hungarian, a Filipino lady, a Korean guy as long as they are committed to the theater as long as they do the work I don't care. But sometimes it's difficult and sometimes like I said I've done plays like Stab at Matter we had the best reviews ever for that play but I knew that it was 100% and it did not. And it was a wonderful play we had wonderful reviews pick up the week for a week early times backstage west but it was very different from what our audience used to do. So I have to be very careful to balance sometimes my ambitions with the box office because more than about 70% of our income comes from the box office. So I have to be very careful and I have to bring people into the theater otherwise I have to close. That's a very good reason to work in Spanish. Yes. Like I said and I identify myself more as a teacher of Spanish language and literature. When they asked me to be in this table I think I tried to bail out and say I'm going to be there but I'm going to be sitting on the other side. I'm going to be at their maker and definitely for me it's a mystery how I open the newspaper to play in Spanish and then I have to decide if I travel from Orange County to Los Angeles to watch. So for me the process of how a company chooses a play decides to produce it in Spanish and simply getting to the theater and to see a play that usually is not producing it's not written by someone from California or a Latino. So I really thought I was going to come here to ask the question not to talk about a company which I don't have but I do want to say that for me as a Spanish professor language has always been very important. I'm also Puerto Rican and in Puerto Rico I think language containing Spanish is a question of honor. It's very closely linked to our identity. So even though I've been living here in the U.S. for 30 years I think I decided to study Latin American because I saw it as a way of understanding something beyond my Puerto Rican identity my connections with other people that spoke Spanish. So when I moved here to the U.S. and I thought Spanish I really identified with the place that I see Spanish. Now one problem is that most of the place that I see in Spanish here in California usually come with a festival like it's happening now that we have a chance to see Marisol in El Desierto or Agua Pocharada which is the place that I will be watching Spanish from the framework of the festival or they come they're doing a tour in the U.S. they're from Chile or Argentina so at the time in which I have to choose place to bring my students usually they are places that come from Latin America seldom do I have the opportunity of bringing my students to see a place in Spanish that was written by Latinos or even Latin Americans that go to Spanish here in the U.S. So you have to go to ruins theater but you know like he was saying or he was saying that they produce one Spanish play a year and don't take my whole five minutes so like that so that's the question why do you have to what kind of style or aesthetic do you prefer to see in Spanish or recommend your students to go? I have no prejudice as long as Spanish and right here before the semester start I incorporated in my sea levels and what I really wanted to get to because it's the only thing I can contribute to this conversation is that there are any reasons why there should be theater in Spanish and I want to fold a little bit from an article we just published by John Benjamin we did a study of the theater that had been producing in California, Los Angeles area from 2000 2010 and he realized that most of the plays were attended by Spanish speaking people and usually they could go to the play for several reasons and these are the reasons he described but you know I think we can agree for tradition like somebody mentioned too many tamales I mean it's a great place to watch at Christmas time and you know they want the kids to come and watch it they come because they want a sense of connection to the Spanish community that they represent and they also want a sense of connection to people who speak Spanish so out of solidarity they might go and watch the play even though they are even if they are Mexican they come from Peru for a festival they feel connected okay and I think the reason I want to contribute and the reason why I come to theater with my students is because I think it's the most powerful educational tool for people who are studying Spanish and they are able to come to the theater and you know see a play like the other people who are speaking the language and you know incredibly enough I have students that have never been to the theater not even to see a play in English and they fall in love with their culture and they want to understand the context of the play so I'm sorry and thank you he's so cute he's talking and the need yeah so as I said I'm the producing artistic director of the Aurora Theater which is celebrating its 19th season this year thank you and then that's good so Deathor Lo Sol is probably 6 years of that we've been doing my mother had passed away in 96 and I as we started the theater and as my father was growing older he passed away after our first season of Deathor Lo Sol I felt like I was I was losing connection to my la vida and to my family we weren't visiting as much with them and so I wanted to do something that would help me reconnect and since I had the resources of the theater and other people's money to use I thought I would do that so it was only going to be one show a year and at first I was very ambitious I felt like I should do it bilingually that takes a lot more rehearsal than I had actually scheduled which would in turn take much more money because it's two plays you're rehearsing and it wasn't working I didn't feel like producing the same show in both languages was really getting what I wanted out of it or what the audience wanted out of it the English ones were very very poorly attended the Spanish ones were better so I felt like I really wanted to specifically target the shows to my Latino community which is very diverse it's Mexican, it's Puerto Rican it's Dominican, it's Cuban and so I wanted to choose those things I also wanted to make sure that every time we cast the show it was as diverse as possible within that that the people that we were using like we're doing a play by Karen Zacarias and it's directed by Agrives so those are the two Mexicans involved and then no one in the cast is Mexican even though it's only about Mexicans Right I didn't want a Jewish American so we wanted to make sure that we were doing that because I don't know if y'all know sometimes even amongst ourselves we're a little discriminatory right so I wanted to yeah the Argentinians all think they're better than all and the Koreans think they're better than the Puerto Rican so I wanted to help build those bridges amongst ourselves and so that's what we did and then I was invited to serve on the steering committee of the Latino Theater Commons and my entire world changed I did not, I would use my staff to design the shows all American and so we were missing some key ingredients and when I started to meet new playwrights, new designers new scholars, I had all of a sudden broadened my network of people that I knew and so Mariela Anand-Visietto which is here we have a much larger group of Latinos involved in producing it I realized during our meeting in Boston that because I have the position I have I'm in a place and I have a responsibility at least I feel I have the responsibility to hire more of my people because I can and so I should and so that's what we did you started it because you felt you wanted your personal connection to your culture and now you're bringing in Latino designers well when we separated out when we first got to LTC they separated us out and they said okay I'll playwrights be over here all the artistic directors go self segregate to what you align yourself with and this group of artistic directors was fairly small and if you then sort of separated out the ones that did just Latino theater I was in a very tiny group of people that run an organization in America that has Latino theater that and is a Latino right so I felt that's when I was like I have a larger responsibility and so now I I take that very seriously your delivery, thank you Brian Portland theater is 30 years old next year so we've been, I've been with the company for 20 of those we have been doing plays in Spanish in Spanglish in Spanish and English and we have not only done that but we also have connections with the Círculo Teatral in Mexico City so for example Maria Circular Dance which is performed here in English by the translation by me it's also been performed in Mexico with the original Spanish so we've done the Lorca plays in Spanish and English we even did Fuente Veruna by Lope de Vega with lots of Chicanos in El Siglo de Oro Festival in El Paso that was something oh my gosh anyways so we are very committed working with other kids in Mexico and that's our border mission that's the mission of Portland to destroy borders and I want to take this opportunity just to ask for a moment of silence for the 43 students who have disappeared in Mexico and also for the end of the narco estado I'll throw a little contentious question and then I'll throw it but Rubén and everybody you said I'll work with whoever wants to put in the work and now I want to bring actors and tell the story with as many diverse people in my community so the story, the story is written in Mexico the story is written in Ciudad Juarez how do you deal how do you put this like this access giving people out of work I work a lot in Portland, Oregon so my job to directing theater in Spanish is about community engagement and training Spanish speaking actors but I've never actually been given considered doing dialect work for example with my Spanish speaking actors I thought that was like really not important but in going through this big some conversations have come up so what is your position do you consider that an important issue your thoughts on that I mean we try to neutralize actually for example when we did Frida the lady who originated the part Puerto Rican he just tried to flatten the accent but we don't want to do it again but the lady who originated the part of the modern women of Juarez is from the Dominican Republic now the one to place now is Chicana from Texas but we try to neutralize the accent sometimes with more success yes the same thing we don't try to do okay we're doing a 15 minute play because first you have the problem with the time you have only 6 weeks that's all we allow it to rehearse we can rehearse only 4 days a week at our theater we don't have a rehearsal space it's only one space also if you work in LA you know how difficult sometimes it is actors have auditions have visits and to get the cast together sometimes you can even get in for the rehearsal person so it's kind of hard to do that kind of work with the accent it requires a lot of time so we just try to neutralize it and we work with actors that might have a heavier accent but that's the thing and I don't find it contagious at all it's a I've seen plays where I can notice some accents that don't belong to the character well I understand it is a unless of course it's a major thing that I cannot understand the actor that's different but the whole thing is you don't have an accent in English I don't know if you have noticed it so as long as I understand one of my examples of Maria Rita wonderful actress from there in I love her she's sensational but she has a very fake Eastern European accent but you understand everything she says when she's on stage and that's what I ask that's the only thing I ask for the actor whether you do it in English or Spanish as long as I understand sometimes it's kind of challenging but if it would be easy we wouldn't do it we'll like the challenge we do in theater it's not easy to do it there is the money in it so for me it's not a contentious issue sometimes it is when we start talking about sex and that's one of the points of the conversation first of all, who's sex and that's all of my questions who's if you want me to follow the pattern let's say I'm not being racist but yes I am white American theater like some scholar that I know fuck the American theater we are the American theater exactly, we are the American theater but those other patterns dictated by some people in the university, whatever no, that doesn't work for my community I do it here for my community so there just fell out what you mean by aesthetics because I've seen beautiful shows very well designed illumination, whatever but at the end, they're empty there is nothing and I don't want that in a theater I want to be moved I want to have an emotional intellectual experience if I if I want to just enjoy a nice looking thing, I stay home and watch TV I don't care if it's not beautiful what I can expect is it moves me makes me think makes me angry it's an experience I want to hear it's an experience I want for my audience when they come to the show, the worst thing you can tell me about any of my shows they are bonitos I just saw he directed The Woman of Juarez everyone, please and the comment was about it was also beautiful so not exclusive and you also had moments of sharp aesthetic sharp visual aesthetic but connected also to the part of the character I don't think, I think aesthetics is defined as well, the last one has always been my question defined it for me well the way it's been presented many times it's like, okay, who's the rest what are the rules for me the rule is pretty much okay what are you trying to say that's it, for me that's the most important thing here and that's the most important thing I ask for my actors what are you trying to say rule number one if you have nothing to say, leave the stage sometimes somebody once regarding the meetings we were doing last year say, oh well if it was involved, I would participate if there are these groups that are free all of us, like who are you what's your background these people are trying to do theater they're serving a community and as a matter of fact I started with some of those groups some of us, the ball some of us stayed at that level for me, they have the passion to bring the community to be here for me that's what's important but mainly when I choose a play or when I work with an actor it's quite trying to say much more important to me that how it's going to be presented yeah so we have basically the same thing we try to flatten out the accents as much as possible because our audience is very diverse so we want that and it is problematic we only rehearse for three weeks so we don't have a lot of time to communicate with the flavor so not contentious are you as strict with your English productions as you are with this productions in Spanish like for example, do you require Southern accents for Tennessee Williams and not for I come from Tennessee Williams thank you you know, it's interesting ways of speaking I was talking about the Lope de Vega in Chamizal and there were some critics there saying that you can't really have the mastery of the Spanish language to bring Silo the autoplay to fruition and I thought that it is interesting that we have these hierarchies of languages I think all languages and all forms of languages have the same level and Spanish is not necessarily inferior to Italian Spanish or to English because remember, Spanish is a mixture of Arabic and Latin and what else I don't know what else is older when we are trying to sell some to Spain it is not pure there is nothing pure about languages not English, not in Spanish not in Spanish, they are all mixtures and they are all the hierarchy comes because there is a class and social hierarchy that establishes the language we have that problem in Arizona with the only English instruction and we will fight against that to the nail so do that, how do I do that I try to put this place in Spanish the way that I can do it that is what our voices in the theater are saying this is our culture this language is as good as any other language and our expression is as valid and as beautiful as anything else I just want to say that when I hear expressions with neutralized accents don't be speaking it worries me because you see that they try to neutralize the accent and not that they really can do that deeply but I think one of the most beautiful things is the different languages we have the different ways which we pronounce things I was just going to say that one of my favorite things in Latin America he's Argentinian he's from Spain the other ones are from Ecuador they make the things work but what it means when I go and watch a play that is like a classic and there's somebody that is Argentinian and somebody that is Cuban doing something for those of you who do theater is it possible not to neutralize the accents but like you were saying to try to either cast people that can you know so there's a a rhythm a rhythm even though the accent may be a little different it doesn't seem like there are two countries doing the part you say it's difficult because it takes a lot of time I think so I mean it's challenging but to find the actors that have the talent and the passion that are right for the story that you decide to tell the play that you decide to tell well mainly like they pronounce at least all the consonants it is or sometimes they say the word it because sometimes it is important to have like a saloon or hones but like I said and when somebody took my script of Frida and did it at UCLA a student and I didn't find out until there was a protest by the students, the Chicano students at UCLA because the guy cast an American actor to play Frida and something like that and they were pissed about it at least we learn to pronounce the freaking name but in general we try as much as possible we have an actress that will mention her name that she cannot say to you that but we still do it the accent is not so heavy that it distracts because it does distract and it becomes distracting when we did a Chilean play we kept the Chilean language the Chilean expressions but we didn't try to do the accent because one of the actors was Guatemalan two were Guatemalan two were Mexican one was Chicano one was Argentinian so but it's difficult if for example you are doing a play and again I said Frida it's going to be distracting so we try to okay because most of me here I do it again, Mexican most of me here I do it from Mexico because also to multiple audiences are Mexican or I will be more inclined to find places in the Puerto Rican community Dominican community I'm trying to serve a community here most of our community is a Mexican American and for that reason we try to do it that way I haven't found other places maybe I don't have the accent maybe once in a while I get a Chilean play or an Argentinian play but mostly because I go to Mexico every year I see plays I talk to the directors and they send me material that's how I find it there's a lot of playwrights that write in Spanish here in the United States you decided to translate yours into English you decided to translate an English play by a Latino writer into Spanish no she did that right why go that route it was a great play partly why Mariela worked for us so much better we're going to have to have English subtitles if I want even part of my audience my English speaking audience to come and some of them come because they're either white does they want to come or the husband doesn't and so you need a play that works very well and has that already available I don't necessarily have the staff or the staff time to translate the whole thing itself although we did do that with a play a few years back and that was a train wreck but and I believe I'm right but she did her own translation she made this but we had one before that that we've done that was translated by several people and it was a mess and we had to go back in and fix the super titles because we were like that's not anything like what we were saying and they don't always match up so we still have to go back in and fix things as we go and Sergio does a great job of that my stage manager of helping to fix that so that they can follow along the same way we don't want people to get the joke before we've said the joke there's super titles are a whole other art that we've sort of over the years gotten better at when do we hit a button so if we do that how do we keep people from following the actor if they've gone to Cleveland in the middle of the show and they're not the same place if the super title person starts to follow them then we just tell them to slow down wait for the actor to find a place where they've recovered and let's figure out for us we tried in three different occasions the Spanish English the exception point super title and the wagon all the immigrants spoke Spanish and the immigration officers English and they say she spoke English sometimes a little bit Spanish and he spoke only Spanish a little bit of English those less successful shows with the audience they didn't like it they got confused they were bothered by the super titles it was a kind of experiment so I thought well if they are in America and these people are crossing the border talking about the wagon the immigrants said that he had been here before so he could speak a few words but not the whole play and the immigration officers they spoke a few words in Spanish but mostly in English and they say oh she's an American teacher and he is a long time guy, students so we tried to only Spanish and only English for her it didn't work for us at all we've never done like at all performance in Spanish with super titles or vice versa but when we tried to mix both our audience did we also did the sale in Tucson and I did that the same thing the female character picks up a sex toy in Colombia and so the sex toy always picks Spanish the boy toy and the woman only speaks English and that is they understand themselves in bed very well but they do not understand themselves when they talk and so that was at the center that became the center of the dramatic conflict so the audience went along with it the audience couldn't understand some words there but because it was in the center of the dramatic conflict it worked really well and as the play progresses the male character starts to speak English more and she starts to speak Spanish and understand they understand themselves better and that means the end of the relationship he was the success we presented in two years in a row but I wanted to say about translation when I go to an opera sometimes there is no super title and I don't really care to understand everything that they say but I know the plot because it is written down in the program and I listen to the music of the language and I think our audiences can learn to listen to the music of the Spanish language I go to Shakespeare and I understand half of it I'm being Mexican I really don't understand it but I understand what's going on I love music of the language I don't have to understand every single word and I think that the audiences if they sit down sit back and relax and listen and hear the music of the language they will come to enjoy El Orca they will come to enjoy Lupa de Vega just like we do when we go to an opera in Italian or German so that's my opinion there is a caborca that has a show here they just premiered their bilingual version so the scenes in Puerto Rico were in Spanish the scenes were in English and it enriched everything so much just because the way they stage it is like simultaneous scenes happening and if everything was in English you'd have to struggle to define where they were but now with the two languages it makes your mind to really get into the character so it depends some needs to put out a seminar some needs bilingual seminar I'm going to before I throw it to the audience José Eduardo Torres-Tama in a quote that it is important to present here in Spanish even if your audience is only English speaking because of this subconscious subversive act of breaking the monolingual paradigm of a concurrent empire alright so do you guys have any questions before bringing this to our people it's really important especially in Spanish and for me when they're in Spanish the only thing that I was I'm up to because the reality is the traditional American theater we like to work and when we go into this space it's the most amazing time that I have with my mother we'll go to dinner, we'll talk about it and you should think about this and I hear from her and it's something that I think given her level of education and her level of access to different things she gets to have it now and still so I really appreciate it I do think this gentleman who is not speaking Spanish and coming to watch he or he was in Spanish it's a matter of being open to a matter of being I think of a certain type of mind and both experiences unfortunately you know I was really interested in this one because I had gone to a play I went and I took a lot of friends from Bali and they did not speak Spanish and the commentary was about the president I can understand that but also there was a I don't think there was that openness to being somewhere where it was different something different than what we were used to and for me I think I'm not even Spanish I don't want all of me assimilated there's a part of me that still wants to retain my identity I like to keep up one of the languages one of the most wonderful things when I Belgium mind there most people speak 2-3 languages by the time I was 6 years old I found tons of people there who spoke Spanish I said I'm walking in the middle of Antwerp and I found a mariachi so it's just the same in France and Poland most people spoke at least languages you go to Germany you have 3-4 it enriches everybody so when I go and see a show I try to be that open sometimes I try to find out what is the company what is the play about and I do some reading when I go to the show unfortunately not everybody has that luxury or designer Ines, you have a question I'm a bit of an actress and a translator I come across being handed a script or reading I'm in Quartus so I was reading books on Quartus and something that really upsets me is that I find things that are published that are riddled with mistakes grammatical orthography saying everything and I feel like that's something very different in the English language that things don't go to publish with that many mistakes you don't go to publish something with hominins and tenses wrong or names typos and names and things like this and it was really upsetting to me that I get scripted and I almost have to second guess myself like hold up a second have I been saying this wrong my whole life? No, it's actually just they conjugated that verb wrong in the script and so I'm just wondering if you encounter this because I feel like most of you like I've already gotten the published chance to play or whatever but if you do encounter it how you deal with that and kind of what's your take on on that issue that I feel like is a big issue with especially things published in Spanish that are held to a lower standard than things in English? I correct my friends on Facebook, okay? But then right in Spanish I worked in newspapers and I was a book reader from a very young age and so I understand and sometimes it drives me nuts but especially when I see it in newspapers I will mention the name of me huge, huge these elements and I use these computations and you say or syntax but I'm sorry I cannot do much about it that's it You know it's that's a whole other kind of words you know because language is also evolving slowly and there's pockets of different cultures in Latin America that approach things differently but I think the for organizations to be responsible to actually you know if it is Spanish, Spanish you know ask the Spanish translator to make sure it's correct and things like that I mean we are guilty of it that por qué no en español should have been por qué so it's just in the rush of doing all the stuff we think it's correct but we do need a little bit more language on that There's this other thing when do you translate from Spanish to English and you leave some words that are untranslatable and when do you go all the way and make it sound like it comes from Ohio you know but how do you choose to do that that is something that I grapple with every day that I do translation for example in Maria there is some idiomatic things like agale I don't know that that can be translated into English ever I don't know what that is I understand what it is in Spanish or it's a son mamada alright so it's a very strong word that it really can't be translated into English very well so I leave it like when you go to a building and you are doing restoration of the building and you leave some pieces of what's underneath to show what it is underneath that's what I think but then I am working with another translation which is Caridad's speech translation for Lausente and that is translated in such a way I cannot tell that these people are not in New York City or in Los Angeles or in Texas and it is supposed to be Mexico City all the references have been wiped I mean she had that choice she made that choice and all of them became something universal so that is something that I I don't know if you have ever oh yes I mean the closing line of a heritage there was no way we could translate chingato madre pince policiaculero there is no way we can translate so we left that way and somebody asked we tried many things and my translator suffered when I put into a new play I used a lot of if you married things that I've learned growing up and soldaderas trying to create the language of my grandparents so their images that they don't know and I have to seek with the actors to explain to them so they can do it but certain things yes you cannot translate there is no way we can translate I thought I was using the language because in their way even though it was in English you know the elements that we had by the English and that and we don't do as much as here we don't that's the English the smallest audience they just mum and dad so it's different but you know the only place where they are ever there for a few years there's a or free play in a scholarly tradition but most of the audience are industry so we put super titles and this play and even the Chicago audience loved it because you know I never knew but they were saying that but they said I get 12 years and 11 years we put super titles because there were a lot of people saying you know I really don't understand really I've been coming to this play in a year and I don't know really I know that's about but I would like to know but I there'd be a play the radio foundation here which is a could be there's probably they did plays in Spanish and English all the time for 40 years they do it in both languages why not in Spanish and why not in English so in Chicago I thought they cannot work they don't really work hard with my company yes they just don't they just don't switch you know so it's a bit different I understand all communities are the Chicago's the audience who are learning also always have this part interesting because we did a trilogy and the first two things were in English and I was reading a program in Mexico to do the third play and we did we had a lot of Spanish because we thought it was important for the play and nobody showed me even with Ophelia I mean part of the three plays that was the less successful that's amazing because if you go to blogs that way you cannot hear a word of English I know again it's the community there are certain people that know where the free of health here is I get 2-3 calls every day what are you doing now and sometimes if I'm not doing anything well these plays and this year or whatever somehow you create your audience and they follow you and they know what they are going to see and that's what they expect sometimes it's like to challenge them sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't I understand so what happens if I do it in the liberty here of course you do it around 6 weeks and in one of these years you do it around so that's what I'm talking about it's a little difficult I don't know how this is good for I'm fascinated by they went through a lot of the programs they do that for a month because how the tickets are evolving the ticket sells this is a lot of work so what's interesting because I think Mariela was picking up there's a ticket sells but that was serious so I really would pick up it's hard to do around 4 weeks and unfortunately I'm trying to figure out how I think Spanish is beautiful and I would love to see more with colleagues to figure out but who are the people attending the festival it's not the audience that comes to the theater it's artists, it's friends actors, that's what I'm saying here it would be beautiful to get audience from the community to come to the equinox to see the place here the artist who's coming to see the encuentro is the Latino theater company who are mostly industry and we send them to Mariela on the first night because we were not getting a lot of traction because he was in Spanish and they loved it and they told their friend him of course he crashed for a title but yeah it's really blessed here people coming to the equinox there's a lot bigger audience that are out here I'll go to Kate yeah I want you to know that the reason for Ben was that he said fuck the American theater we are nothing we are nothing he was quoting me in one of our Latino theater I could sound like you were Jack that was a terrible moment anyway I would say fuck the scholars I would say fuck the scholars after the martinis okay the question is whenever I tell people that that program is in Atlanta they're doing beautiful professional Spanish like rich theater so how do you do it where those people come from the Spanish so the way we we've grown our theater is the same way we've tried to grow that they have to build a soul program and for us it's all about personal engagement and our community and the more that we get out the more that we have in our community that speaks Spanish the better off we are Sergio does an amazing job of doing that I work with the Georgia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce to get to know more people and it's all about knowing some people that will then tell some people that will come now we only do it in an 80 seat house we don't do it in a 500 seat house so we don't have to fill a bajillion seats but it's a continuous process we have to continue to talk to that community to bring them in some of them are scared and sometimes we give away a bunch of tickets I mean it's not you know it's a labor of love it's not one that I know is going to pay for itself over and over so I'm not worried about that I want to build the audience I believe we're doing something important and so we're willing to invest in it to make it happen we opened Frida in 93 I've been here only for 4 weeks because I have no more money I did it with my own money the first day we had probably about 30 people most friends and family and this is the time before Frida was popular in the United States the next day we have a little bit more on Sunday we had almost a full house it was 60 seats then the following 3 weeks packed every night packed every night and we've been doing this show for the past 20 years the same happened with when we opened what we do the first weekend we offer tickets $10 or 2 for 1 so people come and see it and generate some parts and that's the first time we did it, we had some people because they were taking advantage of the $10 tickets but then people started coming and building up the house and we did it straight 27 weeks 4 performances a week packed houses the same happened with Malinche for us it was the audience they come see it, they talk about it and bring the friends and Frida and Frida and Malinche I've heard so many people I brought my mom I brought my sisters my girlfriend they keep coming bringing new people because I cannot afford publicity so for us it's that our audience they like the product and they talk about it and they bring more people we get our Spanish Spanish students from the University of Arizona Spanish classes from the University very new support by them but we don't get a lot of work community because we Spanish they don't go to our theater do we just go from there now we can hear that you're really open to people of any ethnicity to the roles of your state I have sometimes a very hard to say I think in an answer to your one of your questions most people that do go to school or they get trained they add an actor to your responsibility to study that to study the character just like you would approach any other play so most actors will do that even if the reversal is three weeks or six they will take it upon themselves to do that someone that doesn't is they had a very provisional reaction to that if it's important to the play if it's important to the story so I think that Spanish language theater is becoming cool as a form of a sector you know among like audiences about five years ago I was doing marketing and did super title opera that was open back up I edited this out enough and the show's original is supposed to be coming from and it ended up running for about a year and right now it's like jewelry still after six years and it's all in Spanish and it's a very worthy of play and I think part of it was marketing it as it's a really good piece of theater you have to see it it happens to be in Spanish and people were still willing to come see it and come see it a couple of times and they're like I need to catch up but part of it also was I guess the art of the super title and the translator that not everything had to be translated to doc that in a lot of phrases as long as they got the essence of some of the things were like this whole joke I'm going to just cut it out because it's so fast the text is going so fast because one of the things that we were talking about is they're speaking so fast because it's part of the rhythm of the writing to be slowed down to acting or how do we address that you know as long as we're getting that essence on the super title they're just going to have to relax into the language and that's part of the aesthetic and what they're coming kind of like going to see a film yeah one of the things that we found in doing playwrights from Chihuahua and Sonora particularly a playwright who worked a lot he tells often stories about immigrants into Mexico so there was what was the name of the group that has the the cheese and goats and Chihuahua many nights so one of the women characters in the play is second generation Mexican but she speaks Spanish with a German accent so the actress in Tucson had to learn Spanish was her second language anyway and then she had to put a German accent and there's another play in Mexico that's very well known called and it's about Polish women who came to try and break into the TV during the Second World War that's why the reputation the TV owned these lawns all the time what they happened to be Eastern European so the actresses in Tucson had to play the roles when we did a reading of it and give them some Polish accents and I think that same blend occurs in this country but we don't hear it very much in Spanish but I bet if you really had playwrights that looked at the complexity of immigration within the Latino community in this country you'd find the same Texas is that right or not I agree with that because when you listen to Spanish language programming you hear all the little micro differences you might not be able to tell exactly where they're from but you can train your ear to recognize things to do that blend such a richness to our language history and our history of immigration and there's just one other thing I have a few more to talk about you know you're good with he's got a couple of minutes there are also plays within Mexico and other Latin American countries about the complexity with indigenous languages within the same play so we did a play with a third in Rarami a third in at least a third in Spanish and the playwright mentioned the man that did not be translated and now use subtitles from Roscoe Vanda and so I was kind of correct I agree with her the woman who played the Rarami woman had studied the language pretty much phonetically and she was such a passionate actress that when she argued with someone on stage that was speaking to her in Spanish she was kept in a mental institution anyway the audience really went to it and I thought no one would come and we did a re-run a second year we filled a 400 seat house with three seats and it was just amazing because of the story of mental institutions so universal that I think that's one of the reasons it took was that your assessment absolutely alright last question actually just a suggestion Micah Espinosa who graduated from the MFA in acting at UC San Diego just published a book Monologues for Latina Latino Actors and she teaches speech and she learned in our program what every actress is going to be international phonetic television and you study that and it's not easy again, I don't know if you can work with actors who have studied the MFA but she has a lot of hints in there and she's a brilliant teacher she would read or sign in the book the last week and read about it sometimes so there are sources that they're limited and it's a whole, it's a very important field that we need our actresses to learn how to do it there's a a lot of theater in Spanish in town it was about ten years ago when there were only two or three groups doing it fortunately in the last four or five years a lot of new groups have come up and I know I work with them a lot that I know directly there are ten groups that work constantly doing theater in Los Angeles so if anybody wants to know, get in touch with them you can shoot me on Facebook and I'm on Twitter or if you go to our website www.HelloHeater.org there's always, always something going on in this Spanish theater in Los Angeles so let's go and see it, let's support it not only in Spanish but in all theory in general but in this case, I'm Mexican and it's my language I recommend it thank you thank you to the LATC for hosting us and also to the committee that helped facilitate all of this we've got Tiffany, Jorge, Julia right here, Jamie Chantal and of course Daniele