Should we be talking?

Well, I got back to Austin and hit the ground running as I had to learn my part in ¡No Se Paga! and move the show into the Salvage Vanguard Theater at 2803 Manor Road in one week. ¡No Se Paga, We Won't Pay!, opened Thursday, August 13 and will continue the run through August 30. The show is at 8PM every night except on Sunday, when it is at 3PM.

We are happy to partner with four groups who provide food for those in need. They are Manos de Cristo, Casa Marianella, El Buen Samaritano, and The Capital Area Food Bank of Texas. You get a few dollars off the ticket price for a donation of non-perishable food. (You know, something in a can or box.) The play, a comedy about people being hungry, is very funny, but in real life hunger is not. So come have a laugh and do some good for those less fortunate in our community. So much for advertising.

But speaking of advertising. There is something that has begun to happen with such regularity that is has become something that we don't talk about but maybe we should. Jo Ann Carreon- Reyes (you know who she is but just in case, Teatro Vivo, Business Director and my lovely wife), Marisa Limon (company member of Teatro Vivo and Aztlan Folkdance) and Karinna Perez (company member of Teatro Vivo and Latino Comedy Project) need to take credit for this. They have nurtured a relationship with our three groups that lead to cross advertising for one another. We carry ads for their shows in our programs, on our emails and our websites. They do they same. We encourage our audiences to see each other's shows.

What? Three Latino groups working in such good cooperation? Well, there is about to be a fourth, Roy Lozano's Ballet Folklorico de Texas has been invited to also put notices in our programs for their events. Which will include a collaboration with Teatro Vivo in the fall of 2010.

We have begun conversations to coordinate calendars a little more to avoid what occurs every now an then, two shows running concurrently. It would be very difficult to make all our shows happen on totally different weeks, but we can at least open a week or two apart and give each other's shows a boost in our programs, emails and websites.

To me this points us in a direction that is not new and every now and then comes around at the right moment. And now might just be that moment. With the city already announcing that cuts will be coming for arts funding (which to me always translates into "the groups that are trying to reach those underserved audiences will be cut"), we need a "strength in numbers" approach. The idea is to form a group of Latino arts groups and individual artists. Yes, yes, it has been done before, but one element that is present now that perhaps wasn't there in the past is "maturity" and knowledge that we are not fighting over the same enchilada anymore. Our audiences have expanded greatly and they are diverse. We have discovered our own art forms and they are all unique.

It is no coincidence that the Opera, the Ballet, Symphony and Zachary Scott are courting the influential Latinos to be on their boards. And it is no coincidence that those Latinos are accepting. Our small groups cannot compete with the social status that those groups guarantee. I mean let's face it. If Teatro Vivo has a good run, in three weeks we may bring in 1500 people for one of our shows. The Opera on one night can bring in 2400 at the new Dell Theater. So when will Teatro Vivo be able to compete with that? Maybe someday.

But with a coalition of Latino groups and individuals, we can begin to compete with them immediately. Roen Salina's Aztlan performance at the Dell was wonderful and played to, in my estimation, 500 people. When we were at the Rollins Theatre also at the Long Center, we sold out the house for 6 performances (almost 1000 people in one week). They begin to add up don't they? So for right now, let's keep sharing our publicity and maybe we can share a beer or coffee and just begin to plant some seeds. After all gardening is one of my favorite things to do.

And now this:

Roy Lozano's Ballet Folklorico de Texas at Zilker Park Saturday August 29 @ 8 pm Free performance!

The LCP presents "El Channel", an all-new, hilarious sketch comedy show. Two Weekends Only! Fridays & Saturdays August 21-29 @ 8PM & 10:15pm

Chicano Theater Alive in Alpine TX

Chicano Theater Alive in Alpine TX

When I arrived in Alpine, Texas this past Sunday, one of the first things that my host said to me was, "I got t-shirts for you." This would be the third one that I have received from Dona Roman, director of The Theater of the Big Bend. Additionally, this will be the third year that they have produced one of my plays. But this t-shirt was different. It was black with a skull in grey, almost invisible, with the words Chicano Theater in big white letter on the front. It was a phrase that I had not seen nor heard in a while. The skull struck me as apropos: Chicano Theater is a phrase whose meaning had been nearly dead to me for a while.
When I first heard the phrase Chicano theater, it was tied to a movement that included many different people and disciplines. I honestly would have a hard time trying to give you a history of the word and the movement, but for me, being a theater artist, it was easy to define it back then. Chicano theater was street theater, Guerilla Theater, Farm Worker Theater, political theater, theater for social change. It was done by people who were more interested in changing society than changing costumes or being good actors, writers, or theater artists. And that was fine for a while. Then two things happened to me that changed the way that I defined "Chicano theater".
One was the realization that our audiences were the same show after show. When we performed in LA, the SF and SD audiences would be there. When we performed in SD, the LA and SF audiences would be there, etc. etc. There was positive side to this: great parties. But the negative side was that we were beginning to stagnate. We were not growing our audiences so our message was becoming redundant. We wanted the message to reach larger audiences. So most of us stopped doing theater and became politicians, teachers, or lawyers or we worked to make the message stronger.
It took us some time to realize that what we really needed was to strengthen the messengers. The message has not changed that much or not at all. There still exists racism, job and educational discrimination, sexism, worker exploitation, poverty, and on and on. The Supreme Court ruled recently that white firefighters had been discriminated against by their city in promotional practices. I thought I had it bad, but when white people are being discriminated against, then no one is safe. Oh, wait, we have never been safe from discrimination (I know a lot of my people who think these are things of the past.)
Back to the message. We soon realized that strong writing, excellent acting, and creative directing only strengthened the message. That it was okay to write about things that weren't 100% political. This really didn't mean we stopped being Chicano theater; it meant that we began to grow beyond our identity as a group of committed people who just wanted to use a play as a vehicle for their cause. And who didn't mind if that vehicle was ever maintained or even ran again.
Second, we realized that the word Chicano was beginning to limit our thinking. It seemed to isolate us in a world where our Mexican heritage was separated from our Puerto Rican, Cuban, Central, South American, African, and European brothers and sisters. There was a shared language, culture that begged to be included in our thinking. It occurred to me personally that I had always been told that I was a minority in America. Then with a change of thinking, I suddenly belonged to the majority. I let Chicano go.
So here I was staring at a t-shirt. Wondering why they hadn't put my play's name on it. (Am I revealing too much about myself?) What I didn't know was that in a moment I was about to undergo another change.
The first cast activity for the production in Alpine was a potluck lunch to introduce Jojanie Segura and me to the rest of the group. This was to happen within an hour of getting my t-shirt. This group had already begun rehearsals and we were to join them for the last two weeks before our opening. The energy in the room was amazing. Here were seven amazing actors. Excited to be meeting us, excited to be getting ready for the last weeks of rehearsals, excited to be bring what they called "Chicano theater" to their community. A theater that they related to, a theater that spoke to their parents. It seems that the groundwork that has been laid for the past two years is now paying off. This group of actors is solid. They are talented and dedicated to their craft. So something old can be new again. Chicano theater has been reborn here. I too have joined in this energy and can't wait for opening night. They are at the same point I was years ago.
An added note, Dr. Jorge Huerta was one of the if not the biggest influence on me in regard to "Chicano Theater". He is going to be here next week to meet with the actors in "Petra's Sueño". I had thought that my style of theater would die with me, but suddenly it looks like it just might be given a fresh start.

Rupert Reyes