December 2016 | Stage & Candor

Posted on December 28, 2016December 27, 2016 by admin

A Conversation with Alana Arenas

Alana Arenas loves drama and in Erika Sheffer’s new play, The Fundamentals, she gets to see plenty. The show takes a backstage look at the staff that keeps the sheets turned down and the bar stocked at a fancy New York City hotel. Arenas plays Millie, a housekeeper and a mother trying to make ends meet and our winsome guide through the highs and lows of hospitality. As she approaches her tenth year in the ensemble, I sat down with her before a performance at Steppenwolf’s Front Bar, to talk about taking care, onstage and off.

Kelly Wallace: How did you get started? What brought you to this company and why?

Alana Arenas: I was a student at DePaul. And I’m not originally from Chicago; I’m from Miami, Florida. So when you’re a student of a craft and you’re preparing yourself to enter the professional world, you know what the standard of excellence is. I had a list of all these places I wanted to work because based on reputation they were the biggest within the city. I honestly didn’t know the whole history behind Steppenwolf, beyond that I knew it was somewhere I wanted to work. So I kept going and going and wasn’t booking anything and so I decided I was going to call the casting director. Now, I know you’re not supposed to do that, but I called anyway and asked them to tell me what I was missing, what I was not getting. They said, That’s why we keep calling you in, we love you, we have to find the right role. And at the time there was nothing in me that would see that one day I could be an ensemble member there. I ended up doing a young-adults play by Lydia Diamond, which was where my relationship really began with Steppenwolf.

KW: What’s the experience like, of being an ensemble member as opposed to going from company to company?

AA: Interestingly enough, I was thinking about that onstage the other night. I have so much respect for the actors in this theater company; they’re the best actors I’ve seen. There are beautiful, wonderful actors everywhere, but this is an ensemble of amazing people. Something happens when somebody allows you to have more work opportunities and you know when it’s going to be, it alleviates that pressure you feel as an artist where you’re always reeling in limbo. You’re always reeling from a “no” and desperate to get another “yes.” When you can relax a little bit and know a job is coming and work with people you feel safe with…it really fosters an environment where you can strive for your best work. People are not at their most creative selves when they’re stressed out. When you can relax into discovery and play and really work as your creative self, it affords you the opportunity to continue to get better. It should push us all to seek to get better. It’s a real gift.

KW: I’ve heard that from other actors and artists that having so much focus on the machine and the product is exhausting, or at least, distracting. Having the stability of such an outstanding company whose work and actions really fuel themselves, it must be a nice change.

AA: I was thinking about that onstage too, looking at all the wonderful actors I had working with. I was thinking about how fortunate we are to be in this ensemble and have a home as an artist. Sometimes what you do might not be that great, but you still have a family who is supportive and who loves you, almost unconditionally. That might sound far reaching, but when you invite somebody into the ensemble, you enter a kind of marriage with them. That was the first thing I asked when they invited me in. I was like, “What do you have to do to get kicked out?” They were like, No…you don’t get kicked out. So, to have somebody make that type of commitment to you as an artist is extremely liberating, inspiring, and it’s just…a real incubator for that artist to become their best self.

KW: What made you want to pursue acting as a career?

AA: It was in high school. I went to performing arts high school, completely by chance. When I was young, I never wanted to be an actor. My mom made me audition for the school and I got in and it changed my life, for real. I have no idea what I would’ve done if I hadn’t gone down that path.

KW: Were there any actors who were role models to you? Or shows that you connected with?

AA: It was the school. It helped me discover who I am as a person, through my involvement with theater work. A lot of theater work and theater training is based on an individual really getting to know themselves. You have to have a great level of awareness beyond yourself as an actor, which starts with becoming aware of yourself. I appreciated the invitation to become conscious about who I am and what’s unique about me. To see that for myself, and then see it in other people was revolutionary for me. I got excited about an art form that made me have to be more in touch with human beings. I get to learn about people. And it’s really hard to get to know a person, or a character, and not find something to love about them.

KW: Theater is such an empathetic art. I mean, we’re in such divided times, do you think theater can play a role in helping to heal that divide now?

AA: My entryway into the art was to find it extremely therapeutic. Having gone through high school, college, and worked a little bit…I come to it with a desire to be the healing for other people.

KW: When did you find out about this show?

AA: We workshopped it. I’m gonna be honest, I don’t really remember; I just had a baby. It must’ve been a year ago.

KW: What jumped out at you about the character?

AA: Moreso, I was interested in the play, not just Millie. I’m a sucker for drama. I feel like…take the audience on a ride. Take them on a journey. I like when people are surprised, so I was interested in that experience. I think the actual vehicle, the play itself, is the unexpected thing. Millie herself isn’t an unfamiliar person, but she does finally gets to have her moment onstage in the spotlight.

KW: It’s not often that you see a well-rounded interesting female character be the lead in the show at all, and have her romantic life not be at the center of the plot.

AA: I think it’s about her wanting to be the things she believes she can be. But she learns she has to do a lot of juggling to have all the roles she wants within her circumstances. She’s still a mom to three kids. It’s very unfortunate but when you’re a wife, or a mom – and I’m both – you kinda have no idea what those titles are until you’re inside of them. Definitely having a child taught me that I had no idea. You think you can imagine, but you can’t. Some people think being a mom is a frustrating idea that’s projected on a woman, against their desires. Me, personally, I want to be a mom and I want to be there watching every second of his development as much as I wanna be onstage fully invested in that career. You have to figure out how to juggle them. But I will say, my son has put everything in perspective. Being an artist is such a precarious career; every audition I went on felt different. It was all or nothing. I’m either going to be an actor and this is my job or it isn’t. So everything I do, I have to go my 100% for him.

KW: I don’t have a child, but I would imagine that if you have one, you really do arrange the rest of your life around that.

AA: I feel like I know the point of view of women who will say, Oh, that’s not all you are, you’re not just a mom – and that’s so true. But I also do understand that being a mom is a part of my identity now and I love that.

KW: Why did you feel so called to the theater? What would you say to people who are having a hard time or who might be gay or a person of color who might not see a place for themselves in the industry?

AA: Personally, I am a person of faith. The first thing I would say is don’t let anything in society determine your path. Get in touch with the thing you feel you were placed here to go. Someone told me, “Welcome to not working,” and I thought…that might be your story, but it won’t be my story. I’m not going to walk out with a negative point of view. I’m going to do my best and hope. I feel like a lot of what has been afforded to me had to involve some kind of divine orchestrations. I really feel like God saved my life. Everybody has their talent and we have to share our talents with each other. You might find it disappointing if you’re looking for a spotlight and looking for it to be about you. Revisit yourself. See if you’re passionate about something that can help fulfill you and aim to be a gift to someone else too. I’d say do not take any struggle we have experienced in this life, our history, and assume you will be defeated. If someone has a problem with you for being gay or Latina that’s their perspective, but amongst your people and the people who understand that’s not a reality. You’ll find the people who need you and who support you, I promise.

Alana Arenas joined the Steppenwolf Theatre Company ensemble in 2007 and created the role of Pecola Breedlove for the Steppenwolf for Young Adults production of The Bluest Eye, which also played at the New Victory Theater off Broadway. She recently appeared in Belleville, Head of Passes, Good People, Three Sisters, The March, Man in Love, Middletown, The Hot L Baltimore, The Etiquette of Vigilance, The Brother/Sister Plays (Steppenwolf Theatre Company); Disgraced (American Theater Company); and The Arabian Nights (Lookingglass Theatre Company, Berkeley Repertory Theatre and Kansas City Repertory Theatre). Other theater credits include The Tempest, The Crucible, Spare Change, The Sparrow Project (Steppenwolf Theatre Company); Black Diamond (Lookingglass Theatre Company); Eyes (eta Creative Arts); SOST (MPAACT); WVON (Black Ensemble Theater); and Hecuba (Chicago Shakespeare Theater). Television and film credits include Boss, The Beast, Kabuku Rides and Lioness of Lisabi. She is originally from Miami, Florida where she began her training at the New World School of the Arts. Alana holds a BFA from The Theatre School at DePaul University.

Posted on December 22, 2016July 16, 2017 by admin

A Conversation with Keiko Agena

In the first decade of the millennium, there were only a handful of (East) Asian Americans in mainstream media who regularly represented Asian women. Sure, there were the random side characters portraying the usual stereotypes; Pick your two-dimensional poison: masseuse, sex worker, nail salon tech or even that one time we had a kung fu kickass like Lucy Liu in movie blockbuster Charlie’s Angels. In this desert of representation was Japanese American actor Keiko Agena who played Lane Kim, the young Korean American best friend of Rory Gilmore on the WB/CW television show Gilmore Girls. Over the course of seven seasons, we learned about Lane’s quirky hobbies and the stresses of being the “good daughter” in a strict Christian, Korean immigrant family. She wasn’t just a caricature but a rare “well-rounded” character who had time to breathe and evolve during the long run of this popular network television show.

It has been nearly a decade since the final cup of coffee was poured in Stars Hollow and Keiko Agena has continued her steady and successful career as a Hollywood actress. Recently, the Thanksgiving release of the Gilmore Girls mini-series Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life on Netflix has also revived interest in Keiko’s character and how far we’ve come as Asian Americans in media.

In December, I sat down with my dear friend and collaborator Keiko Agena, to debrief this latest Gilmore Girls mini-series madness and what it’s like to be an Asian American actor and comedian in today’s media landscape. Feel free to imagine this conversation punctuated with lots of giggles and cackles of love and delight.

Jenny Yang: Keiko, first thank you so much for sitting down with me. This is fun for me because I feel like we get to chat more formally about the stuff that we would typically talk about anyway because we are in a community together–

Keiko Agena: Yes, and we are supportive of each other as artists, I feel.

JY: We are.

KA: We totally are.

JY: You’re a big supporter of mine.

KA: I would say with many exclamation points and stars that we do that for each other.

JY: Aw, thank you. So I think what interests me and Stage & Candor readers about you… Okay, we just have to talk about Gilmore Girls first.

KA: Okay, yes!

JY: Can I just say, day after Thanksgiving, when Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life dropped, my ass was at home watching the whole damn thing, all day.

KA: Did you really?! All six hours?

JY: I saw all six hours, and it felt good. I don’t know if you remember this, but I feel like people who grew up on 80’s and 90’s sitcoms, whenever they do a reunion show, they always would give you what you liked, right? They give you what you wanted. Do you remember those reunion shows?

KA: Yes, yes, yes!

JY: Whoever would write it made sure of that.

KA: Someone became a princess, someone became the editor of Time magazine…

JY: They gave you what you liked, and I think that – definitely spoiler alerts ahead–

KA: Stop reading here if you don’t want any spoilers.

[Editor’s note: The Gilmore Girls section of this conversation will be in grey.]

JY: Skip ahead to where we don’t talk about Gilmore Girls anymore. But I feel that as a 60-70% Gilmore Girls fan, that even I got the itch scratched for all that I needed.

KA: Yeah.

JY: Number one, not enough Keiko.

KA: Not enough Keiko! More Keiko!

JY: Not enough Lane Kim.

KA: #MoreLaneKim.

JY: Yes!

KA: #MoreLaneKim is very lame. Don’t do that.

JY: We don’t say ‘lame’ anymore, Keiko.

KA: Oh, sorry.

JY: It’s okay. I just reprimand. But yeah, it’s not cool. But I think #MoreLaneKim is good.

KA: Let’s Donald Trump this hashtag. What is the most direct and simple–

JY: As Donald Trump would tweet, “Gilmore Girls. It was good. But not enough Lane Kim. Sad. #MoreLaneKim”

KA: Exactly. To the point.

[Everybody laughs]

JY: But anyway. It did scratch that itch of it opened with a meta joke about talking really fast and a lot, and crazy commentary, and pop culture references. Then we got into seeing what their lives are all like – all the cameos, all the different men in their life, and where they’re at.

KA: They got a lot into those six hours. You pretty much saw or heard about every character that you knew about in the original seven seasons – which is an accomplishment – and introduced you to a few new main characters as well. I don’t know that there’s a stone left unturned.

JY: Yes. I feel the only thing that I was a little surprised by but definitely loved, was the fact that Rory Gilmore didn’t have her shit together.

KA: No. And it got worse as the episodes went on. She really hit a low. You saw her fall apart. All of the things that she was counting on slipped away, and you’re really going with her on this journey downward. It’s heart-achy.

JY: Thirty-two and not super together with her career goals–

KA: And her relationship goals–

JY: –and her relationship goals. Not that I know what that’s like.

[Everybody laughs]

KA: Are we veering off?! Are we tangent-ing? How personal are we going to get?!

JY: No, no, not personal.

KA: Follow Jenny and I on our new show as we talk about personal things. We are going to create it right after this interview.

[Everybody laughs]

JY: Anyway. That kind of intrigued me because of course it made it more interesting. There was a sense, watching the show before, that Oh okay, miss ‘I got into Yale, I’m so smart’, maybe she’d have her shit together. But knowing a bunch of these overachieving people – maybe myself as one – I know for a fact that after you go through college, and you’re an overachiever, real life happens, and it’s not perfect. You no longer have this structured world. I feel it’s almost like it’s a stereotypical overachiever Asian American story. Maybe at 32 you’re not going to have everything you’re supposed to have.

KA: Yes, not all the boxes are checked off. Especially if you go for the primary thing that you want, which she did – she wanted to be a journalist and a writer – and she’s going for it, and this is that time in her life where… It’s not that she’s been unsuccessful, because she has had success, but that’s not the end of the story. It’s not that you can just check that box and say, Okay, career success, let me sail into my 70s. That’s not the creative life and I think maybe people who read Stage & Candor know that. I have yet to meet a creative person where that is their journey. No artist I know found exactly what they wanted to do at 23, and rode that train safely–

JY: Uphill.

KA: Yes, uphill to greater and greater success.

JY: It’s not a linear process.

KA: It’s not.

JY: Totally, which is why we’re supportive of each other!

KA: It takes a village.

JY: It does. So how do you feel about being back in the Gilmore Girls revival? What was it like for you?

KA: You know what’s funny is, besides feeling like slipping into comfortable shoes, or something that’s fun, is that seeing it as an audience member really made me appreciate what we were just talking about. The people that were kids when we first met them – Paris, Lane, Rory – they’re all of a certain age, and their lives aren’t perfect, and they still have a lot of stuff to work out. I think when I was originally filming it, I was so focused on where Lane was that I thought, Oh it’s only Lane that doesn’t have her perfect dream life. Now, watching the series, in the greatest way possible, I think we feel the angst and the struggle and the ambition of all of those 30-something gang of people, where we have some successes but there’s still a lot to discover and a far way yet to go.

JY: Yeah, as if turning 30 is this magic number where everything is figured out.

KA: It’s not now, and I don’t know that it ever was in the past, or if that’s just the fairytale that previous stories have taught us.

JY: Right. So it was very gratifying, with lots of jokes and references and dialogue packed in there.

KA: Did you enjoy that? I know that I loved all that fun stuff that only happens in Gilmore World.

JY: Yes! I loved reading on my Facebook feed, where a comedy writer friend of mine who was confessing on a status update, Already got through my first viewing of Gilmore Girls revival. Getting started on episode one again. Same day.

KA: Wow.

JY: I know. Day after Thanksgiving. She was so happy.

KA: There’s a lot packed in there.

JY: There is. I feel like it’s like fine art. You see something new probably with every viewing. But #MoreLaneKim.

KA: #MoreLaneKim!

[Everybody laughs]

KA: I like that they won’t get to hear our laughing. Wow, Keiko is really uppity! That’s all she talks about! #MoreLaneKim!

JY: Chuckle chuckle chuckle. When did the final season end?

KA: 2007.

JY: [gasp] That’s like nine years ago. Almost ten years ago.

KA: Yeah. So a lot has happened.

JY: So for you, what have you seen in terms of changes as an Asian American actor in that time in terms of the industry?

KA: I feel that last year, especially, was such a high tide year. We were talking about it when we were doing the fundraiser for Angry Asian Man where we were talking about Wow, if we were to choose what our favorite scene was that an Asian person was in on television for the last year in America, we’d have so much to choose from.

JY: Much more.

KA: Way more than you would five years ago. Five years ago, you’d have to really search your brain for any scene that you could remember that an Asian person was in that was your favorite. I feel like now, there are so many shows that are out now, and there’s a lot to celebrate. Again, there’s a far, far way to go, but I think the content and the quality that is coming out is something to be supported and celebrated.

JY: Yes. Seven years ago, if we asked the question, What are your favorite characters and scenes up until that point? It would be maybe a Lane Kim reference, maybe Margaret Cho, maybe Lucy Liu, and maybe Brenda Song.

KA: As you know very well, 2016 has been a crazy year with whitewashing feeling like it’s making a resurgence of some kind, which is challenging to come up against.

JY: I feel like it happened in 2016 because it’s been an increasing drumbeat of Hollywood wanting to be like, Oh, we’ve got to make Asian stuff so that China will want it, so let’s maybe start making more Asian stuff. But it’s also the drumbeat of, We have these other ‘diverse’ properties like the Marvel and DC world, let’s just also bring that up. So they’re deciding they just can’t bear to take a risk on non-white talent, not even have us play Asian characters. They do these crazy mental jiujitsu public gymnastics around justifying why the whitest actors are playing the Asian characters.

KA: Right.

JY: It’s almost a joke to me that the palest, porcelain, transparent actors are chosen, right? Emma Stone is translucent. Benedict Cumberbatch?! It’s like the whitest… It’s not even like Italians, you know?

KA: Maybe it’s the love of the geisha.

JY: The paleness? The pale Asian?

KA: Yes.

JY: In the right light, Scarlett Johansson’s European roots will look kind of pale and Asian.

KA: It’s tough, man.

JY: Scarlett Johansson, Tilda Swinton, Benedict Cumberbatch, Emma Stone: they all have the most pale ethnic heritage.

KA: Yes, I think it’s true.

JY: And then there’s Matt Damon, but he played a white person that’s saving China.

KA: Yes, and that’ll probably do well, too.

JY: So I feel that’s kind of upsetting that China is also down for it. I feel like they got brainwashed. The world got brainwashed to want white people as heroes.

KA: I feel like I’m part of that generation too of being brainwashed a little. You think it’s natural and then one day, you go, Is it? What would it be like to have a different option? I look at that trailer for “Ghost in the Shell”, and – first of all, I love Scarlett Johansson, I think she’s incredibly talented and she does play that type of character very well.

JY: You mean slightly robotic and a little flat?

[Everybody laughs]

KA: I know you said it as a joke, but yeah, kind of! It’s funny because that’s actually a very tough thing to play – to still be human, and still create empathy, but be dead inside. Anyway, as I’m watching, I cringe and clench a little because it’s so Asian-stylized, and there are just a few people that pop up in Asian dress that it’s uncomfortable to watch. But the second or third time I watched it, I thought, What would it have been like to see a fresh Asian face in that role? It would’ve been incredible. It absolutely would have been star making material, because it’s so incredible. I guess that’s the whole point though, that they don’t feel like it’s bankable – but I don’t think this is bankable the way it has been done.

JY: The trailer shows oriental things as only costume and backdrop.

KA: Someone already wrote this, but all the bad guys get to be Asian, and that’s been true in other movies too.

JY: Since the 80’s films.

KA: Yes. You can have the people that actually know kung-fu and different martial arts, the bad guys, be actual Asian people, and that’s acceptable.

JY: So you came up during a time where you were probably a part of seeing the default as this is how it works. It’s white people who are the ones that are chosen to lead. How has that shifted for you, or not?

KA: I guess it has shifted, little bits over time. I do know when I was a kid, I didn’t think about Asian people because there were none. But I was a huge consumer of media, and I related to all of the white characters, and I emotionally invested in them. So I didn’t feel at that time that I was cheated, but maybe that’s because I didn’t know what I was missing. When you actually do see someone that’s Asian, there’s a different level of excitement that comes with that, that I didn’t even know was an option, I suppose.

JY: Right.

KA: It’s like living on skim milk ice-cream and being satisfied. When you have a taste of full fat ice-cream, you’re like, Dammit, I want more! Give me more Constance Wu! Give me more! Then for some reason, you’re not satisfied anymore.

JY: I think that’s a good analogy. If you think there’s only skim milk ice-cream…

KA: Damn, this is alright!

JY: Oh it’s sweet, and kind of creamy. It’s ice-cream!

KA: This is what ice-cream is!

JY: Oh, I like that. Do you ever feel like now, especially with the rise of social media, and the ability for us to basically protest something that’s not good, how different that feels? You’re basically a Generation X-er, and now Millennials are like, Oh what the fuck, this isn’t good.

KA: I think without social media, there are pockets of people that would have this opinion, but there wasn’t a way for you to know that a thousand miles away, there’s another pocket of people that have the same opinion. Asian Americans are concentrated in some big cities, but we’re also spread out all across the United States. So having this platform where people can come and show themselves – we have a voice in this way that has been very productive. In a lot of ways, niche groups have used social media to be very dangerous also, but I think in this way, for the Asian-American community, it’s been extremely helpful.

JY: And therefore, #MoreLaneKim, #NotDangerous.

[Everybody laughs]

KA: Now, let me ask you, how do you feel as someone who has switched – because I think this is very interesting viewpoint – from a completely different career where you were seriously involved, into now having become an artist and producer full-time? What are the changes that have happened for you in the past five or six years? How do you think it’s coincided with how the country has been changing?

JY: Oh god, that’s a big question. So I used to work in politics, where creativity was very limited. I didn’t start pursuing entertainment in my early 20s like a lot of folks I meet in LA, so I feel like I had the benefit of work experience and some maturity, but I personally could not have the kind of career I have just five years in, now, if I had started in my early 20s, because of social media.

KA: The timing was right for you.

JY: The timing was right for me – oh, I’m reliving my early 20s, girl.

KA: You’re not in your early 20s?!

[Everybody laughs]

JY: It’s a completely new terrain. I’m able to have my career because I decided to do a very old school craft of stand-up comedy, where it’s just you and an audience. That’s the core of what I do, but I’ve been able to grow an audience and get work because of new media. Honestly, if I wasn’t on the ground floor of when Buzzfeed Video started… I mean, that’s when they started, three or four years ago. It doesn’t sound like that long ago–

KA: But so much has changed in that time.

JY: Yes, so much has changed in three or four years. If I wasn’t there, knowing one of the original director/producers who comprised of this new BuzzFeed Video unit, I don’t know if I could’ve had the career I’ve had already in just the last two or three years, simply because I was a part of that process of figuring out what made a viral video. I feel like I’m a part of that history.

KA: That’s also half of where I see the success of your career, too, because you’re a very proactive go-getter/producer person.

JY: Right – touring, events, and shows.

KA: I think it’s an interesting point to say that from an outsider’s point of view – knowing you for a long time – I can see all of the experience that you have gained through the work that you’d done previously of knowing how to organize people, knowing how to set up an event, learning all of that on the job, training, and being very proficient at that… All of that translates now into a new goal and a new dream. That life experience isn’t lost, it just gets funneled into your new creative endeavor. Sometime what maybe would’ve taken 10 years previously, now the time is even quicker because you have an engine of knowledge that’s pushing you forward.

JY: Damn. That’s a good summary of my professional life.

KA: It’s true though.

JY: Yes, all the skills I learned while working, I have been using to build my career now. It makes me hit the ground running a lot more. I have all these business skills because I know about resumes, I know about business communication, I know how to negotiate contracts, because that’s what I used to do. I know how to run meetings, I know how to run large scale events for people, and produce things.

KA: Exactly.

JY: One of my first jobs was in communications. I was being trained to write a press release, or know how to pitch to a reporter. All of these skills I learned in politics like organizing campaigns and being a part of that all applies to leadership skills, and business skills for being an entrepreneur, essentially.

KA: Right. One of the last big things that we worked on together was the Comedy Comedy Festival. How many people were a part of that team and that were volunteering? You had a leadership circle that was how many people?

JY: We had about 15 people on the leadership team that took big chunks of what the work needed to be.

KA: Right. Then with volunteers–

JY: That was another 20.

KA: And that’s not even counting performers.

JY: 150 performers.

KA: So there was a lot happening.

JY: Right, and I was able to do that because that was stuff that I did in my previous career. I feel very fortunate that not every stand-up comedian is able to do something like that. I feel very grateful that people feel grateful that such a thing exists. It has helped my career – me personally – but I think what’s tough is balancing external energy like producing things versus, Oh yeah, I need to be writing and creating new material. I think that’s a struggle.

KA: Right.

JY: But going back to you.

KA: We will get back to me, but one thing I do want to say is that that is also a great thing that has happened in the last couple years, where there is the Comedy Comedy Festival that you put on, which is a place for Asian Americans to come and perform, and it’s important for us to have a place with that much support and that many people involved to make it great. Even Will Choi, who is starting to do this stuff over at UCB, is starting to put together shows that have an Asia focus. I feel like this is also a new thing that’s starting to happen right now, where maybe five years down the line we’ll look at this year and be like, Wow, can you believe that this last couple of years, the seed of us all coming together and doing these shows have built into something else? Who knows where that goes.

JY: I hope so. When people ask me what I do, I say, “I’m a stand-up comedian, writer, actor, host, producer,” but I really do still think of myself as an organizer, cause that’s what I did for politics. I just apply that same perspective to organizing my career and organizing like-minded people. I see myself as organizing Asian-American audiences and creatives. We have to, or else we’re missing out on opportunities to collaborate and strengthen each other if we don’t get to know each other and build these relationships. I’m super proud about that.

KA: You should be super proud.

JY: I’m super proud of Comedy Comedy Fest. Will Choi gets complete credit for creating these really successful shows at Upright Citizens Brigade, and really expanding the Asian-American presence at UCB. I personally also feel that it’s part of this greater movement of all of us through Comedy Comedy Fest, or even Tuesday Night Cafe, if we want to go back to that institution in LA of Asian American Artists – that’s where you and I met.

KA: Right.

JY: I feel like it’s up to us to keep really solid institutions like Tuesday Night going, but also to build on that, and to adapt to current needs. Let’s get all Asian-American people doing comedy together, and include YouTubers, live performers, up-and-comers, as well as veterans.

KA: Totally.

JY: I feel good about that, that we’re a part of that, you know?

KA: Uh huh, I think so.

JY: High-five. [They do.]

KA: Final thoughts?

JY: I feel like a lot of the drum beat and the message that everyone has been saying is, We have to tell our own stories.

KA: Yes, absolutely. We have to create our own stories, right?

JY: And we’re not the first ones to say that.

KA: Yes.

JY: How has that call to create or tell our own stories evolved for you, in terms of your work?

KA: Hm.

JY: For example, I know that you had taken a stab at improv, and it wasn’t a super positive experience necessarily, and then you came back to it, and now you’re an improv beast. You’re an addict! You’re in it, and you love it.

KA: Absolutely, for sure.

JY: I know that you write, you draw, all this stuff. So that idea of creating your own material and telling your own stories, how has that call operated in your career?

KA: I have a podcast called “Drunk Monk,” where the shell of it is where we get drunk and we watch Monk and we talk about it, which is a fun starting point, but really, we go into a lot of tangents. What’s fun about that podcast is that we didn’t intend it, but we’re two Asian people – me and Will Choi, who we mentioned earlier – so we have our point of view, which is an Asian-American point of view by the mere fact that we’re Asian Americans. It’s something that comes up every once in awhile, but I think even if you weren’t coming to it for that perspective, it’s just part of what it is, which is something that I like about it. We also get very personal and we share a lot of personal stories over the course of it. I find that really fulfilling, because that structure is something that we create on our own, and it could be whatever we wanted, and so it is exactly what we wanted. In that way, it’s completely fulfilling because you’re not answering to anybody.

JY: Right.

KA: The other thing about creating through improv is that part of the reason why I think improv is a draw – especially for people of color – is because you can play family members to anyone that’s on stage. It might sound silly, but it’s not really silly if you think about the fact that I can’t go in and audition for a family member for 90% of the roles out there. I’m not going to match that person as a family member. The freedom of being able to play any type of role that I can think of and not have to be constrained by the fact that I am a 43-year-old Asian woman is freeing in a way that almost feels at this point necessary to my creativity as an artistic person. It’s not something that necessarily gets fulfilled in other areas of my career at this point.

JY: Because you’re at the mercy of the character descriptions that you get sent for auditions.

KA: Yup, uh huh.

JY: Asian. Thirties. Blah blah blah, you know?

KA: Yes. I really do appreciate that a lot of them, especially recently, are written as open ethnicity. I appreciate that. That’s most of what I go out for, or a mix of that. The good and the bad of that is, almost everything is written now as open ethnicity, which is great, but, the other side of that is that the two leads have already been cast, and they’re white. That’s the ‘norm.’

JY: Yeah…

KA: So they’re open to all ethnicities, except for the leads.

JY: We’re working on that, Keiko.

KA: We’re working on that.

Keiko Agena is best known for the TV show, GILMORE GIRLS, where she played LANE KIM for seven seasons. As a guest star she has appeared on such shows as SHAMELESS, SCANDAL, TWISTED, HOUSE, ER and WITHOUT A TRACE, and got to work with Frances McDormand on the film TRANSFORMERS DARK OF THE MOON. Besides iO she has also trained with Dave Razowsky, at the Groundlings and UCB and her band FLYING PLATFORMS has a monthly residency (first Fridays) at the Grandstar Jazz Club in downtown LA. Plus (believe it or not) Keiko was once featured in PEOPLE MAGAZINE’S 100 MOST BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE ISSUE, in the “they play meek and geeky, but off screen they shine” section, with America Ferrera, Jenna Fischer and Mary Lynn Rajskub!

Posted on December 15, 2016December 15, 2016 by admin

A Conversation with Amélie van Tass & Jinger Leigh-Kalin

Until recently, when someone mentions “Magician” and “Women” in the same sentence, the images that immediately come to mind are perhaps the illusionists in hit movies like Now You See Me or the image of the “Magician and his Lovely Assistant.” But, if one dives into the history of the art and performance of magic, you will discover a rich history of spectacle, performance. Skill and theatrics that, in its prime, had a fair share of female powerhouses. So, why can’t we name any of them? Magic, like any other industry, may have a gender equity problem, but talented stars like Amélie van Tass (of The Clairvoyants) and Jinger Leigh-Kalin take center stage as an artful mentalist and elegant conjuress in the third incarnation of Broadway’s best magic show. Jinger and Amélie shine in The Illusionists: Turn of the Century, which pays homage to the golden age of magic in one spellbinding performance that is not to be missed.

Alicia Carroll: I’m curious, neither you or Jinger are a stranger to performing in front of large crowds, but how do you like Broadway?

Amélie van Tass: Broadway, for a performer, is probably the huge-est thing ever, next to maybe The Sydney Opera House which we did in December last year. It’s amazing. We love the theater; this theater has a lot of history. Houdini, The Greatest Cape Artist, performed here 100 years ago, and we are standing on this very stage right now, and this is like a very big dream come true for us.

We are very happy that people appreciate our show being here because it’s so different; it’s not a normal magic show. There is a lot of history in this show and it’s very theatrical – the costumes, the stage itself, everything is in turn-of-the-century style. And throughout the show, performers will also get a little into history detail, so the audience goes home with some new information about the history.

AC: That’s amazing. Did you research the craft and history before coming into the profession as a mentalist? Was it always something you were interested in?

AVT: I was always interested in the history concerning performance, and a hundred years ago, magicians were the rockstars. When they entered the stage, people would come, and they would scream and cheer and… the girls would go crazy for Houdini, for example. You can imagine nowadays, it was very similar. And I think there were some very golden times of magic too, but I think now is a new time and it’s coming back anew – although it’s an old thing the show presents it in a different way. And people are very excited about it, and magic is coming back – differently.

AC: What about the modern presentation of magic, in your opinion, is reinvigorating it with audiences and performance artists?

AVT: I think it is very interesting to them – and also there are female positions too. It’s not always the magician and his assistant which we have too in the show, which is completely fine and they do an amazing job. Females come more in the spotlight, and I think a lot of people can relate to that. In the whole world, there are male and female positions and especially in show business and then especially in magic. It’s very important that females are coming back into the spotlight. And also what Thommy [Ten] and I do – the Clairvoyance style, Mentalism – we perform onstage and every night is different. And people always ask us, Is there ever a chance of failure? Are there mistakes happening? And we say, “Of course,” because we are all human and humans make mistakes. And that is very interesting for the audience too so they feel, Okay, performers make mistakes so that I can make mistakes too in my life. I like the relationship between the audience and us in our performance.

Jinger Leigh-Kalin: Magic goes through cycles. I think we are back to a cycle of pure magic; that is very parallel to the Golden Age. There are some really good performers out there now, and that’s how it was in the Golden Age where there was this healthy competition going on that was forcing a certain amount of innovation and forcing people to be creative and make new things as opposed to recycling old things. In this show, we sort of pay homage to the classic things, but there is a very imaginative aspect to some of it.

AC: You spoke about the tradition of the magician and his assistant and how, historically, it’s all very gendered, but you and Thommy are very much on equal footing, which I love. When you got started in the industry, was it a deliberate decision that you wanted to be equal partners?

AVT: Both of us wanted it. We are equal partners onstage – and I forgot to mention in the Golden Age of magic, a hundred years ago, there were some female rockstars – clairvoyant rockstars – so there was this time when women were in the spotlight. It was clear to us from the beginning, since our style is very different and it’s all about the connection between Thommy and myself, so it just works with the two of us. It’s never I do something alone, or he does something alone. We have a very good connection and we want to present that connection to the audience, and then we can work together. And it is very difficult sometimes, still, although we always present ourselves like that, there are still people who will say, “Great job Thommy Ten and your assistant was great too.” We have to mention it over and over, and I don’t know if it will ever stop. And it’s okay; it’s the cliché that there’s the magician and his beautiful assistant who is fine, but we want to be equal partners on stage. We mention it over and over; we will probably do that for the next 20 years and we have to work on it.

AC: So what brought you to mentalism?

AVT: I am interested in doing magic without any props. And in mentalism we have – in this show, for example – we don’t have any props. In our main act, we have a blindfold, and that’s it. We work with the audience, their minds, and what they have in their handbags. Every night it’s different, and that’s what I enjoy. Never will there be a show that will be the same. It’s always different and it’s always challenging for us. I think what I love about it so much is the challenge, and that it will never get boring. Because I have to be very aware and Thommy has to be aware, and the connection has to be good – only then it works.

AC: Between mentalism and the other acts in this shows, do you think there is a major difference between the different sects within magic?

AVT: The great thing about the show is there are very different acts – everyone in the show, the whole cast are masters in what they do, and they are the best people in the world. We have great illusionists, great slight-of-hand magicians, great comedy magicians. It’s a great mixture. I love being part of it; I am very thankful. And since it’s such a mixture, you learn a lot from the others. And I think only the mixture makes it good. And everyone does their best, and together we create this cool production.

AC: And, Jinger, what brought you to stage magic?

JL: Well, I started in show business in song and dance. I started taking dance lessons when I was four, and I started doing it seriously around 11 and got my first professional job when I was about 14. Then I did a lot of dinner theater and stuff that was really performance based, not just chorus based or choir based. That’s what inspired me and what I was passionate about. I met my husband Mark. I had seen some magic, and this was 25 years ago, so there wasn’t a lot of magic. I was working on the same show as him – it was a Las Vegas Style review show called American Glitz – it was the sister show to Follie Bergère. Anyway, he was the variety act in the show we were performing in, and my contract was coming to a close – I was gonna go back to LA and work and I watched the magic from the front, and I was very impressed. I was impressed with his performance, however, it was the connection to the audience in the performances that convinced me that there was a different utensil – a different tool there – to connect to the audience and that’s what I loved.

So I went backstage during the show and said, “If you ever want anyone to work with, I would love to give it a shot,” and he took me up on my offer and brought me back to work with him like three months later or something like that. And within the first month of working together, I realized that it was what I was meant to do. And he allowed me to turn everything upside down and restructure the act and add the skills that I had to bring to it. And from that day forward, we were a team.

AC: And the two of you still perform together as a team?

JL: We still mostly perform together, and we would work some separate shows as well. In this show, I do some of my things, and I’ve been focused on that for maybe five or six years. But even when we’re performing together, like in our full-length shows, I’ve always had independent things.

AC: There’s a lot of messaging from a young age that maybe in magic – unless you’re a magician’s assistant – there may not be a place for you, so how did you forge your path and discover your place in it?

AVT: When we first started working together, I was always interested in magic. But I never did it to the people; I was in the audience and experiencing it. So when I started performing it and getting more into the whole theme, I realized how much I could do with people and how happy I can make them and how people feel enchanted, and they can just feel this magical experience. And for me, this is a great feeling; I stand there onstage and do something and people will sit there with open mouths and open eyes and just don’t believe what they are seeing. And then I started to realize what I do when I am onstage, and I wanted to make it better and work on it. And now we are on tour worldwide, and I’m very thankful for that and also the huge acknowledgment from the people we get.

AC: For both of you, when you decided that this was what you wanted to do, what was your first step? How did you develop your craft?

AVT: I think it’s very important never to lose – since I started late, I was 21 years old–

JL: –that’s not late!

AVT: The boys all started at like 5 or 6 years–

JL: –yeah, well, it’s a process; it’s a journey. You learn a lot from your audience. You learn a lot from preparing to a certain extent because you want to have respect for your audience and be well prepared, but you also want to be open to how they respond and so you know it’s a constant learning process. So refining our craft, you know, you let one mistake lead to an improvement and then the next day an improvement on top of that and after you get a few thousand shows under your belt you go, “Okay,” but you have to enjoy the process as well. You can’t just say, “One day, I’ll be great,” you have to enjoy and appreciate it as you go. But the audience will let you know how you’re doing and then you take that and figure out how to make this magical for them. There’s so much psychology that goes into it.

AC: In what way?

JL: For the stuff that I do, and for the stuff that Amélie does with the predictions and mind reading, you have to create a picture for the audience. You have to let their imaginations fill in some of the blanks. Stage magic is a different thing; sometimes there is a certain timing to things, a certain amount of space that has to be involved. A certain amount of what they call “convincers’ or “verifications” – something that lets people forget that it’s a puzzle,lets them go past that and they simply experience the magic. So that’s our job, and that’s a pretty hard job. You have to think how is their brain reacting and how is their brain reacting to tell their heart – and did I give them too much time or did I give them just the right amount of time to feel that rather than to think it.

AC: That’s so interesting because I am an audience member that tends to overthink things.

JL: But if you see the good magic, you shouldn’t have time to think about it, and then you should go and think about it afterward and go, “Hmmm,” and that’s what I mean about psychology. There’s a psychology not just to the staging, but the structure of magic. And when you see good magic, the audience doesn’t realize how much work went into that or how much psychology went into that. All they realize is that was “good” or that was “not so good.”

AVT: I had a very naive point of view in how I saw magic, so when Thommy asked me what I wanted to do I said, “I want to fly through the room and everything and I want to levitate.”And he was like, “Well, let’s see,” because I didn’t know how anything was done. I was crazy; I had so many ideas and some of them we could realize and some of them not, but we are still working on it. And I think you should never lose sight of how the audience is seeing what they see so that they are fascinated, and they can’t explain how it’s done. You should always keep that in mind: they are seeing it for the first time and they don’t know how anything is done.

Also it’s so important to believe in yourself and to believe in what you do. If I don’t believe in what I do–

JL: –they won’t–

AVT: –they won’t believe it, the audience feels it.

JL: That’s 100% true.

AC: To talk a bit about the representation of women in the industry, how do you think the representation of women in magic affects who becomes a performance artist?

JL: I think more and more to any art form or sport – you know there are a lot of female basketball teams now and world cup soccer players, so women are coming up now in so many mostly male-dominated fields. Magic is no different; however, it’s not necessarily – you know men dominate magic, but that doesn’t mean there haven’t been successful women in magic in the past. In fact, there was more so in the history of magic – in the Golden Age – there were female headliners, there were illusionists and magicians at the time. They may have come to magic in a slightly different way – they may not have studied since they were five or six years old in their room practicing sleight of hand things. For me, I mean I do a few slight of hand things, but that’s not my area. My area is a presentation for the stage, you know? That’s how I perform; that’s my area of specialty. I don’t think it’s a sleight on women. I just think women will find their own, and there is a place. Absolutely. 100%.

AVT: Also the other way around, I think it’s important nowadays that people allow men to be weak, or to be another part and not be the powerful person on stage and also off stage. Men can also cook and–

JL: –and be nurses and do all those things–

AVT: –exactly, so I think it’s a good age for things like that, and it’s changing. It’s changing.

JL: I think for women, it’s important to be true to yourself, you know? Just like in anything. You don’t have to wear slacks and a tuxedo and behave “like a man;” you can be a woman and still be popular on stage and do magic. You can.

AC: Are there any challenges you’ve faced in your career? And how did you overcome them as you were growing as performers?

JL: You know, women in magic it’s a difficult thing. For me, it’s been a constant struggle. So, for instance, when I perform with my husband, we do a wide variety of material. In this show, we are only doing a few things, so it’s very important to choose what we are doing – it’s unfortunate that when a woman gets inside a box, it’s perceived that she’s the helper and she’s not doing the magic. So we have struggled very hard to counteract that stereotype and say one wouldn’t happen without the other, and that the magic is a partnership. And it’s essential that both the performers be strong in what they’re doing. That’s kind of always been a battle. That’s why sometimes if that’s in the show, then something else of mine, solo, is on the show just to give me credibility. So we have had to be careful of that because it’s stereotype; people will believe what they believe. You can say it all you want – that the magic happens equally – but it is what it is.

And a side note on that – this is the funny story I tell with this because females are perceived most often as “the Magician’s Assistant” in this day and age, however, all magician’s assistants in history before the Golden Age of magic were men. So it was sawing a man in half and it was always the men, because women’s costume and wardrobe didn’t allow itself to be placed on tables and things, so it wasn’t until the Golden Age in 1921 when P. T. Selbit was getting ready to do the sawing a man in half did he suggest – because it was an unspoken political, violent act because women were going for the vote – that he decided he would get better headlines and better crowd draw if he would saw a woman in half. And from that moment on, most of the magicians realized that…women made better assistants [laughs]. So you constantly fight that, constantly.

AVT: Also in our case, we still have to always remind people that we are equal partners on stage, and it still happens that people come after the show and tell Thommy how great he was and, yes, “His assistant was great too,” and he has to remind them and I remind them until things change.

JL: And you’ll do that for 25 more years like me! [Laughs]

AVT: Probably. That’s what I said before; I will do it for the next 25 years!

JL: The Clairvoyants are a really good example of the choice of material. Working in teams is the same thing – when you do intelligent magic, and there’s a perceived skill from the female it’s hard to deny, and I would not think that anybody would deny Amélie that there’s a skill involved in being smart enough to perform in the way she performs.

Jinger Leigh’s unique blend of elegance and theatricality have redefined the role of the magician. A modern conjuress in a very ancient art, Jinger has earned fans around the world and was recently featured in the touring show, “Masters of Illusion Live!” She began her professional career as a dancer when she was fifteen years old. She was one of the “Young Americans,” and toured for companies like Disney, appeared on Fuji Television, and starred in Southern California dinner theater productions. She also toured with artists like The Beach Boys, Tony Bennett and Cab Callaway. It was while working as a dancer in Guam that Jinger first met magician Mark Kalin. The results were magical, in every sense of the word, combining the arts of dance and illusion. Working together, as Kalin and Jinger, they appeared in their award-winning shows, Carnival of Wonders and Before Your Very Eyes, in their own Reno Theatre, “Magic Underground”.

Amélie van Tass and Thommy Ten are “The Clairvoyants.” They were both born and raised in Austria and now reside in Austria and America. When they met in October 2011, they began to develop their “second sight” act, and two months later brought it on stage for the first time. Within a year they had developed a full length show. Shortly thereafter, they started touring Europe. The Clairvoyants have traveled the world as part of the touring company of The Illusionists with The Illusionists 1903, The Illusionists 2.0, and The Illusionists-Live from Broadway. In 2016, they decided to take part in the biggest talent show in the world, “America’s Got Talent.” After four months, six different performances and over 100.000 contestants, America voted them second place. In October 2016 they will appear, together with winner Grace Vanderwaal, at Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas. Being part of this show was another major step in the evolution of their career. Van Tass and Ten were awarded “The German Champions of Mentalism,” “Magicians of the Year 2015,” and, also in 2015, were enthusiastically chosen as the “World Champions of Mentalism,” a prize that hasn’t been awarded in 30 years.

Posted on December 13, 2016December 20, 2016 by admin

A Conversation with Jorge Molina

Since November 9th, the art world has been entrenched in discussion and debate on what the purpose of Art is now – what is its impact? What does it look like? What do we want it to look like? And how does it affect us? Now, more than ever, the fight for inclusion is a battle that must be won, and we look to up and coming artists like Jorge Molina and countless others to lead the charge for the next generation of cultural influencers.

As a recent graduate, artist, immigrant, and a member of the LGBTQ+ community, Jorge speaks to the importance of intersectional representation on screen, “breaking in” in Hollywood, and his experience on the up and coming TV Land pilot anthology adaptation of the seminal 1988 classic, Heathers.

Alicia Carroll: So, why don’t you start by telling us a little about yourself!

Jorge Molina: Sure! I was born in Mexico City and raised in a suburb right outside of it. I always knew I wanted to work in the film industry in some way and knew that I had to come to the U.S. to do that. I’ve also always loved writing, so screenwriting seemed like an obvious career choice. I applied to several schools my senior year and got into USC with a scholarship. So I moved here, graduated last May, and now am in the process of getting my artist’s visa to stay.

AC: What is that process like? I know so many people who have stayed on education or work visa, but how does it differ for artists? Has your experience been smooth?

JM: It has been smooth, luckily, but it’s a long and complicated process. The way I describe it best is you’re preparing for a job interview you won’t be present in. It’s a talent-based process, so immigration is basically deciding if you’re talented enough to stay in the country. You compile literally everything you’ve ever done in a binder (your work history, education, awards, letters of reference, etc…) and present it to immigration and they base their decision off of that. There’s other things to it, like lots of paperwork and bureaucracy, but that’s the gist of it.

AC: Wow that seems highly subjective. Maybe that’s just me.

JM: Hah, I feel you. That’s exactly how I feel.

Kelly Wallace: When you decided to come to the U.S., what kinds of concerns did you have?

JM: To be honest, I was much more excited and looking forward to come here than concerned. It was always a conscious and active decision to come here and actually move countries, so when it happened it was all very quick and surreal, and didn’t really give me much time to be afraid. I had some worries that I would be home sick, and wouldn’t fit in, but I felt so well versed in American culture – film and TV culture especially, which is what I came here to do – and I wanted it so much that those worries quickly dissipated.

AC: That’s wonderful. What made you gravitate towards film and television at a young age?

JM: I still ask myself that a lot of the times. I think for me, film and TV have always represented a place where anything that can be conjured up in your head can come to exist. If you can imagine it, it can become a movie or TV show. And that’s enormously appealing. I know it’s a bit of a cliché to be the young, closeted boy that didn’t fit in and yearns of bigger places with more creative freedom, but clichés are grounded on truth.

KW: It’s a common feeling, I think. I felt the same way when I was younger. How helpful was TV and film for you when you were discovering your sexuality and when you were coming out?

JM: Ah, I can go on about that for ages. More than film and TV directly informing of my sexuality – they were not great at that, since the content we got back home wasn’t always the most inclusive – they served as an escape and kind of a gateway for me to start creating my own worlds. Now looking back, I can see that I was always attracted to stories about underdogs and people not fitting in, and to films with so much queer sensibility, but at the time I didn’t see that. That’s actually a big propeller of what I write. I try to create stories that I would like to have seen when I was growing up.

AC: So what kind of worlds do you create for yourself now, in your writing?

JM: I am very attracted to coming-of-age stories, people realizing who they are and their identities, and people fitting in. I feel that’s a topic I’m very familiar with, and I’m a believer in the “write what you know best.” I try not to be bounded by genres, but by themes.

AC: I am very similar in that I gravitate towards themes. From what I hear, you also write for the stage?

JM: I have dabbled in that. I’ve written a couple of one-act plays and would definitely like to explore that more one day, but right now I am more focused on features and TV especially.

AC: What draws you to the film and television mediums? It’s always interesting to hear since writers have so many storytelling avenues available to them; why the screen?

JM: I think ultimately for me it comes down to the number of people it can reach. I grew up with American content all around me, and it’s the same for so many places around the world. Hollywood is a world forefront in film and TV, and the stories they tell can really make an impact. So that’s what I’m after. I’m sure of the power of art in all its forms, but few have the widespread reach that film and TV have.

AC: Agreed. I also went to film school and I’m drawn to it for the same reasons. There is also a certain unlimited freedom to the medium, which I love. In terms of impact, what characters or stories had a significant impact on you? Do you see representation of aspects of your identity improving as you grow?

JM: As far as specific characters or stories, I always talk about Ugly Betty and how big that was for me. It had this character of her nephew Justin and it was the first time I saw someone that was a young, Latino gay boy like me and that was huge because his family and coming out circumstances looked a lot like me. I’d seen some gay and Latino characters before, but never one so specific to me. Glee was also huge because it was the first show for me to really both normalize and shed a direct light on gay characters.

As for if I see representation, yes. It is definitely growing and changing and that’s what’s so amazing about today’s current entertainment landscape: everyone is getting a voice. Where I think it sometimes lags is getting into nuanced representation that go beyond a single identity. Intersectionality is tricky.

AC: It is very tricky. I love seeing intersectional representation because it makes the stories more rich – more human.

JM: Exactly. No one is just one thing. I’m gay, and Mexican, and an immigrant, and a writer, and so many more things

AC: You mentioned that you use pieces of your real experience and what you know in your writing. How do you think the different parts of your identity have helped you develop your perspective as an artist?

JM: Well, it took me a while to realize and embrace that no one else has my experience. I think that in Hollywood, you are often forced into a box and to fit someone else’s vision, but if you look, it’s the people with unique perspectives that stand out. Those are the people I admire, so now I search for stories that only I can tell, in whatever way that may be. Maybe I identify with a character’s story, or am familiar with a world, or know a certain central feeling well.

AC: Inclusion in writing is definitely improving but still generally white-cis-straight-male dominated in the industry at large. Because of that, so many people write outside their experience or write stories that…maybe they shouldn’t be telling…or maybe are stories you should be telling, or they should include you in. What do you say to those people? Or is there a way we can combat that aspect of the system other than diversity pipelines?

JM: That’s a tricky question. What many people forget a lot of the time is that filmmaking and television are collaborative mediums by nature. I am generally not against people writing outside their own experience, as long as they do their homework. Reach out to people that do have that experience and let it inform the project. Have them read over the script and give an honest opinion. If it’s a TV show – since it’s a writer’s room – a diverse group of people is essential in my opinion. But for more solitary projects like filmmaking, it doesn’t have to be a one-person duty, even if the writing itself is. I don’t know if that makes any sense.

AC: That makes perfect sense. I think that is what all of us hope for. The ideal is that anyone can write anything as long as they include research and points of view that make it authentic. It doesn’t always work out that way, but that’s what we strive for.

JM: Exactly, I mean no one can write everything. But if you’re going outside what you know, learn it before. These movies and shows do have a very big social and cultural impact.

AC: What kind of impact do you hope to have with your work?

JM: I do believe entertainment should be the first goal of any of these, so of course to get people entertained. But beyond that, I want people to 1) feel something, and 2) either feel identified [or represented] or feel they knew someone/something they didn’t. I guess I want people to find meaning in what I do, whatever that is for them.

AC: Definitely. So we want to transition a little bit to talk about TV Land’s Heathers. For background, what was your journey to Heathers and TV Land? You graduated recently, correct?

JM: Yes, I graduated in May. And that’s actually a funny story. When I found out they were developing Heathers – my all time favorite movie – into a TV series, I made it a goal to be a part of the project. So when my school contacts gave me no leads to anyone involved, I tracked down the showrunner on Instagram, DMed him and told him I was willing to do any type of work but I wanted to be on the show. After some months of bothering him, he agreed to interview me, and I ended up as his assistant.

AC: That is a bold move. A true Hollywood story.

JM: It was crazy. While I was on set just watching the show being made, I couldn’t believe I actually got there.

AC: I can imagine. From what has been released thus far about the new Anthology series, the show is diverse in terms of race, sexual orientation, and gender identity. Has it been exciting for you to work on a show that values that?

JM: Oh of course! I mean, besides the original being my all-time favorite movie and kind of my model for how I want to write, this new version does such an amazing job of bringing it to the 21st century in those very important terms. I couldn’t be more excited to have been part of a project that sees that, and values that, and kind of plays around with that.

AC: That’s truly amazing. You seem like a very dedicated Winona Ryder fan.

JM: [Laughs] Oh I am. Favorite actress, I’m sure you can tell.

AC: Heathers has such a specific tone. Do you gravitate towards dark comedy? Or the macabre? I feel that is Winona’s wheelhouse.

JM: Hm, yes, I gravitate towards dark comedy, but even more towards satire. That’s my favorite genre. Shows like The Comeback or Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, or this new show Search Party, they all take a subject and examine it under a lens and pick it apart and make fun of it. I like pointing things out about society and making it fun.

AC: All great shows, we have similar taste Comedy can be such a great avenue for subversion and commentary too.

JM: Oh of course! I can’t really do pure comedy; I’m not really good at that, but I like the dark funny – when anytime it can jump to a drama.

AC: It’s weird to say that comedic drama or dramatic comedy is “in” right now, but it is. [Laughs] #SadCom

JM: Absolutely, it is. And that’s good for me, because that’s my wheelhouse.

AC: I agree that the new series does an excellent job of bringing the story into the 21st century. What do you think the benefit of re-inventing stories for a new era or generation is?

JM: Well, I don’t think every story should be reinvented. I think if a story still has relevance today, or the creators can find a way to make it relevant for today’s audience, there is big value to it. And Heathers definitely does that. But what’s the point of telling a story that lost its value or that feels dated?

AC: Agreed. So what is the relatable/relevant element of this story, Heathers? Or other reboots that are on television now – there are a lot.

JM: Well, it should say something about the audience that watches it, or the characters inside them. Heathers does a wonderful job of portraying teen culture like it is now, and not in 1989. I don’t know if I can say much else, but it feels 2016. I think that reboots, whether they do it directly like this, or more nuanced – like say, Westworld, is doing – should really say something about today.

AC: So, what do you feel the role of art is, today?

JM: Wow, that is a broad question. I think the role of art today – and always, really – is to provide some sort of meaning to whoever is enjoying it. That can be everything from inspiration, to information, to emotion. What’s great about art is that it can be anything you want it to be. Both from the artist’s and the audience’s perspective.

Jorge is a professional screenwriter and filmmaker from Mexico City. Jorge is a two time recipient of The Juan Rulfo National Short Story Award, and his works have been published in several anthology collections from the Universidad Iberoamericana and his original script “Fool Me Once” won him the Best Screenplay Award at the 2014 Ed Wood Film Festival. Jorge is a contributor to Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) website, as well as The Film Experience and AwesomenessTV. Currently, Jorge works on the television reboot of the 1989 cult film classic Heathers, spearheaded by TVLand, written by Jason Micallef (Butter) and directed by Leslye Headland (Sleeping with Other People, Bachelorette).

Posted on December 5, 2016December 12, 2016 by admin — 1 Comment

A Conversation with Hilary Bettis

Earlier this year, The Sol Project was announced as a new initiative to raise visibility of Latina/o voices in the theatrical landscape. To kick off this venture, The Sol Project is collaborating with New Georges to present a brand new production of accomplished playwright Hilary Bettis’ Alligator, which opens on December 4 and runs through December 18 at the A.R.T./New York Theatres. I sat down with the smart, funny, charming, and wittily self-deprecating Hilary over hot tea on a rainy day in Williamsburg, where we chatted, among other things, about her play, her creative process, the current political climate, and the complicated nature of her personal cultural identity. I also attempted to get her to spill some spoilers for the upcoming season of FX’s The Americans, for which she is a staff writer.

Margarita Javier: The first thing I wanted to ask you is about The Sol Project. I’m very excited about it. How did you become involved with them?

Hilary Bettis: It’s one of those things that happened organically. Elena Araoz, who’s directing, has been a longtime friend of mine. We’ve done lots of readings and workshops together over the past four or five years. She actually directed a reading of [Alligator] in 2012, and that’s how she and I met. She was part of the founding members of [The Sol Project], and this was one of the plays that they had been considering. New Georges – who I also had a relationship with and had done a lot of workshops with for this play years ago as well – ended up being the first producers. I got a phone call one day from Susan [Bernfield] and Jacob [Padrón] and they were like, Hey! We’re gonna do your play!

MJ: That’s amazing. And it’s been a good experience so far?

HB: Yeah! It’s been a great experience. There’s been bumps in the road, because The Sol Project is new and they’re trying to figure out how they produce together. This is the biggest play that New Georges has ever done, on top of the first play in the A.R.T./New York space that’s still literally under construction. We just figured out how to have heat in the theater two days ago. It’s the first production that Elena and I have done together, so we’re trying to figure out what that relationship is, how we work together, and how we communicate. It seems so easy in theory, and then you’re in the thick of it and you’re like, Oh, we didn’t talk about this, or maybe we should talk about this, or maybe we should approach it this way. It’s actually really exciting, despite the stress and the lack of sleep that I’ve gotten throughout this process.

MJ:Tell me about the play, Alligator. What is it about, where did the idea come from?

HB: It’s this crazy, messy, chaotic, bloody, ensemble-driven play that I wrote when I was going through a lot of shit in my own personal life, like taking care of a friend who was dying of cancer and living with my alcoholic ex-boyfriend – a lot of a lot of a lot of a lot of chaos. That play came in like a fever dream; it sort of vomited out one night. It was very instinctual. I’ve never written anything quite like that since in that way, and I think it came out of trying to survive my life at that time and find meaning in this messy chaos with all these people that are literally wrestling life and death demons, including myself. It’s set in the Everglades. It’s in a really small rural town and it’s about all of these teenagers, and they’re trying to figure out how they fit into the world and trying to figure out how to love and be loved, but none of them have the tools or even know what that really means. It’s like a collision of pain and how these seemingly innocent interactions translate into this bigger destruction of this community.

MJ: Why the Everglades?

HB: I like to write about places that I’ve never been and I get really excited about, and I think for a long time it was because I was so poor and couldn’t actually travel. I wanted to see the world.

MJ: So you could write it.

HB: Yeah, and when you have an excuse to just dig and research and let your mind go on crazy tangents. I love being able to do that, but I also think there’s something really interesting about it, because you don’t have the familiarity of that place. In some ways, you can have a bigger perspective of it if you really do your homework. In all of my plays, place is always the number one character. All of who we are as people, the choices that we make, the decisions that we have to make, come from our environment and surviving our environment. The Everglades in particular is this messy, swampy, isolated part of the world that you really have to understand how to fight to survive in because everything in there is trying to kill you. It takes a certain type of person in and of itself just to be able to live in that environment, and that becomes a metaphor for these deeper struggles.

MJ: Why do you write? Out of all the things you could be, why a writer?

HB: Oh man, I don’t know. Insanity? [laughs] Writing is really a byproduct of surviving my own life, you know? My family moved a lot when I was growing up and we didn’t have a lot of money – and I was the oldest, the only girl, and I was “the new kid” every two years. I saw a lot of violence and sexual abuse and all kinds of shit when I was growing up. We never lived in a community long enough to really get to know a community. My parents both worked 60-hour work weeks, and so we would end up just having to learn how to survive and navigate people with our instincts. And sometimes that was good and sometimes it wasn’t good. Being the only girl on top of that, writing was a thing that I did to deal with life and deal with feelings, and it was the only place I felt safe because you can say the most poetic thing or the most horrible thing, and you can rip it up and burn it or you can show the world. There’s a sense of empowerment that I never felt in any other aspects of my life.

I never actually wanted to be a writer. I wanted to be a veterinarian and then I probably wanted to be an actress. I moved to LA a week out of high school to escape this very small, rural, conservative Minnesota town that we’d moved to when I was 15. I ended up homeless in LA. My first job was cocktailing at a strip club when I was 17 years old. I saw the greatness and the rottenness of that world and also the complicated humanity. You know, people don’t lose their dignity just because they make hard choices for survival, and I think that it’s so easy to place moral judgment on people when we have food and shelter and water, you know? I was going out for terrible, terrible acting roles, and reading scripts where women were non-existent – they weren’t human, they were body parts. My 17/18-year-old brain was like, Well, I’ve lived in six different states at this point and I’ve been through so much shit and survived so much shit. I’ve had my big existential crisis over religion; I’ve seen people die when I’ve lived. Why is it that nobody writes people like me? I can’t be the only one in the world, you know? And so I think asking that question started this career path that has been – I mean, I’ve been really blessed. I have this sort of beautiful, lovely career that I never thought would happen to someone like me.

MJ: As a woman playwright, how has your experience been in the theater community or in television? Given the fact that it is – some would say and I would agree – harder for women to make it in these environments. Do you feel that pressure at all, or are you fighting to get more representation for women – is that a struggle?

HB: Yes. Especially in the TV world where people are really starting to recognize the importance of diversity. In some ways, I think that I’ve had doors opened that even three or four years ago women trying to break into TV didn’t have. I think it’s harder in theater for women than TV really, truly. Truly. In TV there’s a lot of turnover and executives tend to be younger. Everybody wants who the next up-and-coming voices are, and so they’re really excited to at least read your work. In theater I feel, you know, artistic directors who have been in the same position for 20 or 30 years feel very much a generation behind in their tastes, and I think there’s a lot of subconscious biases in there. They look at young women playwrights and it’s like, Oh well, you are a niche market, you cannot be mainstream. Whereas you can be a straight white male writer and, you know. I watch my classmates out of Juilliard, and hands down the guys always had it very easy in a way that it wasn’t for the girls.

MJ: You look at representation right now, and there’s not that many plays being produced or written by women happening in New York, or women directed plays, but there’s so much talent out there. What can be done about that?

HB: Really, I think that women need to be in positions of power and leadership. I think that it’s not enough unfortunately and I wish it were, but it’s not enough just to write a play. It’s not enough just to want to be a director. You have to also be an advocate, not just for your work, but for your career. You have to be an advocate for other women, and you have to really think in versatile terms. What I am really consistently learning in my career is that if I really want to protect the things that I write, and protect the female characters that I write from becoming stock characters, gratuitous, or objectified. Then I need to learn how to produce and I need to learn the business side of things.

MJ: I’ve read a lot about you, and I know that a recurring theme in your work is identity.You’ve talked about your desire to reclaim your Mexican identity and that’s reflected in your work. That’s a very conflicting thing: not quite fitting in, not quite knowing. I identify because I’m Puerto Rican but don’t fit into a stereotypical look, so I understand the conflict that comes from that, but being part of The Sol Project, and the fact that it is something that recurs in your plays, how do you feel about your identity or wanting to reclaim that side of yourself?

HB: God, yeah, I feel like it’s gonna be something that is always gonna be – I don’t think I’ll ever have a definitive answer. I think it’s always going to be evolving as I evolve and the world evolves. Growing up, we mostly lived in really rural parts of the country that were really, really white. My brothers and I were always the most ethnic kids at our school, and I never thought about that as a hindrance to my opportunity in the world. My grandfather had experienced it – I mean, his whole life was fighting against prejudice – and he really felt that he was deeply held back and denied opportunities in his life because he was Mexican.

I think in order to protect us from that, he really deeply advocated for us being as American as possible and not learning Spanish.He didn’t speak Spanish around us. When my mother was pregnant with me, his biggest fear was that I would be dark and I would look too Mexican and I would have to deal with the same prejudices he dealt with, and so for me in some ways… I mean, yes, there are a lot of prejudices in the world, especially with Donald Trump in power now and it’s really, really scary. It’s really scary. But part of reclaiming that side of my family is giving dignity and honor to my grandfather’s life and his struggles, and it’s a complicated thing, right? My entire life people have told me that I don’t fit into any community. When I moved to LA and met a lot of Chicanos, they were like, Oh, you’re a white girl, you’re not Mexican at all. And yet being in rural white communities in the Midwest, I was always Latina. And so it’s been a strange thing. Am I allowed to claim? I struggle with it. I actually struggle with whether or not I’m allowed to claim that part of my identity, and yet it’s my blood and my DNA.

MJ: Absolutely. And I understand where the dissent comes from because I do feel very protective about portrayals of Puerto Ricans specifically, and I do have that same struggle where I’m like, Well, you’re only ¼ Puerto Rican. I don’t know if you’re qualified to represent us. But at the same time, why create that conflict? It’s really complicated.

HB: It’s really complicated and I would never claim to be able to speak for Mexican culture. I’m an American. I was born in America. I speak a little Spanish, but it’s not great. I don’t know what life is like to be Mexican in Mexico. I don’t really know what life is like really to come to this country as an immigrant from Mexico. It’s a complicated thing, but at the same time, it’s also part of my own family identity.

MJ: I think it’s admirable because it’s so easy to give into not claiming that, because doing so makes it harder. If you are ethnic, it is harder in this country, and there’s this constant struggle to want to assimilate. I think it’s admirable of you to want to claim that part of yourself because it would be easy to just be like, No, I’m just American. That path would be easier, I think, than saying, No, I want to talk about this. I think it’s important to do so.

HB: Well, I really appreciate that. I really do.

MJ: So you mentioned Donald Trump. And I wanted to bring it up, especially since somewhat recently Vice President-elect Mike Pence went to see Hamilton, and it became this big thing where suddenly the president-elect was launching an attack against the theater community, and I was just wondering if you have any thoughts about that.

HB: I mean it’s scary, right? On the surface, it’s like, Oh, you know, he’s crazy and his ego was hurt, and it’s just somebody complaining on Twitter and it’s harmless. But the reality is that those are the beginning steps towards really taking away some of our basic fundamental rights in this country. And it’s not really even about theater – it’s about freedom of speech; it’s about being able to be safe in this world and say things that might not always be popular, be able to talk about and give voice to marginalized communities, and be able call into question the people that are in power and the way that we always have… That’s one of the foundations of our country. I think we have to be very vigilant about it, especially as artists. Our purpose in this world really is to call into question the world around us and make people uncomfortable.

MJ: Absolutely, and it’s about challenging ideas and theater has always been challenging and arts have always been challenging.

HB: Yeah, and it should be! We’re doing our jobs.

MJ: What is the intended audience for your plays when you’re writing?

HB: I know that my plays are probably never gonna be at places like MTC. Especially with Alligator, I wanted to write plays that my friends would go see. My friends who weren’t in theater. I wanted to write things that I would want to go see and I also wanna write things that ask really uncomfortable questions. I know that that’s not always popular, and people want to go to the theater to escape and you have to have money, really, to see theater, for most people. Many of them will walk out of my plays, and that’s fine. But the ones that stay, I want plays that are really gonna make people think, and make me think as the writer too. I mean, it’s not just about, Oh, I’m gonna use this as a soap box. It’s just as much about, These are the things that I also struggle with or the hypocrisy that I see in myself, and let’s talk about it. Let’s not pretend that we’re better, or that these things don’t exist.

MJ: So why theater specifically? What drew you to theater?

HB: You know, I think part of it is just always being a new kid and never having friends growing up, and really yearning for a community. My dad’s a Methodist minister, and so the church was a big part of my childhood and my father’s very poetic and he loves to tell stories. I think part of it was growing up watching my father write beautiful sermons, and the way that he could captivate a room of people. That’s what great theater does; it’s a shared experience. Especially in this day and age where we’re so addicted to technology, we’re having less and less human interaction, and our entertainment, our love lives, and our whole existence is us and a screen. Theater, I really and truly believe, is going to become more and more relevant because people are going to crave human connection in a way that I don’t think we quite understand yet, because of what technology is doing.

MJ: What are your theatrical influences, and who are your favorite playwrights? Or is there anything you’ve seen recently that you thought was great?

HB: Well, I haven’t seen anything recently because I’ve been so crazy [busy], but I have a very special place in my heart for Marsha Norman, of course. I fell in love with her work when I was 18 years old. To have gotten to study with her at Juilliard for two years and be… I actually talked to her on the phone today, and to have a relationship with her is incredible. I really love [Edward] Albee and Sam Shepard and Sarah Kane, and unapologetic writers, and I really love Westerns too. I love Cormac McCarthy and [Quentin] Tarantino and super masculine genres. I love to try to find a woman’s perspective in those worlds, and so I tend to write things that feel really gritty on the surface but have a lot of empathy and vulnerability underneath.

MJ: Have you ever had a great idea that you abandoned because it didn’t work?

HB: [laughs] Um, every day. I don’t know if any of them are great. I have ideas all the time. I have a lot of files on my computer that are false starts to things that seemed so cool and then five pages in you’re like, Oh, this is not a thing at all. I have a lot of those. A lot. And then I have these ideas that are like, Oh, that’s my magnum opus that I’m gonna write some day when I have the ability to. I think there are some things that I want to write that I just don’t have the craft yet. I haven’t written enough to be able to execute it.

MJ:You’re a staff writer for The Americans. I love that show. How did that gig happen?

HB: It’s such a good show! And it’s such a great culture. My bosses are amazing. They’re at the top of their field and their craft and are the nicest, most respectful, down to earth people, that also have families and lives and treat everyone with respect and value everybody’s opinions. To have that be your first TV job and to also really see that you can be successful in this career and you can write things that are of really high quality and you can still be a normal person and treat people well – I feel really blessed to have that be the place where I’m starting from. So yeah, they were looking for a writer for my position and read some of my plays and I went and met with them and then they hired me.

MJ: That’s amazing. They’re filming now, right?

HB: Yeah, it’s insanity. We finished the first two episodes. We have the producers’ cuts for those; we have the entire season broken; we have scripts through episode nine written and all the rest of the episodes are in process of being written right now. They’re like a machine, it’s insane.

MJ: Can you tease anything about the upcoming season?

HB: [laughs] It’s going to be awesome!

MJ: I read that you have a development deal for a show called Finding Natalie?

HB: I have two! I have a project at the Weinstein Company with Alyssa Milano, who’s executive producer on it, and we’ve been working on that for about a year. Then Finding Natalie is a gritty hour drama about sex trafficking. It’s about a young Mexican girl whose sister is kidnapped by a sex trafficking cartel, and she gets herself kidnapped to find her sister, and so really it’s a love story at the heart of it about two sisters, and what family will do for each other and the things that we will endure for love, for real love, and having that juxtaposed against this brutal world. Our culture really associates sex with love and being wanted, and to be able to say that’s actually not at all, that what these sisters are willing to do for each other is real intimacy. It’s in the pretty early stages. I’m in the middle of writing the first draft of the pilot right now, so I’m sure that I’ll have hundreds and hundreds of drafts with all the network notes and things like that.

MJ: And there are a few movies you’ve done as well.

HB: I have. I’ve done a couple of short films, and produced, and I have a feature film project that I’m developing with some producers as well that’s in the super early stages. I don’t quite know what that will be yet.

MJ: Do you think you’ll continue to do theater?

HB: I have to do theater. I have to. I do, but it’s so damn hard to get a production. I see why so many playwrights that are like, I’m done with theater. I’m gonna write for TV. I get it. I totally, totally get it. You have to continue to write plays because you love writing plays, and you don’t care if they’ll sit in a desk drawer and never see the light of day and you’ll never be paid for it.

MJ: What advice would you have liked to have had when you were younger and deciding that you wanted to be writer?

HB: Don’t be so hard on yourself. Just write and let things be terrible. I think I had the impulse to write long before I really started doing it, and I think that I was really scared and didn’t think I had anything worth saying. I didn’t think that I was smart enough to be able to do it, and I meet a lot of people that say, “I just started writing” or “I want to be a writer” or “I want to write a play, how do you do it?” I think the biggest obstacle is fear. You have to take the pressure off yourself and give yourself permission to just be really terrible for awhile. Even when you learn how to write, the first draft of everything you write is going to be terrible. Giving yourself permission allows you to really trust your instincts and really conquer your fear. I think that more than anything is what prevents people from following their heart and saying the things they need to say. Also, learning how to protect and advocate for your work. Start in that place and really give yourself permission to be terrible.

MJ: Why should people come see Alligator?

HB: Yes, come see my show! Because, first of all, Elena has done an incredible job with the direction, and it’s messy and it’s bloody, and there’s an alligator onstage who also happens to be my boyfriend. There’s an actual alligator.

MJ: Well, I’ve heard so many wonderful things about it. I can’t wait to see it.

HB: Good! It’s so scary right now. The past week I’ve been like, Oh my god, I’m just gonna call everyone tomorrow and say this is terrible, let’s pull the plug, let’s pretend this never happened, let’s never talk about it again! Elena and I just sit in the corner ripping the whole thing apart and being like, Oh my god, what have we done? We’re both perfectionists.

MJ: I think if you get to a point where you’re entirely happy with what you’re doing, you’re doing something wrong. I think you always have to challenge yourself to be better.

HB: Yeah. Yeah! I hope you’re right!

Hilary Bettis writes for the theater, television and film. Her work includes: “Dolly Arkansas,” “Blood & Dust,” “The Ghosts of Lote Bravo,” “The History of American Pornography,” “Alligator,” “Dakota Atoll,” “Mexico” and “American Girls.” A two-time recipient of the Lecomte du Nouy Prize from Lincoln Center, she is a 2015 graduate of the Lila Acheson Wallace Playwright Fellowship at The Juilliard School.

Bettis has received many fellowships and residencies at the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, York Theatre Workshop, SPACE at Ryder Farm, La Jolla Playhouse, New York Foundation for the Arts, Playwrights’ Week at The Lark, Audrey Residency at New Georges, Two River Theater, Great Plains Theatre Conference, The Kennedy Center/NNPN MFA Workshop and more.

As a screenwriter, Bettis has written and produced two short films, “B’Hurst” and “The Iron Warehouse,” which have screened at multiple film festivals across the globe. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, where she works as a staff writer for the TV series “The Americans” on FX.

Posted on December 1, 2016December 1, 2016 by admin

A Conversation with Morgan James, Torya Beard, & Richard Amelius

Walking into St. John the Divine to meet with the three masterminds behind the upcoming one-night-only female centric Jesus Christ Superstar concert felt epic. While I’ve never been religious, St. John always felt like a sanctuary to me. I first started visiting the cathedral as a young art student, sketching the Gothic interior architecture for hours on end, while visiting Tibetan monks created Mandala Sand Art in an adjacent chapel. As years passed, I would often return for New York Philharmonic’s free concerts, and often stopped by to light candles for loved ones and their families during challenging times. This conversation was Stage & Candor’s first scheduled exchange since the election, and it felt like the quiet revolution I’ve been craving – to meet in a space that’s built and held so many representations of the patriarchy. We sat down with actor/singer Morgan James, producer Torya Beard, and director Richard Amelius to discuss the conception of this concert, the timeliness and timelessness of the material, and what it means to be an artist during the incoming administration.

Michelle Tse: Let’s start with the obvious. Why Jesus Christ Superstar?

Richard Amelius: Morganza?

Morgan James: Right around Christmas of last year, I had a dream that I did Jesus Christ Superstar with Shoshana Bean as Judas. I didn’t know Shoshana very well at the time – I didn’t even have her number. [Richard and Torya] were coming over for Christmas dinner, and when they came over, I said, oh, I had this dream, and they both immediately said, when are you doing that? That needs to happen. So I asked a friend for Shoshana’s number and I texted her: It’s Morgan James. I had this dream. She said something to the effect of WHEN ARE WE DOING THAT? and I thought, ok, there’s three people that I like a lot who don’t think I’m insane.

Michelle: I was certainly looking for tickets the second I heard.

Morgan: We started spitballing immediately and went into production mode. We didn’t know how hard it was going to be to get the rights, who else would say yes, if anyone, but we started putting together an idea of what we could feasibly make happen.

Michelle: Right. Our mutual friend had mentioned something in passing a few months into this year.

Morgan: We initially wanted to do it in April. We thought around Easter would be interesting. We didn’t end up getting the rights in time. We encountered a lot of red tape because I don’t think it’s been done this way, ever, maybe. Certainly not in New York.

Michelle: Assembling a cast must have been a fun challenge as well.

Morgan: Everyone we wanted or ended up getting, I reached out to personally because I figured that’s the best way to communicate with someone that you’re asking to do a lot for very little. So first of all I called my friends [laughs] – that’s always my rule of thumb.

Michelle: Why one-night-only if it’s so much work?

Morgan: If it’s a nightmare, or a terrible idea, then i’ll go down with the ship. I would love this concert to serve as the start of the development process.

Michelle: So the evening is billed as a ‘female centered concert of Jesus Christ Superstar.’ The two leads, typically played by male identifying actors, will be portrayed by two women. The role of Mary will be portrayed by Alex Newell—

Richard: Ninety percent of the cast is typically male – there are two female roles in the whole show: Mary, and there’s an ensemble member named “Maid by the Fire.”

Michelle: Would you say the event is more about challenging the spectrum of gender, a gendered or role reversal, or more the idea of casting people as characters they’ll typically never be able to play?

Morgan: I want to say that I don’t love concept-y things generally. I don’t love the ‘all-Asian this,’ or the ‘all-Black this,’ because that defeats the purpose of being inclusive or ‘color-blind.’ If something is not completely based around race, then any person should be able to play them. So I hate when people say, well, they wouldn’t have been there back in the day. We get it. We’re smarter than that. So I think to reverse it completely defeats the purpose of inclusion. I don’t want to be gimmicky; I initially just thought that women don’t have these good roles to play, period. There’s no other show that has this many great female roles, but there are plenty of shows with this many great male roles.

Michelle: I just saw a production of it that our contributor Gina Rattan directed. I forgot how high the voices that are required are.

Morgan: That was one of the things R&H was worried about – the keys. We aren’t changing the keys. Richard can probably speak to the concept on a greater scope.

Richard: I think what [Morgan] said is very important. The majority of the names [Morgan] was throwing out in terms of who would you like to do this with were female. So it was bound to be female centered. But we were always open to possibilities.

Michelle: And Alex? I love his work.

Richard: Morgan had met him and he said he’d love to do something with her. She asked me, what do you think about him? I said I think he’d be great. At the time, Mary was sort of a question mark. Ironically, of the roles, once you do cast women in the roles, Mary is the lowest, vocally. Alex happens to have a high voice, and he’s going to sing that role with no problem. He is interesting because as you said, this is on the spectrum of femininity. He is what makes it female-centric as opposed to all-female. His point of view adds to the inclusion; it doesn’t detract from it.

Michelle: Were there any female names attached to it before Alex came along?

Richard: There were many women that would sing the crap out of it and be awesome. Then the idea of him came up and it was a game-changer.

Morgan: I also had a conversation with him because we were teaching together. We were getting to know each other and finding out what the other person likes to do. He said that he was having trouble because his agents would say, well, what roles could you even play on Broadway now? He goes through every show and he can’t list one, because he has a female voice and wants to sing female roles. It’s not as black and white as oh, are you this? Are you that?

Michelle: It’s more about the vocal range.

Morgan: He would say, I am an actor and this is the voice I have. I don’t have a traditional male voice, why can’t you understand that?

Richard: This was written 40 years ago. I think that the men who wrote it were trying to say something provocative. And I’ve seen many productions where it is a robe-and-sandal passion play – Jesus is a beautiful white guy with abs and a great wig, who wears linen and you think to yourself, that’s what you heard? We know what white people think Jesus looked like in 4BC, but I don’t think that’s what they were trying to say.

Michelle: What’s your interpretation of the material?

Richard: To me, they were talking a lot about celebrity. Jesus, today, would be a rock star. Today, people would follow him because of his celebrity, which Judas warns about in the first song. Jesus had an incredible ability to communicate with people and people were drawn to him. It is a story that will always be relevant because there will always be people that… I’m not comparing Jesus Christ to Donald Trump in any way, but look what just happened.

Michelle: That’s kind of my next question. Go on.

Richard: Christ was speaking to politics and people thought that was dangerous. They thought he was anti-government, which he certainly was, and so this narrative is not hard to imagine. It is something that’s very relevant.

Michelle: Right. So my question is, to be putting this concert together post-election, to be performed four days before the end of Obama’s administration—

Torya Beard: On MLK Day.

Michelle: Has your idea of the production shifted in any way, in terms of somehow amplifying exactly what you’re saying?

Torya: I don’t think it shifts the way we’re thinking about it, but it validates [Richard’s] point – shines a light on it. A multigenerational, diverse group of mostly women telling this story gives you a multifaceted prism through which to view it.This is a story that everyone is familiar with on some level. If you examine it from all sides, informed by our current climate, it becomes a new story in some respects. Different things bubble to the top.

Morgan: I agree with that. I’m in depression mode right now, so I don’t think I’ve really thought about how I’m going to tell anything differently, but like [Torya] said, all the more reason to tell this story with a diverse group of people. I definitely want it to represent every color, shape, size, voice, and otherwise. I called my friends that I love and people I wanted to sing with, and there are so many great female singers that we can cast it 12 times over. We have a burden of riches. Theoretically in an administration that would look out for this faction of people… what better time, I suppose.

Richard: Tim Rice is a brilliant guy. He had a lot of really important things to say. But music is so cool, you get lost sometimes in the points he’s trying to make. The great thing about doing it in a concert setting is that the audience will be listening more than watching. It was our responsibility to cast it in a way that your ear would automatically tune in. I think by having the first voice be Shoshana singing, “Heaven on Their Minds,” it’s going to be an unfamiliar sound. [Shoshana] is very creative and she’s going to do things with it, and I think it’s going to set the absolute right tone. When each of these roles you’re used to hearing a certain way is taken over by a female voice, you’re going to hear the words in a new way.

Morgan: It’s also going to be an all-female band. We’ve all been trying to bring as many women into the fold as possible.

Michelle: Have all the roles been cast?

Morgan: Yes.

Michelle: It seems you’re selling well without any promotion. The VIP tickets are already gone despite the fact that you haven’t even done a press release.

Torya: We’re finding that it’s very popular, which is good.

Michelle: The three of you are educators, artists, dancers, singers, and entrepreneurs – all things that are considered ‘elitist’ in this post-truth new climate that we’re living in. Moving forward, how do you think these roles you all occupy inform and intersect with each other? How does it affect your ways of storytelling, if at all?

Torya: It helps to see people who believe in racial equality, gender parity, and inclusion for all people speaking out, advocating for themselves and others. As it relates to telling stories, I am even more committed to maintaining a No Bullshit Policy. For me, that means working harder and more truthfully – saying what I mean and doing what I say. I am not interested in work that is self-serving. I want to put things into the world that change it for the better, even in the smallest ways. It’s hard to even scratch the surface without accountability partners. I have an incredible crew [Morgan & Richard, the artists at Siena Music] and because of them, I feel strong. I am leaning into possibility.

Morgan: I find solace and comfort in the community. Everybody keeps talking about how divided we are, that the two sides of the country don’t understand the middle of the country. We definitely learned that. But the middle of the country doesn’t understand our side of the country, and they don’t see it. The way we work, the way we see our working class. They think we are elitists. They’re not the only part of the country that has a working class, a middle class, or people who are disenfranchised… they think they’re the only ones who are. They don’t see it and they’re in a bubble, too. Now obviously the reason we got into this mess is because neither side wants to talk to the other, but I take solace in the community that I have here. We’ve survived worse, and people have still made art.

Michelle: Has it, in this way, here? Not since—

Morgan: We have to go further back. My father was drafted, during Vietnam…

Michelle: Right. I’m in a fascinating position, having been born in Hong Kong at the beginning of the Tiananmen conflict. I get to hear first person accounts from differing sides of a lot of conflicts.

Morgan: We’ve survived things. God forbid it turns to that, but we have to press forward. We have to surround ourselves with like-minds. We have to understand we both live in bubbles. There’s no way to solve it by getting further apart.

Richard: There is that great Nina Simone quote…

Morgan: “It’s the job of an artist to reflect that time they’re living in.”

Richard: Right. When this was written in 1970, Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber were talking about the present. If you listen to the music, it’s 70’s vernacular. Now, it feels like a period piece, but what they were doing was telling a very old story in a very modern way. So the best way to approach any project is from the truth. When you read it, what does it say? Not what you want it to be, not how you’re going to decorate it vocally, not making your stamp as a director, but what is the book in front of you telling you? The works that have existed the longest still speak to you and they’re honest. It doesn’t matter who you cast, how you dress them, or what set they stand in front of. If the material is good, and people relate to it, it’s a home run before you even start. Sometimes you just have to do the show. You have to tell the story that’s been told before you. We didn’t write our own version of Jesus Christ Superstar, we’re doing the one that’s always been done. The point of view is different, but we didn’t have to rewrite the material in the process.

Morgan: The other thing is – and I hear this from a lot of younger singers – that idea of oh, I want to make it my own, or let’s change everything! It really made me come to this idea that, do you really think you’re better than someone who has done it before you, better than something that’s classic? We’re not trying to make something better. It sounds cheesy, but it’s already great. All we have to do is put in the hands of great people, and great ideas. We add value to things by being there.

Richard: And working together, listening to each other, and collaborating.

Morgan: I didn’t have to call Richard or Torya to convince them of something. These things happened organically.

Richard: I think you come to that realization in any discipline when you reach outside of your bubble. When you start writing songs, you have a great appreciation for the songwriter. When you start directing, you have a greater responsibility for telling everyone’s story, not just one person’s.

Morgan: I can’t speak for Shoshana because I didn’t know her back in the day, but there may have been a time ten years ago if you’d asked me to do this, you’d get a very indulgent performance. I think you’re getting us at a time when we’ve been through our particular struggles, and I have an appreciation for where I am, and I think she does too. There’s this humility and grace about Shoshana, and I’ve always loved going to see her sing. I’ve always been blown away by a grounded wisdom in her instrument.

Michelle: She’s great.

Morgan: I basically forced my way into her life. We didn’t even know each other! I tricked her into being my friend.

Richard: She’s going to betray you. I can feel it.

[Everybody laughs]

Michelle: I want to go back to a point made earlier because I usually end with asking what kind of advice you’d have for future generations. As it was brought up earlier, Nina Simone has said that our job as artists is to reflect the times, and it seems so now more than ever. We’ve been standing on the shoulders of Nina, of Ethel Merman, Josephine Baker…

Torya: Absolutely.

Michelle: What I’m interested to know is, other than continuing to tell the truth, make art, and exercise your constitutional rights, how do we as a community keep fostering our support for one another during this hostile time, and assure for the generations to come that art is ‘worth it’ to devote your career to? How will we continue to grow the platform the way giants before our time have done for us?

Torya: Recently, I assisted a friend, Brian Brooks, with choreography for the opening number for the BC/EFA benefit Gypsy of the Year. It was a condensed version of The Wiz, maybe 15 minutes long, and members of the original cast were performing. We sat in the room with them, and they shared stories about their experiences working on the show. It was an incredibly powerful moment. As our society continues to obsess over youth, beauty and all things fleeting, our elders can often fade into the shadows. Interaction with the people whose shoulders we stand on is essential for sustaining our art. We need to hear those stories. It provides an opportunity for us revel in the joy of being a part of a legacy. I have joy, so just by having this experience with you now, [the joy is] being multiplied. The communities that we are building are largely virtual: we share, comment, post, like, and love on social media and that’s fun, but having face time with people, spending time sitting at the feet of our elders while they are still alive, sharing our combined joy, and multiplying that joy is really what’s going to keep it alive.

Morgan: I love that. Whenever I am about to sing a cover of a song – which I often do – I say, I’d be nothing without Nina and Aretha. You’re only as good as what you listen to. Artists that come along and think they’ve just invented something – it’s just mind-boggling to me, you know? I think what happened at Hamilton the other night is amazing. I don’t think we have to worry about kids finding music or theater, but we have to hope that they pass through their tumultuous 20s and discover that they need to feed themselves with everything that came before them. We need to lead by example, lead with humility. If I get to make a living doing what I do, it is with a greater sense of humility everyday, because I did not understand what that meant ten or fifteen years ago.

Richard: I’m asked this question a lot because I work with kids often. I feel that young performers want the chance to play the lead, so they end up at places where they will get the lead. My advice? Don’t do that. Find the best place, and get in any way you can, because you’re going to learn a lot more being in a show with really quality people. A healthy ego is great for any artist, but if you think you’re the most talented person in the room, go find another room, one where you will learn something.

Michelle: Pay your dues.

Richard: I know that when I was 20, I thought, I can do this! Just give me a chance to do this! As I grew up, people would always be like, you’re good… but I think it’s a lot harder than you think. So I said to myself, fine, I’ll direct, and I’ll choreograph, and I’ll write. I want to see how hard it is. It’s horrible! Just to have the guts to sit down and write something, you realize how much courage it takes to ask, ‘will you read this?’

Michelle: I’m still struggling with that.

Richard: Do it all. Learn everything. Keep your eyes open. When someone invites you to be a something experimental, don’t ask, what’s in it for me, you will be rewarded, even if it’s not a success. Do you want to learn to drive from someone who has been doing it for 20 years, or do you want to get in the car and go? But at the beginning of Stephen Sondheim’s career, they said, you need to write the lyrics with established composers and he said, I don’t want to do that. I want to do my own thing and I have my own ideas. But what would West Side Story or Gypsy be—

Morgan: And what would he be!

Richard: Exactly.

Morgan: I was teaching high school kids, and they all just wanted to do new music, which is great, but I wanted to teach a class on Sondheim. They love him, but they don’t want to sing it. (Frankly, they hadn’t put in the time to learn the rhythms). So I went in, and I told them, “you like Hamilton? There’s a reason Lin-Manuel exists. He idolized Sondheim. Who did Sondheim idolize? Hammerstein.” These things don’t exist in a vacuum. You can’t understand one without the other. You just can’t.

One more thing about what we’re telling, and how divided our country is – we’re going to tell a story that a lot of people think ‘elitists’ don’t understand. I’m not a religious person; music is my church. Now it’s my job to understand this story. Maybe it’ll bring me closer to the middle of the country, and maybe them hearing it done this way will bring them closer to us.

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Jesus Christ Superstar – In Concert is playing one-night-only at the Highline Ballroom on January 16, 2017. Tickets can be purchased at highlineballroom.com.