Binary Schminary

Mixing It Up at Mixed Blood- It's Radical!

I want to share with you one of my favorite theatre companies- Mixed Blood Theatre in Minneapolis, and welcome you to their “global village.”  As a beacon for the global village of Minnesota and beyond, Mixed Blood intends to, “champion equity and animate social change through exceptional artistry, catalytic relationships, and universal access.” Awesome, right?  They are one of the few companies I know of in America right now that seems to be able to utilize financially sustainable business model while not falling victim to “mission drift.  Their mission is also always evolving to adapt to new trend in theatre, as well as adding initiatives to underserved communities.  But before I get into that in more detail, I’d like to point up their model of “Radical Hospitality.”  This practice is, in my opinion, incredible and is something that more theatre companies should be employing.  Through Radical Hospitality, admission is provided at no-cost for people who find cost a barrier to attending Mixed Blood productions. That’s right- if you want to see a show at Mixed Blood, it is free.  There are stipulations, of course- admission is on a first come, first served basis. Mixed Blood reserves 50% of their house for the Radical Hospitality guests.  For a free ticket, people must get in line at the box office, which opens two hours prior to every show; seating begins 30 minutes before show time and is general admission (no assigned seats).  When I observed the Radical Hospitality process, it was pretty great!  People were lined up around the building!  After the box office gives people their passes, people were allowed to sit in the lobby and read or hang out.  Some people went and got coffee and came back, others with families had packed bag lunches and sat and ate before the show.  Overall, I was impressed by the idea that not only were tickets free and available, but the by the sense of community as people ate and chatted together before the show.  Admittedly, I am often the audience member that gets to the theatre five minutes before the curtain.  So, it was nice to see people sharing the “event” of going to the theatre, before the play started.  And it is nice that Mixed Blood allows their lobby to open for people to be inside, because in Minnesota, there’s a good portion of the year where standing outside isn’t an option.  And Mixed Blood recognizes, if getting to the theatre two hours before curtain isn’t your jam, or if you want know that you for sure have a seat (and if you have the money), you are allowed to purchase tickets for the other 50% of their seating. 

Besides the Radical Hospitality, I’m so impressed by Mixed Blood’s use of theater to illustrate and model pluralism in questing for interconnections, shared humanity, and engaged citizenry. Their work fosters healthy communities, and aims to use the medium of theatre to improve education, safety, employment, transportation, recreation, and health care.  The company annually presents a mainstage season of plays in its badass historic firehouse (complete with firepole); works extensively with the Cedar Riverside, disability, Latino and transgender communities, using art as a tool to promote health and civic engagement.  

I’ve listed some of their initiatives from their website below:

CEDAR RIVERSIDE
Mixed Blood’s Cedar Riverside neighborhood has long been a home for immigrants and refugees, including one of the nation’s largest concentrations of African and Muslim immigrants and refugees in the U.S. today. Mixed Blood is working on multiple fronts to engage with its neighbors: 

Health Care — In partnership with Hennepin County Medical Center, Q Health, Cedar Riverside People’s Center Clinic, and Riverside Plaza Tenants’ Association, Mixed Blood uses artistic endeavors to help health care providers improve patient-centered care for the residents of Cedar Riverside 

Education — Mixed Blood resident artists teach drama classes to neighborhood youth and host performances and workshops for teachers who serve the schools that Cedar Riverside children attend. 

Safety — Through Mixed Blood’s work, Minneapolis Police officers and young adult Somali men, change places to gain knowledge, awareness, and sensitivity of the other’s experience and perceptions. One recent participant entered the police academy and is currently an intern for Transit Police. 

Performance — Mixed Blood hosts plays by Somali writers and directors as well as story circles with Somali elder women. 

Assembly — In a neighborhood choked for common space, Mixed Blood’s auditorium and rehearsal hall provides a steady place—without charge—for meetings, performances, trainings, and social and political events. 

DISABILITY COMMUNITIESFor nearly 20 years, Mixed Blood has produced mainstage and touring productions about disability, with artists, audiences and writers with disabilities. The company has hosted two festivals of disability-related plays and led a national initiative to infuse disability programming into theaters across the country. A Disability Advisory Council guides Mixed Blood’s efforts. The firehouse is fully accessible, with adjacent handicap accessible parking spots, projected supertitles for every show, audio description for all performances, mats for service dogs, ASL interpretation once per run, and tactile tours for people with vision loss. Free transportation to and from the theatre is available for people with disabilities, and Radical Hospitality allows anyone with a disability to reserve admission without charge. 

LATINO INITIATIVESince 1989, Mixed Blood annually has produced at least one production by, about, for, and with Latinos, performed in Spanish and English by bilingual actors. A Latino Advisory Council guides Mixed Blood’s efforts. TRANSGENDER MINNESOTANSIn the past three seasons, Mixed Blood has expanded its mission to include trans directors, designers, actors, and box office and front of house staff. This effort will deepen in 2018.

Pretty incredible, right?  Also, Mixed Blood aims to become an artistic home for trans theatre artists, and is about to produce a weekend festival called, ON OUR OWN TERMS: Voices at the Intersection of Transgender Experience. A national council of trans actors, directors, educators, performance artists and designers curated the selection of offerings to be included.  Three plays offer three complementary prisms to trans theater: one written by a trans playwright with a cast including gender nonconforming actors; one that revolves around a central trans character written by a cisgender playwright; and one by a cisgender playwright with a cast of trans and gender nonconforming actors with a trans-inclusive metaphorical theme.

One last thing to note- the people on staff at Mixed Blood wear many hats to keep the place going with its numerous projects and initiatives.  While being some of the busiest people I've ever met, they are also the kindest- fiercely committed to their work, while sacrificing higher paying jobs and sleep to make sure that they stay true to their mission.  Their love and commitment to their company is palpable.

I’m a fan of Mixed Blood theatre, and I hope that you are, too.  I enjoyed working there, and getting to become a “Radical Hospitalitarian”, as well as getting to engage with the Cedar Riverside community, and performing a show in English and Spanish.  I’m hoping more theatre companies follow their example.  

Who's Glutarded Now?

I worked as a server for years.  Working in the service industry will make even the happiest and well-adjusted person bitter. I’ve dealt with way too many high-maintenance people with unrealistic expectations of the dining experience.  And on the busy nights, there’s nothing that sucks more than special orders.  I don’t mind it in the case of food allergies, and certainly things like peanuts and shellfish usually were in the kitchens I worked in.  I never wanted a guest of mine to get sick.  But then along came gluten.

The gluten allergy.  It seemed like just another diet trend.  I’d watched the guests on Atkins come and go.  Now, it seemed that all the (I’m going to generalize/stereotype) soccer moms and skinny mean girls were jumping aboard the no gluten train.  After dealing with this “trend” for months, I coined the word “glutard.”  This was for the women who would come into my farm-to-table organic restaurant, as me if there was gluten in the salad dressing, gluten in the chicken marinade, and ask the croutons to be left off of their salad.  Then, they’d order a side of organic mac and cheese.  I’d slowly look up from my server pad, (pen and eyebrow raised) and say, “you know that has gluten.”   To which they’d giggle and say, “Oh, I only want a bite.”  Thus, the birth of the glutard- a person who was slow on the uptake when it came to gluten. 

I know.  Not a nice name.  But these ladies represented all that I hated.  Gluten wasn’t an actual allergy- these ladies were using it as a diet tool.  Then I met Sarah.

Sarah is a gorgeous human who I had the pleasure of doing a production with in Chicago in 2008.  She’s a coloratura soprano, she’s a great actress, and she has a wickedly dry sense of humor.  We bonded, as actors do, during the rehearsal process.  And one day she started telling me about her disability- celiac disease.  Again, as a server, my eyebrow raised as she told me about her issues with gluten.  And I remember thinking, “is this allergy really a disability?”  And, I realized, hell yeah, it is.  And I felt like a jerk.  Because celiac is not just an allergy- it’s an auto-immune disorder. When exposed to gluten, an abnormal immune response may lead to the production of several different autoantibodies that can affect various organs.  In the small bowel, this causes an inflammatory reaction and may produce shortening of the lining in the small intestine which affects the absorption of nutrients, frequently leading to anemia. If untreated, it may result in cancers such as intestinal lymphoma and an increased risk of early death. Yikes.

Sarah was ill for years before she was diagnosed.  She had chronic diarrhea, and a distended tummy.  She lost weight due to her body’s inability to absorb nutrients.  Often, she didn’t want to eat at all, because she always felt ill afterward.  She did office work and after licking stamps would be ill for days- who knew there was gluten in stamp glue?  Once she was diagnosed, it required a big lifestyle change.  She had to have separate pans for cooking and baking from her boyfriend, because traces of gluten left behind on cooking wares could make her sick.  And the one that broke my heart- she couldn’t kiss her boyfriend if he’d been out drinking beer, as the traces of gluten in his mouth could make her ill.  It was wild- and I had no idea. 

People who think that celiac (or any other medical condition that requires a restricted diet) isn’t a disability are nuts.  The ADA defines “and individual with a disability” as a person who has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activity, has a record of such impairment, or is regarded as having such an impairment.  Major life activities like, I don’t know- EATING like everybody else!  Sarah can’t grab a latte at Starbucks or grab a burger at McDonald’s like most people I know can.  Because celiac, like a peanut or shellfish allergy for example, severely impairs people’s ability to eat “normally” or what is considered in Sarah’s words, “a normal cultural manner.”  She likened it to people who can’t walk in “culturally recognized manner” or something similar- basically, like everyone else. 

Celiac became recognized by the ADA as a disability in 2013.  This is super important for many reasons- but two stuck out to me as Sarah and I continued to have conversations about this. First, it ensures coverage of people with “invisible disabilities”, such as epilepsy, diabetes, heart failure, schizophrenia, depression, and cancer.  I investigated further some of these “invisible disabilities.” As we chatted about briefly in class, people who climb out of their cars from the handicap spot and do not get directly into a wheelchair are often given the side eye.  But some people get the handicapped spots because of risk of over-exertion.  For example, at the grocery store, pushing a shopping carts increases their risk of seizure, which in turn could leave them seizing in a parking lot where they could be run over.  Often people in wheelchairs get a ride instead of using their designated space as they fear that navigating large parking lots in a low wheelchair might get you hit by a car.   Again, yikes- these are things I didn’t necessarily think about.  Second, while awareness has been raised in the past five years about celiac/gluten-free diets, the ADA DO can play a role in one’s professional life.  For example, Sarah’s day job is in fundraising.  A big part of fundraising/development is going out and schmoozing, having meals with donors, etc.  Her job, therefore, is required to ensure that she gets a gluten free meal at required work events.  And they are not allowed to fire her because her chicken and vegetables cost $2-5 more than their standard catering plate.  Without the ADA they would be able to fire/fine Sarah for the additional cost.  And prior to the ADA recognizing Sarah’s disability, she did have issues with employers fining/firing/or in general giving Sarah a hard time about her disability, which she had no control over.  She told me about bosses she had that were “playfully nasty” or passive aggressive, and would tease her about “minding her gluten in front of other people (often donors) when then impacts her ability to do her job.  She said, “think for a second, Drea, if someone went like, ‘Watch that cancer!’ or ‘mind your can-legs’ to someone with a physical disability or a disease.  Now ay would that be accepted.  But because my medical diet is also a middle-class white girl trend, people think it’s funny to joke about it.”  (See Jimmy Fallon below)

                     

“Well, guess what,” she continues, “that’s really a lawsuit waiting to happen.  So, ADA has some serious power to protect people like me, and I am so grateful for it!”  It was at this point I shamefully told her about the “glutards” I had waited on at my restaurant.  To my sincere relief, she giggled.  “Yup,” she agreed.  “As I said, those stupid bitches who use the gluten thing as a diet plan make it really hard on people like me. I think ‘glutard is a great name for them.

As far as those ladies who come into my restaurant, Sarah isn’t one of them.  She doesn’t want to be annoying or tasked with “performing’ her disability.  She is supremely resourceful, and before dining out, already has scoped the menu of the place and decided what she can eat.  She also usually calls ahead to verify if there are things she can safely consume.  She hates “making a big deal out of it” to the server who often is misinformed by their chef/managers about the menu.  She simply informs the staff that she has celiac.  And she doesn’t go to restaurants where they can’t accommodate her, because she doesn’t want to get sick.  This made me feel bad, as I worried that that left her out of socializing with people.  But she said she’d rather just not run the risk of having an unaccommodating chef, an uninformed server, or a kitchen with cross-contamination (or a combo of the three.)  She also said that while it’s difficult in Chicago (a city where most fraternizing revolves around food) that she’s found other great ways to connect with people socially- be it theatre, art classes, a jog/walk in the park, book clubs, etc.  She is also pleased as punch to talk about her disability with anyone who has question- as evidenced in my blog. 

Thinking about celiac and other food allegories led me to think about what food might be like in a “vision of the future.”  I think in the next 50-100 years, our food norms are going to shift. They already have significantly in the past hundred years.  We’ve witnessed the desire for fatter cows, bug-free fruit, and sugar alternatives.  As a result, we now have hormones and pesticides in our food, or we must pay more expensive prices for organic, hormone, free-range food.  We’ve seen margarine (more plastic than food) and high fructose corn syrup in everything (even baby-formula).  We’ve seen obesity become rampant in our children and poor- mainly because, again, healthy foods tend to be costlier.  What if, in the future, animals die out and everyone must become vegetarian or vegan?  What if we’re able to conquer all the food allergies, such as soy, dairy, wheat, nightshade? Perhaps advances will be made, but if not, the future may give us our daily sustenance in the form of pellets or pills.  In my mind, I see myself on a conveyor belt (a la the Jetsons) where I will be showered and clothed, and then a pill or pellet will drop out of a chute like I’m a hamster.  Maybe I’ll get three pills a day instead of meals, or maybe there are pill combinations taken throughout the day.  By then, will the pills have become allergen free for everyone?  No meat, shellfish, peanut, etc.?  I’d hate to think that I’d no longer get to sit and eat a tasty hot meal, but maybe in the future, when we’re all part cyborg, eating won’t be as important any longer.  Our “fuel” may come in part from alternative sources.

But, until the pellet food future is upon us, I ask everyone, particularly those who work in food service, to have the patience that I myself didn’t always have when dealing with a gluten allergy.  While there may be the “glutards” of the world who are a bit slow in their dieting trend, a gluten intolerance/celiac person doesn’t have the “grab-and-go” ability with food that most of us are so accustomed to.  To conclude, my mom was diagnosed with a gluten intolerance several years ago.  While initially sad that I could no longer make her a cake for her birthday, it’s become a fun and inspiring challenge to learn even more about where gluten is snuck into food.  And I happily check the menus at restaurants ahead of time so I can take her out for a nice meal without feeling like I’m pressuring a server.  But again, even if I must ask the server questions, it’s for the greater good, and I hope for empathy. Because everyone deserves the right to eat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsjgGOPanGI

http://deliciousliving.com/gluten-free/celiac-and-gluten-intolerance-now-classified-disability

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/02/12/what-will-food-be-like-in-the-future

Feminists, Gender, and Hir- Oh My!

This week, much like last week with race, made me wish that we had more time to discuss gender studies.  I see a class in my future, because I feel like we only begin to scratch the surface, and I personally would like to delve deeper into this realm.  However, if I had to sum up what’s been bubbling in my brain for the past few weeks, my takeaway would be the questioning or re-examination of the definitions I had recognized up until now.  While I know that feminism is an evolving concept, I think I was perhaps still looking at the wave of what Dolan coined, “cultural feminism.”  My mom and my aunt were cultural feminists, touting “Our Bodies, Our Selves,” and educating me about Gloria Steinem, Planned Parenthood, and the Women’s Lib movement.  What I suppose I didn’t recognize was that cultural feminism tended to be more exclusive to Caucasian women.   hooks makes an interesting point in demonstrating the label of feminism being construed as a negative.  This made me remember a brief conversation I had with my stepmother when I was in undergrad.  I was taking a women studies class and I, thinking I was offering a compliment to a wonderfully strong woman, called her a feminist.  She narrowed her eyes at me and said, “Míja- I’m not a feminist.”  Which threw me for a loop, admittedly.  But what I didn’t recognize (and what my dad pointed out to me late was much like the reading from bell hooks.  She, as a Chicana American woman felt that she would be “isolated” from our family/culture if she supported the feminist movement- even though she is an advocate for woman’s rights.  It was clear that her definition of feminism was different from mine, and my dad further pointed out that the term, “feminist” is usually associated with the word “lesbian” in our culture.  Ugh.  I aimed to re-educate them, but at 19, I didn’t have the proper knowledge to make a convincing argument, I suppose.   In having the privilege of hearing Jack Halberstam speak this week, I was introduced to yet another concept- trans-feminism.  This refers to a movement by and for trans persons who view their liberation to be intrinsically linked to the liberation of all women and beyond.  He also points out that gender variation is something that everyone should be thinking about.  There were many fabulous corollaries I left with, but my biggest one was that gender isn’t binary.  So there.  Deal with it. 

So, now that I’m reminded that gender as not simply male or female and race as not simply labels like Latinx or Asian, the idea of universality shifts.  In widening the lens of my own gaze as an artist, I must be attentive and remind others to do the same.  If you had asked me before I started grad school what an example of universal theatre was, I would have had a very different answer.  I probably would have thrown out a show like All My Sons or A Raisin in the Sun. But while the overall definition for universal might be “of, relating to, or characteristic of all or the whole”, it’s annotation can be characterized many different ways.  For example, universal can also generally mean applicable everywhere or in all cases.  Or, more specifically, affecting, concerning, or involving all or used/understood by all.  So, in answer to the question posed, no.  I can’t think of a piece of theatre or film that I could name as universal.  And as far as making a piece of theatre, I think it does require something deeper.  I’m just not sure exactly what that is.  Schulman’s point that American theatre is unable to serve its audience “until it decides to expand what is known about being alive, instead of endlessly repeating already established paradigms.”   Unfortunately, the excavation of the text coupled with taking the time to educate the theatre company, cast, and crew on the issues that may arise in staging a play that “un-straightens” the gender norms, is something that most companies are, frankly, too lazy to do.  There’s a lot of complacency, both at the university and professional level in which the gatekeepers use the “we’ve always done it this way” excuse.  If a company has an established subscriber base, they usually fight even more against change- because they want to “give the people what they want.”  But I would hypothesize that having a subscriber base gives you the opportunity to try and tweak the system.  Stacy Wolf brings up Berkowitz point of the difference of giving “an audience what it wanted,” or guiding “an audience, carefully and gradually into wanting what was offered.”  So, what if Hir is what’s being offered?

While I wouldn’t say that Hir is precisely a universal play, it definitely is close.  It has so many universal themes: the struggle for equality, the loss of innocence/disillusionment of adulthood, the conflict between parents and children, human being’s lack of humanity, a rebellious human being’s confrontation with society, in individual’s struggle toward understanding, awareness, and/or spiritual enlightenment.  We, of course, see these themes in a lot of great literature, as well as in the two plays I mentioned earlier.  Hir focuses so beautifully on this themes that having a transgender character is almost secondary to the narrative. But, the absurd realism style might be what doesn’t work for the people who have season tickets to the Musical Theatre series at the local performing arts center.  So, if we’re looking at the idea of universality being understood by all, the fact that there is a stylistic rather than realistic theatrical choice as well as a character who is trans (which unfortunately, as you know is looked on as sinful or unnatural to some), the play can’t be categorized as universal.  A smart media person could put the “universal themes” spin on it to get butts in the seats.  And hopefully, people would love the play as much as I and my cohort seemed to.  But, some of my 1025 students may not.  It’s tough.

Shakespeare is often hailed as having the most universal plays.  This is probably because he utilizes the most universal themes I mentioned, plus romantic love, love lost, revenge, etc.  We discussed briefly in class the idea of a female Hamlet- which has been done by some of the major festivals.  But was it done well?  Was the time taken to truly examine the discrepancies throughout the play by having a woman play Hamlet instead of a man?  How does this change the character dynamics throughout the play?  I would posit that it would change things drastically, but that it is doable.  But I think what tends to happen is that the company gains praise for being “daring” enough the cast a woman as the Dane, and that’s as far as it goes.  Rather than delving in to the changes that casting could bring and the conversations that could be started, the company uses it as a marking tool and pats themselves on the back for more inclusive casting.  Meanwhile, other female actors like myself are frustrated, while close-minded ticket holders question why Hamlet wasn’t a man “like when they did the show a few years ago.”  The adage of, “you can’t please all the people all the time, keeps coming to mind. 

http://www.westword.com/arts/colorado-shakespeare-festival-casts-a-woman-as-hamlet-9131544

To sum up from my over-flowing mind- themes can be universal, but I don’t know if a play can be definitively so.  In order to try and create a truly universal piece of theatre, we will have to vigilantly continue to have the conversation about race and gender.  This does mean taking the gloves off and speaking truth to power when it comes to season selection and staying true to mission.  We indeed must break the system, and rebuild the definitions to be ever-flexible and evolving.  To credit Schulman’s idea, we must “make this conversation mainstream instead of forbidden.” 

Some Info about Jack Halberstam

http://www.jackhalberstam.com/on-pronouns/

https://www.amazon.com/Trans-Variability-American-Critical-Histories/dp/0520292693/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1523315629&sr=8-1&keywords=jack+halberstam

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quvWUlus6ao

Coalitional Loopholes

I’m really glad you brought up the idea of coalitional casting, because that has been one of the ideas that I’ve been wrestling with a lot as we have moved (so quickly) through our discussion on race.  I have never heard this term before, and my initial instinct is that it is hogwash.   But, I am a fan of Dr. Ybarra, so I did some more research into clarifying her creation/definition of coalitional casting.  I read an address of hers, in reference to a play done at Brown:

“Although no one in the cast was Seminole, the majority of the actors were African American, Latinx, and Asian American. International actors and Anglo actors joined them onstage, telling this story while getting in touch with their own identities and the privileges that come with them. This type of casting is what I call coalitional casting because being onstage in these roles is not only an act of becoming a culturally different person, but an act of committing to the cause of telling a marginalized story; it is committing to doing the work it takes to get over one’s trepidation over telling someone else’s story. And it requires realizing that no single story is universal unless everyone’s story is.”

I see her ideology and what she’s trying to do.  And I think, that if handled correctly and ethically, that coalitional casting can make things better, or demonstrate to and inform students about theatre that they might not have otherwise been exposed to. Truly, I would rather see a high school do In The Heights than Oklahoma, if it meant teaching the student about Miranda’s or Hudes’ work or the idea of using hip/hop rap in a musical.  At the college level, it gets dicey-er.  If LSU decided to do In the Heights, I know that we only have a handful of Latinx in the department.  And three of us are Mexican, so while we’d be “appropriate” in the sense that we are Latinx, we’d be playing cultures that might not be as familiar to us.  So, while I’d love to introduce the musical to the LSU and Baton Rouge community, it begins to become problematic.  What would I suggest?  Being proactive!  Sending invitations to the Latinx community.  I’d reach out to the International Culture Center on Campus, to any groups/clubs for Latinx, to the Baton Rouge Arts Council.  If LSU decided to do this show, or if I was casting this show at another university, I would reach out to these groups first and find people who were interested in and able to advocate for or participate in this show.  I’m also a fan of the co-pro.  When doing Nilo Cruz’s Anna in the Tropics at the Goodman in Chicago, they co-produced with Teatro Bravo.   In Baton Rouge, if you were to partner with a group like the Hispanic Chamber of BR or the Hispanic Apostolate, you could double your resources and your audience base.  Yet, while I like to think that being proactive would help, I’m not sure.  Because at the same time, I feel like people are going to use the idea of coalitional casting for evil rather than good.  Mainly due to laziness.  For instance, your horrifying example of the production of Hall’s The Mountaintop in which they cast a white Dr. Martin Luther King Junior.  You can’t tell me that they couldn’t find an appropriate actor.  They should never have decided to do that play if they weren’t willing to do the (not very difficult task!) of finding a talented African American actor.

In a sense, as I look back over my career, I think I have been used as “ally” or stand-in in instances of coalitional casting, though I am a minority. I should note that personally, my career has been a struggle because I have been told, to my face (for real!), that I’m not white enough to play Caucasian, but I’m not brown enough to be Mexican. To which I’ve always offered back, “Can’t I just be an actor?  Can’t I just tell the story?”  With some, “fuck you” subtext.  I have played Cubans, Brazilians, Puerto Ricans, Spaniards, and Ecuadorians.  Which is weird, at the end of the day, I’m American, but my home town is on the border of Mexico.  I know a decent amount of Mexican history, but culturally my knowledge is limited to the Sonora/ Northwestern border region of the country.  I’ve frequented Nogales, San Luis and Tijuana because they are close.  But if I were to venture into southern Mexico, the dialect, food, and culture would be very different.  When I spent time in Cuernavaca, so much of my vocabulary (and Bordertown Spanish) were simply wrong.  The food was not the tacos and tamales and posole I grew up with.  So, if things are that different in the country where my family is actually from, how different/foreign to me are these other Pan-Latin American countries I’ve been cast to pretend I’m from? I used to not be able to understand or differentiate the dialects from any of these places. Now that I’m older and have studied dialect more, I have a better ear for it. But that doesn’t me that you can just plop me into any Latinx role and expect me to get it right. I’m just a representative of what that character might be. But my experience is different.  So, can I be an effective “ally”? Ybarra notes, “many students, particularly students who might be great allies (white and straight students who wish to support students of color and queer students) were paralyzed by the fear of “doing it wrong.” I never want my lack of experience to cause me to “get it wrong.”

I guess one could argue that experience might be different for roles for other reasons. I’ve played a drug addict, a lesbian, a mom- and I’m none of those things. But for me, when I’m portraying any character, I am tasked with the idea of getting it right, or as close to perfect as I can. If I’m playing a character from a Latinx, yet non-Mexican background I want to honor their culture, just as I would hope that an actor playing Chicana would honor mine.    

I feel like I could talk about this issue for pages and pages- which is why there are semester-long courses on race, I suppose.  So, I’ll attempt to wrap up with this story, which demonstrates to me the loophole a company can find under the guise of “coalitional casting.”  I know you wanted to stick to the university level, but I wanted to share an article from a production of IN THE HEIGHTS that happened at Phoenix Theatre.  Phoenix Theatre is one of the oldest regional theatres in the country and it is the oldest one in Arizona.  They chose to cast Pasha, one of the theatre’s associate artistic directors in the role of Usnavi.  My friends Ricky Araiza and Marcelino Quiñonez chime in on their thoughts.  I guess for me, I don’t understand why, if there was casting done in New York and Arizona (and with LA being in Phoenix’s backyard) why they didn’t take the time to conduct a more exhaustive search for this role. I know qualified Latinx actors in LA and Phoenix, and I am sure there are multitudes in NYC. So why cast Pasha? Don’t get me wrong- Pasha is an amazing talent. But part of me also wonders, knowing how miserly Phoenix Theatre can be when it comes to paying their actors, if Pasha was used because as an employee of the theatre, they don’t have to pay him for being in the show.  I know that as a salaried employee of the theatre, Pasha is required to act/direct in several of the season’s shows.  So, while there is the argument that Pasha could sing/play the role well, and that certainly Pasha understands the immigrant experience, I truly think it was about money.  And laziness in casting.  So, we see another example of “coalitional casting” gone wrong.

https://www.azcentral.com/story/entertainment/arts/2016/08/19/phoenix-theatre-in-the-heights-casting/88877340/

I could go down any number of the rabbit holes that you have referenced.  I think, for the time being, as artists we must aim for radical continuance of the conversation.  We may never get it right, but we definitely can do better.

 Pasha Yamotahari as Usnavi in Phoenix Theatre's IN THE HEIGHTS