Jeffrey Mosser: Dear artists, welcome to another episode of the From the Ground Up podcast, produced for HowlRound Theatre Commons, a free and open platform for theatremakers worldwide. I’m your host, Jeffrey Mosser, and this, our last episode of season four, is a little bit different than the rest, as it was recorded live as a part of the 2024 Theatre Communications Group Conference. It was a connection with some artists that I’ve long wanted to interview, and so I’m not going to delay any further. Let’s jump right in with the folks from Studio Luna. This episode was originally recorded on June 6th, 2024. Enjoy.
All right. Good evening, dear artists, and welcome to From the Ground Up. I’m your host, Jeffrey Mosser. And before we begin, I want to share a land acknowledgement and gratitude for this space and time together. These episodes are shared digitally to the internet. Let’s take a moment to consider the legacy of colonization embedded within the technology, structure, and ways of thinking that we use every day. We are using equipment and high-speed internet not available in many indigenous communities. Even the technologies that are central to much of the work that we make leaves a significant carbon footprint contributing to climate change that disproportionately affects indigenous people worldwide. I invite you to join me in acknowledging the truth and violence perpetrated in the name of this country, as well as our shared responsibility to make good of this time and for each of us to consider our roles and reconciliation, decolonization, and allyship. I am recording this evening from the ancestral homeland of the Potawatomi, Ho-Chunk, and Menominee, now known as Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and I’m joined by the HowlRound and Studio Luna team, Alex and Maya.
Alexandra Meda: Yeah, thank you for that acknowledgement. Want to just add to it, Maya and I are located here in contemporarily known as Boyle Heights, land of the Chumash and the Tongva, and we really believe that this practice of land acknowledgement has to go beyond just naming the history and the reason for it and really make it a call and invitation to be in right relation today. And so that’s something that we really are deeply committed to in this neighborhood, specifically thinking about the indigenous folk who have stewarded this land for so long, but who are still here doing that, and in many ways, doing it better than us. And what is the learning and what is the offering that we can make. So just thank you for the opportunity to name that.
Jeffrey: Yeah, and thank you for expanding that so much and so well. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And also, thank you all who have chosen to be here on this evening for this live recording of From the Ground Up. Our last one was in 2019 at the Theatre Communications Group Conference in Miami, Florida, and now we’re doing our second one, again in conjunction with TCG. Though we’re recording this on June 6th, 2024, this episode will be shared via the TCG Shorts virtual content platform ahead of the conference beginning on the twentieth. This will also be a part of the upcoming season four of From the Ground Up this fall. So a big thank you to TCG for reaching out to me for this lovely opportunity.
However, the pleasure is actually all mine because I get to chat with some folks that have been on my ensemble theatre wish list for a really long time, Studio Luna, formerly of Chicago, and now based on the west coast, and I’m sure we’ll get into that. I have my list of questions here in front of me, but I’d love to collaborate with you, our Zoom audience this evening. And so I’ll keep an eye on the chat so that we can get to your questions. If not during the conversation, reserve time at the end for us to open up and maybe open up some of those questions along with you. Does that sound good, y’all? Everybody in agreement? Thumbs up on that?
Alexandra: Yep.
Jeffrey: Lovely. All right, y’all. Join me in formally welcoming our guests tonight, Alex Meda and Maya Malan-Gonzalez. Thank you both for being here. I’m so glad to finally cross this digital divide and chat with you. I’m wondering if we can start off by learning a little bit more about each of you and your engagement with this company. And ultimately, what I’m hoping for is a little bit more context about yourselves, your role in Studio Luna, and how you found your way into this ensemble.
Alexandra: Yeah. Let’s do it out of order.
Maya Malan-Gonzalez: Oh, I love it. I’ll go first. Hi everyone. This is the voice of Maya Malan-Gonzalez. I have been with Studio Luna for twelve years. It’s a nice round number.
Alexandra: It is.
Maya: Twelve is a great number. Yeah, I love my origin story to Studio Luna. I met them as Teatro Luna at a TCG event, at a TCG conference—
Alexandra: That’s right.
Maya: … here in LA. And it was at the end of the conference, a group of—
Alexandra: 2011?
Maya: 2011. 2011. Yeah. Oh my gosh.
Alexandra: Wait, so is that more years than twelve?
Maya: I think so. Anyway—
Alexandra: It doesn’t matter.
Maya: We don’t do math. So yeah, so it was a TCG conference. I’ve had the fortune, through TCG actually, to meet a lot of really incredible artists. At the end of the conference in LA, there was a Latine theatres meeting in a secret little chamber in the LATC. I like to call it a secret chamber.
Alexandra: Yeah, it used to be the bank vault.
Maya: Yeah, the vault.
Alexandra: It is.
Maya: The vault. And I approached actually Alex Mena here, because at the time, I knew I was going to go back to school, and I was going to go to school in Chicago, which is where Teatro Luna was founded and was currently living. And so I told her, “I’m going to come to Chicago next year.” She’s like, “Great, look me up when you get there.” And so I did, right? I got to Chicago, and Facebook was my mode of professional actor, and I Facebooked them and said, “I’d love to meet you.” She said, “Come on down to our theatre.” I visited them by the end of the year.
Alexandra: And it was a desmadre. We were painting and moving.
Maya: There was a lot… There were carpets moving.
Alexandra: It was crazy.
Maya: As a young actor, I thought, am I here at the worst time? Is this not how you make an impression, come when everyone’s busy and working and you’re just like, “Can I talk about your company?” But fortunately, for whatever reason, I left an impression, maybe because they were like this crazy girl sat through this whole moving process. By the end of the year, Alex reached out to me to join an international tour, the first self-produced—
Alexandra: The first self-produced.
Maya: … international tour that we were doing with a show called, well, two shows, but primarily we were devising together a show called Luna Unlaced, which was made up of all of these moments and pieces, songs, monologues from Teatro Luna’s history up to that point in two-thousand-then-twelve.
Alexandra: Yeah.
Maya: Right? And so it was really fortunate. My first experience with Teatro Luna was first we traveled nationally across the country performing, and then we went to Scotland and performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and then did some more tours up through Scotland. No, I just said Scotland.
Alexandra: Ireland.
Maya: Over to Ireland. Here I am-
Alexandra: That was it.
Maya: … long numbers later.
Alexandra: That’s right. In fact, we kicked off that tour in Texas at the next TCG conference.
Maya: Oh, that’s right.
Alexandra: So that’s a thread here. Yeah.
Jeffrey: Oh my gosh, we’re on theme, y’all. This is great. This is great. Alex, how about yourself?
Alexandra: Oh man, mine was a little tumultuous, but beautiful. I think these things can be really beautiful, hard journeys. So I was interning at About Face Theatre, and at the time a really talented artist, Paula, was there, Paula, and she was like, “Bro, my friend works with somebody at Teatro Luna. Have you ever heard of them?” And I was like, “No, but it sounds like I need to know.” And she’s like, “Get in touch with them. They’re awesome,” assuming it was because I was Latinx and it was a Latinx company. So it took me eight months to get in touch with somebody. I would email literally… And I laugh now because then, I was like, who are these unorganized people not responding to an email? Hello, welcome to my hell box of an email. So it took me about eight months. And then finally, I met, I think it was Coya [Paz] first at a coffee shop, and she was giving me the once over, like, is she right for us? Let’s see.
And I was like, “Listen, I’m just, I’m down to do whatever. What can I do?” And through there, it took about a year and really just kind of got into it. And then they kept me. Something worked. I went from intern to touring manager, and then from touring manager to something else, and then from something else to managing director. And then we had a huge leadership transition that really probably took eight years. And over the course of that time, I just wasn’t willing to leave. I was like, I got to stay here. So that was my journey. It was like real trial by fire. Yeah.
Jeffrey: Yeah. And just so to be clear, what are your titles now?
Alexandra: So I’ll just say we have public facing titles, but we actually… We just don’t even… They’re because people want to know and understand, and I get it. I’ve had a million. Currently, it’s co-artistic director for me. And then for you, creative producer, right?
Maya: Creative producer. We’re both ensemble members. We’re both the occasional janitor.
Jeffrey: Right. Yeah, absolutely. Yes. That goes with ensembles, right? So that’s fantastic. That’s awesome to hear your journey. Thank you for that. What a resoundingly interesting path that we all walk, right? And so funny, I was just going to mention that I remember running into Coya at a Network of Ensemble Theaters conference in 2014 or 2015 in Chicago, and that’s when she was like, “Oh, what is this?” And my heart swelled with her passion, as you are one to do when you listen to Coya Paz talk about—
Maya: That’s right.
Jeffrey: … her excitement and her interest in things, and you’re like, “yes, this is what it is.” And so yeah, back when it was Teatro Luna, was still in that realm. So Studio Luna now has taken many shapes over that history and over those twelve years plus, in the twenty years of history that it’s had. And here we are. You’ve not only moved from the center of the country in Chicago to the west coast. Can you talk us through some of the more seminal moments that have gotten you from Chicago to where you are now?
Alexandra: We’re going to keep it brief because it is a spiral of a journey.
Maya: Twenty-five years can take a long time—
Alexandra: Yeah.
Maya: … if we’re going through—
Jeffrey: Yeah, twenty-five.
Maya: … the whole potato.
Alexandra: But… You want me to start?
Maya: Yeah.
Alexandra: Yeah. Okay. So if I had to really pinpoint what was the real sprinkle seed that started, I’d have to say as we were touring in the 2008s to 2012, which is really… 2008, and I named that, and I want to name it specifically, Coya directed and developed a piece called Machos, and it was kind of what put us on the map in both an artistic way and on the funder radar. It was the first project that was super actually funded by foundations, different programs, and we toured more broadly than we had historically at the organization. And through the course of touring, not only was it really the predominant way that our artists could get paid, but we were allowed to meet so many other Latinas and women of color on the road, in schools, as professors, who had nothing like it in where they were located.
That’s not to say there haven’t been Latina, Latinx ensembles in the past, but they’ve tended to be on the coasts or in major urban centers, and we were touring to some pretty not urban centers. And so that really was, started the seed of like, okay, if touring is a way that our artists can actually get paid, and if there’s this need, how do we start testing the theory of ensemble as needing to be at a central site in a specific place? And that idea expanded in 2012. So we didn’t do anything with it, right? It was noodling here. And then in 2012, we had the really deep pleasure of deepening our relationship with my mentor and really good friend, Diane Rodriguez, who passed away in 2020. And we did a world premiere production of hers in Chicago. And through the course of that process, which took a couple of years, Diane just has this way of expanding your mind and expanding your imagination.
And it was in that year that I was like, “Okay, Diane, I think we’re ready to take the next big leap. Do you think I’m crazy? We think Teatro Luna needs to be in three different cities and have ensembles that are based in those cities, but that are also sites that people who are becoming transient, coming into major urban centers from somewhere else can land, and then move on in their career. In Chicago, and this is a good and bad thing, mostly bad thing if you think about it, but the way people come into Chicago, get their feet wet, and then leave is something that is challenging. But what would happen if we could turn that almost process of gentrification into something that is deeper in a community context, and keep people rooted while they go off as well? But how do you not just come in and leave a place and take something, and leave something instead?
So that really got us, okay, we’re going to do this. And Diane, you’re really going to support us. I think LA… We did a lot of touring. We were like, is it Boston? Is it all these places? We talked to the HowlRound folk. By that time, the Latinx Theater Commons was just getting ready to launch, so we were just pulling a bunch of stuff together. We had done that big tour that Maya talked about, met a bunch of ensembles and companies in LA, and we’re like, you know what? The masculine LA Latinx Theatre is strong. We got to bring some of this energy up in here. And at the same time, from that super secret meeting Maya is talking about, where the Encuentro was really just first Encuentro of 2014 was starting, we were like, okay, we’re going to have this invitation to go to the Encuentro. This is going to be the launch of the Teatro Luna West.
And we’re going to work on a five-year experiment. We’re going to be in Chicago and LA. And we’re under resourced and under staffed, so we know it’s going to fail, but we’re going to do it anyway.
Maya: Going to try. Why not?
Alexandra: We’re going to try. Exactly. And ended up being a platform for many of you to also just make that move to LA. I don’t know if you want to add anything to that, but—
Maya: Yeah, no. I think what Alex is saying, so 2014, we came out here, not me personally, but the Luna. It was really great because when I graduated from DePaul in Chicago in 2016, and I knew immediately that there was already a place in LA that I could jump to and I could find my roots in. And so I came and joined what was already culminating from these years. And then by 2018… Was it… It wasn’t a TCG conference that you—
Alexandra: No, it was Latinx Theatre Conference. Yeah. Yeah.
Maya: But at another beautiful gathering, Alex crossed paths with Josefina Lopez of Casa 0101, and she invited us to come look at their smaller space, Casita.
Alexandra: She’s like, “Do you want a theatre?” And I was like, “No, I’ve done that, been there. We’re actually intentionally on a spaceless journey being in residence and other places.” But there was that tingle again, that same tingle that gave me, we got to go out to LA. Came back to the ensemble, and I was like, “I think we need a space, even though there’s no way we can do it.”
Maya: Well, and I think so much of what we do as a company is based on what the ensemble is feeling and how the ensemble’s acting. And so when the conversation came up, we all went, “Well, it would be nice to have a studio that sounds like that.” And Alex and I came to Boyle Heights, toured the space. And we are just people full of dreams, and so we started seeing so much that we could do in this space and—
Alexandra: Yeah. So exactly five years after leaving our space in Chicago and saying we were holding these two down… And we had come back and were able to come to a festival and present work and do work in Chicago, but basically once we decided to move in 2018 to old casa space, we knew we were officially had to shut down Chicago in the formal way. And it was really sad. We knew it was coming. We’re like, but we’ll be back. We’ll figure out how to be back, but let’s give the focus and the attention to the new people here that are part of Teatro Luna West and figure this out. So that’s the trajectory that got us here.
Jeffrey: Holy cats. I think I noticed on your website a big change was in 2015, but it’s great to get all of the context around that. Thank you for that.
Alexandra: Yeah. It’s deeply related. So 2014, we came out here for Encuentro. Then we were asked to be in a residency. 2015 changed everything for us. We started going to all these major festivals, and again, really passionate about being itinerant and being in residency in other places. And then these things, they change, they flip.
Jeffrey: Yeah, I have so many roads I want to go down with you. I’m going to stay on track here for a hot second and maybe we’ll come back to it.
Alexandra: Sure.
Jeffrey: Through all these iterations and through all your artistic offerings, I’m wondering, how has what you offer as artists, your creative process, artists, your programming, how have those things changed over this period? And how have they adapted? How have they adapted to be you being itinerant briefly more recently? I noticed that you’ve got an Audible Original content. You’ve got lots of audio, lots of great, amazing… Well, I’ll let you all talk about it, but your website is rich with so many things. I’ve digested as much as I possibly could before this. And so yeah, can you talk to me a little bit about how your offerings and your artistic process maybe changed as you found your roots in LA?
Alexandra: For sure. I want to say one thing, and then I want you to talk about—
Maya: Okay.
Alexandra: Yeah?
Maya: Yeah, go for it.
[pull quote]
Alexandra: Okay. So I think a framework that I really just want to introduce, and it really started in that 2012, 2013, is when we were able to give words to a feeling, which was, and part of this comes out of our epic leadership transition, but it was like, you know what? This can no longer be the site of performing perfection and trying to prove how successful a BIPOC theatre can be. We’re done with that, and what we’re moving towards is actually a site where failure is essential. And I think naming that and unlocking that for ourselves started the journey towards moving away from identifying solely as a theatre company, right? Part of that is the pain, the real pain that comes from being in the theatre field, and in an under resourced, underfunded, under visible way. And the other part was like we gotta soar and expand because we were meeting people and artists that had really amazing skill sets, methodologies, and practices, and they were taking us somewhere and we had to follow it. So—
What we’re moving towards is actually a site where failure is essential. And I think naming that and unlocking that for ourselves started the journey towards moving away from identifying solely as a theatre company.
Maya: Yeah, I think as our ensemble really grew and fast. Especially in LA, I think we really started shifting our work. And you mentioned Audible. A big shift for us was going into audiobooks, expanding in that sense, but also 2020 impacted us incredibly. I think we were talking about our seminal moments and we didn’t even get to—
Alexandra: I know.
Maya: … where we are now, right?
Alexandra: I know.
Maya: Which is 2020 had a huge shift on everyone. Fortunately, we were in a position though, where we had already been working for years, because of the satellite in Chicago,—
Alexandra: Virtually.
Maya: … virtually. And so by 2021, we were really looking at where we were landing, where we were still phoenix rising out of this pandemic together, and it felt so right to make the shift from Teatro Luna West to Studio Luna, to the work that we’re doing that we built on from the work that we were doing, as Alex was saying, as a more theatre focused to now a group of artists, a group, a collective of makers, makers doing, really focusing on storytelling events, really focusing on Audible. We have three Audible, actually.
Alexandra: Two Audible.
Maya: Two Audible. That’s true.
Alexandra: But three audiobooks.
Maya: Three audiobooks.
Alexandra: Two Audible.
Maya: Two audio. I can’t speak.
Alexandra: It’s all good.
Jeffrey: One thing that I’d love to know a little bit more about too is you’ve also created this content of visioning and sort of leadership, and expanding the ideas of how do you collaborate with other people. What have you seen in that regard in terms of programming? How does that allow you to employ your artistic skills?
Alexandra: Really good question. Going back to 2015 is when we met our ensemble member Ysaye McKeever. And I’m going to go back to aesthetics, and then it’ll circle back to what you just asked, I promise. So Ysaye is a choreographer and just movement, amazing human. Historically, Luna was making work that put the word first, that put writing first, really prompt based stuff, which is beautiful and power, It was powerful. It was very skit and vignette based, what you think about, I think when you think about a more traditional model of devised kind of scenes and moments.
And we were already shifting and changing, but really landing someone like Ysaye is what brought us to understand that yes, stories have the power to heal, but that’s what’s happening for the audience. What’s happening for the artists themselves? And that really started our journey. And as we started to build our own practice of devising that was different than historical Luna, we started understanding, oh my God, this is transforming these humans making the art. It is making them better spouses, friends, people. We’re understanding the power of art to heal in a whole different way. And it starts with the body, starts with reconnecting. I think specifically, I’ll just name Latinas, have one of the highest self-harm rates, specifically at age fourteen. And us as these women were coming together and realizing, wow, we’re trying to change the world and heal other people, and we are unhealed ourselves.
And so the movement, the choreography that brought us to a new place of making and a whole new way of devising, which then led us to understand, oh wait, we have a skillset. And I don’t mean to sound capitalist when I say it, but when I think about how do I keep this place going, it’s so that people can get paid, which we’ve had a long history of not being able to do at different moments in our history. And so it was like, how do we produce and create product that goes beyond a live moment that can’t last? And that’s really where the storytelling meets writing, prompts meets healing, became something that we could actually provide people through electronic PDFs, through workbooks. We have a Words, Paper, Warmth: 30 Month Promptbook, and we just have a lot.
And that combined with the storytelling, and the bringing in of people who weren’t trained artists to learn a methodology in a practice that’s based in healing but is also this really sophisticated artistic methodology kind of is how we then understood ourselves to be able to be partnering with anybody at any point because that’s the entry point rather than a performance.
Maya: And it’s this really great full circle moment, from going from these storytellings, going from prompt based writing, which is always how Luna has created its work, going into the body, and then creating, like Alex said, now this full circle prompt book that also actually connects back to the body. Some of the prompts are physically based, are more getting outside versus just focused on the writing experiment.
Alexandra: Exactly.
Maya: Experiential, I’d say.
Alexandra: And I think just to get to the leadership bit, once we we’re like, okay, we’re really deep diving on this healing work, so much of what we were experiencing, whether it’s people who came through Luna for a short period of time, or long period of time, or who just we met, they did not believe they could be leaders, right? They were so used to being in a position of following, or being a part of, or observing, or interning. And that’s when we really understood like, oh, we have an opportunity to give people leadership tools through this practice.
Jeffrey: That is so delightfully satisfying to hear you say it aloud. Two things I want to clock, and you can tell me if I’m way off base here, is that based on the programming that you now offer, that it has offered more sustainability for the people that you are employing and paying and making the art? Is that true?
Alexandra: It’s tough to answer, because in moments, that is very true. Post-pandemic, because we started just giving everything for free, there was a moment that that was no longer the reality, right? Yeah, being honest. And because we’re no longer touring, and probably it’ll be another year till we pick up touring, we’re actually in a moment where we’re completely self-funded. So there is stability for the people that we pay to do projects, but we’re no longer… And we’ll come back, we’ll get back there, but we have to build back up to being able to pay our ensemble members just to be here, right? That’s– so it’s shifted. But now that we’ve figured it out, we have some new systems, it’s all taken a long time, and none of us have the same capacity we did pre-pandemic to be here full time, so we’re getting back to that place that you’re talking about. And a lot of these products, I don’t want to call them products, but tools that we’re publishing and selling, we’re going to start to charge more for them, and that’s going to shift, right?
Maya: But we’re also really fortunate… Oh, sorry.
Jeffrey: No, go ahead.
Maya: We’re also, we’re a part of a lot of organizations like the National New Play Network that have helped us have certain opportunities through—
Alexandra: Right. So we recently had a producer in residence, so there are these other ways. But in terms of our earned, we have not gotten even a fraction of the place back of where we were right before… We were kicking off right before the pandemic. We had a NEFA [New England Foundation for the Arts], we had an Audible original. Things felt like so close to where we were trying to build towards for ten years, and then you know how it goes. But now we’ve rebuilt the system, so we’re ready. We’re ready. The next few years are going to be really exciting for us.
Jeffrey: One thing I want to clock is that I just want to say mad respect to talking about the physical body and art and healing and all the ideas that wrap around just the physical being and the physical space in general. So I want to say thank you for that. To me, that lifts my heart up into the sky, so I appreciate you saying that very much. Thank you for that. Just a hair longer on this idea of, and on this business side of things, but I’m wondering… I’m sure there might be another theatre ensemble listening, I hope there is another theatre ensemble listening who might be saying, “Oh my gosh, they’re offering all of these tools, these tools that actors have, that ensemble members have, that artists have.” What would you say to someone who might be saying, “How can we provide something for our community, for our people as a product for us to create for our ensemble?” What would you say to them?
Alexandra: It’s actually really easy to answer. Maybe three things. I love the numbers three, so maybe I won’t get to three, but I’m going to try. The first thing I’m going to say is identify the thing that you needed that you never got, number one. If you can find that specific niche of thing you needed but never got, you’re now in a position to give it, and the world will come out of your mouth when you start, right? The second thing is start looking at the skill sets you already have and realize how transferable they are to other things. So I’m looking at somebody who’s here in the room, and I was just talking about what they do with their ensemble, and theirs is really about site specificness and about… Well, I’m going to do a bad, so let me not even say it, but think about what is the unique expertise that you have?
So for us, I started really looking at, oh, we’ve had this history of conflict and intergenerational trauma from individuals that rises and gets inside of how we’re moving as an ensemble. Well, if we can actually unpack that and unlearn that and undo that, and own it and take accountability, now I can package it in different ways. And recognizing that building something from nothing, oh, that’s a tool that I can actually apply to starting a strategic planning process for a corporation because I know how to build something from nothing. And then realizing, how does that translate? So I think it’s really about the language that you speak, how… If you were to apply different vocabulary to it, what would it look like in the marketplace? And that might take you far. So I only got through, those two things
Jeffrey: I wasn’t counting, but I appreciate you that you were. Thank you for that. Also, I’m going to get that tattooed, identify the thing you never got. I am going to tattoo that on myself. That hit me hard, y’all. Thank you for that. Thank you. I want to lean back into the creative process for you and ask you a little bit more about your ensemble work. So when you are an ensemble in the room altogether, making, creating, doing what you do, I’m wondering how it is present in your present work and in your creative practices right now.
Maya: A, it always takes time. It takes time, and we love the time. We love the time together. Everything you see, everything that we do has multiple hands on it. It has multiple visions. We all have this shared language that we’ve developed over many, many years working together that really allows us to build together to the most simplest thing, whether it’s creating these moments for a piece or a story, or if it’s just an Instagram post that you’re seeing, right? There’s been multiple hands and thoughts and opinions that have gone into that work.
Alexandra: Yeah. Yeah. I think the other thing I want to add there is the practice and the methodologies are always changing as new people come in. So a big core function, and I think a value that we offer to people who are in the ensemble, specifically as people of color, people from the margins. We have a cultural history and artistic cultural practices and lineages that are so old and maybe were never even passed down, but is in our DNA. How do we, A, first bring that into the work? And how do we recognize it and share it with each other? So we’re constantly training each other and taking trainings. One of the trainings that just really kicked off what I think elevated our artistic work was when we brought in some folks to come in and train us in Moment Work.
So many of our ensemble had never even experienced Moment Work before, and it gave us a vocabulary to something we were kind of doing, but it gave us a spine. Spine. Anyway, so that was really fundamental. And then Ysaye came in and really started training us. She was doing the Dunham technique training. And so that’s really where the body started to happen. And then with you and other people coming into the ensemble and teaching us so much, the sphere and stuff from Teatro Campesino and just learning these different histories and methodologies. So when we talk about our library of methodology, it’s like twelve that have informed our practice, and the basis of our practice is actually sprints and intensives. So we come in and we say one or two week intensives. We all got to come in and we start with just the training and the sharing before we even start building a piece. So we’re all starting in that from that place. Yeah.
Jeffrey: Yeah. Audience, we’re about to open up for some audience questions in just a moment, so get those ready. You can type those into chat if you’d like. I’m going to ask a couple more quick questions to y’all, and then we’ll jump into those audience questions. But first, I want to… Just sort of putting a cap on this, I know you said COVID was a huge hurdle and it caused a lot of disruption. I’m wondering if there’s a present hurdle that you wish you could take out of the way right now to make sure that you had whatever it is you’re trying to get to. What’s the hurdle that’s in your way right now?
Alexandra: It’s a really great question. I’m not one to be paused, but I’m paused by it. What do you think?
Maya: Money, money, money.
Alexandra: Yeah, but money’s boring. Money’s always a problem.
Jeffrey: Right.
Maya: In this world, that’s always a thing. I think we’re quite short staffed. And that, since the pandemic, has affected us in that it takes a little bit longer. It takes longer for us to get things out. And through that process, we really also… We’ve gone through a whole re-envisioning, we’ve gone through a whole re-looking at our values. And in this process, we are bringing in new audience, and we are finding new community, and we’re transforming. The ensemble that we were in 2019, we’ve transformed, and we’ve really been in this chrysalis process that we’re still… It’s so funny, at the top of this interview, or before it even began, I was talking with Alex and naming all of these things like, oh, we’ve done three Audible, we got the podcast, blah, blah, blah. And I think so often, we are go, go, go, and there’s this challenge of, are we always sharing out all of the things we’re creating? Yeah.
Alexandra: I would say that. That’s the challenge, is there’s… And it’s two things related to that. I am still in a process of shedding a really hard history of change at this organization, and I’m still in the process of shedding a lot of learnings and just entering new ways of being. And part of that has actually really taken me away from the company. I’ve been doing a lot more facilitation work and change work, and we’re not in a place to… No, I’ll say it this way, and we’re just in a very intentional slowdown because I think so many moments of our history that I’m not the proudest of came from this urgency in the sense that it has to be perfect when it released. It has to do all this stuff rather than tend to and care for the people in the company and what they needed. And the reality is, I know the pandemic’s over for so many people, at least four of our core ensemble members are still deeply impacted by that, by the family members they lost, by having to take new jobs.
So I think part of it is the thing… I want to release this race with time we have. That’s if I could get rid of that, that urgency and that stress, and be able to be quiet and not have to be public for people to know you’re still around, that would be a dream.
Jeffrey: Thank you. Thank you for that, and thank you for the honesty around that. It is such a evolving process. And our sustainability as ourselves as artists is so paramount, and so I appreciate you bringing that to light. So thank you very much for that. I want to change gears just slightly and throw you a question, Alex, about your involvement with the Network of Ensemble Theaters. So NETneXt, which is a movement right now, it’s in the middle of an eighteen month re-envisioning process. You’re on the NET Bridge Ensemble. I’m wondering how have things been moving forward throughout that process?
Alexandra: Yeah, so I want to name that I actually came to that ensemble a little late. It was originally conceived about a year before, maybe more than I arrived. And Nina Malik and Patricia Garza were the team of facilitators that first launched that first phase of ensemble, which was I think about eight people. I won’t name them all, but they’re incredible people. Please go look at the website. These humans have changed my life. And then I got to come in about a year later, fly in and just be like, “Oh, here’s a formed ensemble.” This is my biggest fear in life ever, is to join a preformed ensemble, right? Because there’s a vocabulary and there’s a culture, and there’s… Right? And I’m like, am I not the vibe? Am I not the vibe? What’s going to happen?
So that was my launch into it, but it’s been a really transformational experience for me in the sense that I have had to revisit all of the sites of change and hardship that led from being an organization… Luna that is involved three times, gotten to witness real crisis, real change firsthand, and it equipped me to come into this process. So the NETneXt process, it’s almost completed. In fact, we’ve been dripping some news over the last few weeks about some big changes and shifts and getting ready. So there’s not too much I can spill about where NETneXt is other than that, it is really starting to push the boundaries of what is organizational change, what is a move of structures at every level of an organization that is deeply informed by ensemble practice.
And it’s been a pleasure to get to learn, what is it to institutionalize? What are the beautiful things about institutionalization that might bring stability, that might bring funding, that might bring structures that make people feel safe? And what is it to start to take that apart piece by piece through a direction of trying to decolonize, a direction of trying to horizontalize, and a direction of trying to build shared leadership? I give credit to all of the different partnerships that Studio Luna has offered me, whether it’s the Latinx Theatre Commons, whether it’s all of these other amazing change projects that have allowed me to be a person who wants to lean into that change. So it’s really special. It’s been really hard, and we’re in a moment where you’re seeing people shut down and close down. And we are all familiar with Annalisa Diaz’s amazing article about composting and the cycle and the circles, right? And I think NET is about to share and transparently walk us through what is it to go through a cycle of that decomposition and reemerge. So that, what a gift to get to have been a part of.
Jeffrey: Thank you for that. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Y’all, now is the audience involvement portion of the game, or the evening, rather. I have neglected the chat this entire time. I’ve been so engaged with you all. I’m so sorry if you’ve dropped a question in. I have not been jumping in. But audience, if you have questions at this point in time, we would love to have those questions from you now. Severin Blake says… Your first question, I’m going to…, I’m going to hold until the end because it’s a part of my lightning round, but I’m going to ask your second question, so what values are part of the Luna chrysalis that you were embodying today?
Alexandra: Thank you for that question. We’ll let you take this.
Maya: Oh my gosh. Well, directly behind us. No, but we actually, we have so many beautiful values.
Alexandra: Ten.
Maya: We have ten. Excuse me. I was going to say, if you really want the deep lowdown on all 10 of, please check out our website at holastudioluna. But even within our space—
Alexandra: Hey, plug.
Maya: Even within our space, if you ever get the chance to come to Boyle Heights and visit our studio, you’ll find that we actually have all of our ten values as little easter eggs around the space behind us. We do have our value: deep collaboration. These values in the studio were also painted by Joaquin Valdez, a member of El Teatro Campesino, another wonderful ensemble. But we have… I think Alex mentioned earlier, our commitment to being transparent through failure. We’ve got failure over on our little bar….
Alexandra: Grace.
Maya: I was going to go—
Alexandra: Oh, go for it. Go for it.
Maya: Next to our bar is our kitchen where one of my favorite values is resilience. You got to stay fed. In any work we do, snacks is always important. Grace—
Alexandra: I don’t trust people who don’t feed other people. I don’t trust. I don’t trust you.
Maya: We’ve learned through our time, practicing grace is so, so important. Creative genius is the core of everything we do. And then I can’t even… How many have they said so far? Five? I think. So yeah, I forgot the question. I got so excited talking about our easter eggs.
Jeffrey: Oh, those are all beautiful values that you’ve shared. Thank you. And yes, your website does have them, and you can dig into them. They’re so wonderful. Patricia Garza must have heard us talking about her because she’s in the chat as well. She says, “You mentioned designing through sprints or creative sprints. Can you perhaps give an example of something that was birthed from one of those?”
Alexandra: Okay, question, come through. Yeah. I would say that the one that just sticks in my heart the most is a piece called The Times. And The Times, we workshopped. We did a public workshop here, well, in the space next door in 2018, 2019.
Maya: 2018, it was the first piece that we created in Boyle Heights here.
Alexandra: And that whole piece launched from… I don’t know if y’all remember back to the… Oh my God, what’s that asshole’s name? We won’t give—
Maya: The previous president.
Alexandra: No. No. It was about—
Maya: Oh, Brock Turner.
Alexandra: Yeah. So there was this moment, a rape case was really front news. We were all talking about it, and a singular prompt at a casual conversation launched an entire show. And it was a two week sprint where we just were making up prompts, making up moves, and it was really intentionally just to be for us. We were like, this is a processing space. And then we’re like, no, this processing space actually has to leave. And I always say we’re just a few years ahead of our time. The whole piece was really about grief and pain and loss and mental health in ways that were not part of the conversation until 2020 through a racialized lens. And so that sticks with me because, because of the pandemic, we never got the world premiere and still haven’t gotten to it. But the power of a two week time of just spending time together created some the thing I think I’m most proud of in my entire career. Yeah. So thanks for that question.
Jeffrey: That’s beautiful. That’s great. Thank you. Thank you. Folks, I want to ask you. You talked about something you’ve been excited about. I’m wondering if there’s something on the horizon that you all are excited about in the coming future.
Maya: So along with the work we’ve been doing with these audiobooks, we’ve got podcasts that’s connected to our storytelling event. Can I say the name on here? Okay. The shorthand is TWF Live Storytelling Sessions, which we’ve began a podcast off of. So getting into some podcast work. We’re in the right space right now, I think.
Alexandra: That’s right.
Maya: And then also some documentary work. Like we mentioned at the very top, we’ve been here for five years, Luna, so we’re really looking forward to bringing that forward. Looking forward to bringing that forward.
Alexandra: But it’ll be our first documentary project and—
Maya: That we’re doing simultaneously with another documentary project that we’re currently calling the Legacy Project. You want to take that one?
Alexandra: So first of all, Maya’s just obsessed with old people. I’ll just start there.
Maya: My first job was in a senior citizen community, and it’s still one of my favorites.
Alexandra: But really what this project is about, I’ll tell you about the project and then why I’m excited about it. So we’re going to be interviewing the… What do I call them? What generation?
Maya: The founding generation.
Alexandra: The founding generation of Latinx theatre in really beautiful videos around the country. And it doesn’t stop there. Then we’re going to be doing the same with the three generations that have followed, and then we’re going to have a series of convenings that actually bring these folks together to talk to each other, to inherit some wisdom across generations, really intergenerationally. And in there, there was a commitment that we made in 2016, I think at some Latinx, some convening, that we really wanted to build retreats for intergenerational exchange. So this is kind of like the building out of that vision. And it’s both really bittersweet and really exciting to me because… Going to go back. It almost always goes back to Diane Rodriguez for me, but I am still caring around this deep grief and resentment and anger at myself, because Diane was going to be really a core part of this project for many years. We talked about it and planned it. And I just kept pushing it off. I thought I had time and we had other projects, and then we lost her, right?
Maya: And so soon after we lost so many other folks, Noé Montoya from El Teatro Campesino.
Alexandra: Just recently Hugo, just recently Barclay Goldsmith, right? So it’s not going to stop. And even though we’re not resourced or ready for it, the biggest thing we learned from going on our first international tour is you don’t wait until you’re ready to do the project. You just start it. And so the first filming happens with Jorge Huerta right here in the studio next month. So I’m just deeply passionate about this, and I’m deeply passionate about… My age, I’m turning forty, is kind of this bridge generation between some of these generations, and we’ve inherited so much direct wisdom. And now that we’re in a whole new landscape, a whole new way of doing things, these youths are the future and they’re brilliant, but we got to be able to give them that institutional knowledge and that wisdom, and I think this project is a starting place.
Jeffrey: Awesome. That’s so cool. You got to go before you’re ready, y’all. This is great. Thank you. Thank you for all of that. Thank you everyone. Y’all, that brings us to the end of our evening together. Stick around just a brief moment here. Alex, Maya, thank you all so much for your time this evening. It’s really awesome to get to know you and your work so much better. You’ve given me yet another reason to come visit the west coast sometime soon.
Alexandra: Yes. Come through.
Jeffrey: I’ve been neglecting it, and I need to take a vacation, a meaningful, exciting, art-filled vacation. You’ve convinced me that I need to come and visit. So thank you so much for this conversation and sharing this space, and this is so amazing. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Folks, thanks for taking time to listen to me on this special broadcast. And a big thank you goes out to our friends at Theatre Communications Group. Thank you for inviting me. And thank you to HowlRound for helping me pull off this live episode. Sincerely, thank you all so very much for your help throughout this process. Not to mention thank you to HowlRound for all that you’ve helped me with. Folks, I just realized that I’ve been contributing to HowlRound for twelve years. I need to acknowledge their continued support of my research. What started as an idea has sprouted into a podcast, and here we are now. I really am proud to say that I create content on their platform where knowledge gives power to underrepresented ideas. So thanks for your effort now and always, folks. I also want to say thank you to Studio Luna for taking a minute to hang with me. Their story and effort around sustaining themselves is so interesting. I am blown away at trying to run a theatre company that lives in multiple spaces.
The fact that they made the effort and found themselves in a more sustainable model now is great. It takes some real grit to do what they’ve done. And the bravery to offer such outside-the-box thinking, including their programs around artists skills as life skills work, I love it. This is it, the end of season four, y’all, but I’ve already got episodes in the can for season five. I’m always looking for more guests. So if you or someone might be interested in joining me on this show, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. You know what to do. Email me at [email protected], or find us on Instagram @ftgu_pod and @ensemble_ethnographer. Thanks for keeping me in your ears, folks, especially for this really fantastic season. I can’t wait to be with you again soon. Keep exploring your big ideas, and we’ll see you next time on From the Ground Up. Oh, but before we go, a lightning round with Studio Luna.
All right, ready for some bonus content? Here we go. Five questions, two minutes. First thing that comes to mind, whatever hits you, whatever inspires you, that’s what it is. What is your favorite salutation?
Alexandra: Grand Rising.
Maya: Hola!
Jeffrey: What is your favorite exclamation?
Alexandra and Maya: Ahh!
Jeffrey: What is your favorite mode of transportation?
Alexandra: Oh, I need to be driven.
Maya: Car. Yeah.
Jeffrey: What does ensemble mean to you?
Maya: A group of people who have committed to the death.
Alexandra: Community.
Jeffrey: Amazing. And what is your favorite flavor of ice cream?
Alexandra: Oh, cherry chocolate chip.
Maya: Salted caramel.
Jeffrey: Oh, amazing. Listen, our conversation would’ve been much different if I’d have known those ahead of time. Thank you so much.
Think you or someone ought to be on the show? Connect with us on Facebook and on Instagram at FTGU_Pod or me at ensemble_ethnographer.
And of course, we always love fan mail at [email protected]. This podcast’s audio bed was created by Kiran Vedula. You can find him on SoundCloud, Bandcamp, and at flutesatdawn.org. From the Ground Up is produced as a contribution to the HowlRound Theatre Commons. You can find more episodes of this show and other HowlRound shows wherever you find podcasts. Be sure to search with word HowlRound and subscribe to receive new episodes.
If you loved this podcast, post a rating and write a review on those platforms. This helps other people find us. You can also find a transcript for this episode along with a lot of other progressive and disruptive content on howlround.com. Have an idea for an exciting podcast, essay, or TV event the theatre community needs to hear? Visit howlround.com and submit your ideas to this digital commons.
