SolTalk

For our Season 3 finale, David and Joey chat with playwright Mara Vélez Meléndez about making her Off-Broadway debut as Sol 7, decolonizing gender, and the queerness of the multiverse.

Mara Vélez Meléndez (she/her) is a playwright born and raised in Puerto Rico. Her Off-Broadway debut will take place in 2022 with Notes on Killing Seven Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Board Members, produced by Soho Rep in partnership with The Sol Project. She also adapted the upcoming Spotify/Gimlet podcast, Case 63. Mara was a 2020-2021 Playwrights Realm Writing Fellow and is currently a member of Ars Nova’s PlayGroup.

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Joey flies solo this week as they chat with the incomparable Daphne Rubin-Vega about unlocking creativity during the pandemic, finding one’s community, and her upcoming film, ALLSWELL, co-written and co-produced with Elizabeth Rodriguez and Liza Colón-Zayas.

Daphne recently wrapped the film ALLSWELL and can be seen in the Netflix release, TICK TICK BOOM, directed by Lin Manuel Miranda, as well as the Warner Bros feature IN THE HEIGHTS, directed by Jon Chu, playing ‘Daniela.’  She shot the Netflix series SOCIAL DISTANCE, produced by Jenji Kohan and Tara Hermann, and SAME STORM, the newest Peter Hedges film, during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. A staple of the New York theater community, Daphne earned a Tony nomination for her portrayal of ‘Mimi’ in the original cast of RENT, and another for ANNA IN THE TROPICS. Daphne was ‘Luisa Lopez’ on KATY KEENE, the CW spinoff of RIVERDALE and on the Netflix series, TALES OF THE CITY.

She starred in the musical, MISS YOU LIKE HELL at The Public Theater, and in the one-woman show EMPANADA LOCA, which was written for her.  She helped adapt the play into the scripted podcast, THE HORROR OF DOLORES ROACH, which is currently in production for Amazon/Blumhouse TV. 

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David and Joey chat with creative entrepreneur Ricardo Sebastián about the origin and launch of Arraygency, the beauty in taking ownership of one’s journey, and how meaningful partnerships are a key ingredient to success.   

Ricardo Sebastián is a first-generation Mexican-American, a longtime entrepreneur, and community organizer who recently came out as nonbinary. They have dedicated their career to supporting creatives and nonprofit organizations across the US, Canada, Mexico, South America, Paris, London and Australia. 

Past clients include Gage John Lazare, Mamma Cuisine, Julius LaCour, Diego Montoya and Habitat for Humanity New York City. Ricardo began managing Jason Rodriguez in 2019 and is taking this next step to spotlight the importance of BIPOC, Queer and Trans representation in all spaces. 

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This week, David and Joey chat with the wonderful Karen Olivo about the origins of AFECT, the importance of self discovery, and setting up future generations for success in an industry that continues to demand accountability and transparency.

Welcome to Season 3 of SolTalk! For our season premiere, David and Joey chat with living legend Luis Alfaro about his recent appointment as one of Center Theatre Group’s newest Associate Artistic Directors, how The Great Pause has become The Great Possibility, and he shares his wisdom for young writers.  

Luis Alfaro was born and raised in downtown Los Angeles and is Center Theatre Group’s newest Associate Artistic Director. He is a Chicano writer known for his work in poetry, theatre, short fiction, performance, and journalism. He is the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, popularly known as the ‘genius’ grant; the PEN America/Laura Pels International Foundation Theater Award for a Master Dramatist; United States Artist Fellowship and Ford Foundation’s Art of Change Fellowship, among others. 

Luis spent six seasons as the Mellon Playwright-in-Residence at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (2013-2019); a member of the Playwright’s Ensemble at Chicago’s Victory Gardens Theatre (2013-2020); a resident artist at the Mark Taper Forum (1995-2005); and has been associated with the Ojai Playwrights Conference since 2002. His plays and performances include Electricidad, Oedipus El Rey, Mojada, Delano and Body of Faith. Luis spent over two decades in the Los Angeles poetry and performance art communities. He is an Associate Professor with tenure at the University of Southern California (USC). His recent book, The Greek Trilogy of Luis Alfaro, was released by Methuen Drama this past year, and is the winner this year of the prestigious London/Hellenic Prize for 2020. 

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For our Season 2 finale, producer Sammy Lopez joins us to talk about the recently launched Industry Standard Group, his experiences growing up in LA and going to see shows with his abuelita, and his love for the art of gathering.  

Sammy Lopez is a Latinx artist dedicated to uplifting underrepresented voices and stories through the arts. He is a producer, director, digital marketer, and social media manager working on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and online. He is on the producing and social media team for The Old Vic's A CHRISTMAS CAROL and co-produced BE MORE CHILL on Broadway. With Holtzman-Lopez Productions he is developing the new musicals GUN & POWDER (2020 World Premiere at the Signature Theatre), HOW TO DANCE IN OHIO (In Development), BRADICAL (Zoom Edition now streaming on Broadway On Demand), as well as producing the Syracuse University Lewis Hecker Drama Showcase. 

As a social media manager, Sammy is on the team at Marathon Digital representing Broadway productions, regional theatres, and other live entertainment clients in New York City and he is the Chief Media Strategist of 10glo.com, a new website dedicated to promoting artists by removing traditional barriers of entry in theater. In Los Angeles, he spent time developing the social media strategy at Center Theatre Group's Mark Taper Forum, Ahmanson Theatre, the Kirk Douglas Theatre, in addition to working on the LGBTQIA+ Chicano activist/performer Dan Guerrero's acclaimed solo show GAYTINO. 

He is a Supporting Teaching Artist with CO/LAB Theater Group, a non-profit organization offering individuals with developmental disabilities a creative and social outlet through theater and he is proud to be on the New 42 Board of Directors, opening new worlds to young people and families at the New Victory Theatre. Lopez is a founding member of The Industry Standard Group (TISG), a multicultural commercial investment and producing organization strategically formed to promote work reflecting diversity and increase the presence of BIPOC investors and producers in the commercial producing arts and entertainment field. Sammy is a graduate of the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts and the College of Visual and Performing Arts at Syracuse University. 

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On December 4, 2016, The Sol Project officially launched its initiative with the opening night of Alligator by Hilary Bettis, in partnership with New Georges. This week, David and Joey catch up with Hilary to chat about what the future of the American Theatre looks like, what it’s like to go from writing for the stage to writing for the screen, and cultural competency when producing stories of underrepresented communities.

Hilary Bettis is a critically-acclaimed playwright whose work has been developed and produced all over the country including, Roundabout Theatre, New Georges, The Sol Project, Miami New Drama, Studio Theatre, Alley Theatre, New York Theatre Workshop, La Jolla Playhouse, amongst others. Accolades include, Egerton Foundation New Play Awards, National Endowment for the Arts Grant, and a finalist for the Blackburn Prize, Kendeda Award, Nuestras Voces National Playwriting Competition, American Blues Theater’s Blue Ink Award, amongst others.

In television, Bettis won the 2019 Writer’s Guild of America Award for her work on the critically acclaimed, Golden Globe and Emmy Award winning FX series “The Americans.” She wrote for the Hulu miniseries “The Dropout,” starring Kate McKinnon, and Amazon’s “Rodeo Queens” starring Dakota Johnson and Fred Armisen. She’s an alumni of the Sundance Institute Episodic TV Lab, and is developing projects for AMC, Hulu, and PatMa. She’s a graduate of The Juilliard School. Proud member of The Kilroys and WGAEast.

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Welcome to the second half of our fall season! This week, David and Joey chat with Obie Award-winning actor Liza Colón-Zayas to hear about her legacy with LAByrinth Theater Company, her long-time relationship with playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis, and the importance of visibility and representing the full spectrum of humanity on stage and screen. 

Liza Colón-Zayas is an original member of LAByrinth Theater Company. She earned the 2020 Obie, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle awards for her performance in Stephen Adly Guirgis’s critically acclaimed Halfway Bitches Go Straight To Heaven. She has originated roles in eight Guirgis plays including: In Arabia We’d All Be Kings, Our Lady of 121st Street, The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, and The Little Flower of East Orange - all directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman. Liza received a Lortel Award for her performance in the Pulitzer-winner Between Riverside and Crazy. She received an HOLA Award for the Pulitzer-winner Water By The Spoonful by Quiara Algeria Hudes as well as Lortel nominations for Living Out, and Mary Jane. Liza toured Europe in The Story of a Soldier and Othello, directed by Peter Sellers. She has a recurring role as Principal Fallow on the Peabody Award-winning series David Makes Man (OWNTV).

In this episode leading up to the 2020 Presidential Election, David and Joey sit down with directors Estefanía Fadul and Galia Backal to discuss their collaboration on Carla’s Quince, an immersive virtual experience that uses theatricality to empower Latinx voters in the U.S. to use their vote to create the change they want to see in their communities.

This week, David and Joey kiki with star of screen and stage Robin de Jesús about his role as Emory in The Boys in the Band, figuring out how to age gracefully like Jane Fonda, and never losing the will power to stay curious. 

Robin de Jesús is a three-time Tony Award nominated actor. He received his first major role in the 2003 cult-classic film, Camp. He has since gone on to perform in various Broadway productions including: Rent, In The Heights (for which he received his first Tony nomination for Best Featured Actor in a Musical), La Cage Aux Folles (his second nomination), Wicked, and The Boys in the Band (for which he received his third nomination).

Additional theater credits include the Paper Mill Playhouse's productions of Grease and Godspell, the Shakespeare Theatre of NJ's production of A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings, the St. Louis Muny production of Aladdin as the title character, and the off-Broadway productions of Malpractice Makes Perfect, Zorba Musicals in Mufti, Patti Issues, Domesticated, and Homos or Everyone in America.

Robin can also be seen in various feature films and television projects such as Gun Hill Road (2011), Hair Brained (2013), How to Make it in America (2010) and in the recurring role of "Jose Silva" on Law & Order: SVU. He can be seen in the newly released Netflix film adaptation of The Boys in the Band (2020), produced by Ryan Murphy, where he reprises his Tony award-nominated role. He is currently in production for Lin-Manuel Miranda’s film adaptation of Tick Tick Boom.

On this episode, David and Joey celebrate the launch of La Gente: The Latinx Theatre Design Network with three of its organizing members: Ana Maria Aburto, Regina Garcia, and Tanya Orellana. They talk about the origins of the network, the call for V.E.A. (visibility, engagement, and advocacy), and the abolition of unpaid/underpaid work.

Welcome to the fall 2020 season of SolTalk! In this episode, Sol Project Associate Artistic Director David Mendizábal and Associate Producer Joey Reyes chat with director Lileana Blain-Cruz about some of her most recent projects, being a theatre artist in the time of sheltering-in-place, and what it means to create a safe rehearsal space. 

Lileana Blain-Cruz (she/her) is a director from New York City and Miami and was recently announced as resident director at Lincoln Center Theater. She is a recipient of a Lincoln Center Emerging Artist Award and an Obie Award for Marys Seacole at LCT3. Recent projects include Anatomy of a Suicide at The Atlantic Theater Company, Fefu and Her Friends at Theater For a New Audience, Girls at Yale Repertory Theater, Faust at Opera Omaha, and The House That Will Not Stand at New York Theater Workshop. 

The Sol Project’s Associate Artistic Director, David Mendizábal, and Producing Assistant, Joey Reyes, interview artists and activists, Guadalís Del Carmen and John Peña. They discuss anti-blackness (both within and outside POC communities), decolonizing the self, and centering pleasure in activism.

Currently based in NYC, Guadalís Del Carmen was born and raised in Chicago. She's an Ars Nova Resident Artist and a Dramatist Guild member. Her plays include Bees and Honey (The Kilroys List 2019), Not For Sale (UrbanTheater Commission/World Premier 2018, Jeff Award Nominee for Best New Play 2019), My Father's Keeper (Steppenwolf Theater's The Mix List 2018, The Kilroys Honorable Mention 2019), Daughters of the Rebellion previously titled Tolstoy's Daughters (Montclair State University New Works Initiative 2018-2019, The Kilroys Honorable Mention 2017, 50 Playwrights Project Best Unproduced Latin@ Plays 2017), A Shero's Journey (Yale Theater Magazine Issue 49, Parsnip Ship Plays Season 4), Blowout (Aguijón Theater, 2013). 

Guadalís has been part of the One Minute Play Festival in Chicago and multiple times in NYC and is a Seattle Public Theatre’s 2017 Emerald Prize nominee. She’s an artistic associate of Black Lives Black Words, through which she has written two of her ten minute plays, Blue Wall of Silence and Racial Science. Guadalís is currently Co-Artistic Director of NYC Latinx Playwrights Circle.

John Peña is an Afro-Latinx Creative Activist from Washington Heights. Combining his passion for queer art, cultural awareness, and community growth; John has founded the Reina Project. Reina Project taps from the wealth of QPOC Talent in NYC to produce spaces that center their narratives, bodies, and liberation through art. Through this John has been able to cultivate a variety of experiences in NYC from an art installation in the Bronx, to a panel at FlameCon 2019, and more. Partnering with countless community members, local orgs, and national platforms, John hopes to continue to display the beauty of QPOC autonomy, art, and liberation.

The Sol Project’s Associate Artistic Director, David Mendizábal, and Producing Assistant, Joey Reyes, interview Maria Goyanes, Artistic Director of Woolly Mammoth Theatre in Washington D.C., and Stephanie Ybarra, Artistic Director of Baltimore Center Stage in Baltimore Maryland. They discuss leadership turnover, institutional values, and the changing landscape of the American Theater. 

Maria Goyanes joined Woolly Mammoth Theater as the new Artistic Director in September 2018. Previously, she served as the Director of Producing and Artistic Planning at The Public Theater in New York City where she oversaw the day-to-day execution of the plays and musicals at the theatre’s five performance spaces, including the Delacorte Theater for the company’s Shakespeare in the Park programming. She also lead the season planning process as well as the theatre’s artistic programs, including Public Works, the Under the Radar Festival, and the offerings at Joe’s Pub. She is a faculty member at the Juilliard School, where she co-teaches a course on producing. She also creates the curriculum for Playwrights Downtown, the Playwrights Horizons Theater School at New York University. She serves as a board member of the National Alliance for Musical Theatre.

She served as executive producer of the 13P playwrights collective and as the co-chair of the Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab. She was also the associate producer of Trinity Repertory Company. The League of Professional Theatre Women honored her with the Josephine Abady Award. She earned a B.A. at Brown University, where she was awarded the Susan Steinfeld Award.

Stephanie Ybarra joined Baltimore Center Stage as the new Artistic Director full-time in December 2018. Previously, she served as the Director of Special Artistic Projects at The Public Theater, where she lead the Mobile Unit and Public Forum programs. She made her artistic producing debut with the original production of Tarell Alvin McCraney’s The Brothers Size, for which she received the inaugural Producer’s Chair Award from the Foundry Theater. She went on to serve as the first Producing Director for Playwrights Realm and Producing Artistic Director for the Cherry Lane Theater’s Mentor Project, collaborating with artists such as Jen Silverman, Snehal Desai, Greg Moss and Awoye Timpo. In 2015, she was the recipient of TCG’s Continuing Education Grant, which took her to Peru to explore socio-political theater, and in 2016 she received the Congressional Award for Achievement in Excellence from Zara Aina, an international nonprofit dedicated to community engaged artmaking. Stephanie holds an MFA in Theater Management from Yale School of Drama.

The Sol Project’s Associate Artistic Director, David Mendizábal, and Producing Assistant, Joey Reyes, interview Amelia Acosta Powell, the recently appointed Associate Artistic Director of The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, and discuss her journey working across the U.S., the value of intentional leadership and mentorship, and what it feels like to be working in partnership with another woman of color to lead a regional organization. 

Sol Project’s Associate Artistic Director, David Mendizábal, and Producing Assistant, Joey Reyes, sit down with Brian Herrera and Victor Vazquez to talk about the history of casting, current practices, what it means to be in casting as a Latinx individual, and what the future might hold for casting as a profession. 

Brian Eugenio Herrera is Associate Professor of Theater in the Lewis Center for the Arts and Program in Gender & Sexuality Studies at Princeton University. He is author of The Latina/o Theatre Commons 2013 National Convening: A Narrative Report (HowlRound, 2015) and Latin Numbers: Playing Latino in Twentieth-Century U.S. Popular Performance (Michigan, 2015), which was awarded the George Jean Nathan Prize for Dramatic Criticism.

Victor Vazquez serves as Casting Director/Line Producer and member of the artistic team at Arena Stage in Washington D.C.. He will be transitioning to New York later this year to freelance. Previous employment includes: Center Theatre Group, The Pasadena Playhouse, Cornerstone Theatre Company, and DAQRI. A recipient of writing fellowships from PEN America and LAMBDA Literary as an Emerging LGBT Writer, he is completing a master’s candidate in dramatic writing at the University of Oxford, and holds two bachelor’s degrees from UC Irvine’s writing program and in drama (directing honors). Victor is the son of Mexican immigrants. Spanish is his native language; he is originally from Los Angeles.

Sol Project’s Associate Artistic Director, David Mendizábal, and Producing Assistant, Joey Reyes, sit down with actor Sean Carvajal to talk about his Broadway debut as Edgar in Sam Gold's production of King Lear, starring Glenda Jackson, how he found his way into the world of American theater, and Latinx representation on stages. 

Sean Carvajal made his Broadway debut in 2019 as Edgar in King Lear. His Off-Broadway credits include Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train (Signature Theatre; Lucille Lortel, Obie, Drama Desk, Clarence Derwent Awards), Seven Spots on the Sun (Sol Project/Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre), Tell Hector I Miss Him (Atlantic Theater Company), Queen Latina and Her Power Posse (Cherry Lane Theatre), Ghetto Babylon (59E59 Theaters), Lissabon (La MaMa), and Holy Land (HERE Arts Center). Regional: Water by The Spoonful (Mark Taper Forum), Seven Spots on the Sun (World Premiere at Cincinnati Playhouse), and Between Riverside and Crazy (Studio Theatre). TV: “Crashing” (HBO). He is a member of the LAByrinth Theater Company.

Sol Project’s Associate Artistic Director, David Mendizábal, and Producing Assistant, Joey Reyes, interview playwright Georgina Escobar about her Spring 2019 production of Then They Forgot About The Rest  at INTAR Theatre, the future of Latinx representation in American society, and the progression of Latinx storytelling in the American Theater.

Sol Project Artistic Director Jacob G. Padrón interviews playwright Charise Castro Smith and director Laurie Woolery about their Fall 2018 Sol Project production of El Huracán at Yale Repertory Theater, their artistic and professional journeys as Latinx women in the performing arts, and the power of artistry for community.

Charise Castro Smith is a playwright, television writer, and actor originally from Miami. She is a recipient of a Van Lier Fellowship at New Dramatists and is an alumna of Ars Nova’s Play Group and The New Georges Jam. She holds an MFA from Yale School of Drama.