A Life in the Theatre: a Conversation with Diane Rodriguez

A LIFE IN THE THEATRE: A CONVERSATION WITH DIANE RODRIGUEZ

ACTOR, DIRECTOR, PRODUCER

LOS ANGELES, OCTOBER 2013

Introduction: Diane Rodriguez is currently Associate Producer and Director of New Play Development at the Center Theatre Group in Los Angeles. She is a multi-faceted theatre artist who has had a distinguished career as an actor, director, playwright, and producer. In this interview she speaks about her life in the theatre from her early days with the Teatro Campesino to her current role in the development of new plays. She focuses particularly on the development of Latino Theatre as an aesthetic and social force in the United States.

Related Chapters: Chapter 2, Theatre as a Mirror of Society, Chapter 4: The Art of the Actor, Chapter 5: The Director

Stephanie Arnold: How did you become involved in the theatre?

Diane Rodriguez: I grew up among performers. My father sang and directed a choir, my mother played the piano, and my uncles were in quartets, so I grew up in that environment of rehearsals and performances.My cousins and I started getting involved in plays and I’d do readings. By the time I was in ninth grade, I knew I was going to pursue theatre. I went to UC Santa Barbara where I majored in theatre. My first semester there was a tour show of the Teatro Campesino. I spent summers at Teatro Campesino, interning, acting in shows, doing costumes, whatever they needed. When I graduated I joined the company.

Teatro Campesino became my training ground, one I wouldn’t have gotten at an institution of higher learning. I learned how to do everything—produce, write, act, docostumes. I became a really well rounded artist, what I call a spherical artist. This is something you don’t often get from a masters program, because you’re encouraged to focus on one thing. At theTeatroyou had to focus on many things, because there weren’t that many of you and you were making a living.

SA: Who were your influences when you were working there?

DR: Luis Valdez was a huge influence. He started the Teatrodoing these short political sketches called actos. He used techniques he had learned from the San Francisco Mime Troupe and would do these sketches outdoors to help organize the workers in the fields. He used masks inspired by Comedia del Arte and signs hung around the necks of the farmworker/actors that said farmworker or grower,teamster or scabto indicate who the characters were.

Valdez created a mode of training based on the philosophy of the Americas, primarily the Mayans. He calls it the “theatre of the sphere.” That’s what I was trained in—ways of listening to your heart. Your heart is your beat. To act is to make choices, and this is what it is to be an activist; you make choices and act upon them. That’s how you play roles both on stage and in life. I carried that with me even after I left the Teatro eleven years later.

SA: What kinds of opportunities opened up after you left the Teatro?

DR: I had been in the Teatro at its aesthetic height. I had traveled all over the world, toured stages in European houses, ancient Greco-Roman theatres in Italy, Renaissance theatres in France, flatbed trucks in Texas… When I arrived in Los Angeles, I had a pedigree which helped launch my career. People knew the company and recognized my face, which made it easier.

I got involved with a workshop group of Latino actors at a theatre on the Westside, the Odyssey Theatre. I met Luisa Leschin, Armando Molina, and Rick Najera, who invited me to be part of a new group called Latins Anonymous. Latins Anonymous was a group of four actors who were tired of playing stereotypical roles and decided to take matters into their own hands. We wrote our own material. We did two shows: “Latins Anonymous” (our signature show) and “The La La Awards.” Those two works were published in an anthology and are still being performed today. The idea was to take action, to create our work. From Latins Anonymous, my career took off. I worked in TV and film and did a lot of regional theatre.

SA: How did you transition from acting to writing and directing?

DR: I began as an actor, but in Latins Anonymous we collectively wrote our own material. Then I started writing monologues which I performed myself, and I began to hone my craft. About seven years ago, I joined a writing group, which is where I decided to write plays and become a single author playwright.

All the work you do in the decades of your career becomes building blocks for what you eventually do. You may start out as an actor or you may not be writing professionally, but as you get older these building blocks sustain your career. Women don’t work as often after forty, particularly in television and film; theatre is a place for you to continue to work, whether directing plays, acting, or writing. Theatre is a place where you can have a career as a veteran artist.

I wish this was more typical. It could be more typical if regional theatres like Center Theatre Group would hire more artists like myself as members of their staff and give them the freedom to maintain a career outside of theatre. That allows them not to worry about money, but still be able to hone their craft. Not every artist has to be multidisciplinary, but I do think being multilingual and/or multidisciplinary can be helpful in maneuvering through your career.

SA: How do different disciplines strengthen your skills and insights?

DR: My plays are written for a director to direct. As a director, I know how to break down a text; I understand structure and story. I can locate the climax and shape that in a production. Knowing certain things as a director, I can apply them to my writing, and vice versa.

Acting is slightly harder. I can write a monologue or dialogue that I speak myself, but know I couldn’t do as an actor. Then I know I have to refine the dialogue. I find it difficult to act having been a director, because a director looks at the full picture, whereas an actor learns to shut everything else out and narrow their focus. I’ve lost that muscle a little bit. When I act, I have to remind myself that I’m not responsible for anyone’s performance but my own. I’m not responsible for the way I look in the light or the way the actors behind me look.

SA: What kind of approach do you take to directing and acting? What kind of techniques and practices have you acquired over the years?

DR: I studied acting under Jean Shelton in San Francisco. In the early eighties, she was a legendary teacher of her own method. I really learned what it was to have choices and to play an action. The notion of playing an action fit in with my work at Teatro. People sometimes think what they see at the Teatro is overacting, but the best of the Teatro’s aesthetic acting is never overacting; there is a groundedness that enables a play to be heightened, but it is always rooted in reality. The best actors were the most natural actors, but I was not one of those actors. I had to learn that. If you don’t know who you are and you aren’t comfortable in your skin, you won’t be a good actor. That’s the first step.

I combined methods together to become the actor and director I am today. I don’t believe much in the traditional, Strasberg Method; too many actors in the United States overthink. If you can physicalize the emotion, it will come. For me, out of motion comes emotion. That is not taught in the Method and sometimes actors are hampered by that, especially American actors.

The British don’t really prescribe that. They just jump into a scene. I spent a summer with Peter Brook and his company, International Centre for Theatre Research, in the seventies when I was with Teatro. I worked with and saw some amazing actors like Bruce Meyers, Yoshi Oida, and Helen Mirren. You’ll learn from those actors how to go out onto the carpet and die, forget yourself, just die. Peter asked you to forget your ego and just be blank. If somebody threw something at you, you were open and would be able to throw something back. To take that inevitable improvisation in life and be able to do it on stage with whatever you were given—that was a real lesson to me.

The Mayans have this fabulous word which means “zero.” It’s called hel. Zero means half empty and half full. I think when you’re an actor about to go out on stage, you have to be in the hel state—full and empty at the same time. All the rehearsals have to leave your head, and you just have to let go. Then go out and negotiate; see what happens; make it rich, make it in the now. I learned this combination from Peter Brook and Luis Valdez, and I try to guide the actors I direct toward that mode.

SA: Who were other major influences on your work?

DR: When Moshe Feldenkrais was nearly ninety, he came to San Juan for a workshop. He had us do this yoga position where you’re one the ground and you put your arm through one way. He said to us, do it, and if you can’t do it on this side, then do it on the other side. Then return to the first side and you’ll be able to do it better. So I thought, ok, I can’t write now, I’m not a good writer. Keep working on that. Go and act, and think about writing tools while you’re acting. Then return to writing and pull what you know from your acting into your writing. This way, you’ll get continually better.

I worked for Gordon Davidson, the godfather of the American Regional Theatre, for many years. Gordon would always show up. His presence, even if it was just for a few minutes, meant so much. I try to do that; to be there for younger artists, for people to whom it means something. Gordon was also an old-fashioned hand-shaker. He would be at his theatre shaking hands, doing pre-curtain speeches, and talking to his audience about where he wanted to take the theatre. I believe that makes a difference. Many of our current artistic directors don’t engage in that kind of exchange with their audience; they assume marketing or online communications will do that. But I value that old-fashioned physical presence and dialogue. We need that personal connection in the theatre.

SA: Can you talk about the Latino Theatre Initiative?

DR: I worked with the Latino Theatre Initiative for ten years at the Mark Taper Forum. I was the co-director with Luis Alfaro, and I worked with a number of Latino playwrights. We gave them small commissions and fellowships and developed their work. We became a kind of clearing house for new Latino plays across the country. By focusing on Latino work, we developed a vigorous Latino audience, particularly here in Los Angeles. They were made up of primarily middle class Latinos who had gone through the Chicano movements; because they had a disposable income they were able to support the arts and come to the theatre. That audience still exists.

At the end of those ten years, I had collected over three hundred plays. I donated that collection to the Chicano Studies Library at UCLA. A graduate student, Chantal Rodriguez, founded the collection. She wrote her thesis on it, and that thesis was published and became a monograph.

SA: What do you think is the importance of the theatre now for the Latino community?

DR: At this year’s TCG conference, there were a number of Latinos present, amidst a very mixed group of people. Luis Valdez from Teatro Campesino spoke up and said, “We’re going to celebrate our fiftieth anniversary in three years, and we always question whether or not we’ve accomplished our mission. Is it time to close our doors or to continue to flourish?” Sitting next to him was Herbert Siguenza from Culture Clash, who said, “We don’t have a non-profit status or a board; we’re a partnership and we’ve been around almost thirty years.” Across from him were Jose Luis Valenzuela and Evelina Fernandez from the Latino Theatre Company, and they said, “We have an ensemble, we write our own plays, and we’re a non-profit, and we’ve been around almost thirty years.” Behind us was Olga Sanchez from the Milagro Theatre, who said, “Jose Gonzalez has been doing his theatre, and we’ve been around for thirty years.” After each person spoke, people applauded.

This was an epiphany for us. We’ve been struggling so much that we haven’t realized that thirty or fifty years have passed and we’re still around. Latino theatre is so important to its communities; you can see the proof in their support of these companies (and so many more). The days when foundations could say they couldn’t give Latino theatre companies funding because the larger companies have been around longer are over. That has changed. The work has resonance. People return to it because they feel they have a home; they see themselves at these theatres. One reason why I think we’ve sustained ourselves is because the larger regional theatres have never fully embraced Latino theatre; we just said, ok, we’ll do it ourselves. That attitude had been advantageous.

SA: How do you assess the contribution of the Latino theatre companies and community to the larger national theatre?

DR: I’m at a regional theatre, and I’m the associate producer and director of new play production. I also manage a new work development program that focuses on collaborative work. I’m interested in work that is collectively created. Teatro Campesino is the reason I have become an advocate for this kind of work; I’ve worked in one of the best collaborative companies in recent American history, so naturally I take that expertise on job training to a larger level. There is a new movement in American theatre right now in which a large number of ensembles starting up are creating interdisciplinary, visual, physical work that uses technology and movement. I’ve been able to support these groups, as a mentor and through funding. Center Theatre Group is a leader in both playwright-driven work and ensemble or collective creation. We cover the whole spectrum of new work development. We also have a festival called “Radar L.A.” that I co-curate. We do an International Festival of Contemporary Theatre every other year, which supports ensemble-based theatre. This is an example where I’ve taken what I learned in Chicano theatre and applied it to theatre on the national level.

SA: How would you assess the changes in Los Angeles theatre?

DR: I believe Los Angeles can really be a capital of theatre. People should be able to make a living doing their art, and we have a number of small theatres that create a lot of new work but do not pay their artists. That is a problem for Los Angeles. Looking to the Chicago model of giving a little bit of money to their artists would really help position Los Angeles. On the other hand, many people decide to stay in Los Angeles because rehearsal space here costs less than in New York, and living expenses are less.

A number of theatres here are starting to move up to that mid-sized level and are producing work with a larger reach. We have a strong regional service network, which protects and positions Los Angeles theatre. Our theatre, Center Theatre Group, has a yearly writing group focused only on Los Angeles playwrights, and I hope that helps flower the region with more equipped writers. I don’t think you can have a strong regional base if you don’t have national artists, so I hope more people are also able to plug into a national base. I’m trying to focus on bringing more support to Los Angeles artists, to connect them to regional and national companies.

We also have an important ally in the city of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, Olga Garay, the director. Her presence in the last five years has made a big difference. She has brought more international funding to the table. It’s only going to be a matter of time before we become a real contemporary arts theatre center.

SA: How do you think theatre contributes to contemporary society? What should theatre be doing?

DR: I think theatre should reflect what we see everyday, the real issues with which we’re grappling. I believe in using personal stories to talk about large events. We should use large events as a backdrop, but still be political and grapple with social issues. Theatre is the only place where we can sit in a room together and feel each other’s exchange. It’s a ritual, a little bit like going to church. It should be inspiring; it should be a call to action. It enables you to feel something, to reflect on a personal relationship and how that impacts your life. It’s unlike film, unlike Youtube, unlike Facebook; it’s being in a room together with your community. We don’t often have that chance anymore.

It should also be fun. It can’t be work. Theatre artists have to entertain. It’s a lot to ask—entertain us and say something. Theatres are so concerned with selling tickets. Of course, we have to in order to stay alive. But we must remember that we want our doors to be open; how can we get people in there that normally wouldn’t be able to come? That’s always got to be our mission. There are many things theatre needs to accomplish, and one of those things is inviting people in. It makes you a more valuable member of the global society, and it makes your community a civil one.