There Has to Be Joy

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Production photo La Comedia of Errors
Actor Tony Sancho interacts with the audience at a community-hosted performance at Phoenix Elementary School. Photo by Jenny Graham.
Prologue
magazine for members
2019 Edition
Alejandra Cisneros
View Full Image with Credit Alejandra Cisneros
Alejandra Cisneros
Alejandra Cisneros
Antonio David Lyons
View Full Image with Credit Antonio David Lyons
Antonio David Lyons
Antonio David Lyons

Building the community-hosted experience of La Comedia of Errors

La Comedia of Errors represents several firsts for OSF: the first staging of a Play on! translation, the first fully bilingual production and the first time a play is presented on OSF’s campus and in community centers in the Rogue Valley. “Presented,” though, is not the right word for those off-campus experiences. In this Q&A, Community Liaison Alejandra Cisneros and Community Producer Antonio David Lyons discuss their work partnering with up to 18 organizations within 30 miles of Ashland to create a “community-hosted experience”—and what exactly that means for everyone involved.

Julie Cortez: How do you describe La Comedia of Errors and the hosted experience when you’re reaching out to potential partners, and what have the conversations been like with various organizations so far?

Alejandra Cisneros: I say La Comedia of Errors is a truly bilingual experience in Spanish and English. It’s a tale about a family that has been split at the border and that doesn’t know each other exists, and this one casual day they all end up at the same place at the same time wearing the same clothes and find each other at the end. What I get in return is always so much joy, so much joy of being seen, and this is slightly what makes me sad, but what makes me excited about the work is that most organizations are so excited and happy just to be included in the conversation, that OSF would be interested in bringing this kind of work to them.

Antonio David Lyons: I’m very excited about saying we’ll do it for free, and we want to have time to break bread with community. We want to have some food after the show. And they’re like, really? But people lean into the opportunity to engage in a way that’s authentic. When Alejandra and I go out to meet with community partners, we authentically bring ourselves because we believe that the work is important, and we believe that we can create an experience in both directions, where there is an opportunity for learning and community building. The magic that will happen in these very unique spaces, in these very specific communities, is something that you can’t just quantify.

JC: What do you look for in partner organizations?

AC: We look for organizations that have a social justice mission, that are already activated and doing this work within their communities, that have a constituency, that are primarily Latinx based, that are 30 miles or less from OSF and that have access to a community space, meaning something like a multi-purpose room or cafeteria. Something very intentional is that we’re not doing these performances in traditional theatre spaces.

JC: What are your roles in this process?

AC: My part of the puzzle is I am the outward-facing producer in the sense that I’m connecting with the community members, the organizations that have already been thriving and doing work in the Rogue Valley, and seeing how we can, as OSF, connect with them and bring this program to their community centers. A huge part of this full endeavor has been getting to know your neighbor, to some degree, and OSF has been in the Rogue Valley for such a long time that now it’s about reaching out, as opposed to having our partners come here and experience OSF.

ADL: As community producer, my job is to really solidify all the pieces and parts that help us present this work within the community as part of engagement. It’s a bridge between what is happening here on campus, so we’ve had the opportunity to engage within the rehearsal and workshop process, and helping to shape the work on campus in letting them know what is it going to look like to take this out into the community, and what are the things we have to be sensitive about in translating from one space into the other. And then it’s about taking it on the road, so everything from transportation to figuring how we’re going to fit into these spaces, to figuring out how do we continue this relationship with the communities and the partners that we’re involved with to give them a show that is meaningful, that is intentional, that is able to reach the audiences in the ways that we would like the show to reach them. And part of what we want to happen is that people see themselves reflected in this work, and that the relationship with OSF is not one that is foreign or distant.

JC: Why did you each want to be part of this project?

AC: For me, it really does align with my core values and the art I do, and the kind of work I want to put out. It’s important to be a connector within Latinx communities, and getting to know this Latinx community in the Rogue Valley. We’re all different; we all come from different countries. So there was a lot of fun getting to come do this work here because, selfishly, I get to go out and meet other Latinx people in the community doing this work, and just connect on a very personal level and bring my true, authentic self. I do think community engagement, partnerships—it has many titles right now in American theatre—is at the core of what American theatre should be, and I think community work should also be both outward and inward. So I think this project hit all those checkmarks, and I was very excited to participate in it.

ADL: It’s been a delight, it’s been eye-opening, it’s been so informative to watch Alejandra do her work and to connect in a very personal way with communities that are her own and not her own. As a person who is Afro-Caribbean—I am not Latinx—I don’t think that my work would have been able to proceed in the way that it has without Alejandra being competent in the language, being competent in culture, being very knowledgeable about the spaces that we’re inhabiting and having a different kind of connection. I said yes to this project because, from my very early childhood, I watched my mother doing community development work, and that has been such a core theme in my work as a professional artist. This isn’t about, can we bring a show to you, but can we bring this show to your community together?

JC: Could you share a bit of your process so far in getting this ready to go out into the communities, and who has been involved in it with you? I’m particularly interested in sharing with folks out there what the “community dramaturgs” are bringing to the table.

AC: The community dramaturgs was an idea I think I had since I first got here because, originally, the project was we would do a rehearsal in the community. So, we would pick a partner and then take the show there and read some stuff, and then get feedback from our partners. And I was like, no, primarily because we have such a rich fountain of folks here on campus who are already invested in OSF and work here and do all the unseen work that actually makes this machine move, who are Spanish speakers, who love comedy, who are from this area, who are literally within this 30 miles of OSF. So, I remember pitching the project when I first met with Bill, and I was like, “I would love to be able to talk to our own Spanish-speaking workforce and invite them into the rooms where usually only artists have access.” I think the show is 100 times better because we’ve done this.

ADL: In addition to that aspect of the process, when we go out into the community there’ll be a pre-show engagement, the performance will happen, and then there will be a post-show around a shared meal. And even getting started with some of our community partners, some of those relationships, we were introduced to them by Audience Development, and so that’s been really critical, just acknowledging the longstanding work that Audience Development, particularly under the direction of Freda Casillas, has done in building deep relationships within the community. And the Education Department has been really critical in helping us and partnering with us to develop the pre-show engagement. Alejandra was very insistent from the very beginning—there has to be joy. There has to be joy. There has to be joy. And to find a way to sort of bridge the needs that both of us have to prepare audiences to see this play, to delve into the work of Shakespeare, to inhabit language that is bilingual yet lyrical and musical at the same time—because Lydia Garcia has done a really great job of making sure that the language is reflective of Shakespeare’s language and storytelling style, but also making sure that it was specifically centered within Latinx communities and cultures.

JC: What do you hope the audiences who will take part in these community-hosted performances will take away from this experience?

ADL: That Antonio’s bad Spanish, or lack thereof, does not mean that it’s not going to be a good time. We can build a trust across barriers of language.

AC: For a lot of people, this will be their first interaction with OSF, and I hope that their first introduction to OSF is that you might want a second date with it. Whether that works out in the long run, I don’t know. But if this is a great first date in a public place, maybe we’ll have a second date, maybe a third, maybe I might commit, maybe I might not. There are no hard feelings because I think that’s part of the beginning of the conversation. We met one partner who’s wonderful, and they were talking about bridge building. And you can’t get to the bridge if there’s no road. With this tour, we’re trying to do both. We’re trying to find a road that is going to lead us to the bridge to connect us to OSF.

JC: What would you say to the folks out there who may or may not be thinking about buying a ticket to come see this on campus?

ADL: What I will say is that if you are a predominantly English speaker, that this show will be just as engaging, just as fulfilling. You will learn, you will be able to lead with your heart, you will laugh joyously with your sides aching, that you will have a unique experience and a night out in theatre that you will be able to tell friends about and that you will remember for a long time to come.

 

For tickets and information, visit La Comedia of Errors.