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Latino Theatre in Chicago: Tanya Saracho
Latino Theatre in Chicago
by Alexander Perry
It is an exciting time for Hispanic theatre and performance in Chicago. Through the hard work and innovative efforts of talented playwrights, directors, actors, teachers, and dancers, a kind of Latino renaissance of Chicago theatre and performance is slowly taking place.
In this series of articles, we want to shine a spotlight on some of these dedicated artists in an attempt to put together a broad mosaic of Latino Theatre in Chicago. In the course of each article, we’ll get to know where they’ve been, what they’re up to, and where they would like theatre to go next.
Latino Theatre in Chicago: Tanya Saracho
Tanya Saracho was born in Sinaloa, México and is a resident playwright emerita at Chicago Dramatists, a Goodman Theatre Fellow, an Artistic Associate with About Face Theatre, and founder and former Artistic Director of Teatro Luna. Saracho is currently working on two Mellon Foundation commissions for Steppenwolf Theatre, a commission for the Goodman Theatre to complete her border trilogy, an adaptation of a Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz play for Oregon Shakespeare Festival, as well as historical fiction about a transgendered civil war soldier titled The Good Private for About Face Theatre.
That’s now. Before these accolades, however, Tanya was just a self-described “rude, punk kid” who had moved to Chicago to make theater. After going on countless auditions for the role of the maid or the prostitute, Tanya became fed up with the stereotypes. Her infectious, good-natured, and rebellious energy inspired her to do something about the sorry state of Latina theatre in Chicago. As part of a “second-generation” wave after the pioneering endeavors of Henry Godinez and Eddie Torres, Saracho found there was still much work left to do.
“I came out swinging- I was a punk 22 or 23 year old. You know how you are when you’re that age and just coming up: I was all ‘anti-establishment!’ and ‘why aren’t you putting women onstage?’ In 1999 I had a reading at Victory Gardens and we couldn’t find enough bilingual Latina actresses to fill the parts. And I thought- this is some bull-shit! In a city with a huge Latino population? I knew we were out there, we just weren’t linked.”
“So for about a year I was just talking to whoever would listen to me: ‘Hey I want to start a Latina theatre group!…. Crickets, crickets…’ But it was a different time. Back then, there wasn’t as much access to Latino culture- this was before what they called the ‘Latin Explosion’ and all that. I feel like kids now are so politicized, but I was just figuring it out. Then, about a year after I was running around I met Coya Paz and we started talking. It took me four months to convince her. I met her at an audition for Collaboraction and I was all ‘blah!’ She was probably thinking ‘who is this girl?’ But four months later, she finally agreed to meet with me and I was able to convince her.”
With Coya Paz, Tanya began to gather a group of Latina performers together that would form the foundation of Teatro Luna.
“We came up with a name- before this, I had come up with names that were so, so awful. Since we auditioned people, we didn’t know the twelve artists that made up Teatro Luna before. We were strangers. So it wasn’t like your normal story of a theatre company getting together. We were only connected by our cultural, ethnic, and racial backgrounds. It was a very different thing, especially in trying to define ourselves. At first there were months of fighting it out, about identity, not even about theatre. Until one day I suggested ‘let’s do this- these fights that we had- onstage’ and that was our first show, about identity.”
As she collaborated with the passionate and creative minds of Teatro Luna collectively on and off stage, Tanya began to find her own individual identity and voice through Henry Godinez’s Latino Theatre Festival at the Goodman.
“I grew up in that Festival. I’ve either directed, written, or acted in every Latino Festival. I cannot express how important it was to me, especially in my first few years. The first time he had that Festival, I was able to co-direct something onstage.” From there she was able to build confidence, resources, and skills.
Tanya’s theatrical skills- whether in acting, playwriting, or directing- blossomed over the next ten years between the Latino Theatre Festival, Teatro Luna, and partnerships with Teatro Vista and the Goodman Theatre. Two years ago, Saracho left Teatro Luna to become a full-time playwright working under several commissions. This shift has been an interesting and enriching time for Saracho- instead of being immersed in a group of fellow performers, it is often just her and her laptop.
“I feel like I’m this lonely playwright working on a play. I guess for most playwrights, this is where they start, but for me it’s backwards. I don’t know a lot about being a single playwright, so these past two years have been a new thing. I used to create collaboratively in a room with actors for ten years. We did poetic prose, with overlapping voices and monologues- but I had never really written scenes, with people talking to each other. So this whole talking-thing is kind of new, but I’m liking it! It is a little lonely, but since there are commitments, deadlines, and scheduled workshops, there’s a whole system that you are queued into.”
Due in no small part to her incredible talent and energetic spirit, Tanya has been blessed with several commissions sponsored by Chicago’s top theaters: Teatro Vista, Steppenwolf, Goodman, and About Face. She also has begun to expand outside of Chicago, to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Each commission comes with its own parameters, depending on the sponsoring theater’s aesthetics, voice, audience, and performative strengths. Tanya loves working within these borders, finding ways to expand them, and discovering how they broaden her playwriting horizons.
“There’s so much freedom within those parameters.” Teatro Vista “wanted classics, classics in a Latin American setting. They had suggested some stuff- it could be anything, it could be Our Town, it could be anything. We even did some readings of some Tennessee Williams stuff, but I always thought of The Cherry Orchard. I actually had been talking about it for awhile- ‘you, know, somebody should adapt The Cherry Orchard’- so that’s what we ended up doing. It just nicely coincided. I would not have thought of just doing it on my own.”
As she started the adaptation and read and re-read the play, Tanya discovered that she “just didn’t like any of the male characters- so I was like, take them all away! So the first try, there was no men in the Cherry Orchard! But then I was like, okay, somebody has to buy the dam, so I put one back in.”
This adaptation process also has inspired her to work creatively with cast requirements. “With Steppenwolf, they needed it to use only seven actors. I was like, oh shoot, how am I going to do this? There’s a whole neighborhood, here. But, those parameters were really helpful, so I was like okay, I can’t move away from seven people- what can I do?”
These commissions have often led to surprising topics and themes, some of which Tanya would have never touched before. The play she is adapting for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival- a romantic comedy written by a 17th century nun- is one such example.
“This play that I’m writing for them, I would have never written it or thought about without the commission. The frame I’m using I just would have never touched. Especially because it’s period- I don’t want to be writing a play about 17th century Mexico- but now, suddenly, I’m excited to be writing about the 17th century! I’m used to writing about the sex trade on the Mexico border!”
Throughout all of these commissions, however, Tanya has not lost her rebellious, anti-establishment spirit. Where does she want Latino Theatre in Chicago to go next?
“The punk-rock counter culture kid in me still wants a movement and there isn’t really one in the country. I’m not just saying this because I’m from here, but I think the only place it could come from is Chicago because we are central- at the heart of this country- and because we have people from all twenty seven countries that make up the Latino diaspora. Los Angeles is very Mexican-centered, Miami is very Cuban-centered, and New York is very Puerto-Rican and Dominican centered but here, we really have access to all the Latinidad- we need to celebrate that. So I think the movement has to come from here.”
“So I’m starting this thing with a couple of my friends and whoever else wants to help me. It’s called ALTA- the Alliance of Latino Theatre Artists. First, we’re starting with a database of all the artists together. We’re starting with a web presence first (launching in December) with a listing of all the Latino Theatre artists so that the city, the country, and the world can see what we’re accomplishing. So that the eighteen-year old who just graduated from high school can see who and what’s out there. It’s also an Alliance, so there will be resources for advocacy and a kind of support system for artists. That’s the social aspect of the movement I would like to see.
“But you can’t have a movement without the artistic component. The thing is- we have the goods! There are so many theatre companies that have done one or two productions, but I know that they have the stamina to do more. Plus, there is an audience for it. We just need to unite to keep the movement going, and hopefully ALTA will help be a part of that.”
