Latinx Actor Training presents essays and pioneering research from leading Latinx practitioners and scholars in the United States to examine the history and future of Latino/a/x/e actor training practices and approaches.
Born out of the urgent need to address the inequities in academia and the industry as Latinx representation on stage and screen remains disproportionately low despite population growth; this book seeks to reimagine and restructure the practice of actor training by inviting deep investigation into heritage and identity practices. Latinx Actor Training features contributions covering current and historical acting methodologies, principles, and training, explorations of linguistic identity, casting considerations, and culturally inclusive practices that aim to empower a new generation of Latinx actors and to assist the educators who are entrusted with their training.
This book is dedicated to creating career success and championing positive narratives to combat pervasive and damaging stereotypes. Latinx Actor Training offers culturally inclusive pedagogies that will be invaluable for students, practitioners, and scholars interested in the intersections of Latinx herencia (heritage), identity, and actor training.
Foreword
Dr. Jorge Huerta
Introduction
Cynthia Santos DeCure and Micha Espinosa
Part 1: History and Theory
1. Ancestral Echoes: Excavating Latinx Histories in Actor Training
Chantal Rodriguez
2. Diane Rodríguez’s Acting Activism
Marci R. McMahon
3. "Let Me Define Myself": An Interview with Puerto Rican teatrera Rosa Luisa Márquez
Priscilla Melendez and Aníbal González
4. Actor Training with Global Perspectives: A Historical Narrative of the only Spanish-Language Theatre Conservatory in the United States
Joann Maria Yarrow
5. Dr. Alma Martinez: a narrative towards becoming a Chicanx Actor
Alma Martinez
6. Performance for Innocents: Live Art Pedagogy for Rebel Artists with Guillermo Gómez-Peña and Luz Oropeza
Paloma Martínez-Cruz
7. A Meditative Rant on the Importance of Addressing Ethnicity while Teaching Eurocentric Performance Methods
Saúl García-López, aka La Saula
Part 2: Acting
8. The Complexity and Poetry of Latinx Identity and Actor Training, a Narrative
Micha Espinosa
9. From Method to Mythic: Why Latinx? Why Mythic? How Mythic? Why Now?
Marissa Chibás
10. The Latinx Actor’s Linguistic Identity: Preserving our Culture in Speech Training
Cynthia Santos DeCure
11. Accent and Dialect Training for the Latinx Actor
Cynthia Santos DeCure
12. Freeing the Bilingual Voice: Thoughts on Adapting the Linklater Method into Spanish
Antonio Ocampo-Guzman
13. Towards a Latinx-Driven Physical Theatre Pedagogy: Acrobatic Theatre for Social Change
CarlosAlexis Cruz
14. Experiences in working with Shakespeare in Adaptation, Shakespeare in Spanish and Bilingual Heightened Text
Cynthia Santos DeCure and Micha Espinosa
15. Navigating the Musical Theatre Industry for Latinx Actors
Julio Agustin
16. School of Autodidacts
Mónica Sánchez
17. The Five Elements
Caridad Svich
18. Afro-Latinas in Conversation: An interview with Debra Anne Byrd – Founder of Harlem Shakespeare and Creator of Becoming Othello
Christin Eve Cato
19. On Latinx Casting: Interview with Peter Murrieta, Emmy Award-Winning Writer and Producer
Micha Espinosa
20. Championing Unheard Voices: Actor Training Within, and With Community
Michelle Lopez-Rios
21. Theatre Where You Are
Emilio Rodriguez
22. Strategies for Directing Latinx Plays
Jerry Ruiz
23. Acting and The Four Agreements
Christina Marin
24. Performance of Identity
Marie Ramirez-Downing
25. Fitzmaurice Voicework® as a Contemplative Practice and Decolonizing Agent
Lorenzo González Fontes
Biography
Cynthia Santos DeCure is a bilingual actor, and voice, speech, dialect coach specializing in culturally inclusive pedagogies in actor training, accents, and dialects. She is Associate Professor Adjunct of Acting at David Geffen School of Drama at Yale University, certified as Associate Teacher of Fitzmaurice Voicework® and teacher of Knight-Thompson Speechwork. A member of SAG/AFTRA and AEA with over 30 years of acting experience, Cynthia has an M.F.A. in Acting from CSULA and a B.A. in Acting from University of Southern California. She is co-editor of the award-winning anthology Scenes for Latinx Actors.
Micha Espinosa is an international teaching artist, activist, and voice/performance specialist in culturally inclusive pedagogies. She is a Professor at Arizona State University School (ASU) in the School of Music, Dance, and Theatre, affiliate faculty with ASU’s School of Transborder Studies & the Sidney Poitier New American Film School (30 year member of SAG-AFTRA), Artistic Director of Fitzmaurice Voicework® (FV®), and Lead Teacher trainer for the FV® Teacher Certification. Micha is also a core member of the performance art collective La Pocha Nostra and the award-winning editor of Monologues for Latino Actors and co-editor of Scenes for Latinx Actors.
"Those of us now engaged as teaching artists and co-learners have the joyful responsibility to begin reimagining the future of actor training in this country, which includes centering the lived experiences and stories of our students who identify as members of historically marginalized communities. Latinx Actor Training is an invaluable resource for all theater practitioners who seek to bring their full, authentic selves to their creative work. This book inspires a genuine sense of hope that, in art as in politics, intentionally making space for diverse voices to lead the conversation will result in greater liberation for all of us."
Walton Wilson, Professor in the Practice, Acting Program David Geffen School of Drama at Yale
"I wish I’d had a resource like this to ground me and guide me. If we want a robust field full of voces artísticas in all their multifangled complexity, essays like these will help pave the way."
Quiara Alegría Hudes, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and writer of In the Heights
