Heal the Divide: Spotlight on Diana Burbano

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I’ve got to be honest – When I reached out to Diana to see if she would be interested in writing for this project, I wasn’t even sure where she was located. I knew she was from the Los Angeles area, but that’s a huge swath of land with a lot of political ground to cover. However, I knew that Diana would be perfect for this project, no matter her geography because she had already shared a few plays with me both through the PPP catalogue and this year’s ONSTAGE Festival. Her work is intriguing, exciting, and intimate – and she’s a passionate artist activist.

Basically, inviting Diana to participate was a no-brainer, and I was super excited when she said “Yes!”

Diana lives in Long Beach and work as a teaching artist in Boyle Heights (east LA) and Santa Ana (Orange County). For those of you who are unfamiliar with LA, this essentially means she spends half her life commuting – but I haven’t heard any complaints out of her about that. As a dedicated teaching artist, Diana works with her students to write the stories that haven’t been told – and by working and living in several zipcodes, her artist and student network is expansive.

I know her work is going to genuinely engage our readers over the coming months, and I can’t wait to see what she shares with us!

What about our Heal the Divide project captured your interest/why did you decide to participate in this initiative?

A need to understand and be understood and to heal my own heart. I also feel compelled to give voice to the members of my community who feel panicked and frightened. I won’t lie, I am angry, I am so very angry, but I am also an artist, and as an artist I need to seek the light.

What areas of concern in your community do you find yourself curious about or interested in considering for this project?

I am most interested in giving voice to immigrant rights issues. As well as trying to figure out how to broach the other side of the equation, the people who don’t want immigrants legal or otherwise, here.

There have been a lot of discussions lately about what artists can do to “make a difference” in light of our current political spectrum. What do you think we can (or should) do? Or are there pitfalls we need to avoid?

I believe that engagement needs to be entertaining as well. A screed or a diatribe won’t get anyone to listen, a comedy perhaps will. I’ve been working with the community as they confront how to deal with ICE . A terrifying topic, but if it can be done with lightness you can get people to listen and remember. No one wants to be frightened more when they are already frightened, but a laugh might allow them to open up and to learn how to defend themselves. Also, it’s important to reach and educate the very young, and anyone who’s ever worked with kids know that scolding and haranguing turns them right off.

This is a moment for all artists to rise. It’s imperative that we come out of our grief-holes and put new, questioning art into the world. I’m very lucky to be able to offer free playwriting classes in Santa Ana CA. I teach everyone who wants to learn. I encourage everyone to write their stories. All stories are needed.

What questions, as a playwright, are you most drawn to explore in your work?

My work is very feminist/female centric. I write about complicated women, whose main problems don’t revolve around men. My most recent full length deals with violence, sex trafficking, child soldiers and rape. Like I said I have a lot of anger, but I do try to transcend that anger for clarity, humor and empathy.

Are you engaged in any other organizations fighting for change or progress that you want to give a shout out to?

Breath of Fire Latina Theatre Ensemble:

ABOUT:
Witness the milagro of the award winning Breath of Fire Latina Theater Ensemble. Thirteen years in, we are still the only Latina theater 501(c)3 non-profit organization behind the ‘Orange Curtain.’ Based in Downtown Santa Ana – the corazón of the county – Breath of Fire was founded to support the work and enrich the lives of Latinas in the visual and performing arts by creating opportunities and leadership roles in traditional arts communities. OC Weekly calls the ensemble “a theater that cares [about] its surrounding community…producing vitally relevant and topical work.”

VISION:
Breath of Fire Latina Theater Ensemble creates opportunities and leadership roles for Latinas in the performing arts. We aim to produce work that reflects impacts and empowers the Latina/o community. We believe in the transformative power of theater and aim to raise awareness of critical issues in the community, entertain and challenge, foster cross-cultural understanding and be a catalyst for personal healing and social justice.

CORE VALUES:
* A Platform for Untold/Undertold Stories
* Creating and Fostering Leadership Opportunities for Latinas in the Performing Arts
* Commitment to Community Outreach in Our Community
* Personal Healing and Social Justice

Do you have any other additional thoughts/ideas you want to riff on that pertain to this project?

I want to encourage active involved resistance. Embrace feminism, it’s not a bad word. Embrace working for what you want, what you believe in. Finish the first draft, you can always edit it.

More about Diana:

Diana Burbano, a Colombian immigrant, is an Equity actor, playwright and teaching artist at South Coast Repertory and Breath of Fire Latina Theatre Ensemble. Full length plays: Fabulous Monsters about women in punk rock, Silueta (With Tom and Chris Shelton) about feminist artist Ana Mendieta. Policarpa which will have a Rough Draft Residency at the Drama League in May. Picture me Rollin’ was featured at the Hollywood InkFest, 2017, Other plays: Enemy|Flint, Caliban’s Island, (published by YouthPLAYS). Libertadoras, Vamping and Linda were written for the 365 Women a Year project and have been performed around the world. Rounds Per Second is featured in Smith and Kraus’s 5-minute play anthology.

You can learn more about Diana at dianaburbano.com or follow her on Twitter @loladiana

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Heal the Divide: Spotlight on David Hilder

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I know, I know – you’re thinking “Another white dude writing plays in NYC… What has he got to say that we’re not already seeing on stage?” But maybe that’s because you haven’t yet met David Hilder.

A few years ago, I was lucky enough to get invited to the Great Plains Theatre Conference with my play TWIGS AND BONE. The conference was AWESOME for quite a few reasons: the actors and directors were dedicated and passionate artists who put their all into my reading, I got to attend a TON of new play readings which were all kinds of awesome, the food was off the charts delicious (they feed you lunch every day!!!) and the fellowship with other hungry playwrights was amazing! One of the playwrights I met there connected me to a company that later produced my play, others have had their work produced by my theatre company, Little Black Dress INK, and others still stayed on my friends-who-write-awesome-things radar until I could ask them to participate in our Heal the Divide Initiative…

You see, I’m talking about David again.

David has a knack for accessing personal stories. He is a thinking, feeling playwright who paints interesting worlds and writes strong female voices. He’s not afraid to dive into the magical or the otherwordly if a play wants to go there. And he’s engaged in his community, listening and paying attention to the heartbeats around him.

He also happens to live in New York City – and although we see a lot of work from NYC playwrights, I haven’t seen a lot about the city itself right now (probably because I’m not in NYC to see what’s happening on its fringe stages/getting workshopped at present). And that’s important for those of us who don’t live in or near to NYC – the wild, electric, politically charged home of lady liberty. For those of us living somewhere in between our pretty blue coasts, a peek into the lives of average New Yorkers might be a really fascinating way of understanding the city that never sleeps.

I’m really looking forward to seeing NYC through David’s playwright eyes as he explores today concerns from his own unique perspective… and I hope you are too!

What about our Heal the Divide project captured your interested/why did you decide to participate in this initiative?

So, to be honest, being asked to participate in something so big-feeling and scary is why I immediately agreed to participate. I follow politics all the time, and while some of my plays (notably Drop of Kindness) are reactions to political situations, I’ve never directly written into what concerns me about the contemporary political climate.

What areas of concern in your community do you find yourself curious about or interested in considering for this project?

I’m a little obsessed with New York’s governor, Andrew Cuomo, and his weird relationship to NYC’s subway system — he controls its budget, but seems very hands-off about it. The system is really old, and needs a major overhaul, and millions of people depend on it every day. And yet…

I hope we won’t be afraid to provoke controversial responses, including from the left.

What questions, as a playwright, are you most drawn to explore in your work?

I find I tend to write stories about strong women in frustrating situations. Which sounds pretty much like a precis for America in 2017.

Are you engaged in any other organizations fighting for change or progress that you want to give a shout out to?

I would have no idea what to do with my ragefeelingsTM were it not for the excellent FB group Project Hindsight, run by the apparently indefatigable Kat Ramsburg, who is herself a seriously talented playwright.

Do you have any other additional thoughts/ideas you want to riff on that pertain to this project?

Mostly that I hope I can find dramatic form for my ideas!

BIO:

DAVID HILDER’s plays and musicals include Misfortune (Finalist, 2015 National Short Playwriting Contest, City Theatre); The Moment Before it All Went Wrong (Great Plains Theatre Conference 2015; Finalist, Lark Playwrights Week 2015); Drown (Acadiana Rep; Holland New Voices Playwriting Award, Great Plains Theatre Conference; finalist, Princess Grace Award; ESPA Drills at Primary Stages); Drop of Kindness (The Blank Theatre’s Living Room Series); The Insidious Impact of Anton (Absolute Theatre, Los Angeles – winner of seven StageSceneLA Awards; Winner, Ashland New Plays Festival; Finalist, Lark Playwrights Week); Just exactly like (The Flea Theater; Finalist, Heideman Award); Shake the Santa (GrooveMamaInk); anAtrainmusical (with composer Jess Klein; Neighborhood Playhouse); Gikh-kaa (Raw Impressions); I Have Something to Tell You (with composer Gihieh Lee; Raw Impressions); Maps (with composer Gilles Chiasson; Clear Space Productions; Dixon Place’s WARNING: Not for Broadway Festival; Raw Impression); Leave the Room (Finalist, Lark Playwrights Week and Abingdon’s Wolk Award); Bay Orchard High (Expanded Arts; Cullen/Dumas Productions); Dinner Party! (EST; Smatterfest; Particle Wave Theatre); One for the Books (the intentional theatre group; EST); and, naturally, others. He is also an award-winning director and a recovering actor, and an alumnus of Hunter College (MFA), the University of Pennsylvania, and the O’Neill Center’s National Theater Institute. He tweets, too: @hilderthtrguy Website: www.davidhilder.com

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Heal the Divide: Spotlight on Mikki Russ

Blog, Heal The Divide, Playwrights

I grew up in Prescott, AZ – a small mountain town that has made the national news a few times in the past couple years. Some of the news was wholly embarassing (like locals being incensed about a boy’s skin tone being “too dark” in a school mural, FFS!), sometimes it was tragic (the death of 19 hotshots in 2013), but always it was my home-town… A popular retirement community rich with passionate artists, run by a “good ‘ol boys” club, and struggling to understand its divided politics. Prescott, like most of AZ, runs decidedly red – but there is also a strong contingent of progressives working to better the political balance here. And so, although it’s been going through some pretty serious growing pains for the past several years, there is a lot of pride, love, and energy here that gives me hope that we can start working together on some of the big issues currently dividing us/our nation.

I knew right away that I wanted a Prescott playwright to participate in our Heal the Divide Initiative.

I also immediately knew who I wanted that playwright to be: Mikki Russ

I met Mikki a few years ago after she was cast in Fly Girl, Fly a play by 2014 ONSTAGE playwright, Brigitte Viellieu-Davis. I immediately hoped Mikki would work with us again. Fortunately, she has! In fact, Mikki has been in every festival since, and this year even participated as a playwright – her play, Full Circle, was a 2017 ONSTAGE finalist!

Not only has Mikki worked with me through LBDI, she also helped read and log plays for Protest Plays Project since its inception – a time-consuming task that she tackled with buoyant enthusiasm. So, she’s not only talented, but a serious joy to know and work with as well, and I consider myself all kinds of lucky to know and get to work with this passionate and creative person!

I asked all of our Heal the Divide playwrights to reply to some interview questions in order to help our audiences get to know them, their community, and why they’re writing for us. Mikki’s answers are below. I hope you’ll visit us again July 1 when her first piece gets posted!

What about our Heal the Divide project captured your interest/why did you decide to participate in this initiative?

There have been some interesting protest pieces that PPP has collected. I was able to access some of them. I appreciate the many voices that surfaced and their multi-faceted approaches to storytelling. When Heal The Divide was opened up to me, I leapt at the chance. I had been ruminating on ideas for healing projects that different communities could embrace.

So far, I have only landed on one wacky idea. A few months ago, a friend of mine invited me to “The Gnome Roam”. A concept the girl had brought with her to Prescott from Portland. The idea is, on the full moon, you grab a bunch of people, dress as gnomes (yarn beards and all) and just scavenger hunt all over the town square. It was hilariously disarming to everyone we encountered when women in full yarn beards, strange hats, goofy pants, pointed shoes and knapsacks casually asked a stranger if they knew where one could find a pink balloon. I thought, “What an amazing thing if people did this across the country and just laughed together.” I don’t know how I am going to get the United States to collectively dress as gnomes and hang out together, but honestly, I think it would be a step in the right direction. (Hurry! Start one in your neck of the woods!)

I understand that people are looking for very practical ways to implement a peaceful unification model in communities far and wide, but sometimes it’s the little things that make change. The involuntary positive experience with a person vastly different than ourselves always pays off. While I believe that we are more divided than we have been since the 1950s and 60s, I also sincerely believe we have more in common than not.

What areas of concern in your community do you find yourself curious about or interested in considering for this project?

Prescott, AZ is a really wonderful place for a variety of reasons. That said, it has an insular vibe about it. Sometimes that manifests in ways that are not helpful to humankind in general. When people are not exposed to folks they might consider different or “other”, it can create this tendency for people to withdraw or lash out. I have had some mind-blowingly great encounters – and other encounters – as a black woman, that have left me aghast.

One of the more elevated interactions I had was with an LGBT advocate who works with our community of LGBT who are absolutely marginalized in this small town. She inspired me with her strength and resolve to make life easier for LGBT at large, but specifically the youth. I realized that whatever race relation issues, discrimination, etc., that are present here, many people want to see it reconciled. I want to stress that there are mostly fantastic, warm, good people in this town. I have just been wildly taken aback by some challenging scenarios that should not be ignored. That was a long winded way of saying I wish we could all just get along.

Aside from being outright preachy, I don’t think there are pitfalls when we embark on exploring what art can do to heal. I think protest plays are good medicine. I believe sharing thoughts and ideas with one another is how we discover a breakthrough. Only silence can stop us.

What questions, as a playwright, are you most drawn to explore in your work?

How we relate to one another. I am endlessly fascinated by the interpersonal dynamic. I like to watch how people deal with one another at work, at play, with lovers, with adversaries. I find the microcosm so steadfastly attached to the larger picture that I am determined to discover the bridge between both worlds where the antidote to our ills exists.

Are you engaged in any other organizations fighting for change or progress that you want to give a shout out to?

I wish I were. PPP is my only recent effort at peace-mongering.

Do you have any other additional thoughts/ideas you want to riff on that pertain to this project?

I am extraordinarily grateful to be able to participate in this project. It gives me a sense of hope that individuals and artists are eager to engage one another on the subject of healing. I hope that the moments of being discouraged because Facebook vomited up something vile about the other side’s view, or because truly awful words get used in the media do not bombard us into inaction. Forward is the only way.

A little more about Mikki:

Mikki Russ lives in Northern Arizona, and has a background in broadcasting. She was on the air in major markets under a couple of stage names in both radio and television. She wrote for morning show segments as well as pop-culture segments and delivered them during her various incarnations. She has settled nicely back into her original identity and is delighted to be exploring theatrical avenues for her writing. She was a finalist in this year’s LBDI Female Playwrights ONSTAGE Festival. Mikki intends to focus on writing in many different capacities going forward. She is grateful that Little Black Dress Ink is such a vibrant platform for female voices to resonate from and looks forward to participating in future endeavors.

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Heal The Divide: A Protest Plays Project Initiative

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Here at Protest Plays Project, we’ve been working hard to figure out how we can best make ourselves useful. It began with a drive to just do something in the face of a whole lot of political divisiveness: “Let’s identify and share short protest-related pieces from playwrights via the New Play Exchange!” Soon after, we decided to initiative direct calls for performative texts that supported March for Science and Bad and Nasty’s Flag Day Event.

Now we’re moving forward with Protest Plays Project’s phase 3: To create a monthly short play series, posting plays by playwrights around the country. We’re calling it Heal the Divide.

The idea is inspired by my own experience writing for Daniel John Kelley’s Here & Now Project on HowlRound.com five years ago. The goal of the project was to engage playwrights in bringing to light stories representing the whole conversation happening in this country. I was one of four playwrights selected for the project, and it was a seriously cool experience.

First, as a playwright, I hadn’t really written plays about my hometown before. Thus, this project helped me look closer at my own roots and community as a writer – and the experience was not only enriching but personally cathartic as it helped me develop a deeper understanding of a city and state that I loved, but was also in disagreement with in some pretty big ways.

Second, I loved reading the other pieces. Getting a peek into the worlds of my fellow Here & Now writers was awesome and helped me to connect with their communities in ways I otherwise wouldn’t have been able to.

Third, readers enjoyed reading the plays focusing on these less-frequently dramatized cities/communities – and that was genuinely awesome.

Considering how successful the Here & Now project was, and considering how divided much of our country now feels, it seems like a really good time to put forth a similarly inspired project aimed at bridging some of those gaps.

The Heal the Divide initiative has invited five playwrights from different parts of the country to write a short play or monologue inspired by their community’s concerns for each of the next three months. The issues or topics covered are up to the playwrights, and their own perspectives will color how they approach each piece – which is just as it should be.

I can’t wait to share these playwrights and their work with you!

And I hope that you will find inspiration in what they write! I hope that the opportunity to read works from playwrights writing from a community perspective will help you feel more connected, and perhaps help you consider and open yourself to stories you may not otherwise hear or consider.

It might also just be a really nice way to connect with like-minded playwrights from different parts of the country and maybe bridge some of your own creative gaps, as Protest Plays Project in general has already done for me.

Whatever your response, we hope you’ll stick with us and share your thoughts with us and our playwrights as their plays are posted. Connect with us on Facebook and Twitter so you don’t miss a post!

And if you, like us, believe that theatre can cultivate empathy and inspire change, and want to be a part of the Heal the Divide Project, don’t be afraid to reach out! We’d love to see these plays shared in a reading series, and we’d love to connect with new playwrights in the event we’re able to do this again once our first round of playwrights complete their online Heal the Divide residency.

Up Next: Meet our Heal the Divide Playwrights!

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