WE CAN
GET THERE BY
LUIS SALGADO
I was watching the new musical The Magician’s Elephant at the Royal Shakespeare Company in London when, near the end of the show, a character asked: “DO YOU BELIEVE ME?” And a child in the audience screamed, “NO!” The audience laughed, but my mind began to wonder… Did the child say no because they had an expectation of Magic and hoped that their impulsive skepticism would trigger a final magic trick? Or did they say no because they truly didn’t believe a single thing from the actor who asked the question? Of course, I don’t know the answer. But the case of this child and this actor gives me clues into the questions at hand in my own life and in our collective artistic future. How have WE changed in the last two years, and what do we expect of theatre and of our own work? It’s been such an intense time for us all. A pandemic, the fight for Black Lives Matter
and gender equality, government changes, economic imbalance, and on and on… The types of theatre and the potential stories we can tell have multiplied. But questions remain: How do we tell these new stories? Who do we tell them with? How do they resonate in our waves of modern thinking? Do the hearts and spirits of the audience welcome the political resistance in the theatre, and mirror a reflection of today’s issues, as seen in director Charles Randolph-Wright’s fantastic production of Trouble in Mind, by Alice Childress, for Roundabout? On the other hand, maybe people are only ready for a little escapism. I think we need both. Is the Broadway League ready to take us forward with all producers working as one, for a collective, solid comeback, or will the growth and contributions that theatre can make continue to be undermined by individualistic greed and games of “Who can get there first?” Are we planting our feet and speaking from our place of truth?
SDC JOURNAL | SPRING 2022
Can I still sing? Can I dance? Is my body in the right shape? Should I be singing this song? Should I audition for this? Should they be auditioning for a role that should be mine? Ours?
There are more questions than answers, yet there is so much to be grateful for. We are MOVING FORWARD! I often quote Anne Bogart and the team at SITI Company: “Our job is not so much to give the answers as it IS ABOUT ASKING A GREAT QUESTION.” A great question to our audiences, our company, and ourselves.
The art of the possible and the overcoming of fear is in our hands; we need each other’s truth, vulnerability, awareness, and talent more than ever before. For me, the question has shifted from “How have we changed?” to “What kind of artist/leader can I be to expand on how we change and what changes we can continue to make?” Theatre is the greatest tool we have to achieve this evolution, to attain this growth, to support the UPCOMING.
We need to ask questions, frequently and deeply, in the most conscious way possible. How have we changed? That query itself is a quest of self-reflection…
Words, music, images, movement, gesture, silence—all play an integral part of the way we touch the spirit, the minds, and the hearts of our audiences and each other.
Yesmith Lantigua + Brian Charles Rooney in Matilda at the Axelrod PAC, directed + choreographed by Luis Salgado PHOTO Rich Kowalski
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In the last four months, I have been able to return to work and direct a few projects back-to-back: a production in Sonoma, CA; a show in Times Square; another two shows in boroughs of NYC. There is so much I have taken from this new time in the studio with humans/artists and from this “comeback” that requires a new process. I’ve seen the industry affected and evolving from many angles, both as it takes a step back in some ways and HUGE STEPS forward in many others. Obviously, we’d all like to move forward in our artistic passions, but the common denominator in every room I have seen is fear.
