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I was born and raised in the border town of El Paso, on the northern side of the Rio Grande. Like most others in El Paso, my family is spread out on both sides of the river, so I found myself on both sides of the border for much of my life. I was in high school when I discovered my passion for theatre, which took much of my family by surprise. Prior to pursuing theatre, I was intent on studying Physics, and to this day I remain a self-confessed nerd for astronomy, and I still try to sneak in facts about stars and comets into my plays.

My penchant for the arts didn’t completely come out of nowhere – my paternal grandfather is a poet and journalist, and he instilled in me an early love for storytelling. For much of my childhood I’d write short stories, but it wasn’t until high school that I found theatre to be my favorite medium for storytelling. I was instantly enraptured by the communal and ephemeral nature of theatre – it is a story that only exists in a singular time and space, when audience and storytellers come together.

Shortly after, I learned what kinds of stories I wanted to tell on the stage – border stories, with border voices. In the past seven years or so, as the border has become a subject of political contention, and as pundits and politicians paint a singular portrait of the border, I’ve found myself deeply in discomfort at the way the border has been presented. The story being told is one of crime, suffering, and contention, and it is entirely unrepresentative of the totality of the border experience. The least that I can do is try to uplift other voices and stories of the borderlands, to create a slightly wider portrait of the land I call home. I seek to tell these stories on border stages, but beyond the border as well, where they need to be heard most.

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As theatre artists go, I think I tend to wear my influences on my sleeve. My passion for theatre was fueled by Latino theatre artists, and continues to drive my theatre artistry. I’m particularly inspired by the work of playwrights who hail from the border, and whose work often features the borderland – Isaac Gomez, Octavio Solis, and Jesus Valles are some of the writers whose work I often revisit, especially when I’m in the middle of my writing process. Even when not directly influenced by writers from the border, the border itself is rarely far from mind in my theatre-making process.

The border showed up in almost every project I worked on for the PCP course. In the Playwriting module, I wrote about the sight of the border from Scenic Drive in El Paso. In the Dance module, I created a small dance inspired by a portion of choreography from a quinceañera I was part of – a celebration extremely common in El Paso. When it came time to work on our FOPP, we chose to create an installation that commented on interconnectedness at the El Paso-Juarez border.

The people, the history, the music, the voices, and the places of the border are continuously at the center of my work. Even when my current project doesn’t directly concern the border or a related subject matter, my upbringing and lived experiences influence how I approach every project I work on.

In recent months, I’ve started to look to the work of other Latino theatre-makers beyond the border for inspiration. In particular, I’ve been looking into the work of Latino dramatists in Texas, and Latino theatre companies, such as Teatro Vivo in Austin and Cara Mia Theatre in Dallas. I’m deeply inspired by the collaborative work by these companies and their members, and am trying to bring similar values to my work as a playwright.

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Current Inspiration: Isaac Gomez's "La Ruta"

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Current Inspiration: Isaac Gomez's "La Ruta"

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I am forever inspired by Isaac Gomez, a playwright who also hails from El Paso and whose work often concerns the borderlands we call home. "La Ruta", pictured above, is Isaac's most well-known play, about the femicides of Ciudad Juarez's, El Paso's sister city. I love his use of Mexican folk music in the play, and it makes me think of ways to include music in my work outside of the musical theatre format I often default to. "La Ruta" is decidedly not a musical, but its use of music fascinates and inspires me.

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The communal nature of the creation and consumption is what initially drew me into making theatre, and it’s the aspect I’ve been delighted to explore over the first year of my theatre education at UT. As a younger theatre-maker, I had the habit of taking on too many roles on a given production, which stretched myself thin to the detriment of my work. It’s a side effect of perfectionism, and it’s a fault I’m trying to actively correct.

This course has provided the perfect opportunity to refine my collaborative skills, particularly in encouraging me to collaborate across different mediums, some which I’m familiar in and some which I’m decidedly less well-versed in. We began the semester with the Playwriting module, a familiar medium where I felt safer in working with someone else to create a single piece. The following two modules, Dance and Devising, definitely pushed me outside of my comfort zone, into a place where my lack of familiarity helped me to invite collaboration. I concluded the semester with the Design module, a medium I have more experience in, and by this point I was a more skilled collaborator, and I was able to efficiently bring my prior experience to the project.

As the academic year comes to a close and the summer fast approaches, I find myself eager to collaborate on my theatre endeavors for the summer. I have a theatre company in El Paso, Teatro Quetzal, composed largely of old classmates from my theatre high school program. They are all variously talented in a vast array of fields, from writing, to composing, to designing, to illustrating, to singing, and I am excited to work with them to create something which I never could have done on my own. Likewise, I look forward to bringing collaboration to my next year of theatre education at UT Austin.

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Current Collaboration: Music for "Soldadera"

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Current Collaboration: Music for "Soldadera"

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This past summer, I put on a production of "Soldadera", an original mariachi musical about the female soldiers of the Mexican revolution. For this production, I served as director, music director, playwright, and composer, stretching myself incredibly thin, in detriment to the play. This summer, I'll be working on rewriting much of the book and score, but I'll be collaborating with Roussel Acosta, a friend and talented musician whose collaboration can help push this piece further than I ever could while manning multiple roles by myself.

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I’ve always held to the mantra of high aspirations making for high destinations. This ideal informs much of the work I’ve done, and which I aim to do in the coming months and years. I’ve brought some of my stories to border stages, but I presently aspire to go beyond the borderland.

Being at UT Austin is a step in that aspiration. As the son of immigrants who don’t hold a collegiate degree, opting to go to college nine hours away from home seemed an unattainable goal when I first set out on my college admissions journey. And yet – I know find myself at the tail end of my first year at UT, having navigated college life fairly well thus far. In my first year, I directed a children’s show, sound designed two plays, and did technical design for another two plays. It was an incredibly busy year, but likewise invigorating and rewarding. Next year looks to be an even busier year for me, as I aim to sound design a show for the department, and direct a musical with a student theatre company. It may seem much, but I am eager to tackle this coming year at UT.

Another key part of my aspirations for the coming year is to have my work read and produced beyond the campus of UT. There is a thriving community of Latino theatre makers all over Austin, Texas, and the U.S., and I’d like to tap into these communities and share my work. There are dozens if not hundreds of play festivals in a given year, and I’d like to submit to more of them in the coming year. Teatro Vivo in Austin hosts its LatinX New Play Festival every spring, and Stages in Houston hosts the Sin Muros Festival around the same time. Both are part of rich communities of Latino theatre, and this year I will submit my work to these and more, as I aspire to share my theatre artistry beyond the borderland and campus.

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Current Aspiration: Bringing "Soldadera" to Cohen

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Current Aspiration: Bringing "Soldadera" to Cohen

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As aforementioned, I'm currently working on a rewrite of "Soldadera", an original mariachi musical which first premiered in El Paso in the summer of 2021, and which I hope to bring to the Cohen New Works Festival for its 2023 iteration. I'm delighted to have first performed this border story in the borderlands, but I'm equally delighted to be bringing this story to an Austin stage, where it perhaps less known, and where it can have a bigger impact.