Membership Spotlight – July 2024

This past spring semester during my graduate coursework, I engaged with Megan Alrutz and Lynn Hoare’s Performing Justice Project by co-facilitating an applied theatre process at a residential juvenile probation center in Austin, TX. This experience was transformative for how I think of myself as a prison abolitionist and theatre-maker, but also for how I show up with any group of young people. One of the youth participants asked us adult facilitators one day, “Why are you here?” I’m still sitting with this question, and I think it could be useful for all of us to deeply consider when we enter into any space with young people.

I was lucky enough to be able to attend the ASSITEJ International Festival in Havana, Cuba in May 2024 where I witnessed so many incredible performances that I’m still feeling inspired about. Some of my favorites were Bounced from Magnet Theatre in South Africa, Bedtime! from Drak Theatre in Czechia, and Cartas de Niños from La Negra María Teatro in Chile.

I am really excited to be directing Luna by Ramón Esquivel at ZACH Theatre in Austin, TX this fall! This is the THIRD time I’ve worked on this play because I love it that much. The poetry of Ramón’s words lends itself to so much rich theatrical interpretation. If you’re in Austin this fall, come check it out!

I heard Julie Ritchey once say, “childhood is the one minority group that we all experience.” I make TYA not only for the young people of today or for the young person that still lives within me, but for a more nuanced collective understanding of what it means to be a young person in our world.

I feel incredibly lucky to have worked with so many incredible artists, activists, and movers – it’s so hard to choose just one! But one person that I would call in a heartbeat to work on anything with is Alyssa Vera Ramos. We worked together at FYI, a performance company making participatory theatre for youth around issues of reproductive justice in Chicago. Alyssa consistently challenges me to imagine what is possible – on stage, in our world, and most importantly for young people.

The one and only Roxanne Schroeder-Arce showed me the power of drama/theatre with young people when I was once a floundering undergrad. She has now been my teacher, mentor, and colleague for over ten years! She reminds me to always work to center young people in all the ways I move through the world.

Feel free to follow me on Instagram: @mateojh95 or check out my website: mateohernandez.org and/or email me at mjh1995@utexas.edu – I’d love to connect!

The Last Martyr by Malik Work. This new play is part of our Theatre for Change production series. It is inspired by the participants involved in our Voices Beyond Bars program which is an arts education program with youth and young adults incarcerated in DC and Montgomery County MD. The play infuses hip hop and poetry throughout the play and follows the push and pulls of gangs during a young man’s re-entry to his community after spending time in prison. We just finished a development week of it this Spring and performed the play for students in a correctional facility and a local high school for feedback. The piece will have its fully produced tour next Spring, complete with a performance at TYA/USA’s conference next year!

Mexodous. The musicality of the piece, the authentic friendship between both the characters but also the actors on stage, the un-told history that was shared, and the power of storytelling—-it was inspirational. I believe every high schooler in America needs to see this play.

We are working collaboratively next year with DC Public Schools Deaf and Hard of Hearing students thanks to our arrangement as a VSA Program Site through the Kennedy Center. Imagination Stage has a long history of working with Deaf and Hard of Hearing patrons and students. I’m especially passionate about this program as my introduction to Imagination Stage was as a teen actor with its Deaf Access Program comprised of both Deaf and Hearing students.

TYA allows young people to imagine the impossible. To explore the world from a new perspective, and start to see themselves as changemakers. It is young people that will change the world, and I believe theatre for young audiences can give them the tools to expand their thinking, collaborate and to see new ways to overcome obstacles. Also, it’s FUN.

A favorite collaborator is playwright Miriam Gonzales. Miriam co-created our Óyeme program which uses applied theatre as a vehicle to create community amongst migrant youth now living in the DC area. Imagination Stage commissioned Miriam to write the play Óyeme, the beautiful which has toured to nearly 15,000 middle and high school students in our region and sparks dialogue around immigration. We also commissioned and produced her play 10 Seconds which deals with bias, policing and teen relationships.

Janet Stanford. I worked closely with Janet over my past 10 years at Imagination Stage. Janet’s persistence for child rights and the ways that theatre can support those rights–truly inspire me every day.

www.imaginationstage.org or jlamparter@imaginationstage.org.

This month I will be working as the playwright of the Palefsky Collision Project at the Alliance Theatre. 20 teens from across Atlanta and I will collectively write a play as we collide with Amanda Gorman’s 2021 inauguration poem, “The Hill We Climb” telling the story of what it means to be a teen in America today. Each day the teens will also be colliding with various artists across the disciplines of music, dance, the visual arts, and theater as well as experiences like a visit to the National Center for Civil and Human Rights to craft a testimony of hope for the Atlanta community.

The genre of Jazz has been liberating me in this moment. The freedom, improvisation, trust in the present, trust in collaboration, and trust in your own instincts have felt like the most resonant language in this phase of life. Shout out to Ella Fitzgerald, Samara Joy, Yussef Dayes, and Tafari Malik for teaching me that I play like jazz!

In 2021 my childhood dream came true as I became a commissioned author for our Mayor’s Summer Reading Club, writing the picture book Do You Love the Dark. I wrote this story amid our country’s racial reckoning and global pandemic to give us tools to face fear by finding love hidden in the things we’re afraid of. We adapted the book into a Theater for Young Audiences show in our ’21-’22 and ’22-’23 seasons. This dream of a project grows as I am working on adapting the story into a TYA musical! The years are passing but the fear isn’t subsiding. My mission is to help as many people as possible tap into the radiant power of Love as we navigate the dark days ahead.

Like Whitney Houston once sang, ” I believe the children are the future, teach them well and let them lead the way…”  I do TYA because I am the product of a community that placed no limits on my imagination; I didn’t just play make-believe, but my playing made people believe in bigger, brighter, better possibilities. I grew up knowing I could change the world, and as I continue to grow, I continue to do so. Doing this work is paying that forward, but also cultivating the gift that keeps on giving. I create platforms, environments, and stories that reflect on the best and worst of who we are so that the youngest of us are equipped to lead us into a future beauty that we don’t have the capacity to create alone.

One of my favorite collaborators over the last 6 years has been Sam Provenzano, a fellow Resident Artist at the Alliance. She is sisterhood, friendship, support, hope, creativity, and honesty rolled into one. Having her as an artistic partner has kept my pulse palpable through these storms of life. I’m full of gratitude to embark on the Collision Project together this summer as a playwright and director duo!

Pearl Cleage, thank you for being the big sister I needed to enter into this world. One of the many gems Pearl has shared with me is “Whatever room you find yourself in, you belong.” You continuously carve out space for me to be the care-free truth-telling Black girl I was designed to be, me and my dreams thank you for it!

You can reach out to me at Maya.lawrence@alliancetheatre.org, and follow my journey at AllianceTheatre.org.