Interview with Sarah Guerra, apprentice

By Keith Hennessy

Keith Hennessy: Tell me your name and tell me what you do at Jump-Start.

Sarah Guerra: My name is Sarah Guerra and I am an apprentice here at Jump-Start. I do a little bit of everything. I work a lot with Felice Garcia, the technical director. She kind of teaches me what she does. Painting, working on technical things, running the theater, cleaning, before shows I’ll hang the lights and focus, mostly. I’m working a lot with Dianne through grants. Finding pictures if she needs pictures, copies, Kinko’s, everything like that. Pretty much a little bit of everything.

KH: How long have you been at Jump-Start?

SG: A year.

KH: How did you come to work here? How did they find you? How did you find them?

SG: I’ve been involved in theater for about ten years already. I started off, I guess I was maybe 13, at the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center. I guess I started doing Chicano theater. I was a part of a youth group there that I helped, I am a founding member of. Lisa Suarez was one of our assistant directors. I’ve known her through all these years. When I was 16 or 17, we performed at a performance party and I got to know a couple more people. The very first Festival de Libre Enganche in ’94 or ’95, we also performed here. Just through that, through theater work. A few years later, I started trying out lights for shows. Steve was the first light designer I worked with. He just really liked me. When they had shows and he was designing the lights I would try to get to work with him. Then, you know, the position of apprentice came open.

KH: What have been your favorite projects that Jump-Start has worked on?

SG: We did Young Tongues in the summer. That was really cool. I was technical assistant with Felice. We did everything. Coming in and rehearsing with all these different people. I think I liked it the best because it was a for younger people, young adults. It was really neat working on all these little projects with people that are my own age and trying to have a venue to show their work. The Festival de Libre Enganche is always a lot of fun. The performance artists from Mexico are really cool, and we really get to see all of them.

KH: What is your relationship to what I might call the structure or the leadership here? What’s your relationship to power in the organization? Is there anything you get to decide? Or do you follow other people? Are you doing the things that you want to do in relation to that?

SG: I don’t really have a lot of power. I guess I do have the freedom to choose what I do and what I don’t do. They are very open. If it’s that I really hate cleaning the bathrooms. I feel free to express that. I kind of do what everyone says, but no one takes advantage of the situation.

KH: What’s your relationship to the company members who have been here for a long time?

SG: I get along with all of them, pretty much. There are some that I am still kind of meeting. This the first time that I’ve worked with Chuck. I’ve worked with Kim several times. They are really great. They are really open to new and fresh ideas. Especially with me and Annele and Jessica coming in. We are all so much younger than them. They are really open to a lot of our ideas. We have a really good relationship with them. They learn from us just as much as we are learning from them. They are really cool just to hang out with.

KH: What do you think and feel about all the work that Jump-Start is doing in their community outreach kind of stuff? Do you get involved in that?

SG: I try. I really try. I am more interested in the shows. That’s been where I have focused my time and energy on as far as learning about light design. I’m trying to eventually design my own shows. I think it is really interesting the education and the community outreach that they do. A lot of people don’t know that about Jump-Start. They don’t know that. They think we are just a theater and that’s it. We put on plays. Talking to a lot of people, they don’t know the idea that we have all these programs. Like going into schools and helping kids.

KH: How do you think the programs effect Jump-Start? Do you see a way that they impact the work also?

SG: Yeah. Definitely. I think just having these different programs kind of strengthens the foundation. It totally builds Jump-Start. I don’t know if I am being clear. Everyone here is really excited about the programs. They have a lot of energy, put a lot of energy into it. We all enjoy it.

KH: I heard you saying that part of your intention in being here is to hopefully evolve so that you can do your own shows. Would that be at Jump-Start? Do you see yourself being able to actually design shows here?

SG: Yeah. Well, these two shows, Shimi and Dianne’s, I collaborated with Steve. Right now Steve is putting a lot more on me. They just offered me these chances to assist and design. I am going to in March, I’m designing my first show by myself for another small production company. It’s going to be here at Jump-Start. They’ve definitely opened a lot more doors for me. They give me a lot more opportunities than other places would have. Mainly because of my age.

KH: How old are you?

SG: Twenty-three.

KH: How do you see Jump-Start effecting the other communities in San Antonio? Have you seen their role outside this building?

SG: I think they are very known. They make themselves present out in the community. When we are somewhere, when we are in a school doing a workshop it is like we are Jump-Start doing this for you. We are here because of you. They are very forward with it.

KH: What do you think it is that Jump-Start does the best?

SG: Everything. We do everything the best.

KH: What makes them unique?

SG: With the Historias y Cuentas program. Just cause it is so amazing to hear when they are in their education meetings and stuff and they are talking about their projects and how they are really trying to get these kids to know that art is a form of education.

KH: How do you get feedback, as someone who is both working here but also learning here? Is there any kind of formal way that you get feedback? How do you think you get evaluated? Do you have chances to feed back into the rest of the group?

SG: Yeah. Definitely. At staff meetings, you know if you have questions you’ll get feedback there. It is very open. It’s really an open relationship. If I ever want to know anything I can just ask. Steve or Dianne or whoever is around, if I need their advice it is always direct.

KH: Is there a way that you differentiate theater that is coming out of the community or that is rooted in community from just theater in general? What has drawn you to work in community-based theater projects? What’s in it for you?

SG: I like the whole idea of a lot more original things coming out that are focused to the community. Whereas in other theaters, like in the San Pedro playhouse they do "My Fair Lady." A lot of these are just original pieces. They are people from San Antonio and these are their ideas. Their visions of shows. I think it is just really cool to be able to work with the playwright. Having her sit in the audience giving some feedback on what’s going on with her productions. I think that is more it. You are working with the playwright, you are working with a group of people that you know. We all work really well together. I’ve worked in a couple of bigger theaters and they don’t accept you. It’s not original. It’s not their own.

KH: A lot of people who have never been to San Antonio and have never heard about Jump-Start are going to have access to these archives. What would you want them to know about Jump-Start and the work that gets done here? Anything that we haven’t already talked about?

SG: No. Just that this is a really great place and hopefully it is going to be around for a lot longer for them to hear this and then come and see.

Keith Hennessy is a Canadian-born, interdisciplinary artist choreographer and community arts organizer living in community in San Francisco. Hennessy's solo work has been produced throughout the U.S., in Canada, New Zealand and Australia, including several gay and lesbian performance festivals. Since 1998, he has performed with Cahin-Caha, cirque bâtard, a French/American, mongrel circus based in France. Hennessy was a member of the performance collective Core and was a founding member and principle collaborator in Contraband, a San Francisco-based performance company. Hennessy co-directs 848 Community Space. He is a member of Alternate ROOTS, a service organization for community-based artists, and serves radical cultural agendas as a consultant, director, teacher, curator and agitator.

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