Interview with Lisa Suarez, special projects director, company member

By Keith Hennessy

Lisa Suarez: I guess I am going on six years being here as a staff member. I’ve been associated with Jump-Start for eight to nine years now. My position here is associate director in charge of special projects, tour coordinator and assistant to the education program, as well. There are a lot of different things we balance.

Keith Hennessy: What keeps you involved here?

LS: I am doing what I enjoy doing, for one. I left an 8-to-5 kind of real job six years ago, where I enjoyed that work but I certainly wasn’t doing just what I enjoyed. I have so much more flexibility here. I think while I was doing that job, I was an admissions counselor at a university, and at the same time I was trying to do acting after work. It just became too much. I decided at that point in my life — because I was single, I didn’t have any kids to raise and it wasn’t about insurance and those kinds of things for my family — that if I was going to try and do what I really wanted to do, then that was the time to do it. So, I left to be an artist full time. My mother thought I was crazy. She doesn’t think I am so crazy now because I am doing okay, but at the time— I left and was just doing theater here and there, and then Sterling Houston went to see a show and they asked me to join a show they were doing out at the old site. So, I started doing that. They asked me to help with their education program and I became very involved with the theater. At one point, there was a position opened and they asked me if I would be interested. Before you knew it, I had another job again full time — whether it was acting, or a combination of different things. I was able to get by that way. Now there is a lot of work. I am having to turn it down. I am happy here. I am very happy. Oh yeah, I go crazy and there are times when things are really stressful and I am asking myself why I am doing this. Then when we are on stage and we see what happens and the response that we get, I remember that I really am a ham. I enjoy that kind of attention afterwards. I couldn’t be happier. I can’t think of another place where I could work where it would be flexible enough to continue to be an actor and do what I want to do, and at the same time have a job here and know that I will have a paycheck at the end of the month.

KH: Talk to me about the art that gets made here. Where do the ideas come from?

LS: I think that the ideas come from some cosmic being that we don’t know about that visits us in the middle of the night when we are dreaming. I think it visits every company member for some reason. It is not so crazy to talk about things like that here. It happens and they pop up in meetings. They pop up over lunch. They pop up at social gatherings when we are partying and that kind of thing. We come back and regroup and ask each other, "Were you serious about that idea?" Some things happen really fast, and other things you think about over a month or even over years before they actualize. I think that if you are working here and you are a company member, you certainly have the forum to dream and envision. If you have the guts and you are ready to take the risk, this is a place where you can do it. Got a plan? Let’s work at it and see what we can do.

KH: How’s the actual creative process here. You’ve got this idea, and then what? How do you get it on stage?

LS: The nice thing is having artists in different areas. Whether they are actors, or it is media, or writers, or set designers, or all of that. We have all of the different components that might go into making a production. So, if you have an idea I think it starts with that individual that had the dream. Talk to maybe one other person, and then maybe one or both take it upon themselves to get set up a reading or to brainstorm on it and you start by setting up meetings. We have meetings like you wouldn’t believe. Always meetings. We go crazy with how many meetings we have everyday. The fact is that unless you have a meeting and talk to people things are not going to happen. You have to have those meetings. I think the way we handle our meetings may be different from other organizations. The term professionalism come up every once and awhile. I think we have redefined what that means for ourselves. There are certain things that we still want to have. People who commit to something, be there when you are supposed to be there, those kinds of things. We are not about what your attire is. That part of that definition has kind of flown out. It is like, "Hey, don’t distract the rest of us so that we can still work and get our message across." Those kinds of things are still important. We meet. We gather people together and see who is interested. We do our brainstorming together. We certainly try and motivate each other. That is where the excitement for those types of things starts to happen. Then you set up more time. You set up a workshop if it is a work in progress and you want to workshop it.

KH: How do you get feedback?

LS: We have also adopted the Critical Response process which is really, really helpful. Some artists will choose not to use it. And that is okay too for some. I think we are always open to it. I think for any artist who is developing work, they should be open to it if they want their art to grow. Certainly this place is conducive to that. We may not want to hear it in a public forum where everybody hears what they are thinking about your work. But I think everybody would welcome that criticism on a one-to-one basis. Sometimes you are going to get it because we are all artists and aren’t we the biggest critics of other people’s work? And we are all friends. Certainly our company is going to give us feedback. The other feedback that you get that you may not measure on an evaluation form is seeing who comes to your work. If they show up and start to talk about it. You know people are talking about it if they show up and are bringing friends. You know that. The audience starts to taper off, you have to ask yourself why that happens. There are some places to start and evaluate your work, whatever that might be.

KH: A lot of people have talked about how diverse the population at Jump-Start is, how eclectic the work is. I wonder if you could just get a bit more specific about who you think the communities are that are touched by the work, or are influenced by the work, or inspire the work that happens here?

LS: It is interesting, because before I got here, and when I first started to work with Jump-Start when we were in the old space, I’m not sure that I saw very many brown faces out there. When I started getting into the different types of shows that were happening, obviously community is attracted to seeing themselves on stage. It is that simple sometimes. As we started to bring in more company members of color those types of productions started to hit the stage and the audiences were talking and saw that there was another venue where they were represented. What I have always liked about Jump-Start is that certainly they have always been doing work for disenfranchised communities. And certain disenfranchised communities, they didn’t always include all. Now they started including more, the Latino community, the black community, putting our faces up on the stage I think was really important. So now amazingly so we have become so diverse. We can see a wide mix of colors in the audience for all the productions because people are now interested. They are not just seeing themselves on the stage now. They’ve seen themselves on he stage, and now that they have they can come here and be comfortable and not feel out of place. Even if they come to see a production that is not about themselves.

Take Shimi for example. They’ve been introduced to another culture. Now it is about learning about other people, as well. Being comfortable at a place is very important. Knowing that you can sit in an audience and be different and still be treated okay is very important. We have done that. We keep ourselves in check as much as possible. When we see those faces coming into our audience and try to make everyone feel comfortable. It is amazing to me because we have a Mexican-American festival, and to see the people that come to be a part of that is very exciting. There is a lot to be said about being comfortable.

KH: You are saying for the Festival de Libre Enganche there are also white people that come?

LS: Oh yeah! And black folks that come as well. They have gotten excited about seeing that type of work. They realize that they may not understand all of it, but they are okay. It is really exciting to see them mingle afterwards. I feel like we are doing our job, which is what we want to do.

KH: How do you think it influences the company or the work to be engaged in these communities and have them starting to be touched by the work?

LS: Well, hopefully, as we all continue to work on our self-esteem, it makes us feel better. Obviously, we do the work that we do to feel good. People stop doing the things that they do if they stop feeling good about it. Unfortunately, there are people who do jobs that they cannot stop doing because they are tied to it for financial reasons. We don’t do what we do for money necessarily, although some of us have been making a comfortable living. It is because those rewards are that we see someone smile in the audience and it makes us feel good about the work that we are doing. I think that company members can certainly feed off of audience reactions, and if they hear even one or two people going, "You know you are so right with what you said on that stage. I’m so glad. I had just never heard it put that way and now I can understand why something is the way that it is," they have touched somebody that has the potential to change the world out there. They have changed the world in a little way, by one thing. That is how ideas are born. We here at Jump-Start really do want to change the world.

KH: What is the vision? How do you want to change the world?

LS: Just to make it such a better place where we can all get along. You know? We don’t have to agree with everything that everybody thinks, but to know that we can be together in a space and get along without imposing our beliefs on other people. Just showing that my beliefs may be different than yours. It is okay. I am not going to go after you and try and beat you up because you are different. What we want to stop is a lot of the beating up. It can happen in so many different ways. Physically, psychologically, verbally. I think that when it comes down to the real fundamentals we want to stop the beating up of everybody. Nobody has the right to beat up on somebody else because they look different, or think different, or are different. Our stages are a place to put up different people, different beliefs, and different thoughts without getting beat up on that stage. Sometimes we might by the critics, but hey that is a lot less. And the important thing is that there is a support group, and that is the rest of the actors, the rest of the company and our supporters.

KH: Talk to me a little bit about leadership. Who makes the decisions? Who is in charge, and who is in charge of what? What is the flow of all of that?

LS: You know, when it comes down to the hard decisions where we may get stuck, the truth is that Steve has the power there. However, it certainly is not going to be without everybody else’s input. Because the way that structures need to be sometimes for granting institutions and other places like that, it is important that we have that structure. We have an executive director that, in a last-minute drop, can make a decision. It certainly is going to be him, although we have had to make decisions himself without him if he is gone. Let’s say myself or Sterling, we both are in the office quite a bit, we are both associate directors. When it comes down to seniority or that kind of thing, it is Steve, Sterling then it would fall to either myself or Felice, depending on the area. The rest of us are all associate directors. It is kind of like Steve, and then the rest of us are all associate directors. There is not anything really below it other than our interns. I’ll tell you, though, that I make the decisions on most of the things that I have to deal with. We’ve learned to be very strong. I’ve learned to put my foot down and say, "I don’t agree with you Steve." He’ll listen, he may not always like it. I love that man. I really, really do. I butt heads with him like you would not believe. We’ve cried together. We’ve pointed things out to each other, like when I feel like he has been racist or sexist in some ways or whatever. He will take it and apologize afterwards. Those things are there, and we deal with those kinds of issues. I couldn’t imagine doing those things anywhere else or with anyone else.

If it weren’t for Jump-Start I certainly wouldn’t be doing this — making a living as an artist in San Antonio. The one thing that I was always hearing is "You need to leave." Go to LA, go to New York. I’m not interested in that. I am interested in home and making a difference here. Sure I don’t mind going off and doing some work and then coming back. Where else can I go and leave for two months and still have my job? Yeah, we do have our structure, but I have to admit there is not going to be some place else where you can pull that executive director— And really, I mean if it is a bitching session, and you let it out, you are not going to be kicked out. We really genuinely care about each other.

KH: What do you think are the biggest challenges that face you guys?

LS: Money, money, money, money. The challenge is raising the money. That is the biggest challenge. With the nature of our work, we can be very creative, much moreso when you don’t have the money, because you don’t have a choice. You have to resort to creativity in where else but a creative institution? A creative institution that is about creating work. We meet challenge all the time. The fun thing is going "Alright, yeah! Here is another challenge, another thing to go at." When you do it and you succeed and it is done it is like, "We did it! What is the next challenge? Bring it on!" It is almost like our biggest challenge may deal with the city, or let’s say is changing the minds of closed-minded individuals. That is always going to be the biggest challenge for a theater such as us, who is experimental, who is wanting to change the world. It is always dealing with closed minds, whether it is in the company, whether it is in the community where we live. Closed minds have a tendency of putting up barriers when you want to do something new.

KH: What have been your favorite projects since you’ve been here?

LS: I hated it as much as I loved it — it was the Festival de Libre Enganche. I came in to assist the coordinating of this thing. So, now I’ve done three of these things. It was about learning how to do it. It was about actually seeing it happen. That has to be one of the ones that I loved the most, but I also hated it too, because it was so much work and I was so scared. One of the other favorite things just now happened. One of those dreams that I had was to have a touring show. I actualized, it happened. That has to be "Frontera." We did it eight years ago and brought it back. We revised it and made it better and toured it, which is what I wanted.

KH: Eight years ago? I had no idea.

LS: Eight years ago. Same cast. You could say that is either really sad—

KH: No, it is amazing!

LS: At that time, I looked a lot more like a 16-year-old. Yeah. It was fun. It was really good to get everyone together again, and that they were able to do it. I was really excited about that. Then I got a chance to do a one-woman show, which was not one that I wrote but someone got me to do. I loved that only because I was able to prove to myself that I could do it. I could learn eight different roles in one hour and do all that many pages. I did it. There was some of my own personal "yay" kind of success. I would probably would be able to do it better if it was my own work, but I still haven’t gotten that done. I’ve just been busy with other stuff.

KH: If there is a way that you would want to leave a snapshot about what Jump-Start is, especially for someone who isn’t from San Antonio or doesn’t know what Jump-Start is what do you want them to know? Or what do you want them to know about what is possible in terms of creating a grassroots theater company in their own place?

LS: Off the bat I was thinking this big old giant ANYTHING. Draw a sign on the wall. Sure, I mean there is anything, if you are willing to work at it and do it you can do it here. We’ve left it open to just about anything. If you believe in it. The thing is that some people aren’t willing to work at it that hard. If you are willing to work at it and you feel that need to express anything up here, you can do it. The other thing is the big comfort thing. You can really be comfortable here and learn at the same time. That is a big thing for me. People don’t go anywhere they aren’t comfortable.

KH: There is one more little question that has come up for me while you were talking. People say a lot that you can do whatever you want here, and at the same time there is a vision around changing the world and disenfranchised voices. I am trying to figure out how the space of freedom is created here and yet still somehow the work serves the mission. People are inspired to do whatever they want, they are not censoring themselves and yet somehow they are still in alignment with some larger picture. How do you think that happens?

LS: Magic. I don’t know. I don’t know how it happens, but it happens. I think that the word oppression comes to mind. In oppression there is no freedom. If we are trying to break down oppression you have to provide freedom. I think that becomes contagious. It is like if you feed someone something enough they become that. So, to, me it is about that. If we feed freedom, hopefully they will catch it and it becomes contagious enough that they will think, "Yeah, hey, I could be free to do this," and break those chains of oppression somehow. I think that is what we do, and that is our mission. It is about breaking chains of oppression on so many different levels, across the board. That is how we stick to our mission. We don’t always like what we are going to see up there. At times, even we may want to censor something that is going to be up there, but it is like, whoa, wait a minute. Would we be going against our own mission? We have serious talks about that kind of stuff. I think it is that. We feed freedom to do and be who and whatever you are.

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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Carpetbag | Cornerstone | Dell'Arte | Jump-Start
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