Stephanie Diaz on 10 Years of TCIP
- thechicagoinclusio
- 8 minutes ago
- 5 min read
Twenty some-odd years ago, approximately 2000 miles from Chicago, Emjoy Gavino and I met in a theatre. A theatre where I was doing West Side Story as the only –the ONLY– Latiné performer in the entire cast. Believe it or not, this wasn’t uncommon back then, partly for generational reasons (there were simply fewer Latiné actors, period… and we were called “Hispanic”) and partly due to the implicit biases that have plagued show business since time immemorial. Going back to my childhood, it’s hard to come up with a list of Latiné actors that I saw on TV and in movies that extends much further than Maria and Luis from Sesame Street. I clung to Ricardo Montalbán and his powerful, genteel mystique as Mr. Roarke on Fantasy Island –the rare instance of a Latiné actor in a non-ethnospecific role. I looked up to Rita Moreno on The Electric Company, and Adolfo “Shabba-Doo” Quiñones in Breakin’. But for the most part, I rarely saw myself represented on screen, and almost never on stage, and when I did… the roles were mostly limited to well-worn ethnic tropes, or played by white actors in brownface. Even so, these characters were often such a welcome sight that I eagerly embraced them anyway, so hungry was I for representation, for any sign that there might be a place for me somewhere in this art form– I’m looking at you, Vasquez (Aliens) and Agador Spartacus (The Birdcage)! I could even forgive Natalie Wood that hideous accent in West Side Story if it meant that once a year –when it was broadcast on TV– I could see a Latina Juliet, albeit a counterfeit one. And while I grew up in marvelously diverse communities where white folks were decidedly in the minority… We really didn’t question why the faces we saw all around us every day were rarely ones we saw on our screens. It was simply The Way It Was, though every little step toward progress was noticed and feted: the almost all-Latiné La Bamba (1987) was groundbreaking for a mainstream film, even if the lead actor was actually Filipino (Who cares! We’ll take him!)
But as slow as TV and film were to begin the long and winding road to representation, theatre was –and remains– even slower.
For many, many years, from summer stock apprenticeships through college and beyond, I was often one of very few POC in the room, and sometimes the only one. At certain mainstream institutions such as Shakespeare festivals and regional theatres, I would see a few chosen, anointed BIPOC actors allowed to play roles irrespective of their ethnicity, and I dreamed of being one of them. But the reality of my experience meant mostly being hired for roles that exploited and portrayed Latinidad through the lens of a dominant culture that prizes otherness only within the strictest of parameters: suffering, serving, transgressing, or otherwise existing as symbols or moral catalysts. The smattering of parts I managed to land outside of these parameters were widely spaced and hard-won… and those were the ones I was lucky enough to get seen for. However, a few fortuitous, progressive experiences early in my career (both as performer and audience member) had shown me that inclusive casting was not only possible, but revelatory, breathing new life into classics and populating contemporary works with authentic faces and voices that made the language sing and brought the worlds of these plays to vibrant realization. When I moved to Chicago in 2004, a city much bigger and more diverse than any I’d previously inhabited, I admit I fully expected this kind of casting to be, well, the norm. To my baffled dismay, it was even less so than where I’d come from. By this time, there were already many more BIPOC actors than when I was coming up, yet I was still seeing only those few chosen representatives dotting mostly all-white casts, and “ambiguously ethnic” white actors in audition rooms for the precious few roles specifically designated for nonwhite actors. Like most of my peers, I put my nose to the grindstone and continued to work where I could, grateful to even be working, because theatre conditioning is real and so is the internalized-colonization mindset.
So when Emjoy and I crossed paths again here in Chicago, and she asked me if I’d like to be part of maybe changing all that, I was more than ready to jump aboard.
By then we had both already begun working as casting directors ourselves, the natural result of constantly being asked for free labor in the form of actor recommendations from theatermakers unable or unwilling to see past their own homogenous networks. Still, it was painfully enlightening to confront the reality of how difficult it could be to convince a director to simply consider an actor in a different way by just letting them audition. Emjoy’s radical idea for what became our inaugural event was to show the community just what they were missing, by producing a reading of a classic play, in collaboration with a respected, AEA theatre, featuring a truly inclusive cast of all-stars. The result was nothing short of electric– and industry-changing. That year, 2015, we finally began to see the wheels of progress really begin to turn, ushering in a new era that brought diversity, inclusion and responsible casting closer to being the norm than ever before in Chicago. The Chicago Inclusion Project, while certainly not alone in this endeavor nationwide, was nonetheless a significant spark that lit a fire, and became a torchbearer for a world onstage that better reflects the one we live in. Ten years later, there is still much work to do, and we continue to diversify our mission to meet the challenges.
It warms my heart when I hear younger artists speak of not knowing a time that they rarely saw themselves represented on stage or screen. While it can sometimes feel disheartening for more seasoned artists to consider that their younger counterparts may know little or nothing about the struggles many have endured to open doors for them, I must admit it’s quite thrilling to realize they don’t have to wonder if there is even a place for someone like them in the performing arts, as I did. This is progress. I believe this sense of ownership, of prerogative, of right –of course we belong here– will fuel the struggle now, and those surely ahead, in our fickle, frustrating, ever-shifting world.
