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[0:00] Martín Acuña: Hi everyone, I am Martín Acuña and you are listening to Backstage Talk.

[0:16] Martín Acuña: Jonathan Larson asked how can you make someone take off and fly in one of his songs from Tick Tick Boom, and I, for the past two years, have learned one way to through the power of community. Welcome to the Latinx in Musical Theatre special for a Season 3 of Backstage Talk, where we will be featuring artists from across all positions in musical theatre, from several Latin American countries and different Latin heritages. I am proud to showcase my Latinx family. I hope you enjoy.

[0:51] Martín Acuña: Hello everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Backstage Talk. Today's guest is Pedro Salazar. He is a Colombian theatre, opera and musical theatre director and producer. His long career has had these three types of performing arts intertwined through all his work. Pedro, thank you so much for being here. It is an honour to have you over on Backstage Talk.

[1:15] Pedro Salazar: Thank you for having me, Martín. I'm very happy to be here with you guys.

[1:18] Martín Acuña: First thing I want to ask you is what made you choose the thespian path in life?

[1:24] Pedro Salazar: Well, I think it was sort of like something natural that happened when I was around four. I really was obsessed with the theatre and going to shows or the movies. You know, I was very much enthralled by the curtain that went up. At that time there were some big cinemas in Bogota that still had curtains that would open and would reveal a huge white screen before the film would begin. For me that was magical. I always found happiness in the theatre. I found it was a natural place for me to be in. I was able to do some theatre while I was in school and then I just went for the path. It was the natural place for me and what makes me happy today.

[2:06] Martín Acuña: Let's double click on that part of musical theatre. Where did you start your journey all the way to the latest work you've done?

[2:10] Pedro Salazar: As a kid I loved Holiday on Ice. It was a big show that came to Bogota back in the day. My parents would take me and I was obsessed with going to that. I always had a lot of musical training as a kid and I really loved music. I really loved singing. Then at the school where I went, which was an American school run by Benedictine monks and nuns. It was very bizarre if you think about it today. They actually did these operettas. Your grandma was the woman who ran the operettas and I owe her a lot actually. We did several but especially when I was in the fifth grade we did a production of the Mikado with the girl's school that was nearby. I played Coco and it was my first time singing a role and feeling happy and being on stage.

Then I studied more theatre. I did more experimental stuff when I was in high school and then we did a big production of Jesus Christ Superstar when I was a senior that I produced and led and starred in. Then I went and I studied theatre abroad. I went to the US and I studied theatre there and then I spent some time in Europe and then I started my own company in Bogota some years ago. I started probably in musical theatre. I was experimented. I was a high school teacher here. I did Into the Woods with them and then while I was in New York I was flown here to be the assistant director of Cabaret when the Teatro Nacional was celebrating its 25th anniversary. I really had to run the show and take over and it was fun but it was a really good learning experience full of obstacles. But now I do opera, I do a lot of classical theatre as well and I run a theatre department here in Bogota in one of the universities.

[4:14] Martín Acuña: Yeah that is awesome. So you've got the chance to direct a lot of things as you just mentioned but I want to know what's your approach to directing musical theatre? Where do you start and what is your process like?

[4:25] Pedro Salazar: Well first of all I have to find a piece with which I have a strong emotional relationship. I'm not interested in many of the musicals that appear nowadays or I'm interested in seeing them but I wouldn't do them again. I feel like they've already been done and that's how it is. That's how it works. Someone created this amazing piece of work. If I was to do something probably I'd do something more classical like Carousel by Rodgers and Hammerstein. But it has to be something that connects with me and for example my last piece was Tosca, the opera by Puccini, last December and Tosca happens in 1800 exactly in Rome when the Napoleonic armies are invading. They're at war with the Habsburgs and there's going to be a change of political system and there's a big questioning of patriotic icons and monuments and statues.

So for me it was relevant today in terms of what's been happening in Colombia with all the social protests that happened throughout the pandemic, all the statues that have been taken down and replaced and there's a big dialogue, a big debate going on around that and I wanted to center Tosca with that as a backdrop. So I said it's sort of like in the 40s in more of a Latin American setting so that the piece would speak to us as opposed to doing a classical museum rendition in a country which is not European where we're actually doing a genre that could be obsolete and unnecessary today. How do we make it relevant and necessary and how do we make it speak to me and therefore to us today, you know.

[6:19] Martín Acuña: Yeah, I agree with you. So what would be a piece of advice you would tell a younger version of yourself?

[6:25] Pedro Salazar: To risk more, to really listen to that inner voice that allows you to follow the images that you see in your mind as opposed to trying to embrace a formula or trying to be correct according to what people tell you you should be thinking or whatever's in fashion theatrically. Back in the 90s everyone was post-modern, now everyone is post-dramatic and non-representational and this and that but connect with who you are and music is a big part of your life, young Pedro, so enjoy it more and enjoy yourself more, have more fun.

[7:05] Martín Acuña: Absolutely. So in terms of Latins in musical theatre and the work that you've done not only in Colombia but abroad, what is visibility and representation for you?

[7:12] Pedro Salazar: Well, you know, I'm a Colombian director working in Colombia so the idea of Latino relevance is different, you know, like back when I was younger people would believe that you had to, in order to find success, you'd have to go find success abroad, meaning in the north, in the US or Europe and then through that validation now you're successful, now you know your thing, now you know your craft and you can come here and work and for me it's sort of like been the opposite experience, you know, like we're trying to find visibility by making stronger networks in Latin America as opposed to having the US validate our work.

[7:47] Pedro Salazar: For example, in opera, there's a network called Opera Latinoamericana, which the biggest theaters in the continent are co-producing and thinking opera and thinking how to make opera relevant in the southern part of the continent. So, for example, in that sense, that's a way to find visibility. So, obviously, we also want to find visibility in the higher instances of the institutions that make us more and more visible. And I feel like Latinos have really, you know, won a specific, you know, a very important space in theater today. You know, I mean, like you see it on Broadway with the success of Lin-Manuel Miranda, you know, the great productions that he's done in Hamilton. And, you know, I was talking to you briefly about how In the Heights, the movie, really made me happy.

You know, I think it's really well done. But also, you know, I think there's talent everywhere. I think there are people who are writing in different countries. And yes, we need more visibility. But for me, visibility is not necessarily going to Broadway. It's about, you know, creating work that's relevant here so people go and see it. That's already hard enough to make people come and see your work, to make it relevant for a new audience. You know, here we say, oh, you know, there's not enough of an audience. That's not true. You know, when things are relevant, when things are necessary, people come. You know, and I think Bogota is a city that should have a thriving theater community. And it does.

It does. I'm part of a thriving theater community in Bogota. So I think, yeah, there's visibility and there are more stories being told about us. You see it with Encanto, with the Disney movie that talks about Colombia. And then there's visibility of our stories, you know, like I was, you know, Colombia has many, it's a very diverse country with many stories to tell. And, you know, as opposed to telling the story of the Latino who migrates to the U.S. and, you know, and which is a different kind of story. I think there are many stories to tell here. And we have to validate that we suffer from the conflicts of self-imposed colonialism in which we believe that anything that comes from another country is always better.

And it's not true. This is a country with a lot of talent. And what we need is, as you say, is visibility. It's the opportunity to work in order to like make ourselves visible. If we have the talent and we have no opportunities of working because no one is producing anything, then it's hard to be visible. And I think part of working here is making that visibility more apparent and which is redundant. But yeah. But yeah, I love living in Latin America and working in Latin America. I'm not saying that I will never leave again because I have already left, but I've been working in Colombia for the past 15 years on stop and I'm very happy here.

[10:51] Martín Acuña: I love that. I love that. Pedro, in all this experience that you've had, what do you think is the most important part of creating characters for musical theater? And specifically, if you're working with an all Latino cast telling a proper Latin story?

[11:04] Pedro Salazar: Well, for me, it's different to answer that question because I live in Colombia, so we're not worrying about being Latin or not. A lot of the time, the problem here is that if you take a musical theater model and you try to make it... I've seen a lot of musical theater done in Colombia in which the demon is an African-American girl and the good character is like a blonde, blue-eyed boy, which is ridiculous. And that's sort of like an indoctrination of how things have representation, how things have been represented in the past. And I think in a way that's... It's badly thought out. A lot of the times as Latinos, we suffered in the States, the stigma of always playing the narco, the prisoner in jail, the guy who's on trial, the criminal, because that's how we are portrayed over there.

But being Latino is much more than that and being Colombian is much more than that. And there are so many other stories to tell. So really, I'm finding characters that have something to say, be it from the evil side or the good side. I'm also interested in the kind of music that those characters will sing and why. We've developed pieces in the past based on Colombian folk music, which are kind of like these folk operas, but they're following the language of musical theater. As I was telling you, I think for me, all theater is musical. It's all about working in time and creating rhythms and silences and how things move in space and time. But how do you create a character? That's probably a good question to ask a writer, because I'm not a writer.

A character should not be one-dimensional. He's not only Latino, he's not only Colombian, he's not only a man or a woman or non-binary, he's more than that. And how do you create that story? And what does it represent? But you can also create characters who are non-Latino, like Hamilton, and then bring in the subject of race and many things. I think for me, the issue is not creating a Latino character. It's talking about what I need to say or what I feel and what makes me feel and what makes me feel more alive. I think theater has that potential, making us feel more alive.

[13:43] Martín Acuña: Absolutely. I agree with you. So before we wrap up, one last question would be, which are your top five favorite musical theater shows?

[13:57] Pedro Salazar: Well, I definitely like Cabaret very much. I think that's a spectacular piece. I think I love A Chorus Line. I thought it was very inventive back in the day. Oh, Evita. I really liked Evita. I don't know if I'd like it now, but I really loved Evita. I really liked Les Mis. I think Les Mis was great. And it has this huge operatic scope. Now that I listen to opera or I work with opera, I find a lot of similarities with several phrases of Les Mis. I'm doing Peter Grimes by Benjamin Britten in May. And I was like, oh, this sounds exactly like Les Mis, you know, this morning. And I love, what else? I love West Side Story. Yeah, I feel like, you know, the list is longer than five, you know, but I think there's a good five to me.

[14:52] Martín Acuña: Yeah. Yeah. Well, Pedro, thank you so much for joining me today here in Backstage Talk. I cannot wait for whatever show you work on next. And thank you so much for giving us your time.

[15:08] Pedro Salazar: Thank you, Martin. Thank you for having me.

[15:13] Martín Acuña: Thanks, everyone, for listening to this new episode of Backstage Talk. Remember to follow us on Facebook and Instagram at Backstage Talk Podcast.