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[0:07] Harrow: Hello, welcome back, queers.

[0:10] Harrow: Welcome to season three, episode eight of Thesis on Joan. Today we have an interview with Victor I.

[0:15] Harrow: Cazares. Thesis on Joan is a podcast dedicated to amplifying voices from the LGBTQ community in the New York performing arts scene and examining the industry from a queer perspective.

[0:27] Harrow: Join us as we sit down with groundbreaking theater folks, both on stage and behind the curtain.

[0:32] Harrow: For many queers, theater has been an escape, and this podcast looks to have open conversations on where we've come from and where we're headed as a community while queering the canon along the way.

[0:44] Harrow: Hello, queers, and welcome back to season three. Today we have an interview with the playwright Victor I.

[0:48] Harrow: Cazares, whose show American (Tele)Visions is opening the New York Theatre Workshop season.

[0:51] Harrow: American (Tele)Visions is directed by Ruben Palendo, and it's a co-production with Theater Me Too. It's playing through October 16th as the time of this recording, so you still have time to catch it.

[1:07] Harrow: You can get tickets through New York Theatre Workshop, and we'll link to that in our show notes.

[1:13] Harrow: Victor I. Cazares is a non-binary Poz Queer Indigenous Mexican artist who has had stints at Yale, Brown, and other less prestigious centers of rehabilitation.

[1:23] Harrow: Like any border child, they were born twice. Once in El Paso, Texas, and another in San Lorenzo, Chihuahua.

[1:29] Harrow: During the pandemic, Victor debuted virtually at Carnegie Hall as part of the Voices of Hope Festival in partnership with National Queer Theater and the LGBT Center.

[1:39] Harrow: They also teach a tuition-free class for emerging immigrant playwrights as part of PEN America's Dreaming Out Loud Program.

[1:39] Harrow: Plays include American (Tele)Visions and Pinching Pennies with Penny Marshall at New York Theatre Workshop, Ramsay's Contra Los Monstruos, We Were Eight Years in Powder, and When We Write With Ashes, NQT and Lincoln Center restart stages.

[1:59] Harrow: Victor is currently the Tau Playwright in Residence at New York Theatre Workshop.

[2:04] Harrow: Well, thank you so much for being here, Victor. Like we were saying, this is an incredibly busy week for you.

[2:09] Harrow: I can't believe we're stealing your holiday evening. I hope one day you'll forgive us.

[2:11] Harrow: But thank you so much for joining us on the podcast.

[2:16] Victor I. Cazares: Oh my God. Thank you so much for having me on the evening of Labor Day.

[2:23] Victor I. Cazares: I had to stay sober all day. Um, so thank you.

[2:27] Victor I. Cazares: Thank you. I'm so sorry for ruining your day drinking plans.

[2:32] Harrow: No more brunch mimosa. Please have a big cocktail.

[2:34] Victor I. Cazares: Okay. I actually have poured myself some tea.

[2:38] Victor I. Cazares: So I'll be very healthy.

[2:40] Harrow: Oh beautiful. Um, I'll keep the scalding hot tea internally so I don't say anything polemical today.

[2:46] Harrow: Um, so Victor, we usually start with having our guests share their name, their pronouns, and whatever you want to share about how you identify.

[3:01] Victor I. Cazares: I use they/them pronouns. Uh, I, uh, jokingly like to do, uh, and be paquima. I'm a non-binary Poz Queer Indigenous Mexican playwright that didn't all work out.

[3:19] Victor I. Cazares: I just sort of like, I, I, I like have so many identities, I forget about them every day. Um, but it is a joking, um, wink wink, but also like very, um, what's the word? Uh, earnest in some way, right? Like I am Poz, I am non-binary, I am Mexican, I'm from the border.

[3:36] Victor I. Cazares: Um, I'm an Indigenous Mexican, right? Like I'm not a white Mexican. Um, and I think which I think is important, um, to mention.

[3:45] Victor I. Cazares: Um, and I wish, I wish more, I wish there was more conversation about race and uh, Latinidad in the US.

[3:53] Victor I. Cazares: Um, because it's, uh, yeah, it's a complicated issue.

[3:58] Harrow: Already, I'm already being polemical. Listen to me.

[4:02] Harrow: No, this is perfect. This is what we want to get into. Um, and we're gonna get into talking about your show right away, which just brings up a lot of these conversations.

[4:05] Harrow: So American (Tele)Visions is opening. Is that, do you say it just American (Tele)Visions, even with the parentheses? I want to make sure I'm saying it correctly.

[4:19] Victor I. Cazares: I wanted to say American (Tele)Visions.

[4:23] Harrow: Okay. But okay. How would you say it?

[4:28] Victor I. Cazares: Yeah, I would also just say American (Tele)Visions.

[4:32] Victor I. Cazares: I did a little parentheses gesture for the listeners.

[4:38] Harrow: I love that. I, I, I yes, I love that. American (Tele)Visions.

[4:43] Victor I. Cazares: Yes. Um, and it looks a little like, it looks a little like the Just Jack movement from, I don't know if you watched Will and Grace.

[4:54] Harrow: Um, yeah, so like that's what the parentheses is, right?

[4:58] Victor I. Cazares: Like the tela. Man, now I want to get into a whole conversation about the parentheses. We might have to circle back to that.

[5:04] Harrow: Um, so it's opening the season at New York Theatre Workshop and starting previews in just a few days, as you were well aware, but just telling our listeners.

[5:13] Harrow: Um, so the show is described as a collision between the American dream and the American nightmare. Can you tell us a little bit more about the inspiration for the play?

[5:22] Victor I. Cazares: Yeah, that description makes it sound a lot more. I was like, oh wow, that's what I went with for describing the play, America collision between the American dream and the American nightmare.

[5:32] Victor I. Cazares: Um, I started the play 15 years ago in Deb Margolin's class when I was an undergrad at Yale.

[5:45] Victor I. Cazares: Um, I had been wanting to write a play about undocumented immigration, about dreamers.

[5:56] Victor I. Cazares: Um, there were a lot of raids happening during the Bush years, um, like work raids, workplace raids.

[6:03] Victor I. Cazares: Um, deportations continued under Obama.

[6:06] Victor I. Cazares: Um, that's why we call him the deporter in chief.

[6:09] Victor I. Cazares: Um, so many deportations.

[6:12] Victor I. Cazares: Um, but during the Bush years, there were like a lot of work raids and like it was a huge issue.

[6:17] Victor I. Cazares: And I wanted to tell the story of a family. I wanted to tell the story of just like these lives being worth living, right?

[6:30] Victor I. Cazares: And being worth watching and worth experiencing, and also about how just like we have rights, like people should have rights, right?

[6:41] Victor I. Cazares: Like, uh, no matter your migration status, your legal status, you deserve rights, you deserve to have a life.

[6:41] Victor I. Cazares: You deserve to have a story told.

[6:49] Victor I. Cazares: Um, you can't write a play like that.

[6:53] Victor I. Cazares: You can't write a play that is didactic. I mean, you can, but I didn't want to do that.

[6:57] Victor I. Cazares: Um, and I just kept circling around the issue.

[7:04] Victor I. Cazares: Then Walmart also was a big topic in 2007.

[7:09] Victor I. Cazares: We thought Walmart was the big villain of that time, right?

[7:13] Victor I. Cazares: Like the of that stage of capitalism, uh, Walmart being consuming everybody, um, running mom and pop shops out of business.

[7:26] Victor I. Cazares: And then I was listening to, I was obsessed, I still am, obsessed with the Magnetic Fields, in particular this song "Papa Was a Rodeo."

[7:41] Victor I. Cazares: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[7:42] Victor I. Cazares: Yeah.

[7:45] Victor I. Cazares: Repeat all day.

[7:48] Victor I. Cazares: On repeat all day. It's an amazing song.

[7:51] Victor I. Cazares: And, uh, just like "Papa Was a Rodeo," and I saw Erica, who is the protagonist of American (Tele)Visions, say my father is a television, my mom she is a Christmas tree, little dabby cake.

[8:13] Victor I. Cazares: And from there it just unspooled.

[8:16] Victor I. Cazares: Um, and I found this family, and I found them living in this undocumented family, and I found them living in the shadow of the first Walmart in the entire United States universe.

[8:27] Victor I. Cazares: Um, I started to tell their story.

[8:31] Victor I. Cazares: Um, it came from that line.

[8:34] Victor I. Cazares: Um, yeah, that's a long-winded way of saying, um, I wrote down two lines and that's how I started the play.

[8:42] Harrow: That's so fascinating though, of how it started and how long it's taken to get to this point. But congratulations on getting here.

[8:50] Victor I. Cazares: Um, thank you.

[8:52] Victor I. Cazares: Um, yeah.

[8:54] Victor I. Cazares: Um, I just remembered something else.

[8:57] Victor I. Cazares: Like, uh, the other, my other part of this spiel, um, because I, I've been like, I, the nature of it, right?

[9:04] Victor I. Cazares: Like you have to like tell the story a lot.

[9:05] Victor I. Cazares: Um, is I was also, um, I was at MoMA PS1 on a date.

[9:15] Victor I. Cazares: Um, I'd like, we'd come into the city from New Haven and I was falling in love with this person, and I remember rounding the corner of a gallery at MoMA PS1, and I had seen in front of me, there's this like giant carpet that had been skinned from a mobile home.

[9:32] Victor I. Cazares: It was round and it was like mounted on the wall.

[9:35] Victor I. Cazares: And I could see where, uh, what looked like a stove had been, I could see like cigarette burns, I could see where a couch had been, I could see like where people had traveled the most and saints and like it was, it was a palimpsest of a life lived on this carpet.

[9:53] Victor I. Cazares: Um, and it was very moving to me and it reminded me of the mobile home that I had grown up in.

[10:00] Victor I. Cazares: Uh, and seeing that in this place of like high art that MoMA PS1 is, right, really allowed me to like dive deep into my own history and my own stories, or like just like the context for it, right?

[10:17] Victor I. Cazares: Of like, oh, this mobile home, this mobile home that I like I grew up in can like become a character in my play, like help shape, um, this story, um, that I ended up telling or creating.

[10:31] Victor I. Cazares: Um, I feel like the inspiration for the story or like the reason I wrote it was, uh, an amalgamation of so many things, right?

[10:38] Victor I. Cazares: Um, even like a stupid thought like if we are what we eat, then we are also what we watch.

[10:44] Victor I. Cazares: And if we're all watching American television, then we're all American.

[10:48] Victor I. Cazares: And like that kind of like identity and like what it is that like how we form an identity, how we form lives, um, how we form our rights, um, became the, uh, like just the key ingredients, I guess, to the play.

[11:02] Victor I. Cazares: Um, that just kept unspooling.

[11:05] Victor I. Cazares: Um, and in some way like that's the only thing that I can do as a writer is just gather up ingredients and then see how they unspool in front of me.

[11:15] Victor I. Cazares: But it's like, uh, it's really hard.

[11:18] Victor I. Cazares: It's hard to say like this is how I started.

[11:21] Harrow: I'm gonna be thinking about you are what you watch for the rest of this month.

[11:28] Victor I. Cazares: Thank you.

[11:31] Harrow: Um, what are you watching?

[11:34] Victor I. Cazares: Oh, right now I am watching Good Trouble, which is the spin-off of The Fosters, uh, which is like a problematic fave.

[11:44] Victor I. Cazares: But, uh, it's good, it's good like high drama with early 20-somethings.

[11:50] Harrow: I love problematic faves.

[11:52] Victor I. Cazares: Yeah.

[11:53] Victor I. Cazares: And it's like, it emotionally manipulates you in all the best ways.

[11:57] Victor I. Cazares: It's kind of like, um, oh my gosh, what was that show that just ended with the children and Mandy Moore?

[12:05] Victor I. Cazares: Uh this is all this is us, yes. It's like that. Not as not as emotionally devastating, but it's still fun. With the children and Mandy Moore. The only way to design it. We got there. Yeah. The only scene from This Is Us I've seen is uh the one with uh I think Mandy Moore's mom is is played by Elizabeth Perkins, right? Who's like a racist on the show? I think, right? Does that ring a bell? Seems right. I don't know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's that's the only scene I've seen. Um it's like uh that's the kind of show that's like if you have parents or were a child, like we're going to stab you in the feelings. Uh if you have parents or were a child.

[12:51] Harrow: Hey everyone. Um so American (Tele)Visions uses uh a lot of multimedia. And can you tell us more about breaking audience expectations and theatrical conventions to share the story?

[13:09] Victor I. Cazares: Yeah, uh we we we use a shit ton of multimedia technology. Like we've we've been breaking the operating system like every day. Um there was this moment where like I I think there again, I'm not a scientist, but I heard that like one time there was like so many cues in a minute that it literally shut down the system that we're using. Um like sometimes like for their like for like literally like a 30-second sequence, there are I I don't know, again, not a mathematician, 20 cues. Um just like for in this most so like you you I can hear this like our stage manager Shelly, who's amazing, um just like literally like she's basically performing a spoken word poem for like nine.

[14:02] Harrow: Oh, that's cool.

[14:03] Victor I. Cazares: Like Release the tapes of that. I love that. Were those written into the script or those like directorial choices?

[14:16] Victor I. Cazares: So when the first line of a of like when the first line of a play, like when you write the first line of a play and it's like my father is a television, um things just like unspool from that. Um and and like it it just like there are there are things that are on screen. Um it's just like I I just I denote on the script. Um sometimes a character speaks on television, and I'll say it's um the character speaks on television or on a screen, and I didn't I wrote those words not knowing one that it would take 15 years to produce, or um that it's like that there would that there is a difference, there would be a difference between television and screen. Um and we're finding we're finding that in tech.

Um and also the the play the play is very nonlinear, temporalities shift, so there are uh directorial moments of just like oh and now we need an in a different environment or different like sort of lighting, and we also have uh this like brilliant lighting designer, um Jeanette Yu, who like just has this amaz like her like her her lighting is a projection as well, right? Like it's very high-tech, it's uh it's its own media. Um yeah, I forgot the question.

[15:31] Harrow: You're answering the question about the multimedia.

[15:34] Victor I. Cazares: Yeah. My bumper should have just been this is word salad.

[15:41] Harrow: Not at all.

[15:43] Victor I. Cazares: It's a great salad. And you mentioned that there's a lot of jumps in um perspective or time. At one point the word um multiverse was used to describe the show, and we've actually spoken to a lot of queer artists who are creating multiverse plays, multiverse works. Do you think that there is something inherently queer about a multiverse? Or why do you think it might be appealing to to queer writers?

[16:10] Victor I. Cazares: I I mean I I think I I can't speak for other queers, but I can speak for me. Um and I I think the multiverse is before it was a multiverse. Um I guess like like anybody, I loved time travel when I was a kid, right? Like I loved any storyline that had time travel. I I loved forward jumps, I loved alternate realities and dreams um that happened inside a narrative, which creates its own reality, right? Like uh a dream is a different universe. Um but I think like the the most the huh the original genesis, I think for my interest in this kind of storytelling is I loved I remember discovering fragments of um of plays from the Greeks, right? Of like that that we have that all we have left of some of these plays are fragments.

And what like and in some way like a multiverse is just a fragment, right? We're not experiencing the entirety of multiverses. We're just very like it's it's more just like a this fragmentation that we're able to inhabit or earth floor, and I think the play has these fragments as multi multiverses, and it just align all together to create this current um experience of the play. Or I don't even know if it's experience of the play, but it's like the experience of Erica, right? Like we're seeing we're seeing this multi- we're seeing the story play out through these fragments of memory that Erica has assembled into uh a version of the multiverse that we have. I don't know, I I sound like a uh I don't know what I sound like uh word salad um or word cloud.

[18:00] Harrow: Super fascinating. Word rainbow cloud. Um that sounds like it's such a good fit with the the media stuff you're talking about too.

[18:08] Victor I. Cazares: Yeah, yeah, I'm really excited. I'm really excited for you to see it. Oh my god. It's uh and in an interview with Token Theater Friends, we love them. Uh you had said uh I write stories that go back to the world. That was it, sorry.

[18:25] Harrow: Oh, go ahead, go ahead. We love Jose.

[18:31] Victor I. Cazares: Um so you had said, I write stories that go beyond the real world but reflect it. And how have you seen this in your current show and in your other work too?

[18:42] Victor I. Cazares: So I just want to say I don't remember saying that, and I don't know what I meant then. Um be a victim from another multiverse. Um I uh I just I'm not inter I I don't know what I'm interested in. Um I I like I I like to be excited, I like to not be bored. I I hate being bored. Um, and I'm usually like I in my regular life I'm not I'm not bored, right? Like what was that like thing that um January Jones says in Mad Men um as Betty Draper? Only boring people get bored or something like that. Um and so when I'm sitting in a in a in a play in a theater and I get bored, I was like, I I know that this is not my fault, and it's not my fault that I'm bored. Like it's the only time that I am really not responsible for being bored.

Um and so I I want to avoid that. Um I I want to Yeah, I think that's why I'm gonna just another world. I don't know, like it's like I I like seeing risk. Um I like seeing different lives coming together, and they're not and when different lives come together, they're messy. So I don't understand why we're not seeing messy lives on stage. Um, I don't understand why we're not seeing messy realities, why we're not seeing um this I don't know explosions of emotion, explosion like uh of of different different wants and desires, conflicting desires, conflicting truths happening. Um and that's I I guess like that's the energy that I want to bring to the work that I make and and the work that like satisfies me is is that um again I tend to not answer your questions. Um here's like my guess at what you want from me.

[20:47] Harrow: No, you take it in the direction we never knew that we wanted, and it's what we want. So that's great.

[20:54] Victor I. Cazares: Um we wanted to ask too about this incredible cast and creative team you have together. We've been seeing some of the behind the scene rehearsal photos, very excited. I mean, we're a little biased because we had Ryan on the podcast previously, so we're very excited to see Ryan in the show. But can you tell us more about working with this casting creative team?

[21:13] Victor I. Cazares: Uh I I love them. I I love all of I'm I love I love the entire cast. I love the entire creative team. I love everyone at New York Theatre Workshop. It it is a room full of so much fucking love. Like it it is and it and it has remained so even like during the the during tech. Um it I used to have I used to have like a wound or even a chip on my shoulder about how long it it's taken for my career to like have this visibility and then also for American (Tele)Visions to get produced, right? Like I wrote because I wrote the bulk of it in 2000 between 2007 and 2009. Um and and obviously I've been working on it since and like you know, like but the the main conceits and the central arc and the central narrative and like the the point of view like has been since like 2007.

Um it really was a wound of just like, oh my god, like why why not me? Like it had I been white, like I would have been called this Wunderkind, right? Like all of these things. And and it I think it it it was interrupting my joy. Um and it wasn't until I landed in this rehearsal room, um however many weeks that was ago, right? Like where I looked around like it was the um because the cast was there, the creative team was there, we have like this wonderful, amazing creative team of designers, um, and I have an amazing director and amazing like the stage management. And I I finally just looked around, it's like, oh I needed this team. These were the people that I needed. And and I can't imagine not being here in this moment with the with these people.

Like this is what I needed to find. I needed to find this team, I needed to find this tribe, I needed to find this uh family, this this kin. Um, like this is who I need to find, and and that has just restored uh or has just let this be just joyful and not think about it as this like way I was thinking about. I I'm sure like there was like structural racism and structural classism and homophobia and like all of those things I'm sure have kept like other aspects um of my career like in in whatever but even like looking at it that way, I I just I like the reality in the world that I'm in right now so much that like this is it it just really feels I needed this. Um there's that like the cliche of divine timing and that we like it it you never and and it's true though, like you're not in control of the timing of of when especially when you're making art and when you're making theater, um so I I think the the key for me going forward is trying to make sure that writers like me are feel supported and are supported on their way to finding the the kinship, the family, the tribe, the the that group of family that they need in order to make their work.

[24:49] Victor I. Cazares: Like how do we keep the how do we keep artists healthy, housed, sane, like happy, um, and producing. Um, because I I was like sort of I I was in a depressed state. I I like I was uh I became so frustrated with um with my stalled career as a playwright, um got depressed, uh developed a meth addiction, and really went away um for a long time. Um yeah, so I that's I I wanna I want to work on ways to avoid that for other people. Um because it's not the promise of a production. Like that's not it, but just like it's I know that you're a talented writer. Let's make sure that you keep writing and be invested in in that. Um yeah.

[25:54] Harrow: And you actively work to do that through your work with the Dreaming Out Loud Pan America program. So can you tell us a little bit more about that program and your role?

[26:05] Victor I. Cazares: Dreaming Out Loud is my uh I I'm I it's like uh my pride and and joy of um we started uh Dreaming Out Loud is a program that's been happening, like that Pan America has been organizing for um immigrant writers um in New York City that uh were like interested in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Last year, um, while we were in lockdown, um, was the first year that um Pan America, together with New York Theater Workshop, um and and with um NQT um put together uh a playwriting workshop, uh a playwriting section, and I was invited to be the uh the teacher, professor. I I don't know what it I don't I don't like whatever, like the the leader of this workshop to teach playwriting to other uh immigrant students.

Um it's uh it's just such a joy to teach plays and theater to people that um maybe have not thought of themselves as playwrights or like or or um having like or some some of them some of the students like hadn't uh seen a play before either. Um and uh and and to like be able to harness their impulses and and to like make sure, like to just like reassure them like it's your impulse that you have to protect um and not whatever like structure that people are gonna try to place on it, or like this, like these rules of player, like there are no rules to playwright, like there are like there are no rules to formatting either. Um you just have to discover the format yourself. Um and that seeing the and the creativity that came from that and that comes from my like these students, um is uh I I don't know.

I I'm just I moved beyond words. Um they're they're so smart, they're so creative, they they write from from such bravery and courage um can't uh I can't wait uh to teach the class next year uh hopefully if they have me back again.

[28:26] Harrow: Yeah I love your emphasis not on like productions but on investment in the work. Um, and you've said that linear storylines lead to genocide and can you tell us how you know we're getting heavy here uh can we just keep quoting you back to you um can you tell us how this thought influences your work and your mentoring and teaching?

[28:32] Victor I. Cazares: Yeah um so I I'm just parroting um uh a phrase from my my mentor uh from grad school uh Eric uh Eric N. Um I I think like Eric might have just said it as a throwaway line um once like in in workshop because Eric had this way of just like would say like these like sage um just uh like uh very big big moments and big ideas in a sentence and then like would keep on um just like keep on speaking not realizing that like he had just that's really brilliant um and I remember he said that and the sentence just hit me and became a sort of organizing well it was already an organizing principle in my life. I just hadn't made that connect, like of just like linear storytelling is is a tool um that is used to simplify our lives to flatten lives.

And and I think that is like something that like genocide does, like that fascist governments, fascist uh dictatorships um do in order to commit um genocide, right? Like it's it's a flattening of identity, it's a flattening of of lives, flattening of problems, flattening of who a country is for, right? Um and I think ultimately it also like makes this idea that there is an origin, right? There is one there's one point that everything comes from. And there's a line that we have straight to that origin. And that is just false.

[31:02] Victor I. Cazares: Um historically, this little this moment that we have together, this moment that we have in this country together, this moment that we have in this country and this world together. Um I think plays, movies, shows, any anything that we make, any art, great art, any art that I like, um, that I love that I'm moved by, does that. And speaking of breaking that the linear path and those storylines, um, there is a tweet that was saying that Latinos make up about 20% of the US workforce, but less than 10% of the publishing industry. You shared this on your your Twitter, and you said that you actually think it might be worse in theater. So what are some of the changes that you would urgently wish to see to help change that statistic in the theater industry?

[32:02] Harrow: Did you go?

[32:03] Victor I. Cazares: It was pinned.

[32:04] Harrow: It was pinned.

[32:05] Victor I. Cazares: It was near the top.

[32:08] Harrow: We go really into research on this show.

[32:14] Victor I. Cazares: All right, we're creepy stalkers.

[32:16] Harrow: We're sorry.

[32:20] Meghan Dixon Thesis: Megan's a great tweet stalker, I have to say.

[32:26] Victor I. Cazares: Thesis on Joan Stalker.

[32:28] Harrow: Yeah.

[32:29] Victor I. Cazares: Big time.

[32:30] Harrow: Sorry.

[32:31] Harrow: We call ourselves fanqueers because the love and the and the research goes deep.

[32:36] Victor I. Cazares: There's a rebrand.

[32:37] Harrow: There's been a rebrand.

[32:41] Victor I. Cazares: What is it again?

[32:42] Harrow: Fan queers.

[32:44] Victor I. Cazares: Fan queers.

[32:45] Harrow: Yes.

[32:45] Victor I. Cazares: I think Megan came up with that too.

[32:48] Harrow: Someone else probably did first.

[32:50] Victor I. Cazares: That's good. Listen, I love a rebrand.

[32:52] Harrow: I love love a rebrand.

[32:54] Victor I. Cazares: Um uh of rethinking. Um I the the question is, what do I need? Um or w would or what is what are the changes that you want to see in the um I I mean I there's so many changes that I want. Um I would I would just like like it to be uh one in terms of Latinx, Latin A, Latinidad, um uh identity, I I need there to be uh a more thorough conversation about race and class um within this identity, right? With within this group of people, this this demographic um creation of the Nixon administration, right? Like Hispanics, um like is uh we we trace the idea of that term to the like I think the 1970s, 19, like so like one one of the one the 1970s census, um and like what it means like uh I'm not I'm not fighting the idea of I I'm not interested in policing whether people identify as Latino or not, or or like what it but like just I I want there to be an acknowledgement that Latin America was colonized by European people, and there are people like there are people that like have that like that it it is not uh it it is not such an easy story um that we're telling of Latinos, right?

Like there's like the the media that that I grew up with, like on Univision and like on Televisa, which like I grew up on the border, um those telenovelas had like all like just a lot of white people, right? Like it was like it was like the protagonists of those stories were white, very light-skinned, very white passing um Mexicans uh with blue eyes, blonde hair. Um and I think that that that racial idea like continues in the US as well. Like it should not like that we need to have a conversation about that. Like it is, it is it is important to talk about race and Latinos, Latin e the other Latin ex Latin. It's not enough for there to just be more Latinos on Broadway or off Broadway. I want there to be more brown and black Latinos on Broadway, right?

Off Broadway in the published like I that those are the stories that I want those are going to need. And I think those are the stories that we haven't been telling. Just like especially if we're talking about um from this place of justice and equity and equality and and like um restore restoration um it it's we can't keep giving opportunities um to rich white passing Latinos right like that that just cannot I don't want that to continue happening.

[36:24] Victor I. Cazares: Especially people that are like of Black and Indigenous descent, um, of people from like Latin America, um, or immigrants from like that come to the US. Um, and yeah, my God, am I gonna get, uh, polemical side of the bed? No, this is great. Yeah, I think there's so many conversations that need to happen within different demographics, like Asian, right?

[36:50] Harrow: Also covers like such a huge continent, right?

[36:53] Victor I. Cazares: Of so many different identities, and there's different privileges and, uh, oppressions that people face within that. And you know, I think because we live in a white supremacist world, the white people are only ready to talk about like the superficial things, and I want it to go like so much deeper than that.

[37:10] Meghan Dixon Thesis: Yeah, so thank you for sharing. And it's not only like the white people like America, it's like white Latinos, right?

[37:16] Victor I. Cazares: That they like it, it is like, uh, again, like I'm not being divisive, like it is not like I don't think I'm being polemical in like stating like that there is a racial history. Um, yeah, absolutely not in Latin America, um, which is where quote unquote Latinos come from, right? Like I'm quoting like I, I, I'm using these terms and I'm not like, it's, it's a little bit of a wink wink because I, I don't, I'm skeptical of a Latino identity, like from this, like I, I, it doesn't tell me enough.

[37:50] Meghan Dixon Thesis: Mm-hmm.

[37:51] Victor I. Cazares: Yeah. Um, I want to jump to our final few sections for time. Um, this is, we do this with every guest. Uh, hopefully it's fun. Um, our first section is called If it's boring, we won't do it because we don't want to be bored.

[38:09] Harrow: We've learned this.

[38:12] Victor I. Cazares: I think it was like raising a teacup as you said that, Harrow.

[38:17] Meghan Dixon Thesis: Oh my God, it's adorable too.

[38:21] Victor I. Cazares: Um, okay, so the first section we call Queering the Canon. So you've mentioned your influence by classic plays like plays with Thornton Wilder. Uh, what from the theatrical canon would you like to queer? You could write a queer adaptation or a queer casting.

[38:45] Victor I. Cazares: Let's make a chorus line queer.

[38:47] Harrow: Okay.

[38:50] Victor I. Cazares: Do it. Queer.

[38:53] Meghan Dixon Thesis: Oh my God.

[38:55] Victor I. Cazares: Like I'm gonna choose violence today. Um, let's, let's, let's queer David Mamet and see what happens.

[39:01] Harrow: Oh my God.

[39:06] Victor I. Cazares: The right choice.

[39:10] Meghan Dixon Thesis: Wow. Is there like the broadness of let's see what happens to play? Not my problem, right?

[39:20] Victor I. Cazares: Like, yeah, is there like, I mean, should it just be American Buffalo or should it be, are there other ones that should be queered?

[39:20] Harrow: American Buffalo.

[39:33] Victor I. Cazares: Let's, let's, let's do it to American Buffalo. And like maybe they find like a queer state border. That's about the border, right?

[39:41] Meghan Dixon Thesis: Is that about the one?

[39:42] Victor I. Cazares: I think it's about, I honestly have never read it or seen it.

[39:49] Harrow: Don't plan on it either.

[39:52] Victor I. Cazares: Well, they're gonna bring it back in like two years, so we'll have another opportunity, hopefully.

[39:57] Meghan Dixon Thesis: Isn't Darren Criss in it right now?

[39:59] Victor I. Cazares: No, that was, he was, yeah.

[40:02] Harrow: Wow. Right.

[40:03] Victor I. Cazares: Like that's, that just happened, right?

[40:06] Meghan Dixon Thesis: Yeah, yeah.

[40:08] Victor I. Cazares: I mean, there's three men in it. We could figure out something.

[40:14] Harrow: Do it with Muppets.

[40:15] Victor I. Cazares: Let's do the Muppets.

[40:18] Harrow: Muppet Mamet.

[40:20] Victor I. Cazares: Queer Muppet Mamet.

[40:22] Harrow: Muppet, Muppet Mamet, Monday nights.

[40:26] Victor I. Cazares: Wow.

[40:28] Harrow: Oh.

[40:29] Victor I. Cazares: In the East Village.

[40:31] Harrow: It can be done.

[40:32] Victor I. Cazares: I'm there.

[40:33] Harrow: That would be great.

[40:34] Victor I. Cazares: I'm there.

[40:36] Victor I. Cazares: It's hard to like think what would make him more upset though, like the queerness or the Muppetness.

[40:40] Harrow: Like, I mean, that's the thing.

[40:43] Victor I. Cazares: Like I'm afraid, like I'm, I'm afraid, uh, I'm afraid of David Mamet. Like there is like he's like there's something like he's a Republican conservative that like goes on like, you know, right?

[40:57] Meghan Dixon Thesis: It gets produced on Broadway, yeah.

[40:59] Victor I. Cazares: Um, in this, like yeah, no, after, after like an insurrection, right?

[41:05] Harrow: Like what to end our democracy, right?

[41:09] Victor I. Cazares: Like, how is it that like I, I just don't, I have a lot of questions. I, I have a lot of questions um about how we got here and how he's one of our storytellers.

[41:21] Meghan Dixon Thesis: But well he's not, right?

[41:23] Victor I. Cazares: Like I think we get to choose like he's not my storyteller, he's not your storyteller, right?

[41:27] Harrow: Like, um, and, and it's, I, I, I guess like I ask of other people, how is he your storyteller?

[41:34] Victor I. Cazares: Right? Like how, like what is it um what is it about this?

[41:39] Meghan Dixon Thesis: I mean, I tell like linear storytelling.

[41:43] Victor I. Cazares: Um, although Glenn, um, Glenn Gary Greenrouse, I, I that's not the name, but I'm purposely not remembering it.

[41:53] Harrow: It sounds close enough, yeah.

[41:55] Victor I. Cazares: Glenn Gary Clearing House, that's it.

[41:59] Meghan Dixon Thesis: The one with the big checks, yeah.

[42:01] Victor I. Cazares: Yeah, that's the one. The one with Alec Baldwin, um, in the movie.

[42:07] Meghan Dixon Thesis: Like, uh, that's like, that's a commentary on Capitol. Why are we still talking about David Mamet?

[42:12] Victor I. Cazares: Move on.

[42:14] Harrow: We've already given it too much time.

[42:19] Meghan Dixon Thesis: Moving on to our queer culture wrecks.

[42:23] Victor I. Cazares: So this is where we ask our guests what type of queer culture are they indulging in. So it could be music, it could be a TV show, it could be, uh, an event that you've been to. What is, and it doesn't even have to be like it can be queer to you. It doesn't have to be queer to everyone.

[42:40] Victor I. Cazares: Well, I'm, I'm, uh, so I live, I live in Portland um with my partner when I'm in Portland and then when I'm in New York I live with my partner's sister who's my sister-in-law and together her name's Naveen and together we've been watching The Sopranos.

[43:01] Victor I. Cazares: Um, rewatch, like it's like probably like my like seventh or eighth time rewatching it. Um, and, and it's her first and I think The Sopranos is like the queerest show that ever happened.

[43:14] Harrow: It is, it is such a queer show.

[43:20] Victor I. Cazares: One, the language, the mal, the, um, the misattributions of, of the, like it's, it's camp, it is high camp, but it's also very serious. Um, it, the, there's like of course like the Grand Guignol style of violence um that happens in there, um, and the attention of that show to, to the women of, of these lives of, of the, uh, like that have mob lives um is just so compelling.

[43:20] Meghan Dixon Thesis: Um, and, and it's, it's a show about our relationship to capitalism right and our relationship to violence and, and, and about a denial of, of like responsibility or, or of how we negotiate our own culpability.

[43:20] Victor I. Cazares: Um, it is a brilliant show and it's hilarious.

[43:20] Meghan Dixon Thesis: Um, and the hair and the nails on that show I've always been like considering it because I love Edie Falco but like now that you've told me it's also camp and queer, okay, yeah, I've never watched it but you really sold it.

[43:20] Victor I. Cazares: That's what I'm here for.

[43:20] Meghan Dixon Thesis: It doesn't need that little dragon anymore, they just need, you just need Edie Falco popping up.

[43:20] Victor I. Cazares: Um, oh my God, invite me back when you watch The Sopranos after you like invite me back for the special episode of just Sopranos.

[43:20] Harrow: Yeah.

[43:20] Victor I. Cazares: So many theater actors from like so many New York theater actors are like are in there and, um, and if, if it, if you start the first season and, and it goes a little slow, uh, you can like skip to the third season, um, and, and then come back like just like just in terms of like your own pacing and like what you want.

[43:20] Victor I. Cazares: Like I think like no matter, and again because I don't believe in linear storytelling, I think you can jump into that show at any point and then just like sort of work your way back um on a loop.

[45:37] Harrow: Ah, okay, this is, we'll be in touch.

[45:39] Meghan Dixon Thesis: Yeah.

[45:42] Victor I. Cazares: Um, and I clearly already know this. Uh, but how could other folks follow you online?

[45:51] Harrow: Why don't you tell us, Meghan?

[45:53] Meghan Dixon Thesis: Tell people how to follow me online.

[45:54] Victor I. Cazares: Oh, so you're very available.

[45:59] Meghan Dixon Thesis: You even got some great podcast interviews. There was that great, um, interview you did at the workshop that we can link to.

[46:06] Victor I. Cazares: That was awesome.

[46:07] Meghan Dixon Thesis: Um, but yeah, we got your, we got your Twitter and Instagram handles at the ready.

[46:12] Victor I. Cazares: Yeah, it's, uh, yeah, you can find me on, uh, The Joy of Victor on any of your favorite apps.

[46:18] Victor I. Cazares: I'm really excited about, uh, people coming to see American (Tele)Visions. Everyday in rehearsal so far has been, uh, not just me saying it, um, as, as the writer, but everyone that, that has walked in has commented on how they've never one seen the workshop space that theater space look like it does for American (Tele)Visions, and two have never seen anything on stage that resembles what we're seeing.

[46:44] Victor I. Cazares: Um, it promises to be a very unique experience, and it's all because of the amazing creative and cast team that we have.

[46:55] Victor I. Cazares: Um, and supported, it's a huge, huge risk. And New York Theater Workshop has been behind me, behind us every step of the way.

[47:07] Meghan Dixon Thesis: Awesome.

[47:08] Harrow: So excited to see it.

[47:09] Victor I. Cazares: Yeah, we can't wait.

[47:11] Meghan Dixon Thesis: And thank you so much for coming on, Victor. We appreciate it.

[47:14] Victor I. Cazares: We appreciate you giving us your labor today on Labor Day.

[47:20] Victor I. Cazares: I would not labor anywhere else on Labor Day than here.

[47:24] Meghan Dixon Thesis: Oh, thank you.

[47:26] Harrow: We're honored.

[47:27] Victor I. Cazares: Break legs with the run. We'll see you there.

[47:30] Meghan Dixon Thesis: Thanks for listening. If you like, please rate and review us and share us with your friends.

[47:39] Harrow: So excited to hear your queer culture recommendations or any of your ideas on how we could queer the canon. You can call us.

[47:46] Meghan Dixon Thesis: Yes, actually call us and leave us a voicemail at 845-445-9251.

[47:53] Harrow: Or send us an email at thekeepitqueer.com.

[48:02] Meghan Dixon Thesis: Not that it'd be that hard for y'all to do.

[48:11] Harrow: Yeah, I could tell.

[48:12] Meghan Dixon Thesis: I love this.

[48:13] Harrow: Oh my gosh.

[48:14] Meghan Dixon Thesis: Oh wow, that's beautiful.

[48:17] Harrow: Wow, doing it right.