La Calle- Issue 2, Volume 1, Fall/Winter 2008
Feature Artists: The De Colores Playwrights Speak their Mind

The playwrights are busy writing away, preparing and developing their new scripts, but they took a little bit of time to sit down with Artistic Director Marilo Nuñez to talk about their process, their plays, and their dreams. Following is an exerpt of the interviews with Catherine Hernandez (COYOTE), Michelle Amaya-Torres (MY SECRET ROMEO) and Amaranta Leyva (THE INTRUDER).

What is your play about in one word? Only one word.

CH: Decisions.
MA: Consequences.
AL: Childhood.

Who or what inspires you as a writer?

CH: When Ari and I first met we had this exact conversation. I always start from either an image or a story told to me. For example, my other play, Kilt Pins, about blossoming sexuality in a Catholic high school, started when I saw a Catholic school girl shivering holding a rather large science project in the middle of the winter, while waiting for a bus. In the case of Coyote, I knew we had to commit a story to paper when Ari told me about her experiences crossing the border.

MA: It may sound corny, but it's true: I am most inspired by the hundreds of people I have known in my life who have shared their stories with me. Those people and their stories swim around inside me, urging me to knit them together. It's easier not to write than it is to write, but then I feel guilty. I am also inspired by the Internet. Suddenly, wonderful paradoxes and contradictions are available to explore with minimal effort. More formally, authors who have inspired me to think about how writing works include Sartre, Dostoevsky, and Proust. I hope that doesn't sound too dull!

AL: Suzanne Lebeau.

Why should people come to hear your play?

CH: Forced migration is something everyone should understand. We must challenge ourselves -- especially in such a priviledged place as Canada -- to understand the choices people make in the face of desperation and poverty.

MA: I hope it will make them think and feel something. I think it poses some questions to think about. There's a little bit of sex and humour, too.

AL: Because whenever I have had the occasion to remember childhood through a book, play or film, the memory helps me to touch some lost deep emotions that still rule my life. I hope it happens the same this time for the people listening to my play.

What makes your play Latino or non-Latino? Do you care if it is or not?

CH: While forced migration is something many cultures experience (it's also the subject of my Sulong Theatre Collective's play about Filipina nannies, Future Folk), this play tells the story of Mexicans forced to migrate into the States. I do care that this play is Latino because it allows the audience to understand the emotional truths behind border crossing, rather than it being filtered by the media.

MA: My play was a specific attempt to communicate a Latino experience to a Canadian audience. The play was actually conceived after my family experienced an act of violence in Colombia. I tried to talk to "Canadians" about what had happened, and was shocked by how difficult that was. Therefore, I wrote it into a play with Canadian characters and tried to link the violence to the Canadian context. I hoped that
by "Canadianizing" the experience of surviving violence, more people would understand it. Is it Latino? Definitely. It comes from Colombia.

AL: Even though the story comes from a matter that happened in Latin America, as I try to talk about the relationship between a girl who discovers the world of adulthood through a new person in her life, I really want to talk about this relationship as one that could happen anywhere and everywhere.