UP Theater Company presents new and challenging work to Uptown Manhattan, and with four years under their belt they are only beginning to scratch the surface of the amazing feats they will soon surely accomplish as a theater company. Part of their 2013-2014 season is a beautiful play, "Ashé", written by Ricardo Pérez González and directed by David Mendizábal. There are many Off-Broadway performances I've seen that haven't come close to matching the experience of being an audience member of this production.
I was fortunate enough to chat with UP's Artistic Director James Bosley and Producing Director Rik Walter about their magnificent company. Keep reading to learn about UP's origins and where they are going in the future.
StageBuddy: How did UP start?
Rik Walter: That's a long story. By trade I'm an actor. I got involved in college and learned you could go get an MFA in Acting -- so I went off and got an acting degree, and I moved to New York. And [as an actor] you have a career and you don't have a career, and you have day jobs; and then you get married and have families; and then your kids meet each other in the park and the mothers meet each other and pretty soon they're growing up together; and then you get to know your neighbors and realize how much talent is in the room. And you say, "Why aren't we doing something together?" That's how it happens.
James Bosley: Why do we have to keep going Downtown to do stuff? That's really what UP stands for. We don't care about being downtown. We have so many talented people up here and we have very little theater. We have a wonderful children's theater. We have Shakespeare in the Park. There is Social Justice Theater for the People. And they do wonderful stuff, all of them, but there was no one doing full productions of new work that was challenging, that the community could come to experience -- thought-provoking issues that they are dealing with in the community and in the world. So we thought that vacuum needed to be filled and that we were the ones to do it.
RW: We were thinking things like UP State Manhattan; we were going to get cute and say even UPstage Manhattan
JB: Another one was UP UP Broadway like Off Off Broadway
RW: James said, "How about just UP?" And we all went: "Cool."
JB: It's easy to spell and it's short. But we had to add the word 'Theater' so people would know what we were doing.
What are some challenges you face as a young theater company?
RW: The challenges are usually somewhat financially based -- the more money you can have, the better you can do. But I've been really surprised and pleased by what we've been able to accomplish on a very limited budget, and thank our sponsors -- corporate, foundational and political -- that have assisted us when they can. We're still young. We don't have our own 501(c)(3) yet, but when we do, we can open up for even more possible grants.
That five-year mark is a goal. It's the human factor here, that collateral. We are moved to tears when we realize the dedication of the artists who are being paid in small stipends and honorariums. They put their whole heart into it, and they've got something at stake; their own artistic integrity is at stake. Everyone who has come into these rooms have given of themselves selflessly.
JB: Everyone that comes to work with us does so because of the work. If you're actor you want to act, it's not about the applause or being famous; you're doing the work because you're an artist. Another challenge is drawing the critics up here. I have friends on the Village Voice and they say they won't go up further than 96th Street. Getting the attention of the rest of the borough has been a challenge, because we can't get the attention of the press or the critics but we want to change that. We want to make this neighborhood a cultural mecca.
How did you reach out to the community with "Ashé"?
RW: We've been working with Raul Espinoza who is a theater marketing consultant. He's done a lot of work in the Latino community in marketing theater projects, and we met him at MOMA last June. We reached out to him and said, "Do you have any advice?" And he got kinda jazzed by our mission and passion for what we are doing, and he says, "Listen, you guys can't afford me, but I can give you a few hours of my time, get your team together, we'll have a meeting, we'll get together and talk about what you need to do."
He suggested we have some type of community event, so we decided to invite certain key leaders to a special read through. We reached out both politically and culturally: we invited some Santeros, and those from the gay and lesbian community -- because there were all these multiple themes, and "Ashé" also has the medical theme with the kidney and the transplant organ failure, as well. And we got a good response, and we're still working on that. It's an ongoing thing. We purposefully came over to the east side of Broadway with this play; this was the right community to do it in. We said, "We got to get on the other side of Broadway." Both sides are important.
What advice can you give to someone or a group thinking of starting a Theater Company?
JB: Be prepared to sacrifice everything. I'm a playwright and I haven't been able to write very much because of the hours that we put in doing this good work; however, I think it's a sacrifice well made. You're giving up a lot of spare time, your money...
RW: Giving up time with your family. All of us have families. There is a lot of juggling going on. We've all made sacrifices, but you have to have a support system, you have to make sure someone will support your endeavor or find someone that will because it's a lot of work. You have no idea what you're capable of.
Theater is a desperate situation. If it's not, then something's wrong and it's not good theater. Entertaining is good, but the artistic impulse comes out of desperation. It comes out of loss and want and desire. And we hope that is what we are bringing to the community. We hope that in this desperate situation we find ourselves. The world of theater brings that hope and connection to the community that we are serving.
Performances of "Ashé" continue through November 23rd. Check out our full event listing here: https://stagebuddy.com/listingdetail.php?lid=16090
