male announcer: "Theatre Corner" is brought to you by Amazing Grace Conservatory-- ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ announcer: And by Central San Diego Black Chamber of Commerce, The Mental Bar, Jones, the Westgate Hotel, La Jolla Playhouse, and viewers like you.

Thank you.

Michael Taylor: Hi.

Welcome to "Theatre Corner."

I'm your host, Michael Taylor.

As a lifelong theater enthusiast and a board member for one of the top theaters in the country, I've seen firsthand the positive effects that diversity and inclusion can have on the stage and the theater seats.

This interview series was created to share my passion for theater and promote diverse voices throughout the national theater scene.

We sit down with some of the top professionals in the entertainment industry to discuss training, careers, advice for young actors, and how to make theater matter to more people.

Michael: Today I have a conversation with Director Delicia Turner Sonnenberg who is in her own right of powerhouse.

As a woman of color, she is trailblazing for other women to have space and opportunity in the theater.

Delicia shares how she fell in love with language, the importance of knowing playwrights, and the moment she felt like she had come home to theater.

So silence your cell phones, folks.

You're entering "Theatre Corner."

Michael: Delicia Turner Sonnenberg, welcome to "Theatre Corner," sister.

Delicia Turner Sonnenberg: Thank you for having me.

Michael: Having you finally.

We've been chasing you down, but you've been doing a lot.

You are a director, and you've been now directing for a lot of years.

What was the journey that brought you to this directorship here in San Diego?

Delicia: Well, I took my first drama class in eighth grade, and then heard about, while I was taking that class, the performing arts high school, and this is in Houston.

I grew up in Atlanta, and then my mother's job transferred us to Houston.

And when I was there trying to living in a new city, trying to figure out what to do, I decide to take a theater class, which then changed my whole life.

I mean, it was from there that I went to the performing arts high school in Houston.

And in high school actually, it was--we had to audition.

I started like an--as an actor, like a lot of people in theater, but I didn't love acting.

And even though I had to audition to get into my high school and then re-audition at the end of every year to stay in that high school, in my junior year, I just--we took a directing class, and I fell in love, and then I haven't looked back since then.

Yeah, so since 11th grade.

Michael: But then when you got to college, you majored in theater.

Delicia: I think it's a Theater Production BFA, but there was no directing major per say.

There was a theater major.

So I took all the directing classes I could and--but also in college I discovered stage management, which is--in the old days was the way to become a director.

Now they're separate, sort of.

They're way separate disciplines.

Even though a stage manager is still like directing understudies or put in the understudies, stage management was actually what allowed me to work full-time in theater.

Michael: And then you get to San Diego and at some point in San Diego you start--you decide to start a theater of your own, which was Moxie Theater.

Tell me about that beautiful place.

Delicia: Moxie, I co-founded with three other amazing women, and our mission, which it took us a while to get to, but our mission was to create more honest and diverse images of women for our culture using theater by producing female playwrights and giving opportunity to voices that were not heard.

Michael: And while you were there, not only the founder, but you were the artistic director for 12 seasons.

Delicia: For 12 seasons, yes.

And our intention was to build something that could outlive us.

And now it's being run by Jen Thorne, and who is a very capable artistic leader and she's the next generation for that theater.

Michael: On top of being the artistic director, you directed quite a few of those plays over the 12 seasons.

Delicia: Right.

Right, I did, partly because, you know, we couldn't afford to hire outside directors.

I mean, partly it was financial, but also--yeah, while I was there, I had the opportunity to work on some really amazing plays and with some really amazing playwrights.

Michael: There's a distinction between artistic director and director.

Could you describe that distinction?

Delicia: Yeah, it's a big distinction.

But like the artistic directors, in simple terms, is in charge of the overall artistic vision of an institution, right, and then a freelance director just directs one particular production in a season or, I mean, if you're fortunate, you could hire back into theater, but, you know, you're just responsible for the one play, not the entire artistic vision of the theater.

Michael: How would you define a director?

Delicia: All directors are different.

So let me just say that.

And I will say, for me, I'm a director who's moved by words.

I grew up in Atlanta, and my aunt, my--was stuck babysitting us.

So she would take us to the library all the time, but she would get these books of poetry, like Paul Laurence Dunbar, the complete works of Paul Laurence Dunbar, and read us like ten or twelve poems in a sitting, right?

So I fell in love with poetry that summer, and then that led me to discover like the Harlem Renaissance poets and the Black Art Movement poets.

And like Nikki Giovanni is my favorite poet.

And so that--and that was even before I took my first drama class.

So when I look at a script, I am first looking at how the playwright uses language, right, and then there's a lot of play analysis.

And like, some directors are visual and they see in pictures, but I always--I'm pretty text based.

So I start with the play, analyzing the play, trying to discover what the playwright's intent is, and communicating that to the whole team: the actors, designers, and audience.

Michael: So in simplest of terms, a director is the orchestrator.

Delicia: I guess.

Yeah.

Michael: I mean, that's huge responsibility.

I mean, it's--I mean, you've done it countless times, but-- Delicia: Right.

It's--but I always think my main job is to make sure I'm communicating the playwright's intent.

Michael: Okay.

So that comes out in the end, as close is to the playwright's vision of the piece.

Delicia: Right, I mean, I think of like theater as a playwright's medium, like because we're--we all have gathered to see this particular story told, right?

So for me, theater is like the story, the people who tell the story, and the people who witness the story.

And everything that everybody does is so important in support of those three things, including me, right?

So making sure that the story is clear, that I understand it from the playwright, like that the actors--that I communicate clearly with the actors, and then they are communicating the story clearly to an audience, right?

That's sort of the simple way I see my job.

Michael: How often do you get to actually talk to the playwright?

I mean, that's not every piece.

You're--many times you're-- Delicia: Right, sometimes the playwright's dead, yes, but whenever possible, I can.

And if it's a playwright that's not--no longer with us, then I do as much research about the playwright as I can because one of the things I learned in high school is--one of the things they drilled into us in my particular high school is that you don't know the play unless you know the playwright 'cause anybody can write a story about star-crossed lovers, but--or even "Romeo and Juliet," but this is Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" or this, you know--so it's particular--like, it's understanding the playwrights, the way they use language, and what they're trying to communicate gives me insight into a play.

Michael: What happens to the director once opening night happens and it goes into a run?

What's the director's involvement once it's--the play is running?

Delicia: Okay.

Yeah, then the director is done.

I mean, that's generally like the end of the contract, then the stage manager and the like associates they keep it in shape or whatever.

It depends on the production and also the theater and all of that.

And sometimes, as a director, I've had to come back like to put in a new actor or when something's quite--not quite working and nobody knows why.

Right.

They call me back in and say, "Can you take a look at this because, you know--" For me, directing is a lot like being a mother.

Like, you're making something that you put in the world that can live on its own.

Michael: Oh, I see.

Delicia: Yeah, right?

And it's going to change a little bit and it's going to grow, hopefully.

It's not going to stay the exact same.

I always hope that if I put enough like guardrails that keep it safe.

Even if it starts to veer one, that you hit that guardrail and bounce off and you know back, you know where you are.

You know, just like with my children.

Michael: Just like with your children.

And so is there a different kind of texture for you as a director when it is a black play?

Delicia: Yes.

Michael: Okay.

Delicia: I'm glad you asked me that question actually because what's interesting, I directed a production of "Fences" like years ago and for Signa Theater, and Shawn had been trying to get me to direct.

And I was like, "Oh, man."

It was right when I was--like, Moxie was relatively new.

And I was like, "I direct like kick-butt chick plays.

I don't do male plays.

I don't do like, you know--" And I wasn't looking forward to it at all.

And then I get in the rehearsal room with this all black cast, and what it felt like literally was like coming home.

It was like I had--I knew two language.

I was in like two languages, and I have become very proficient in both of them, but doing the August Wilson was like speaking my first language.

It feels like coming home.

Yeah, I mean, like the sheered not that all black people are alike or not that we have the same experiences, but we have common culture.

And that commonality is sort of, for me, like grounding.

Michael: Almost more of a--more organic kind of feel.

Delicia: Right.

It's like speaking your first language.

That's exactly what it's like, or at least for me.

Yeah.

Michael: These days, we have all been forced to pay more attention to what's happening in the country in terms of inclusion and just how necessary liberation movements are for us to progress as a people.

In my conversation with Jesse Perez, we explore encountering the white lens in theater and the importance of BIPOC representation in the arts.

Here's an opportunity for you to hear from a true theater scholar, Jesse Perez.

Michael: Welcome to "Theater Corner."

I appreciate you taking out time to sit here with a brother.

Jesse Perez: It's my pleasure.

Michael: So right now you're the Old Globe and University of San Diego Shiley Graduate Theater Program director.

Jesse: Correct.

That's it.

Michael: So, my goodness.

Now and I'm out of breath.

You could kind of explain what exactly do you do here.

Jesse: I run an MFA program, Michael.

You know, we take in seven students a year.

It's a 2-year program year around.

It's an apprenticeship with the professional theater of the globe here in San Diego.

We do understudying for them.

And in the summer, we get to be on the festival stage for their Shakespeare summer programming.

All our students are guaranteed a slot during that festival performance.

And so they get to learn right next to professionals and also do a professional rehearsal process and just really engage with the professional theater.

Michael: And it's also exciting that you're a person of color in this position because that's not something that programs had.

Jesse: Well, I think it's rare, not only that I'm a person of color, but that I'm an actor, you know, not necessarily known as a director.

I'm in the field as a performer, an actor.

And so that was my trajectory.

You know, I went to Juilliard, and when I graduated, I started acting.

And from that, you know, getting professional gigs and getting my feet wet, eventually Juilliard called me back.

And, you know, through a friend of mine, Brian Myrtus, who's a really big director and is head of directing at Brown University now, he called me in to choreograph some of his work, do movement work, do some dances, and it was this big Greek production.

It was ten Greek plays.

And that's when I started working as a movement professor over at Julliard.

And as I started working there, you know, Michael, I started realizing how white the training was.

You know, it's centered around European writers.

Shakespeare was upheld as the pinnacle, you know, the best.

And, you know, there is no question that Shakespeare is who he is and is somebody that should be reckoned with and studied, but also wrestled with, you know, and rubbed up against so that we can find ourselves in it because ultimately, you know, Shakespeare didn't write for BIPOC people, you know?

Shakespeare didn't write for women.

He wrote for all men, right?

So what does that all mean, and how do we translate that to 2021?

Michael: So you take the classics like Shakespeare, not changing a word, but am I hearing just putting a black aesthetic or a Latin aesthetic on those characters?

Jesse: Yeah or, you know, you start saying, "What does this language mean to me?"

You know, you also have to say, "How do I put these words in my own vernacular, right?"

Every time we work on Shakespeare, which is, you know, Elizabethan English, we look at it, and it's foreign even if you are a white person.

It takes a long time for the ear to adjust to the iambic pentameter, to the poetry, to the prose.

So all of a sudden, you have to start saying, "Okay, these are just words on a page.

Let's start there.

It's literature, right?

Who wrote it?"

Of course, it matters, but if we start with, "This literature and I'm supposed to interpret it," I am supposed to interpret it.

It's been given to me.

It's been given to the world as a gift to interpret.

Now, my lens is not white.

So how can I say, "Oh my god, I got to figure out what my white lens is in this interpretation of this white playwright?"

No way, you know, Michael.

I look at it, and I'm like, "Okay, I'm Mexican-American," and stress on the American, you know, "and how do I see myself in these plays?

How do I see myself as this king?

How do I see myself as this fool that can turn a phrase and confuse the king or bring a reality to the king that he doesn't even know?"

You know?

So it's--of course, there's status and all of that, but I feel like status is an interesting question to me in America, you know?

How do we distinguish status?

What does it mean, you know?

Is it money?

Is it power?

Is it somebody that just sells themselves as that and is a complete fraud, which I think America has gotten a little bit of that?

So I feel like we have to interpret them through an American lens.

And the American lens is diversified.

Like, people wonder, "Why don't more BIPOC people go to the theater?"

Because there's no programming for them.

You know, if we're not celebrating our differences, I don't know what we're doing.

If we don't want to hear different stories from different cultures to expand our minds, I don't know what we're doing.

Michael: You actually--you've done one opera?

Jesse: Well, yeah, we should talk about that story actually.

Michael: Yeah, I want to hear about that.

Jesse: I work with a director named Mary Zimmerman, okay?

And she's a big, big theater director out of Chicago.

I think, you know, she works at Northwestern, teaches there.

And she called me once and she was like, "Hey, we're doing 'Arabian Nights' in San Francisco."

And I was like, "Yeah, Mary, you know--" In Berkeley, California.

And I was like, "Yeah, you know, Mary, I'm a little tide up, and I want to give New York more of a chance."

And she was like, "Okay, listen.

I'm starting to direct at the Met, and I was wondering if I threw in a part for you in this opera if then you would consider coming to Berkeley and working on 'Arabian Nights' with me."

And I was like, "So two jobs instead of one?"

And so, of course, you know, it took like all 5 minutes to talk to my agent and be like, "Of course, I want to work at the Met.

Of course, I want to be in a Mary Zimmerman opera.

Of course."

So it came down to it, and eventually I said yes to it.

And this was the part, all right, Michael?

The opera was "Lucia di Lammermoor," right?

Donizetti, right?

So very bel canto and very like big, big diva singing the part, right?

And the diva's name--the diva's name?

The amazing opera singer that sang the part was Natalie Dessay, okay?

Huge.

Huge.

Tiny woman with the biggest voice, okay, and an actor before an opera singer, okay?

And so Mary was working with her.

And sure enough, I got the call, and they were like, "Okay, so there's the scene where she's forced to marry somebody and she has to sign the marriage contract, okay?

And we're going to put it in a different time period than the opera was actually done, when there was actual photography.

Now, Jesse, you're going to play the photographer."

And I was like, "Okay."

They gave me this old-fashioned camera, you know, with all the gunpowder and everything.

And she was like, "And your job is to--after she signs, to put them in a family portrait, not only the family, but the extended family and all the guests there, and then take a big shot of them, you know, big photo of them, right in the climax of this act."

And I was like, "Okay, no problem."

I show up to rehearsal, you know, and sure enough, none of the people that are playing the actual parts, because they all have jobs all over the world, its opera singers, are actually there.

It's people that are understudying them or they're rehearsing for them so that then they can just take over the part, right?

So I'm working with these opera singers, and sure enough, you know, this one woman signs it.

And so I go over to her.

It's not Natalie Dessay.

And I go over her to move her, and she's like, "What are you doing?"

And I was like, "I'm moving you into the photo;" totally in character, you know?

"I'm moving you into the photo, miss."

And, you know, everybody's singing in Italian, and I'm talking in English, but she asked me, "What are you doing."

Right?

So I was like, "I'm moving you into the photo."

And so she starts moving, but so like resisting, and she's singing, you know?

And so we're moving her into the photo, and sure enough, Mary's like, "Jesse, move them into the photo."

And I was like, "I'm trying, Mary, but they're opera singers, and I think they need their freedom to release their entire voice."

Long story short, Michael, every rehearsal, there was a new person.

You know what I'm saying?

So it was always the same thing.

"What are you doing?"

And so I was like, "I'm moving you into the--" Finally, Natalie Dessay gets there, right, and we're closed to tech.

And so I was like, "Okay, here we go."

You know?

And I had gotten so many notes about, "Hey, Jesse, just do your job.

You're an actor, right?

That's what you're doing here.

It's just that."

And I was like, "Okay.

Okay."

Natalie Dessay shows up.

And we're in that moment, and sure enough, I go over and I hold her hand, and she's, "What are you doing?"

And I looked at her and I said, "I'm moving you into the photo, miss, so that we can celebrate this special occasion."

And she looked at me, Michael, and she goes, "Then pull me."

I immediately fell in love with the opera.

You know what I'm saying?

I was like, "Who is this woman?"

And I was like, "Ah."

And all of a sudden, I knew I was an actor in an opera with another actor.

You know, she fell into character just as much as I did.

But, you know, it was because of Mary Zimmerman that I was on the Met, you know, due to the fact that she was like, "We need an actor to play this part.

We need an actor to move these opera singers."

And sure enough, once I met the people that were actually doing it, it was a dream, you know?

I mean, I was a glorified extra, to be quite honest with you, you know, but I didn't sing, but I was literally making beautiful pictures for Mary Zimmerman in this grandiose opera house.

Michael: It's in the can.

You're an opera performer.

Jesse: Yeah.

Yeah, it is.

I guess you can say that, you know?

I was above the supernumeraries, if you will.

So it was a good gig.

And I ended up in Berkeley right after that.

Michael: My goodness.

You've obviously done theater.

You've done Shakespeare, but you--I mean, you've done television.

You've done film.

Express to me what it is about stage for you, you know, compared to, you know, doing that stuff in front of the camera.

There's something particular about the stage that's--I think, that kind of fulfills you maybe just a little bit more.

Jesse: Oh, there's nothing like it, you know, Michael; sharing space, and time, and molecules, and breath.

And I know it's been pulled from us during this pandemic, but that thing that you're missing, you know, the human connection, that idea of like being around bodies and in space, that's theater.

Community coming together to see an event, a live event, to share space and breath with performers, that might-make-a-mistake, that can-forget, the idea that it's happening in front of you in real time, the idea that 3 hours can pass and it seems like 20 minutes because there's real bodies in front of you telling stories, like, it's the roots of storytelling, you know?

It's like, "Oh, let's make a fire.

And why don't you tell me a story, Michael?"

You know what I'm saying?

And it's like getting up and sharing sharing.

You ultimately have to bring yourself to everything, you know?

Now, what that means for transformation and how to play different characters that are further away from you, that's training, you know, and that's you exercising the muscle and seeing how you can go further than you think you can go, right?

Because I feel that's what happens.

That's what makes a character actor.

All of a sudden, they're like, "Oh, well, I'm interpreting it this way.

What happens if I push my interpretation a little bit, you know?

If it's at a five, and I'm like at this neutral place and oh, yeah, this feels natural, what if at one rehearsal, I push it to a ten?"

And yeah, maybe the director is going to be like, "Hey, what are you doing?"

But what is rehearsal for if not elaboratory, you know?

So all of a sudden, you're just like, "Hey, let's collaborate and let's try many things.

Let's not just settle on the one idea, you know?"

And that's what I always tell my students too; have more than one idea.

It pisses everybody off, you know?

And that, to me, really just feels like, "Wow, I think that's theater, I think that's collaboration, and I think that's how we streamline all of our ideas into this story to make something that's completely ours; the people that were in the room, you know?"

And that's when it becomes like if you have an all BIPOC team, an all BIPOC cast, then that story really becomes us, you know, especially if it's Shakespeare.

Michael: Great poet Nikki Giovanni said, "If you write from experience, you'd maybe give one book, maybe three poems."

Writers write from empathy.

We know language is power, and today we heard from two talented artists who embody this quote.

I'm Michael Taylor.

And you just watched another episode of "Theater Corner."

♪♪♪ announcer: Support for this program comes from the KPBS Explore Local Content Fund supporting new ideas and programs for San Diego.

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