Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Making Me A "Believe"r

Making me a "BELIEVE"R
By: Elaine Del Valle


I have been performing my autobiographical 90 minute solo play for about four years now.  In that time it went from winning small festivals to rave reviews, regionally and then off Broadway.  When the New York Times called it a "Triumph", there was a certain confidence that washed over me and made theatre's little pay feel like I had banked millions over.

There is no argument that the story of "Brownsville Bred" is that of a Latina coming of age.  There have been many a non-believer...those that felt "how could any other audience get it?" or the better question for those artistic directors and theatre decision makers "How can I get my (non-hispanic) audience to want to be in those theatre seats?"

Those artistic believers, who went onward and with bravery into full productions, I thank them and am so proud to say, they never lost a dime and more than money...they expressed a great accomplishment, and pride in the faith that they put in both the play and their audiences.

Those producers and audiences were believers.  They believed that every human being has a sense of struggle with their past, with their circumstances, with their environment...They conquer and they laugh.  They want to be happy and they want to root for success.  People who thought they knew me saw the play and felt "I've never really known you at all?", while those who had never met me felt as if they had known me for their entire lives.

After thinking I had seen them all, then came school performances.
The play, based on my childhood has reaped many rewards but none more than in its performances within schools.

It was never my idea.  It started with teaching professionals who found their way to my play as avid theatre goers but later felt compelled to share it with their students... The students that had much in common with the humble beginnings of this Brownsville Brooklyn born Hispanic ghetto girl as well as the students who thought that they'd have nothing in common with her and yet found so much.  

Environment, relationships, challenges and growth exist in every human circumstance, and finding this common ground find us all in a wonderful place...one where all teens, and adults of all ages strive to be...a place of... belonging.

There has never been a school that I did not enjoy performing at. A large audience at New York City LaGuardia High School of the Performing Arts was one of the first.  They made for a loud and excited group in a theatre that was bigger than many Broadway houses...The Drama teacher invited me.  Before I took stage, she announced to her students "This is an example of doing it all...You can write it, you can perform it, you can produce it!"  Hearing those words before taking stage made the nerves that usually center in my heart quiet in comparison to the chills that coursed up and down my limbs.

There were kids of all backgrounds.  Teens who were already pursuing a career that I only started to dream  was possible in my early twenties...
At the end of the show, a standing ovation.  I have received many a standing O, but this one had a certain specialness that I cannot begin to explain.

Many other high schools and colleges have come after that school...All of which have been absolutely the best moments of my career.

After one such other performance at the Ethnic Pen Annual Conference of the BayShore School District on BayShore Long Island, I thought "nothing could top this"...This because the district is one of a very few that falls in the middle of both a very affluent and a very poor community. It is a place where black and white and rich and poor gather, but understand quite clearly the divide that still exists. After the performance those kids seemed to feel united. It felt better than I had ever felt before.

Just after that performance, I was fielding invitations from other schools from both East and West of the city.  It seemed many other district personnel was in house to witness the student response. One such request came from a school called The North Side Charter BELIEVE School in Brooklyn.  BROOKLYN, the borough from where I came... I did not know what to expect, but I never expected what I got.

As I entered the building with my stage manager, we had to be escorted by security up to the office.  There was a young hispanic girl in tears.  Her mother spoke in my native "Spanglish" and asked the 15 year old, "Who taught you to kiss a boy?"  The threat of punishment and being transferred from the school all told and seemed wrapped in the clench of the Mother's fist holding back from the slap I thought inevitable.  As the Mom of a former teenager and playing a teenager on stage, I wanted to say "Human Nature...Stay.  Don't leave! Watch my show...with your daughter...and know that she has every opportunity in this great country and so do you!"

Getting to the auditorium stage for set up, I kept thinking about that one girl and her Mom.  Thinking she may be the only Latina in this school.  This play could really hit home for her.  The mother would see herself in my mothers character and she would feel her own importance.  Her anger would be replaced by confidence in her daughters abilities.  I wanted to shake it but I couldn't.

As the kids began arriving, from back stage I could only hear the chatter of the every day teen as I did my breathing exercises that precede my every performance.

In the first moments of my play, a 90 second film of the old neighborhood (Brownsville Brooklyn) plays with the scrolling definition of what Brownsville is according to Wikipedia.  The stats in bold typeface, are meant to hit home as the facts..the lack of expectation or faith.  In short it says everything that we are and nothing that we can be.  The film ends with my handwriting letter by letter, and spelling out, "But this is my story...I was Brownsville Bred and I will not be defined."  

I am usually backstage watching these words scroll and absorbing the relevance of being living proof that otherwise exists...But in the NorthSide Charter Believe School, it was different.  There I had the unique pleasure of listening to the kids all together, as if they were being orchestrated to do so...Their chatter turned to song.  They were singing the words to the popular spanish song that plays during my video. It occurred to me that most of them were Hispanic.  They all became that girl I wanted to be there front and center!

I was on emotional overload and the responsibility that usually washes over me before first step onto stage..The one to myself, my community and to the underdogs of the world that the show represents was replaced by a PRIDE that is usually earned at the end of the show...The kind that grows gradually throughout the performance...when you've had them laughing, crying and in complete silence...For the first time I was not feeling any pressure to earn that.  For the first time, I felt the benefit of the doubt...I was Home and I became a "Believe"r!

Later, I asked the head of athletics, who had invited me to perform at The NorthSide Charter Believe School, how she came to the earlier BayShore High School performance.  It was to my amazement that she said "No, I saw you a few years ago, at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, while you were self producing.  I saw it twice there and it stayed with me!"

This will forever stay with me!


Thursday, August 2, 2012

She's Back!


SHE’S BACK! by Elaine Del Valle

December 2011—
The Girl: “I know.  I want to live in Arizona... for the rest of my life! I love the weather. I love the pace of things. I just love it!  I am an adult, and I know. I want to go to school there... and I want to stay there.”

The Mom: "You are a New Yorker through and through…We might be able to jump in anywhere... but not many places can keep us jumping for joy like the thrilling ride that is our New York City."

But still, and against my better judgment
(that made me ache to call Rent-A-Center),
that new furniture I had just purchased
—y’know the kind that makes a little girls room into a young adults room—
that was all packed up, shoved into the container of a long haul truck and shipped along with all of her clothes, car and most cherished belongings, half way across the country and off to a nice two bedroom condo rental near Arizona State’s Tempe campus.

While she was away-- I painted her room…  I thought that it might give me some closure…Okay, I ended up needing to paint 9 rooms before I felt some form of closure upon me. We are talking paint brushes, ladders, and tape!... While listening to the Pandora stations of Adele and Elton John!…which by the way, have lots of songs that make you NEED to cry …On A LOOP!

As the paint smell left my walls, I got used to--the quiet.
Sleeping through the night without the house alarm going off as she came home every night... and every morning from the echo of her dropping her shaving cream in the shower.

“Sorry, Mom.”
And I knew she was
and so I never minded.

And,    
I managed
To
Get
Used To It...
and I even
got to
myself
in ways that I had forgotten.


Summer 2012-- 
A semester has gone by.  Facetime is giving me some face time with my girl. Actually more than I had with her when she was at home.  Whole conversations are had, and I get to hear all about how she had to drop calculus but passed all of her other classes with A's and B's. Job is in tact.  Wasn’t so in love with that condo area she chose to live in anymore though. Oh and broke up with her boyfriend. Not to mention the part where she is tired of the desert’s slow motion and the KICKER...
  
The Girl: “Mommy, I think…I need…I know…I want…TO COME HOME!”

The Mom: "I hate to say I told you so…OK I love to say I told you so! After all, the more I am right, the more you listen to my future advice…But YES...
PLEASE & THANK YOU, COME HOME!"

The Girl: "Oh and Mom, Y’know that dog that you told me not to get…the one that everyone in the house would be allergic to…"

Oh no she dit- int! 
Yeah, she did!

The Mom: "We will make arrangements. Uncle Danny will agree to take the dog."

The Girl: "I can’t live without the dog! I won’t live without the dog! She brings me happiness."

The Mom: "Then you will do all of those things that you did in Arizona...for yourself...here…You will get an apartment, a job and enroll in school."

Only this time-- I get to see her beautiful face(any)time...

And be able to hold my daughter in my arms!

"WELCOME HOME! YOU WILL ALWAYS BE WELCOMED HOME!"

Yesterday-- 
The Mom: "Y'know, the first of the month is coming and..."
The Girl:---REVISION--- The Young Adult: "I know, I already paid my rent."
The Mom: "You did?"
The Young Adult: "Yes, I had the money, so I just wanted to pay it.  I'm trying to be a responsible adult, and I got my dog spayed too."
The Mom: "You did."
The Young Adult/The Girl (again): "Uh, Yeah! I just gave all of my money to the vet so... can I borrow $200?"
The (PROUD AND HAPPY) Mom: "No, you can't...You can have it."
The Girl: "Okay, I'll be HOME after work, to drop off my laundry to you."

And this my friends is a very happy ending.
So far, anyway. Until next time...XOXOXO