VANESSA GARCIA, PLAYWRIGHT

Vanessa Garcia is a Cuban American multidisciplinary writer—screenwriter, playwright, novelist, journalist and essayist— who has written and worked for Sesame Street, Caillou, We Are Family, and Dora the Explorer. She’s the author of the novel, White Light, which won an International Latino Book Award and was one of NPRs best books of 2015. Her first picture book for children, What the Bread Says, was published in 2022. Theatrically, her work has been produced around the world. She’s the author of The Amparo Experience, an immersive hit that People en Español called “Miami’s Hottest Ticket.” Other plays include Carbonell-nominated The Cuban Spring ; Ich Bin Ein Berliner, a radio play about the fall of the Berlin Wall; and #Graced (which premieres this May at Zoetic Stage in Miami). Her journalism, essays, and thought pieces have appeared in The LA Times, The Guardian, The Washington Post, National Review, ESPN, The Hill, Catapult, Boston Globe, Narratively, and numerous other publications.

Vanessa also hosts a podcast about family with her own sister and mother called Never the Empty Nest, available anywhere you listen to podcasts. She holds a PhD from the University of California Irvine in Creative Nonfiction. Her dissertation focused on Cuba. For more: www.vanessagarcia.org. Instagram: @vanessagarciawriter

Special Thanks from the Playwrights

We’d like to thank Portland Stage for this beautiful experience, our magical cast and crew, Sally Wood for helping us deliver this baby, and to Anita for believing in the play.

From Richard Blanco: “Thank you, Vanessa, for your genius and for holding my hand on this incredible journey through the magical world of playwriting.”

From Vanessa Garcia: “My thanks to Richard for inviting me to play. I’d also like to give a special nod to the Pedro Pan kids who have shared their stories with me over the years.”

SALLY WOOD, DIRECTOR

Thank you so much for supporting live theater. When not directing, Sally is an actor, fight choreographer, teaching artist, theater professor, and builder of sheds. In Maine, Sally’s directing credits include AIRE Theater, Bates and Bowdoin Colleges, The University of New England, The Theater at Monmouth, Fenix Theater Company, Good Theater, Dramatic Rep, and Portland Stage Company. Sally has been lucky to work on several premieres over the years, and some favorites include Veils, Papermaker, Last Gas, Love/Sick, and The Half-Light. Massive thanks to Vanessa and Richard for this beautiful play. Humongous gratitude to the marvelous cast and production team. It has been a magical time bursting with goodwill and lots of laughter. Much love to Matt, Tucker, and Charley for loaning me out.

INTERVIEW WITH THE PLAYWRIGHTS & DIRECTOR

By Audrey Erickson

Audrey Erickson: What is the most exciting part of watching a play change so much?

Vanessa Garcia: I love being in the room, I love making changes live. I never start in a place of preciousness because it’s the closest thing to life we have and that’s ever changing anyway. Where do things have to go? What has to get lifted, what has to be there in the first round, so that it’s sort of echoing, as a sort of pentimento later. That tapestry is the best thing ever. I just think it’s so fun .

Richard Blanco: For me, as a first-time playwright, it was great to see how much the actors bring to it. Understanding the play from their perspective, it’s just so cool. Nobody asks me what they need from my poem. Getting in their head and realizing, oh, my god, another piece of the collaboration, that’s so essential. I think that in some ways, it is like poetry in the sense that you’re trying to find out, what is the bare bones with this? Do I need 40 lines? Can I do it in 15? And if I’m gonna do the 15, it’s usually a better piece.

Sally Wood: I’ve never seen more gracious, grateful, egoless [writers]. You can say anything about [the play] and they’re like, “Do I think that? Yeah, I think that,” or “No, that’s not what I’m trying to say.” I haven’t had to hold anything back. Every thought comes right out. And I think that’s a really special, safe play place. The actors [are] so excited, too, because they’re being listened to in a way that actors typically are not; they don’t [usually] get this kind of input. And so they’re seeing like, “Oh, I said this about my character. And now Vanessa and Richard have written this in,” and you can just see the actor like, “Oh, that’s right. I’m a real part of this process now.”

AE: How do your past creative experiences (as poets and novelists, etc.) influence how each of you go about writing a play?

VG: I kind of think everything is [collaborative], even novel writing because you end up working with an editor. You’re never really alone, you’re alone for a little while, when you’re getting the stuff out. But then eventually, I gotta get it into the world, so there’s always some kind of a process. I don’t know if the vehicle finds the theme or the theme finds the vehicle, when you write in different mediums, but I mean, [ Sweet Goats ] very much feels like a play.

RB: I’ve always liked theater, and I was historically a very poor reader because we didn’t speak English in the house. We had no books in the house except books on how to learn English. So I would always do my book reports on plays because I thought, “I can get through it.” And so initially when I got asked to write the play, I was like, “Yeah!” But it is the most challenging genre I’ve ever attempted. And now [that] I’ve seen the beauty of it, it’s actually affecting how I write poetry in the sense of less is more. I find myself writing shorter poems and trusting almost the poem itself as an actor, that the poem will do the work that it needs to do and I don’t have to superimpose or overwrite it. And that’s been a great sort of “aha”!

Scan the QR Code to hear the full interview with Vanessa, Richard, and Sally on the PlayNotes podcast!