Tiza Garland Honored with SETC’s 2022 Suzanne M. Davis Memorial Award

Left and middle: Tiza Garland (she/her) reacts as she realizes that she is the recipient of the 2022 Suzanne M. Davis Memorial Award. Right: Garland (center) is congratulated by the award presenter, past President Jack Benjamin (right), and SETC President Maegan McNerney Azar.

Presentation by Jack Benjamin at the annual SETC Awards Banquet

The Suzanne M. Davis Memorial Award was created in memory of Suzie Davis, wife of Harry Davis, one of the founders of SETC and its 10th president. When Suzie died in 1964, Alvin Cohen endowed this special award in her memory to recognize each year an individual who, over an extended number of years, had been outstanding in service to SETC. It is the highest award that SETC can bestow upon one of its own members.

Tonight’s recipient joins a distinguished list of individuals to whom we owe the current strength and success of our organization.

At this time, I would like to stop and recognize an individual whom we honored last year during our virtual conference, but I felt needed to have their name mentioned in this evening’s “live” event. Ladies and gentlemen, please give our 2021 Suzanne Davis Memorial Awardee, Michael Howley, a well-deserved round of applause.

Tradition has it that the recipient of the award is kept secret each year until this evening’s festivities. Many of you will recognize our honoree very quickly through their accomplishments, but I will keep the tradition going.

Our recipient began their SETC career in the 1990s and has continued their service ever since. They are easily recognized by SETC and other national and international organizations as an outstanding authority in their specific field of theatre.

I had the honor of meeting our awardee early in their SETC career and have witnessed their amazing growth from a committee chair (for over 10 years) to secretary of the board.

While President, I was privileged to have our honoree serve beside me as the Vice President of Services and ultimately succeed me as President of this great organization and serve in this capacity for three years.

These accomplishments alone are enough to honor this wonderful person, but I must say that the work that they have done on the EDIA initiative for SETC has set a standard for all to hope to aspire to. If it were not for our awardee and a handful of others, SETC would not be experiencing the equity, diversity and inclusion that we are today!

I am particularly moved by a quote from our recipient that I believe all in this ballroom should take to heart. Our honoree said: “In order to have a life in the theatre, one must first have a life.” From being a vital part of the University of Florida’s theatre program, to running a marathon on five of the continents on this earth (with plans to run marathons on the other two after completing their dissertation), to growing things in their garden, I can honestly say they embody having a life in theatre and out of theatre every day.

Ladies and gentlemen, SETC’s 2022 Suzanne Davis Memorial Awardee: Tiza Garland. n

Words, words, words … [Hamlet II,ii] reviews books on theatre that have a connection to the Southeast or may be of special interest to SETC members. Sarah McCarroll (she/her), an associate professor of theatre at Georgia Southern University, edits this regular column. If you have a book for review, please send to: SETC, Book Editor, 5710 W. Gate City Blvd., Suite K, Box 186, Greensboro, NC 27407.

Theatre of the Sphere: The Vibrant Being

by Luis Valdez and Michael M. Chemers 2021, Routledge, routledge.com ISBN: 978-0-367-619473; Pages: 198 Price: $31.96 (paperback)

by Javier Luis Hurtado

For over 55 years, Luis Valdez and El Teatro Campesino have been making dynamic, socially engaged theatre. Theatre of the Sphere: The Vibrant Being is a comprehensive compilation of Valdez’s theoretical methodology and approach to performance, which offers a valuable addition to available works on actor training. Clearly sectioned into four parts, with prefaces by Valdez and editor Michael M. Chemers, the book’s early sections build on one another to create a clear understanding of Valdez’s approach.

The book’s introduction is by the foundational Chicanx theatre scholar, Dr. Jorge A. Huerta, who discusses what he terms the “Valdezian aesthetic” by taking the reader on a chronological deep dive of the plays of Luis Valdez. This begins with the actos (short political sketches), written as El Teatro Campesino’s identity as an ensemble took shape, and concludes with the 2019 history play, Adiós Mamá Carlota (Goodbye Mother Carlota). The introduction’s succinct summary and sharp analysis offer an important resource for actors and educators alike.

The book’s first part takes its title from the theatre company Valdez founded during the 1965 Delano grape strike – “El Teatro Campesino” – when, as he writes, “there was no blueprint for … any kind of Chicano theatre.” Valdez details the ways his “Theatre of the Sphere aesthetic was evolving from the start” and notes that in order to tap into the aesthetic truth of the staged moment there must be a connection that he identifies as the “body, heart, mind and spirit continuum.”

In “Part Two: Theatre of the Sphere,” Valdez describes this practice as “the neo-Mayan flower” of his Indigenous Mexican roots. In this section, Valdez describes in great detail how the numeric and calendrical systems of the ancient Maya help craft movement in the mind, body, heart and spirit, and the importance of the zero.

The bulk of the text is dedicated to “Part Three: The Vibrant Being Workshop,” in which Valdez describes the logic behind the movements that are part of the workshop’s signature exercises, “The Litany of the Ball.” These exercises help performers call attention to their breath, listening, physical movement, voice and speech, and spiritual and affective connection to cultivate the activated body, heart and mind connection. This section’s exercises vary in complexity and make the important contribution to actor training that inspires Chemers to compare them to actor training staples like the work of Konstantin Stanislavski, Uta Hagen or Augusto Boal.

Finally, Valdez ends the text, much like he ended his first edited collection of plays (Early Works, 1990), with a poem that he writes for “all actors in life as well as on stage, including politicians who are supposed to ‘act’ for their people.” The poem is written bilingually with English translation following every line of Spanish. Through the poem, Valdez distinguishes a “good actor” from a “bad actor” and provides a moral compass from which to understand the kind of performance one brings either to life on the stage or on the stage of life.

Vibrant Being is an integral part of the contemporary conversation to decenter whiteness in actor training and should be considered, along with books such as Black Acting Methods, Breaking It Down: Audition Techniques for Actors of the Global Majority, Acting Queer: Gender Dissidence and the Subversion of Realism, and A Korean Approach to Actor Training, by any educator committed to teaching beyond the Western canon. n

Vibrant Being is an integral part of the contemporary conversation to decenter whiteness in actor training.

Javier Luis Hurtado (all pronouns) is a director, a playwright and a doctoral candidate in the Department of Theatre, Dance and Performance Studies at Tufts University.