Stage Whisper
Whisper in the Wings Episode 542
(upbeat music) - Welcome back in everyone to a fabulous new Whisper in the Wings from Stage, where we're joined today by a wonderful artist who I had the pleasure of meeting while covering the New York City Fringe Festival. Her piece was actually in the festival itself and it was fabulous, a very fascinating story being told live on stage. Joining us today, we have the playwright and performer, Alexandria Renjifo, who is here to talk to us about her show, A Date with My Wild. Again, this was a fantastic piece, a very intimate piece. And I'm so excited that we have her here to talk more about it and dive into it. So with that, let us welcome on our guests, Alexandria, welcome to Whisper in the Wings from Stage Whisper. - Thank you, Andrew. It's amazing to be here. - I'm so excited to hear. We finally made this happen and we are getting to talk about your wonderful piece, A Date with My Wild. It was not what I thought it was gonna be in the best way. And I think it's a story that anyone and everyone can relate to, I feel like. So while I'm doing these horrible assumptions about your piece, why don't we have you tell our listeners a little bit about what A Date with My Wild is about? - Yeah, I will. And then I would love to hear your assumptions, actually. It's very interesting to hear people's expectations as they come in. But A Date with My Wild is, it's an autobiographical coming of age, one woman show. I would say it's, it veers on the dramatic side, but there are, there's just like this heartfelt comedic elements and it really explores the journey of a girl that happens to be me that begins to grapple from a young age on what it is to be a woman and what it is actually to be a sensual woman that also wants to be loved by her family, her friends and even God, you know? And she, in this mental world, grapples with this based on what she sees play around her. And the show leads up to a climactic evening where, you know, the protagonist, which is Alexandra, which is me, you know, has to reconstruct really her relationship with a lot of things, her mind, her body, her mother and even her notions of God. So really it is a, it's a coming of age story that weaves in like song, movement, poetry to tell it in a way that I hope is, I someone said when they saw the show that it was told in a way that also helped them connect to their own stories. So even though I'm telling mine, it invoked in others like they connected, they were remembering their own stories as they were hearing mine. And that was like such a thrill to hear that. Like, yeah, that's my, I feel like that's my greatest aspiration, you know, to help people connect deeper with themselves. - I love that, I absolutely love that. I'm curious to know, you know, where did you come up with the idea or what inspired you to write and then to perform this piece? - So this actually, so the dream of a solo show started much, much earlier. There's actually this wonderful solo show I saw back in, and maybe it was 2016 by this, this writer named and performer named Joe O'Rach, he's O'Rach, might be, he's a New Yorker, Puerto Rican, Walter way champion that later becomes an actor and a dancer. And he tells, he has his own coming of age show that he put on stage while tapping and saying about his journey to getting his dad to accept him as a dancer. And I remember leaving this theater back then, I didn't really consider myself even an artist, like I had aspirations, but I was just so inspired by the way he told the story in a way that was very embodied, so much movement and it just brought you in and it brought to life in New York and a culture that I was being also a Latina, like I connected to a lot of his themes. And so I think for instance, 2016, I've had in like a nugget in the back of my brain of, you know, what transformation can I bring to the stage? And like, and so this story is autobiographical and as I was also, and it talks about the climactic evening was kind of a very, it was a big rebirth in my life, which I think we can all relate to moments in our life when like our world shakes, you know, and what we thought was the way is no longer the way. And I started making sense of that through writing. And then I was like, wait a second, I think there might be a deeper story here that I can bring to stage. And so it is, as you said intimate in the beginning, like it is a very intimate show and its evolution to the stage was really sort of driven by, I think my own desire to like make sense and make art of something that was very painful at times. - I love that. That is a brilliant inspiration. I would love to know, first of all, was the New York City Fringe Festival, the world premiere of this piece, or have you performed it elsewhere? - It was the world premiere and I'm excited to bring it to more stages. And I'm now in the works of that looking at other Fringe festivals, the New York Fringe Festival was such a wonderful home to get kicked off in, and that we were at the 14 white theater, which was another beautiful home, like just wonderful people, staff, production assistance. And so now I'm looking at what other new possibilities there may be in New York and beyond. I wanna bring it to more stages and cities. - Amazing, I'm sure without a doubt that it's going to continue to be performed. There's definitely an audience and one out there for it. So I would love to know, what was it like developing this piece? - Developing this piece was a very intuitive process. Here's where I have, so a key, I call her my creative, I didn't have an official, like director on the show in a way, I was the director, but I had a very involved and wonderful performance coach, creative consultant, she did my lighting design as well, her name is Cassandra Tunic. She, I've trained with her in the past in something called action theater improv, which is a great inspiration for me as a performer. It's all about, it's improvisation, but it's a very embodied form of improvisation. Like it's, you're not always speaking when you're improv, you can just improv just with movement, just with sound. And it's been a backbone of my development as a performer. And so I think in working with her, and in training and improv, you begin to trust that the magic will happen. And we would do rehearsals where I would bring in, I started by writing it, so I did start by words. It started with words, but our first rehearsals were like, okay, you know the story, you're gonna get rid of all the words and you're just gonna tell me the story through your body. You're just gonna tell it to me. And I would tell it one way just through the body, no words. And then she's like, okay, tell it to me another way. And we do it in snippets. And it kind of, it helps me really edit down the work because obviously there's a lot more words you start with and what can end up on stage. And it helps me also like find, 'cause from the beginning, I didn't wanna just be sitting, you know, telling, they're monologues where they're a little more stationary. But since the show is about sort of me reconnecting with my body, I really wanted the body to be alive on stage. And so I was very thankful to have that sort of guidance in developing the show and staging it. - That is wonderful. I love that journey. Now, as I've mentioned, this is a very personal story. It's a very relatable story. I feel like a lot of people can relate to the subject matter to the story that you're telling. Is there a message or a thought that you're hoping audiences will take away from the piece? - Yes. I think there's, I think one of the two key messages in the show when you see it or whenever and when anyone gets to see it, they're gonna see that for a while, I don't know how to trust myself. And so I rely on looking at other people's paths in life and making them my own. And so the big transformation is, and mindset shift is, wow, like it's safe for me to create my own path in life. And so I want an audience member to walk away with that. And the second thing is it's safe to follow and celebrate your pleasure. And pleasure is a word that I, so in the show touches on themes, I said at the beginning sensuality and there's like one of the climactic scenes is something that's related, like connected to my own sexual health and wanting to explore that. And, but feeling constricted at the same time and contracting at that moment or not knowing if it was okay. And, but pleasure is also like, you know, going outside, maybe ending a Zoom meeting early and like sitting next to a tree. And I, and the show also kind of at the end, I talk about how I explored, you know, I discovered like a new range of pleasure and this allowance for pleasure to be in my life versus like just having to like work and follow rules and be perfect of like, instead of like seeking perfection, like what if we saw more pleasure in our lives and didn't view pleasure like as a dirty word. And so I think that is maybe my secret agenda for this show, but I feel like it would be such a beautiful world. We all have more pleasure. - I love that message. I love that idea that is a brilliant idea. 10 out of 10 would recommend that guess. - Well, for my final question for this first part, I would love to know who do you hope have access to your people? - Yeah, that's a great question. And it's one that I guess in ways I'm still putting definition on, but there's, so there's definitely, I think an age of, of women, like for me, it's like 20 to 30 year old women that are, I think that's just like a prime age. You're like either in college or you're graduating, you're, you're, or, or thinking about what's next or like where your life will go. It was, there's, my story is told in three life stages, right? And the third life stage is in my 20s where a lot of, a lot of this stuff around, who am I? What path am I taking? You know, like a lot of this identity, identity questions were happening at that age. And, and now I'm 34 years old and I sort of tell the story where basically I've been, I've transformed from a lot of that state. And so I feel like that age, and especially women at that age might, I would love for them to have access to the story. It's one that would have inspired me. And I think would have given me license to think about topics that I'll say. Like the, like there's, for those listening, there's masturbation and I should, there's topics around masturbation, but there's, there's also topics around like, wow, I'm 20 years old and I'm seeing my mother get divorced and unhappy and like, what does that mean in terms of like, how am I going to live? And so how am I going to live my life differently? And, and so it's that, and then how does this relationship with, with my mother transform as I'm trying to find my path? So I think that age of women, the second one that I'm leaning into is exciting me is I want fathers to see my show. I think fathers can learn so much about their daughters and their spouses. And I've had a few people say that to me like in, in subtle ways. I mean, my own father saw the show too. And I feel like it's, it's created a sense of, I want to use the word intimacy between us, but like in a way of like, you know, like, it's removed some of the walls that sometimes are there, you know, and, and allowed for different kind of genuine conversations. And yeah, I think, I think fathers could get a lot of, from my show or be really inspired and maybe understand the women in their life in a different way. (upbeat music) - Well, for the second part of our interview, we love giving our listeners a chance to get to know our guests a little bit better. Pick your brains if you will. And I feel like, I mean, look, with the story that you've already been bringing us, can we get more personal, you know? But I want to start by asking you our regular first question, which is, what are who inspires you? What playwrights, composers or shows have inspired you in the past or just some of your favorites? - Okay. And so this can go beyond even, even the theater world. - Great. So a few things come to mind. I love salsa artists. Inspire me. I've been on a salsa music kick. I'm really listening to a lot of the New Yorkers or the salsa lovers, Willy Colon and Ruben Bladdis. They're like, like two, like I've been listening to salsa since I was a kid, since I was a young kid, 'cause my father, that's the music of his life. And they're such amazing storytellers. And just like they weave in these topics, sometimes these heavy topics, you know, about life in the street and the body. And, but like with the sound of like the conga, like the trumpets, the drums, like in such a jovial way. So I think we've always been inspired by this ability to kind of like transform and talk about real stuff, but like hold them in a container that's still like joyful, though salsa artists and just like their musicianship and their writing. For you to call her, you know, a lot of people know her, but she is someone that had just read a poem of hers. Her painting is amazing, but actually like her writing, like her poetry, like she writes in like such a raw way. I actually have one of her journals that, or they publish a journal of hers once with like writing prompts. And it's more like, it's a showcasing of her journal more than her art that her work with like prompts and like the way like she would devise her work or just like write stream of consciousness. And then that would create all this new discovery. And so I've been able to, over the years, find sort of continual inspiration and freedom. And I also just, I love Mexico City. So I think it's that too, like that's a city that inspires me a lot. And in addition to Koyakan, where she grew up. And let's see, what else inspires me? And then I think I mentioned action theater improv earlier. That practice and also like I just finished like a poetry bootcamp, which is kind of like this 10 day poetry bootcamp. And I'm leaning into what I love about improv and then what I'm discovering in poetry is like this ability to like make like the simplest things can become something like you can focus on creatively and can become like the most beautiful story like made up imaginary or otherwise. Like, and I still like remember that. I'm like, I can like telling the story of a of an imaginary cat that comes to sit at my window sill or like I wrote a poem about a memory as a kid. My father like do it giving like, like leaving me have children's drop off and like he would always give my teachers a nickname. And I remember like the nickname he gave one of my teachers was Mrs. Donut. And I wrote a poem about that, but it was like, it's like so tender and that's not a story that can necessarily live on stage, but it can like live on paper in a really cool way. And so I think that that I'm just getting a lot of creative juiciness from those practices. - I love that. That is so wonderful. And I want to snowball off of that and ask you, what is your favorite part about working in the theater? - Well, what I loved about being the playwright and the performer and putting this together, I think it bringing something creative to life is not like a one lane experience. Like you have to kind of like, you're constantly learning all these things, right? You're not only writing, but then you're like, well, who can I meet that, you know, can bring the sound to life. And then you often have to be creative on what something can become. And like a prop may have many different lives and can transform into many different things. And so I think I loved the collaboration that's involved in the theater. And I've loved the, I want to say like the resourcefulness and versatility that like you kind of have to, you have to exercise. And it's like a beautiful constraint also of like, like, you know, 60 minutes on stage, you're telling a story. It's like actually a beautiful constraint because like I get so much joy from like being resourceful and you know, versatile. And then like, and then like some magical stuff comes out. So, and then you work with amazing people that also bring their genius. So I think, I think those three things. I love that. That is a wonderful answer. And it leads to my favorite question to ask guests, which is what is your favorite theater memory? - My favorite theater memory is actually history. Maybe the first or the second. I did musicals in high school. I performed at musicals in high school. I was, I was kind of, I had awkward high school years, which I'm sure many people can relate to. I moved into a new school. I didn't have that many friends. It was a totally different context. I found a home, an unexpected home in theater. It was sort of my first, my first realization that there was something for me on stage that really resonated with me. We did, I got, I got accepted to be, or I got cast to be an ex or one of the, one of the extras, you know, the play different parts. I don't see a official name. - But ensemble? - Yeah, yeah, exactly. I was accepted to be the ensemble. So I played like different ensemble parts in, in high school musical. So high school musical, we did it in my high school. And one of them, I was accepted. There's a whole talent show sequence. If you've ever seen it, I'm sure some people have seen it. And I was like drama student number three. That was one of the fifth parts I played. And my, I have this vivid memory of me coming out on stage. And we, like my bit was, I came out with a big umbrella and I just did like this whole like abstract dance with it. And I went forward and back and, and that memory for a long time has been like, like, you know those memories that are searing in your brain? You're, 'cause you just feel so alive. That for me was like a memory where I'm like, oh, there's like, I just realized there as a performer, like the power the stage has for you to like, express a part of yourself that you don't always have a, like that people can usually see. And, and, and it was doing something so simple. I was like, I was playing with an umbrella, but it was kind of like so profound. So I've, I've often, I've held that feeling close. It's kind of been like a north star of, and it's always kind of brought me back to, I think it's, it's a feeling that's brought me back to the theater now in my thirties and, you know, wanting, like knowing that's something really true for me. - I love that memory. That is a fantastic memory. Thank you so much for sharing that. Well, as we wrap this up, I would love to know, do you have any other projects or productions coming on the pipeline that we might be able to plug for you? - So, I'm for nothing that I have a name for yet. I'm, I'm starting to, to work on my next, that I have some projects in development, but they're too early to sort of announce. So, but people can follow me. The best way would be to follow the show at a date with my wilds on Instagram, and that's where I'll be posting new dates for the upcoming productions. - Well, that is fabulous and leads to my final question, which is if our listeners would like more information about a date with my wild, or about you maybe I'd like to reach out to you, how can they do so? You did mention already, like I said, the Instagram handle a date with my wilds for the show, any other things we can get ahold of you through? - So, I'm happy, I can provide my email address. I am happy to get in touch with people. So, my email address is my last name, Renjifo.my first name, Alexandria@gmail.com. - Wonderful. Well, Alexandria, thank you so, so much for taking the time to speak with me today, for sharing your wonderful show once again, just for everything, I've thoroughly enjoyed our conversations from the day of the performance all the way through to here. So, thank you so much for your time today. - Thank you, Andrew, I've enjoyed this too, and I look forward to hopefully seeing you at future shows. - Yes, absolutely, with Bell's ringing. - Yeah, cool, thank you. - My guest today has been the wonderful playwright and performer Alexandria Renjifo, who joined us today to talk about her show A Date with My Wild. We recently saw this production as part of the New York City French Festival, and it will be getting another production very soon at a sitting near you. If you're interested in hosting the show or putting the show on, you can get more information by emailing her at renjifo.allexandria@gmail.com, or check out the show's Instagram at a date with My Wild. We'll have all of this information posted on our episode description, as well as on our social media posts, but make sure you check out the show. Follow the show, and it's absolutely brilliant. You will want to see the show when it comes to you, and you'll also want to keep tabs on Alexandria for her next piece and the many more to come after that. She's a brilliant, brilliant, young playwright and performer, so do keep in touch with her. Again, today we spoke about her show, A Date with My Wild. So until next time, I'm Andrew Cortez, reminding you to turn off your cell phones, unwrap your candies, and keep talking about the theater. In a stage whisper. Thank you. (upbeat music) If you like what you hear, please leave a five-star review, like and subscribe. 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