Tanya Saracho (TS): Thank you so much for asking me to be your partner in this, I loved Perreo. It’s so Miami!

Valen-Marie Santos (VMS): Thank you Tanya for agreeing to do this. That means a lot to me, I am from South Florida, and that culture, that rhythm of speaking are parts that I miss now being in New York.

TS: Tell me a little bit about the genesis of this play, how do you place yourself in the story?

VMS: The idea came to me while I was studying at a predominantly white university. I felt very far from home: in some ways, I was experiencing a lot of pride for being Latine and I also felt far away from that identity. Creating Alicia as a character was for me to work through that grief. I was listening to a lot of reggaeton and a lot of Spanish-language music, and this play was my attempt to connect to all that. Honestly, at the beginning, I was a reggaeton hater. I used to think it was annoying. But when I really started listening, I found so much beauty and I got obsessed with it: I started watching more videos and learning about how it was a way for women to own their bodies. Learning its history really made the world come alive to me and I started writing the play from there.

TS: I love to hear that there is something of you in Alicia, and I can see the notions of the hybrid and the gringa, and the ways that the play and reggaeton frame that self-analysis. And I felt the same way you did about reggaeton about corridos [tumbados, another Latine subgenere]. But pushing those things away because of shame and expectations can also feel like pushing part of myself away. Shame and expectations are really complicated in this play. Where did you go to school, where did this story come to you?

VMS: I went to Northwestern, and I lived in Chicago a couple of years after graduating. I’ve been writing Perreo for about five years now.

TS: Oh I love Chicago; I miss it every day. Chicago is the theater, you know? Not in the commercial Broadway way, but it allows for exploration for explorations sake.

VMS: Completely, it feels very devotional doing theater in Chicago. It’s never about some outside goal, it always felt about the people in this room telling this story in an ensemble.

TS: There is a weird thing about New York being the center of all things cultural. Whenever I am in New York, I feel like the country bumpkin from the Midwest. I hope New York reaches out and extends its branches, instead of people thinking this is the goal. I think the next generation of American theater will get bigger that way.

In a similar way, your play sort of feels like the beginning of the new generation of Latine stories. The generation before me was doing a lot of Luis Alfaro’s and Jose Riveras’ work. And then my generation was sort of working out how to be in that second generation, and without the same baggage as the immigrant stories before. And your story, even though it has both of those things, it feels very now. And we need it because I still don’t think Latine life has taken up the space it should on stage. I’ve been away from theater for a little bit, can you tell me about the state of Latine stories in the American theater?

VMS: I feel very mixed about it. I think that in some ways we are still stuck in the immigrant storytelling mold. Or that we’ve told ourselves that we know what all Latine plays are like, and those are the stories that theaters choose to tell. They can feel very trapped in this one kind of trauma story, as our original or most important suffering. It’s important, but I don’t feel like I see me fully on stage in those stories. I don’t see this unique experience of being a Latine in this country now, being raised here, holding this culture plus the culture you were raised with. I think I’ve grown tired of the ni de aquí ni alla idea, because I am a whole thing, not two disparate parts conjoined. And I’m not the only one who belongs to this context and perspective, and I really feel like we are our own culture in and of itself. I wanted to give voice to my own generation of Latines, and I wanted to show these stories because in that I would feel truly seen.

TS: This new Latinidad is so important, because most new Latines are you. They don't watch Univision, they don't watch Telemundo—that’s not their identity. It is this new sense of identity. You’re not complaining about the same observations that we had thirty or even fifteen years ago. Sometimes the expectation to perform your identity can feel like a trap even when it comes in the form of personal expression. How are you feeling about the Spotlight Series workshop?

VMS: I’m excited for Perreo to come to life. I’m very excited to work with actors. It’s a play I need to hear, especially with the music and the interruptions. Miami is Latines—everyone’s talking fast, so the rhythm of the dialogue is important. When I’m writing I must look crazy: in my room, I am pacing, acting out five different characters at the same time. I think it’s maybe because I started as an actor, that my body feels really activated when I am writing these characters. Unless I’m at a coffee shop trying to write in public, then I’ll try to look more normal.

TS: I get it, I started off as an actor too, and I completely know that feeling. It’s like you’re possessed by them, and you are the conduit or the medium. I really believe that characters speak through you. I know people think it’s woo-woo, but it is truly a possession, that’s why people say that when you’re writing you’re channeling.

VMS: You're preaching to the choir. I totally believe writing is channeling. You choose your characters as much as they choose you, and I believe a play is a relationship that you have to tend to. I will talk to my characters and have a conversation with them and I’m sure it seems crazy or woo-woo to some people. But I feel these are beings that I am honoring and bringing to life, and they have their own beingness that I am trying to connect to, so I can feel when it is true or not. I can feel it on the page when I am trying to force them into being a good play or a good scene and not listening to them.

TS: Well I think that’s the other part of the job, right? To make sense of these lives that are real to you when you're in your shower or you're walking to the subway or whatever, and then to harness them into a play. And sometimes you have characters that aren’t aligned to that goal, and they’re just existing, and harnessing them into something consumable sometimes doesn’t work. It’s up to the architect part of our creative process to construct this world.

VMS: I know we’re both into astrology, and I feel like writing is embodying the Pisces-Virgo sister sign relationship. Where Pisces is very imaginative, very spiritual and then the Virgo must take it and work on it, little by little, and make it a real thing. And it can be frustrating sometimes to feel so much of the world you’re imagining, and to know it won’t show up outside of you without taking time every day to get closer to it. I think with writing plays especially, maybe even more than TV or film, it feels like committing to some personal transformation and inviting in a deep internal alchemy into that process.

TS: How can it not be? When we’ve spent five years with a story, it must have that alchemical effect on us. And adding the duality of that internal cost and the collaborative act of bringing it to life, that spiritual exchange? To me, that part is the magic. And it’s hard in theater, because financially, it sometimes doesn’t respect the magic. So we have to go over there to make our money so we can protect that magic.

But I am so glad to hear you describe it that way—it’s not everyone’s process but it’s your process and I recognize it.

VMS:  Oh thank you so much, I mean to me playwriting is a kind of brujería. When I think of it as magic and place myself as a vessel for this world and these characters, it become less about me taking up space and more about whatever world is trying to come through me.

Valen-Marie Santos (she/they) is a Latine writer, director, and actor originally from south Florida. As a multi-hyphenate artist, she believes each discipline has an undeniable effect on the others. Through their work, Valen-Marie spotlights young people, women, family, and the Latine experience within the US. Her play NATIONAL MERIT––a drama about the faults of the American education system––received a virtual reading by BoHo Theatre in May 2021, and went on to receive its first full production in August 2022. Her play PERREO, a drama set in the Miami reggaeton scene, was selected for the 2020 Agnes Nixon Playwriting Festival, and her comedy about the murder of a fourth grade class pet BUTTERSCOTCH was student-produced at Rider University in 2019. USING PROTECTION, a web series they directed and co-created with Rishi Mahesh and Madi Hart, premiered at the 2022 SeriesFest in Denver. When she's not working on projects, Valen-Marie is also studying tarot and astrology, painting, songwriting, and spending way too much time making Spotify playlists.  

Tanya Saracho is a playwright and television writer who most recently served as creator, showrunner, and executive producer of the critically-acclaimed series “Vida” on Starz. The show featured all Latine writers and directors, including Saracho, who made her television directorial debut. Saracho co-founded the Untitled Latinx Project (ULP), whose mission is to increase Latine representation in television through content created by Latine writers. Saracho also launched the Ojalá Ignition Lab, an incubator program aimed to nurture, amplify, guide, and empower intersectional Latine voices. Saracho was the recipient of Imagen’s Norman Lear Writer’s Award. Named one of “TV Scribes to Watch” by Variety, Saracho was also honored by the LGBTQ California Legislative Caucus as their 2020 Pride Month Honoree. She received the Rising Star Award at the Outfest Legacy Awards, and “Vida” won the GLAAD Media Award in 2019.