Today we’d like to introduce you to Sofia Zaragoza.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I have never lived my life without passion, and I feel very lucky for that. Sometimes I laugh at the fact that I didn’t always know I was going to be an artist, but now I can tell that it has always been ingrained into the very fabric of my soul, identity, and humanity for as long as I can remember. I come from a very poor community, where the ideals of love, hard work, and family were what kept day to day life running.
There was a whirlwind of color, emotions, and knowledge around me- I can’t remember a time in my life where I was ever bored. My parents always instilled in me from a very young age that I could be whatever my heart desired, and when I was in elementary school, I told them that “I want to be a theoretical physicist when I grow up.” I have always been extremely academically motivated, and still believe my serious love of education is one of the best things that has ever happened to me.
I was so interested in these theoretical physicist’s who shared stories of distant galaxies colliding, the formation of the universe, and the very fabric of time and space; I still am. I worked my entire life to pursue being a scientist, achieving many incredible opportunities and recognition’s available to young scientists in San Diego. So when I told my family that I was going to attend college for theatre, not physics, it created quite a divide between us. Why would I give up my “life’s dream” to risk life as an artist?
At the same time that I cultivated my interest in science, I also was extremely passionate about community service in San Diego. I was a Girl Scout from kindergarten to 12th grade, which greatly shaped the opportunities I had available to me, the personal agency I had to pursue my goals as a woman, and the practical life skills I was able to learn as a young girl. I did yearly service projects and received some of the highest awards available to Girl Scouts for the work I did in the community.
I was also a leading member for a local chapter of Roots and Shoots, a youth service organization which aims “to foster respect and compassion for all living things, to promote understanding of all cultures and beliefs, and to inspire each individual to take action to make the world a better place for people, other animals, and the environment.” (www.rootsandshoots.org/aboutus).
Working with these organizations, among others, really shaped me in my belief of giving space for empathy and grace towards every detail of living things in the world around us.
This was also where I developed strong leadership skills and a knack for working with large groups of people effectively. It was through these experiences when I realized I had a passion for social justice and helping people. I was able to focus on different social issues that affected real people living in San Diego, in order to take a tangible action which could change someone’s life for the better in front of my eyes. I have always believed from a young age that my communities problems are my problems and that the biggest way I can change the world for the better is to organize my community to help each other in the hopes that one day we can all live with a feeling of safety, comfort, and love.
Recently, this has lead me to help form a chapter of the National Organization for Women and Give Love San Diego, an organization which aims to do random acts of kindness in public to spread kindness, connection, and love. The third and most recent passion I have had in my life is theatre. I did not realize it would become the most important part of my identity until around seven years ago, yet I have been performing in front of audiences since I was a child. In elementary school, I took lessons in musical theatre, ballet, and gymnastics. Theatre stuck with me as a hobby, which I continued with as an elective in school.
Around the age of ten, my parents could no longer afford for me to take lessons, but I was extremely lucky to attend a middle and high school with one of the best performing arts programs in my school district. It makes me extremely sad to know that many schools in San Diego have cut their performing arts departments, and I cannot stress how important these classes were with providing me a sense of belonging, real friends, and public speaking skills which I still cherish to this day.
In high school, I had a teacher, Ms. Roncone, who really pushed me to become confident in my talent as an artist and who helped me pursue free opportunities outside of our school within theatre. In my junior year, I was accepted to be on the San Diego Theatre Educators Alliance (SDTEA) Student Board, which was the first time that I became integrated into the professional theatre community in San Diego. I saw how many adults in my city really cared about this art form, and managed to turn it into a career. I began to think that I may be interested in doing the same.
The summer following this I was given a scholarship to participate in a new joint program between the La Jolla Playhouse and Girl Scout San Diego called “Empowerment Theatre,” which aimed to empower young women through theatre, leadership development, and a used an artistic process in which we devised a show based around social justice issues in San Diego. Six years later, and I now lead this program as a professional teaching artist with the La Jolla Playhouse.
This was the first time I had participated in creating a full-length play from scratch and was exposed to a form of theatre that was not scripted musicals or Shakespeare. I could not believe that I found something which combined two of my passions! The experience of Empowerment Theatre completely changed my life for the better, and it was then that I decided that Theatre for Social Justice was what I needed to devote my life to. My senior year of high school I continued to work with SDTEA and was also accepted onto the La Jolla Playhouse Student Board of Trustees for the following two years where I served as the Chair of Finance.
This was my first glimpse into the inner workings of a top regional theatre in the country, and when I realized that there are many more jobs that help to create performance art behind the scenes than the ones onstage. I became interested in theatre administration, management, and education. At this time I was also accepted into a 2-year journey with Step Up Theatre, which was comprised of a troupe of young artists in San Diego who wrote and performed our own plays which address sensitive issues in safe ways for elementary school kids.
I continued my journey with the La Jolla Playhouse, where I was able to intern in the Education and Outreach Department and the Artistic Department when I was 18 years old. I still work with the La Jolla Playhouse and have been a part of many projects as an applied theatre practitioner, production assistant, and actor. This helped pave the way for many other opportunities at other theatres, and I feel very lucky to have gotten a chance to create art with so many incredible artists in San Diego.
While I began my career at 18 and have not stopped working since, at the same time I attended UCSD. I recently graduated in June 2018 with a degree in Theatre Arts, with an Honors Thesis in Directing. During my four years at UCSD, I helped to put on around 50 student-driven plays on campus. Sometimes I still can’t believe how much work I’ve helped to create over those past four years, but it gave me the experience I needed in order to feel confident as an artist in the greater professional world.
I now consider myself a “freelance theatre artist,” as I am constantly working on different projects in different roles. Since graduating, I have completed 11 new plays in the San Diego community, four of which are still ongoing productions. It was a long road to discover that theatre was home to me and to be confident enough in my own creative spirit to pursue this field, but every day I wake up I feel like the luckiest and most blessed person to be able to live each day doing what I love.
I think as human beings we need two things to be truly happy: genuine love and something to create. Each of us has the power to create within us, and it manifests in different ways for different people. To some people, this means creating new technologies, creating buildings, creating opportunities for others, or creating children. For me, I think I was always meant to create theatre.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Committing to a life as an artist has many challenges, as there are inner struggles of identity and exterior struggles of simply having enough money to pay for food/rent/bills. That being said, I would not change the experiences I have had for anything; each struggle has given me the chance to grow into a stronger, better, wiser version of myself, and I now see challenges or mistakes as an opportunity to learn and grow. I had to sacrifice a lot in order to live the life that I do now and continue to make compromises to this day.
I think I see the journey of my artistic identity to be much like a fire-activated seed of a pyrophytic plant. These are plants, many which are native to California, that depend on a wildfire in order to thrive. Most pyrophytic plants depend on fire to open up the seeds for new plants to grow, eliminate competing plants in the environment, and use the ash to fertilize the soil. When I chose to devote my life to theatre instead of science it felt like my whole world went up in flames, the old version of my life was burnt from the ground up. I gave up absolutely everything. Yet from it the seed was cracked, a new life took root, and from it grew an entire forest.
The biggest challenge a lot of theatre artists have with making theatre is that it takes up so much time in the evenings for rehearsals with very little pay. Since most of us hold two jobs or more, this comes at the cost of maintaining relationships, physical/mental health, and being too busy to simply enjoy the little things there are to enjoy about life. Theatre is also a challenging art form in general because it really depends on the collaborative efforts of the entire ensemble in order for the play to be successful. Everyone spends so much time together working so hard, and if you’re invested in the show, it becomes very physically, emotionally, and intellectually draining.
The stakes feel quite high in most performances, so if the right personalities aren’t matched together in such high pressure the water starts to boil. I have never experienced this in any of the professional productions I have been a part of, but have seen it happen to others in academic or community theatre settings. One of the best things I found is that all of the artists I have ever worked with in the professional theatre community have been the most fun, gracious, open-minded, respectful, and loving co-workers anyone could ask for.
Creating theatre makes you very vulnerable, and feeling safe around your ensemble is so important. It’s really incredible to know that my job allows for so many others to see me in my humanity and to see them in theirs without judgement, but it was a challenge to allow myself to be that open when I first started out. As a student, there was also a big struggle in regulations from the UCSD Theatre & Dance Department about what kind of independent theatre undergraduates were allowed to make. Just getting a space to rehearse or perform it was a big challenge. They tried to stop a lot of projects from happening, but we always found a way to put on a play despite that.
One specific time the Department suspended all undergraduate independent studio projects, not allowing an all undergraduate production to happen in the Department owned black box, The Wagner Theatre (also known as Galbraith Hall 157). It was confusing to those planning on doing projects that quarter because I had seen independent plays put on in the Wagner by undergraduates every quarter in the three years I had gone to that school.
The theatre was completely empty for the rehearsal and performance process, we just weren’t allowed to use it because we were undergraduates leading our own process. So as the artistic director of Company 157, I contacted the groundskeepers of Revelle College at UCSD and asked if we could do the play on the front lawn outside of Galbraith Hall. They said yes, and we created a beautiful site-specific and immersive production which allowed the audience to walk from scene to scene. We dealt with a lot of things like that, but we always found a way for the show to go on. It was important to us because our theatre was always created out of cultural relevance and always free.
The second hardest things for many theatre artists are developing a specific style or voice. I found the challenges of growing up in America having an intersection of oppressed identities to be one of the biggest factors of finding my style. Growing up as a Mexican woman in South East San Diego near the border to Tecate, I find my upbringing at a juxtaposition of cultures to greatly affect who I was as a young person and who I am now as an artist. There was a lot of poverty, tragedy, and suffering which I just ingrained into the environment around me as a way of living.
Now I realize that a lot of those people were just surviving. I had a border separating my life into two sides of language, tradition, and epistemology. I struggled with this growing up, not ever feeling like I was “Mexican enough” to be considered Mexican, at the same time knowing I was not “American enough” to feel American. I also struggled a lot with many racist stereotypes which existed primarily in my American world, a lot of sexist stereotypes which existed in my Mexican world, and a hot of homophobic stereotypes which existed in both. Since becoming culturally aware, I’ve experienced too many first-hand examples of injustice to count against me and those I love.
Yet over the years, I have come to an understanding that the world is not as black and white as I originally thought, and that all of these things issues exist on a spectrum as opposed to a binary. One of the biggest challenges I had was deciding to do something to face these injustices, instead of allowing them to make me cold, apathetic, and helpless. I now use my passion over these struggles to fuel my theatre, which explores these themes in an effort to bring those across cultures together in order to gain an understanding of each other.
We’d love to hear more about what you do.
My focus as a theatre maker is in Theatre for Social Justice and using theatre to bring about positive social change in the community. All too often, marginalized or oppressed groups in the San Diego feel as if their voices, needs, wants, and concerns are not being heard. The theatre allows a platform for these groups to express their thoughts and opinions about the current social and political state of the world around them in a collaborative, artistic, and powerful way. I try to create inclusive, safe spaces for those who have otherwise felt silenced. All of the projects I decide to be a part of all have underlying messages that I believe are relevant, dynamic, important, provocative, and need to urgently be heard by audiences.
In addition to creating socially conscious theatre, some of my other focus’ include site-specific theatre, immersive theatre, new play development, adaptation, and theatre for young audiences. There was a time when I studied abroad in London getting the chance to study avant-garde contemporary performance art, and while I don’t consider my work “avant-garde” it may still influence my artistic style in some places. The main form in which I am trained in is called Theatre of the Oppressed. Theatre of The Oppressed is a form of Theatre for Social Justice created by Brazilian artist, Augusto Boal in the 1970s. In the Theatre of the Oppressed, the audience becomes active “spect-actors” they evaluate, interpret, and transform the reality in which they are living (Boal).
In the projects I choose to create or be a part of there is an overall consensus of wanting to create a play which shares knowledge and experiences from voices which might otherwise be silenced, and to bring a better cultural understanding and empathy towards those who live as oppressed in America. “Theatre is a form of knowledge; it should and can also be a means of transforming society. Theatre can help us build our future, instead of just waiting for it” (Boal). The hope is to create something empowering and critical that would help audience members to create positive social change in their lives outside of their brief visit to the theatre.
Some of the topics I have tackled in the theatre among many are: the silencing of people of color (specifically woman of color,) gender inequality, institutionalized and bureaucratic racism, immigration, refugees, gender fluidity, LGBTQIA rights, body image, homelessness, mental health, human trafficking, access to education, and socioeconomic hardships. I also teach in classrooms about these issues using theatre, my curriculum based upon Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire. This pedagogy is based on the beliefs such as that both teacher and student are co-creators of knowledge, that opening dialogue between people is what fosters true learning, and the oppressed in a society must strive for a chance to change their life for the better towards personal empowerment and freedom (Freire).
I was trained in these theories by master artists in the San Diego community, mainly by one of my mentors Catherine Hanna Schrock, I find these approaches to be crucial to my education, and helped to develop a course through the UCSD Theatre and Dance Department to see that they get taught to many of my peers as well. My time at UCSD was very formative to my artistic style, and some of the work I am most proud of was the projects we did for free in our extracurricular time. I was the Undergraduate Representative for the UCSD Theatre Department for two years, served as the Managing Director for Nomads Theatre Company for two years, and was the Artistic Director of Company 157 for three years.
Having leadership positions on my campus community lead me to pursue producing and directing as my artistic focus. I love seeing every detail of performance come together from the very spark of the idea to the final bow. I saw this opportunity to receive my education as a chance for me to create as much as possible in as many ways as possible, trying to take advantage of all the resources my school had to offer. I learned just as much (if not more) in the plays I was able to create from scratch with my peer collaborators than the theory we were learning from textbooks in my classes.
In my senior year, I spearheaded producing an Undergraduate New Play Festival of five original plays, a Site-Specific Theatre Festival of four original plays in spaces around UCSD’s campus, a 24 Hour Play Festival, a new full-length hip-hop/rap musical called Whitelash by Johnny Echavarria, and my honors thesis- The Odyssey: A Modern Adaptation. Most of this work was created by students with underrepresented voices on campus, and each was deeply personal for me. In my time at UCSD I was very honored to have received the 2018 BEARL Award for Championing Freedom of Expression and the 2018 Dr. Floyd Gaffney Award for excellence to professional performance and/or community service using the performing arts.
Sometimes I still can’t believe how much work I’ve helped to create over those past four years, but it gave me the experience I needed in order to feel confident as an artist in the greater professional world. There are few artists in San Diego who specialize in this kind of theatre, which is what has allowed me to work as a freelance artist with so many organizations. What may set me apart from others, is that I am very comfortable transitioning between roles depending on what the needs of production are; I work professionally as a producer, director, teaching artist, stage manager, sound designer, and performer depending on what opportunities are available.
The organizations I am currently worked for or have worked within the past few years include the La Jolla Playhouse, Blindspot Collective, New Village Arts, Diversionary Theatre, The Old Globe, Girl Scouts San Diego, OnTheLine Collective, Interactions for Peace, Bocon Arts, TuYo Theatre, Point Loma Nazarene University, Young Playwrights Project, Sledgehammer, San Diego City Opera, Step Up Theatre, Company 157, and Nomads Theatre Company.
Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
Right around the time that I was born, a peach tree started growing at my house. It sprouted from a peach pit my grandpa threw into the front lawn one summer evening, and my parents decided to replant it in the center of the lawn for me so it could continue to grow. As the peach tree grew, so did I, and I have pictures of me with my peach tree as we grew in height together. After a few years, the tree grew taller than me and began to yield the sweetest, most delicious peaches.
Every year I remember getting excited as the pink peach blossoms began to form on the tree in the spring, and when the first yellow peaches were ready to harvest in the summer. My mom and Grandma would make the most delicious foods with them, my favorites being peach empanadas and peach agua fresca. I really loved this peach tree as if it was a part of myself, and the juicy peaches were one of the only consistent things I looked forward to every summer.
On a fall day when I was 15 years old, I came home to find the peach tree in my front yard to be chopped down to a stump. I looked in the garbage and to my horror found the limbs of my tree mangled and broken. It was like part of my childhood was just cut away without any warning to soften the blow. I was absolutely distraught and cried my eyes out for hours until my parents could explain to me what happened.
Apparently, while I was at school gardeners came to help tend our front lawn, and my parents meant to say to them in Spanish “trim the tree” but instead said, “cut the tree.” It was a miscommunication. Upset and defeated, it hurt every day to walk past my front lawn and see the stump of my beloved peach tree without the shady leaves surrounding it. That following spring, I remember coming home from school one day and noticing a bunch of little plants sprouting from grass in the front lawn. Thinking they were weeds, I picked one out of the ground.
However, upon closer examination, I saw that the sprout had a tiny peach leaf attached to it. I then noticed that there were dozens and dozens of little peach trees sprouting out of the grass, in a perfect circle around where the canopy of my old tree used to be. For over ten years my tree had dropped peach pits in the ground, but they were unable to grow because they were in the shade. Now that the big tree was gone, the seeds were finally hit with enough sunlight to grow on their own.
After letting them mature for a few more weeks, my dad and I dug the little peach trees out of the ground, potted them, and gave them to all of our friends and family so that they could have peach trees of their own. We kept one and planted it in the backyard this time. It reminded me that sometimes even if you are devastated about losing something important, sometimes it comes back better than before in a way where you can share it with those you love. This past summer in 2018, that new little peach tree we planted grew its first peach. I ate it, and it was as sweet and delicious as the peaches I always had growing up.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.sofiazaragoza.com
- Phone: (619)757-3711
- Email: s.zaragoza349@gmail.com
- Instagram: sofiezaragoza
- Facebook: Sofia Zaragoza
Image Credit:
Jim Carmody, Keili Fernando, Aurora Valdez, JP Eikam
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