So last fall I did something that had been on my “to do” list for years. I packed up and spent 5 months in Mexico City.
Why, you ask?
Well, CDMX was a place that fallen in love with since my first visit, many years ago, and I’d been scheming ways to spend extended time there. And one point – I think maybe after I got divorced – I gave myself a deadline: 2025. And as last year approached, not having figured out a “real” reason to go, I just… booked a flight!
No, I (essentially) knew no one, didn’t (really) speak the language and had (basically) no agenda.
But the day I arrived in Mexico I saw an email from PlayGround – a new play organization I’ve been working with for a while, now – about what looked like a very fancy actors’ retreat coming up the City.
I asked PlayGround Artistic Director Jim Kleinmann if he could tell me about it. (Of course, I’m not an actor… but could he introduce me to this Héctor who was running the retreat? I mean, if the guy was based in CDMX? 🤔)
One email introduction later, I had dinner plans at the home of Héctor Zavala and Haoran Zhong. I learned about their compay, Hechale Productions, and honestly not too long after that I felt like I had new family members and an artistic home.
My time in Mexico City was filled with wandering through neighborhoods and museums, discovering the amazing (and accessible) theater and arts scene, taking Spanish classes, eating, drinking and just living, in a City that is so very, very alive.
And also working with Héctor and Haoran, whose company produces new work and supports artists in a number of ways including their signature retreats (see “fancy actors,” above), to put together something that had been on Hechale’s “to do” list: a playwrights’ retreat.
Can’t say enough good things about Hechale’s week-long “Jacaranda Playwrights Retreat” in March, working with other lead artists Mónica Sanchez and Diana Burbano and wonderful playwrights Andrea Aptecker, Claudia Barnett, Mercedes Floresislas and Margie Semiloff on excavating existing material and beginning new plays. Super fun and constructive workshops at a Writer’s Collective in Cuauhtémoc, exploring CDMX arts & culture, and working with some of the City’s top actors, reading scenes to close out the retreat. (A special shout out to Cristina Castillo, an expert Hechale enabler and extraordinary person, who helped make it all happen.)
I’m back in Mexico City now for Hechale’s wonderful production of CLORO. And scheming about what’s to come next.
Excited and grateful for all! Stay tuned 🥰
