Latinx Actor Training

Latinx Actor Training presents essays and pioneering research from leading Latinx practitioners and scholars in the United States to examine the history and future of Latino/a/x/e actor training practices and approaches.Born out of the urgent need to address the inequities in academia and the industry as Latinx representation on stage and screen remains disproportionately low despite population growth; this book seeks to reimagine and restructure the practice of actor training by inviting deep investigation into heritage and identity practices. Latinx Actor Training features contributions covering current and historical acting methodologies, principles, and training, explorations of linguistic identity, casting considerations, and culturally inclusive practices that aim to empower a new generation of Latinx actors and to assist the educators who are entrusted with their training.This book is dedicated to creating career success and championing positive narratives to combat pervasive and damaging stereotypes. Latinx Actor Training offers culturally inclusive pedagogies that will be invaluable for students, practitioners, and scholars interested in the intersections of Latinx herencia (heritage), identity, and actor training.

"Those of us now engaged as teaching artists and co-learners have the joyful responsibility to begin reimagining the future of actor training in this country, which includes centering the lived experiences and stories of our students who identify as members of historically marginalized communities. Latinx Actor Training is an invaluable resource for all theater practitioners who seek to bring their full, authentic selves to their creative work. This book inspires a genuine sense of hope that, in art as in politics, intentionally making space for diverse voices to lead the conversation will result in greater liberation for all of us."Walton Wilson, Professor in the Practice, Acting Program David Geffen School of Drama at Yale "I wish I’d had a resource like this to ground me and guide me. If we want a robust field full of voces artísticas in all their multifangled complexity, essays like these will help pave the way."Quiara Alegría Hudes, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and writer of In the Heights

Cynthia Santos DeCure is a bilingual actor, and voice, speech, dialect coach specializing in culturally inclusive pedagogies in actor training, accents, and dialects. She is Associate Professor Adjunct of Acting at David Geffen School of Drama at Yale University, certified as Associate Teacher of Fitzmaurice Voicework® and teacher of Knight-Thompson Speechwork. A member of SAG/AFTRA and AEA with over 30 years of acting experience, Cynthia has an M.F.A. in Acting from CSULA and a B.A. in Acting from University of Southern California. She is co-editor of the award-winning anthology Scenes for Latinx Actors. Micha Espinosa is an international teaching artist, activist, and voice/performance specialist in culturally inclusive pedagogies. She is a Professor at Arizona State University School (ASU) in the School of Music, Dance, and Theatre, affiliate faculty with ASU’s School of Transborder Studies & the Sidney Poitier New American Film School (30 year member of SAG-AFTRA), Artistic Director of Fitzmaurice Voicework® (FV®), and Lead Teacher trainer for the FV® Teacher Certification. Micha is also a core member of the performance art collective La Pocha Nostra and the award-winning editor of Monologues for Latino Actors and co-editor of Scenes for Latinx Actors.