Interview: Luis Alfaro of THE TRAVELERS at Magic Theatre Explores the Heartland, Our Migrant Roots & Lost Connections

It makes perfect sense that celebrated playwright Luis Alfaro would choose to collaborate with Magic Theatre on the world premiere of The Travelers. Alfaro is an integral part of the Magic's recent history, having had four productions there in the past decade, including three world premieres (Oedipus el Rey, Bruja and This Golden State: Delano). As the Magic Theatre's Lead Director Sean San José says, "Alfaro is the perfect writer to represent the history of the Magic Theatre's commitment to bold, new plays - while also flying us into the future of this New Era we've entered."

Set in a near-abandoned Catholic monastery in California's Central Valley, The Travelers explores the disconnect to community through a cast of men in search of connection and corazon with intimate honesty and inspired humor. Alfaro's themes are emblematic of our own present state, as a city and nation: immigrant life, the heartland, our migrant roots, lost connections and longing in between. The production features an all-male presenting group of Latine and Filipinx actors, and is designed by an all-female and nonbinary-identifying team led by director Catherine Castellanos.

I caught up with Alfaro by phone last week from LA where he's based and serves on the faculty at USC. We chatted about his longstanding relationships with Magic Theatre and Sean San José, the unorthodox process he and his cast used to create The Travelers, his connections to the Bay Area and how a chance meeting with Oskar Eustis led to his finding a mentor in legendary playwright María Irene Fornés. Oh, and we also talked about Burt Bacharach. Seriously. Somewhat surprisingly, given the gravity of his themes as a writer, Alfaro has a natural ebullience that instantly draws you to him and puts you at ease. The following are edited excerpts from the phone conversation.

Since you're based in LA, how involved have you been in rehearsals?

Pretty involved. Sean [San José] is such an amazing producer/artistic director that what we did was we built a kind of world where we tried not to follow any rules around how we developed the script. We really put our energies into workshops and readings and the development of pieces with actors. I've written for these actors specifically. The joke for them is that because I'm writing so intensely for them all of the characters' names are their names. [laughs] I love writing specifically to an actor's strengths, but also I think that every actor gives life to your language. They bring their own poetry, their own rhythms, they often use words that are unique to them. I love adapting that into the text, I love using their personal histories, all of it. We're kind of building this together as a team.

How was the cast chosen?

Well, they're all [from the] Bay Area. I think that's really important to focus on the place that I'm in, maybe because I come out of the regionals. I love environments, I love the worlds that people come from, so I'm really writing to this place in the Bay Area. I'm writing a play that in a kind of strange way is a Campo Santo play. It's hard to explain their aesthetic, but I would say that it's more experimental than I'm used to. I tend to follow a lot of rules as a writer, but in this context what I love is the Bay Area jazz of it, the wonderful riff on language, the way these actors are of a place so they're aesthetically tied together.

It's really beautiful to watch them work because they know each other so well. Brian Rivera has been in Campo Santo for many years. Ogie Zulueta's been in the Bay Area for so long and I've used him for many plays, and then Catherine Castellanos, the director, is a longtime friend. So I love that I've been able to marry a group of people who already understand each other's process, they know how to talk to each other, they know how to talk to me. It's a very honest, very generous environment, and that changes the tone of the work.

This production is just the latest in your longstanding relationship with Magic Theatre. How did that relationship begin?

It goes so far back! When was Mame Hunt there? I think maybe in the late 80s/early 90s, I used to go to the Magic and like drop off my play in the old Death of a Salesman way, right? I would show up with my bound plays and drop them off, and it was a joy because it was such a magical place. If you know its history, you know how important it is as an institution. And for me it was because I really came out of a California aesthetic. My mentor is a woman named María Irene Fornés and Irene would come to the West coast to participate in the Padua Hills Playwrights [Festival] with Sam Shepard. And knowing Sam's history at the Magic, I just thought that all was very magical.

So it started there, and then I met [former Magic Artistic Director] Loretta Greco many years ago at a theater festival and she said, "If I ever come to the West coast, let's work together." So we worked together in New York a little bit and then she invited me to come up and do Oedipus [el Rey], and it was a completely joyful experience.

The last time I interviewed you it was around the second time Loretta directed Oedipus el Rey at the Magic. That was such a beautiful production.

Oh, thank you so much. You know I always make this joke with people where I see them around the country and say, "Isn't it amazing that nobody dies in the theatre, we just move to other regional theaters?" [laughs] And I'm starting to believe it because you know how lucky to be able to come back ten years later and re-look at that play, with a whole new set of people and a whole new set of eyes. That was so illuminating and moving. It felt like I had grown as a writer and Loretta had really worked her magic at the Magic, she had a journey there that was really, really important.

Sean San José was an actor in that production. Did you know him prior to then?

Oh, I've known Sean for like 30 years now. I met him in the late 80s/early 90s, and I knew about him because of his storied San Francisco history. Then when I ran a program at the Mark Taper Forum called the Latino Theatre Initiative in the early 90s, he would come down and participate in our workshops and readings. I just started casting Sean in anything I could because I fell in love with him as an actor. I love his rhythm, I love the way he thinks, I love the way I'm working with him right now.

I'd intended to write a part for him [in The Travelers] and when he told me that as Artistic Director he really wanted to focus on the production and not just a role, I was a little heartbroken. But in truth we're having the same kind of beautiful process we've always had. And partly it has to do with this intense friendship that we've had forever. Every time I go to the Bay Area, or every time I was up in Oregon Shakes, or anywhere in California, I always try to cast him, and he's been in a million readings of mine or workshops that people never see.

He's become a brother of mine. I tell this really hard story about when my father died. Both of Sean's parents had died [young] and when my father died I had a gig the next night, and I was such a mess. I knew I had to do it because it was a community event and it had been planned for a long time. I didn't know how I was gonna do it, and Sean came down from San Francisco. I had this really long monolog I'd written, and he just dug into it and performed it and it was electric. It was just one of the most spiritual and soulful experiences. In a way, he kind of held my hand through my father's death so I think of him in that brotherly way. He's more than just a collaborator. He's truly somebody I connect with on the daily around how to have a life in the theatre, how to stay healthy, how not to fall into the traps.

How did your mentor María Irene Fornés impact your path as a playwright?

Well, I was a poet for many years and I actually got my start in the Bay Area. I was one of those regulars at Modern Times and City Lights and the Mission Cultural Center, and there was a place called The Lab on Divisadero that I used to perform at a lot. I was a poet for about ten years exclusively, and then I went into the performance art world.

And then - this is my celebrity story - I was performing at like midnight in the basement of a club in downtown LA, and Oskar Eustis, who runs The Public Theater now, brought his friend who was an unknown playwright at the time, Tony Kushner, to see the show. And Oskar says, "I'm bringing this playwright out to LA to work with writers, and I would love for you join our group. Her name is María Irene Fornés." Well, I loved the theatre but I didn't know about her so I said, "Sure. Does it cost money?" And he said, "No, it's free." [laughs]

So I went and in that first session I understood something about myself that was very profound for me. Which was that I'd always been looking for my form, my alchemy, and with Irene I found that playwrighting was the way I was able to really express myself fully. Whereas poetry was really fulfilling and performance art is a huge part of my life, in playwrighting I'm able to use my passion and point of view and craft, all in equal balance.

And you've been a playwright for decades now.

It's so funny you should say that because I write these little thousand-word essays on my Facebook, and today I was writing an entry about Burt Bacharach, cause I always think of him as the eternal bachelor, that suave guy tickling the ivories, flirting with Barbra Streisand. I was just thinking, "Wow, Burt Bacharach was 94. What happened?!" Right? [laughs]

But one of the things I tell my students is "If you stick with it long enough, you change with it." Change is the only constant in the theatre, so the ability to grow in that change, is one of the most beautiful things about playwrighting. And this play feels very much like a change. It's a departure for me, it's an experimental play. I wrote it as a poem and it looks like a poem on the page, a poem that's being performed as a play.

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The Travelers will perform from February 15 - March 5, 2023 at Magic Theatre's Fort Mason location (Fort Mason, 2 Marina Blvd., Building D, 3rd Floor, San Francisco, CA). For tickets and additional information, visit www.magictheatre.org.

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