From PR to NYC
I grew up in the countryside of Puerto Rico in the town of Humacao, with my mom. Acting came into my life as a young child in a time when my family was going through painful transitions. I had a lot of anger and sadness I didn’t know what to do with and found acting to be the most healing way to deal with all those difficult emotions. I would throw shows for my family in the house, write my own scripts, even go as far as designing and distributing tickets in my household. My 6th grade drama teacher took notice and fostered in me the idea of a life in the arts.
When I was 15, I traveled with his theatre collective to a small town in the desert of Bocas, Mexico where we created a play with the kids of the community. After school we would work with the children, but during the day, we would learn about applied theatre — “Theatre of the Oppressed.” This awakened in me the opportunity to give a voice to the voiceless, an artistic purpose that guides my work today and is in everything I do.
When I moved to NYC to earn my BFA in Acting at Pace University, the culture shock was jarring coming from Puerto Rico so I sought to find folks that shared similar backgrounds in the city. During this time I was able to form relationships with INTAR and the Latinx Theatre Commons where I was able to devise, witness, and act in stories that spoke to my experiences as a Puerto Rican/Cuban woman in America. As I moved to complete my MFA in Acting at Brooklyn College, these are relationships I continue to foster as a way of developing my drive to tell stories of the characters in daily city life, and the longing to continue to expose our present.