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So I'd just moved to New York and I got the chance to see Michael John Garces in a solo
piece called "agua ardiente".
I didn't really have any experience in anything but the canon. You know, Shakespeare, the
Lanford Wilsons, the David Mamets, that's really what I knew. To see this guy and this
piece about my experience as a Colombian, as a Cuban American, it just kind of shook
me. You've put yourself essentially in a box - What kind of theatre artist will you be
when you're 22 years old - And seeing this piece kind of shattered that box.
He did what any great artist is doing by being completely specific about where they're from
and their experience. When you grow up in Miami, it's basically you are the majority
as a Hispanic, you know? And all of a sudden I was coming into understanding that I actually
was an outsider in the United States. And I think to my mind now, it feels like, it's
so weird that you wouldn't have thought that at 21, 22, you should have already experienced
that. But I actually didn't, I think I'd been pretty protected. And he was one of the people
that was like, well, look at things here - it's actually very different.
I realized why you do theatre. It's the conversation,that it's society talking with itself. Just like
I'd seen him do in his show, essentially open his brain up and talk to himself. And in that
conversation, me realizing that I actually had something to add to that conversation.
I am Andres Munar and I AM THEATRE.