BWW Interviews: Luis Salgado

R.Evolución Latina founder, Luis Salgado, is currently working in Peru directing a new show, while he directs another show in Atlantic City, and teaches Musical Theatre in Colombia. This busy artist has also joined the list of Broadway producers of shows such as Godspell or Peter and The Starcatcher as he plans his come back to the Great White Way stage. Learn more about him in this in-depth interview.

In the last two years you focused your career on directing and producing. How did this change happen?

The change in me has been happening for years, but the question is to what extent it's being developed. My first passion has always been dance that naturally built into choreography and through both of them I enhanced my potentia. Now capturing moments and building actions, rather than simply creating movement, but creating stories. This turn in my career has come from that.

And now, soon after celebrating 10 years in New York City, this decade has allowed me to build a land where opportunities have evolved and expanded my horizons to Latin America. Thanks to the contact with Latin America that R.Evolución Latina has given me I've felt great responsibility. Listening to stories like yours, like my students' in Cali, and all the people I've helped and touched in Peru, or that have reached out to me from Argentina, Venezuela, etc I feel like I'm holding a torch that I'm carrying wherever life leads me.

Do you think this is the next step an artist should take?

It doesn't have to be. I think each artist has their path. I've met people with great ambitions like Jon Rua, who I admire, he knocked on In The Heights door because he wanted to be part of that story, and he got it. Now he is a lead actor, after training and demanding more of himself. Recently he played a leading role in Hands On A Hardbody, and the respect I feel for him, for that passion and drive he has for being a leading man on Broadway is huge.

And I wonder 'Is that what I want, as well?' Yes, I would like to play Che in Evita but more than that I want to produce more shows that get out to the world like Evita did, that way I can share my experiences and stories of the Latin community.

I want to bring new stories and talents to Broadway through the contacts I'm making. Will I be the producer bringing Mexico or Spain? Will I have the chance to be a new Joseph Papp, who discovered Raúl Juliá, so my great great grandchildren will have opportunities because these artists opened doors for them? Although I have a huge artistic desire to remain on stage, working as an actor, dancer or singer, my desire to do art is much stronger. I want to be a part of creating important stories that in my heart I believe they should be told. I'm finding many of these stories in "Las Caras Lindas De Mi Gente Negra" (as the song says), "the pretty faces of my latin people."

That's a great project, a big task to accomplish. What's the strategy, the idea you have to make that happen?

Two and half years ago I brought 18 dancers from Peru to New York and produced the Choreographers Festival, with professionals such as Dario Vaccaro from Argentina, Marcos Santana from Puerto Rico, Rebeca Tomás flamenco choreographer or Vania Masias from Peru.

With the peruvian dancers we could see the impact of the latin artistic strength. The other 30 artists we had here, living in New York, had worked very hard but the hunger, the desire, and the drive coming from a Peruvian artist who found the chance of a lifetime of shining in the States was like an atomic bomb that was dropped in the rehearsals process. The level and quality of not only the show but the NY artists grew more and more each day thanks to the newcomers from Peru.

This let me see the potential in the Latin American artists coming to New York with a purpose of making great art. In the middle of this, I'm getting to know the situation, the possibilities and the resources, and this baby inside of me is being born, this wish to be better, to challenge ourselves to make art with a purpose, so this can expand artistically through processes.

And those are the means you think you need to make this revolution happen?

TEAM WORK! As they say, "no man's an island". Salgado Productions is giving me a chance to develop teams of people all around. It fulfills me to teach theatre, singing and dancing classes in Colombia, with the idea of making ART WITH A PURPOSE making 80 people let out their passion for theatre, I understand I can't do it alone. People around me in R.Evolución Latina and Salgado Productions are crucial, because -for example-during my stay in Colombia I'm also coordinating a project in Atlantic City. And thanks to the bonds we're creating in each country, I hope, someday we can become a new "Disney Theatricals".

With this vision of work we are achieving new opportunities like with OCESA in México. In the next few years we want to see the chance of working together and it would be amazing if I could be the one presenting new shows with them in New York. Thanks to that, when I need people from Mexico to put a project like Zapata el musical on stage I will be able to have access to the artists OCESA has already worked with. Those little teams I've been creating and I'm still creating, have blessed me moving on with my art.

Bit by bit the little islands are coming together and we are going to become a continent.

Zapata! The Musical (Photo courtesy John Capo Public Relations)

Naturally, as time goes by you had two tools that were born hand in hand but they are not the same. What's the difference between R.Evolución Latina (RL) and Salgado Productions (SP)?

It's important to see the difference, because RL is a non-profit organization. It's an association with a misión, to inspire and empower self confidence to the artistic and latino communities. It's been possible for 6 years thanks to Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS and the production of In The Heights, which during its time on Broadway meant so much to RL's development. Our focus is to help individual, spiritual and human growth through the 'Dare To Go Beyond' motto, which we apply to every area in our life. We want to train human beings who dare to go beyond, not only artists. We dare them to dance and act, to apply that to their lives.

With this mission going on I wondered how I could employ people, RL cannot do it. Realizing that people need to work, have stories to tell, and a need to expose themselves artistically, I felt I had another responsibility and from that SP started.

With the experiences I'm having, the joy of having my name next to Ken Davenport in productions such as Godspell, being an investor in Peter and The Starcatcher, working next to Lin Manuel Miranda, and to be able to count on someone like Jill Furman, who advised me to started a producing company as a busineess and not as a non-profit. I dared to start a company to allow me to employ people on my team who during all these years has given me the best of their talent for free with R.Evolución Latina. As well as open doors to more artists, so I can make everyone grow with the artistic/commercial ideas for theatre coming in and out of New York.

Besides, I guess you want that idea to grow being more productive commercially speaking

Of course, and that's why Salgado Productions (SP) started as a company. Thus we will be able to apply what we've learned in RL through shows such as Amigo Duende, Cervante o el Festival de Coreografos and we've improved as a production team with SP. We've already done Candela Fuerza y Pasion and soon we will put on stage a concert by of Cecilia Bracamonte in Perú. Working and building using the formula of artistic/commercial development Broadway-style are some of the possibilities that we are offering, with Salgado Produciones to our Latin American communities.

And that's the strategy of Luis as a producer, right? But that twin brother of your baby inside, as an artist and performer, wants to be back on stage. Is there anything in store for him in the future? He must be bored!

It's been beautiful, Juanjo, to find what I'm teaching, that "dare to go beyond", "our deepest fear",... when I rescued and re-encounted my training.

This year has been very important as an artist, because after "Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown" I took a year off to direct, and during that year I met many new styles, and tried to expand many horizons creatively speaking, appart from directing readings and plays, and I feel I opened that door very much. But that other little twin brother had been five years with no dancing classes, and had not challenged himself in that area!

I had focused taking vocal interpretation classes with the great Craig Cornelius, I love his theory, and with SITICompany I had done Suzuki and Viewpoints. But speaking about dancing, I had not trained and this year I went back to Broadway Dance Center and realized the great mistake I made not taking classes.

I am a teacher that tells my students that training is everything, because you have to be prepared when the opportunity comes up.

And you didn't follow your example!

Yes, but it's very difficult to do it all at the same time, so I couldn't train in my dancing area. Going back to contemporary, lyrical dancing, etc my body reacted like "Huh?", I think there's a lot to give, learn and do for me, and this has been very interesting. In 2014 I had in mind to go back to NY to audition and although I had been offered to do Fame in Peru next year, I told the producers I needed a month to audition on Broadway and if something came up I couldn't do Fame.

So I dared to audition.... And I got the role! I can't tell you the show yet, but I can say we will open in Spring next year, with previews in February, opening in March. I will return to Broadway, adding to In The Heights and Women On The Verge. This production is very very close to my soul because it's a blend of my passions.... But I'll explain that later!

Any hint to our readers?

Well, I told you already it's something I used to do as a child.... As soon as I can you'll be the first to know!

We'll be in touch and after you, on Broadway and beyond with that huge project to join every day more those little creative islands.

Amen!