Interview: Amir Levi – Happy to Take a HAPPY FALL: A QUEER STUNT SPECTACULAR

Lisa Sanaye Dring’s Happy Fall: A Queer Stunt Spectacular premieres August 17, 2024, in a co-production between Rogue Artists Ensemble, the Los Angeles LGBT Center and the Contemporary American Theater Festival, at the Los Angeles LGBT Center’s Renberg Theatre in the Lily Tomlin/Jane Wagner Cultural Arts Center (with previews starting August 10th). Rogue Artists Ensemble’s artistic director Sean Cawelti directs the cast led by David Ellard, Kurt Kanazawa and Amir Levi with Lucas Brahme, Carlos R. Chavez, Gabriel Croom, Kelsey Kato, Maia Luer, Candy Pain, Tiana Randall-Quant and Jerry Zou. Amir found time between rehearsals to answer a few of my queries.

Thank you for taking the time for this interview, Amir!

This is not your first production with Rogue Artists. You did Cowboy Electra, Wood Boy Dog Fish and Kaidan Project: Walls Grow Thin. What initially brought you together with Rogue Artists?
I looked up when my first e-mail exchange was with Rogue, and it was on July 20, 2013, when I was offered an audition slot for Pinocchio (this would later become Wood Boy Dog Fish). Rogue tends to have a questionnaire for submitting to projects. I imagine I saw a casting notice for Pinocchio that was going to include actual puppets, and that it was going to focus more on the original darker fairy tale. While I don’t remember the initial casting notice, I do remember that first audition in this gorgeous space downtown. I was going in for Fox, and they paired me up with another actor for Cat and asked us to do a Fox/Cat scene, but to really bring in the animalistic dangerous aspects of it. Me and my partner were super physical with one another, and I remember the people on the other side of the table standing up as me and my partner went down to the ground with our physicality.  

What aspects of Happy Fall: A Queer Stunt Spectacular intrigued you to take part in it?
Anything that Rogue does automatically intrigues me because I know it’ll be something theatrical that surprises & challenges me as a performer. I didn’t know much about it when I was offered the role of the Host in the workshop a few years ago, but I fell in love with the script at the first read through. Lisa Dring’s writing feels so natural and it’s almost as if she had spoken to me about my own observations about love and Hollywood and Queer Representation.

Did you see the workshop of Happy Fall Rogue Artists did at the Skirball last April, or any of the other workshops over the past five years?
I didn’t see any of the other workshops following the one I was in. I have a tendency to pack my schedule to the gills, so I had other shows going on when the workshops were presented. I’ve definitely continued to think about Happy Fall since that initial introduction to it though.

After so many productions you’ve done with Rogue Artists, you must be comfortable working with puppets, right?
I’m MORE comfortable in my ability to work with puppets. There are so many different types of puppets, and I have some experience with some, and no experience with others. I’d say my strengths are in acting opposite and around puppets, but in terms of actual puppet manipulation, it’s a case-by-case basis… especially when I see the fluidity in puppeteers who have way more experience than me. With Rogue, I know that if I come across a type of puppet I haven’t worked with before, I’ll be taught with patience and specificity.

What character or characters do you play in Happy Fall?
I play the Host.

If you were to submit your character for a dating website, what qualities of his/hers would you list?
Their love of movies, their sense of play, and their general pizazz.

What flaws would you definitely omit?
I think the Host has specific quirks, but I think I’ll let the audience figure those out. I don’t want to give too much away.

As a non-binary performer, have you seen the landscape of Los Angeles theatre evolve over the years in terms of casting?
In some ways, maybe? The companies that have always been inclusive continue to be inclusive, and the ones that haven’t remain set in their ways. Also, non-binary means different things to different people. For some casting directors/companies, non-binary means androgynous, or someone who’s AFAB (assigned female at birth) and has short hair (àla 90s Winona Ryder). If you as a non-binary performer don’t fit those boxes, you’re less likely to be called in. I auditioned for a play pre-COVID that was specifically seeking non-binary and female-identifying actors, and I was told that I presented “too male” to be considered.

Do you yourself go out only for non-binary roles?

One of the gifts of being non-binary is that I connect with roles all across the range of gender. I connect with the role, regardless of that character’s gender. If I see a cis-woman or cis-man I wanna play, I’ll submit for them. I do remember a director asking me, “What I was trying to achieve” by auditioning for the role of a cis-woman, and I think I answered that I was hoping to achieve a shot at the role. There are lots of cis-women roles that would be a dream for me to play. For me, non-binary doesn’t mean the absence of gender. I consider myself dual-gender. But again, not every non-binary person identifies in the same way. Take pronouns for example. I like it when he, she, and they are used to reference me because they all encompass who I am when they work together. Individually, though, they feel lacking.

What’s the latest on We The People Theatre Action that you co-founded and are producer of?
We’re on indefinite hiatus. We went virtually through the beginning of lockdown, but once everyone got tired of Zoom and virtual theater, we got burnt out ourselves. The theatrical landscape continues to evolve, and right now I don’t know where WTP fits. I don’t have the patience to try to work with theater companies that only pay lip service to trying to be more inclusive, and I don’t know if I have the energy or desire to produce. My survival and existence are apparently political by themselves. When WTP is invited into the world again by a space that isn’t just performative, we’ll come back.

What’s in the near future for Amir Levi?

Happy Fall, of course! This show has me living deeply in the present. It’s hard to think of anything beyond it. I’d like to think one of the people/companies I enjoy playing with will be ready for me in a couple of months though!

Thank you again, Amir! I look forward to meeting your characters in Happy Fall!

For tickets to Happy Fall: A Queer Stunt Spectacular through September 8, 2024; click on the button below:

 

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