In my many years attending, I’ve been to a two-(wo)man show in the bathroom of a pizza joint, seen dancers leap across and onto gravestones, witnessed Brian Sanders and his company JUNK do all sorts of wondrous and strange things that defy description (and gravity), marveled at the moves of Gunnar Montana, created my own art at various interactive venues and ventured into places in the city I’d never explored. If you haven’t been (and there’s no excuse not to because there’s truly something for everyone), you’re in luck because the 2016 festival is in full swing right now.
I like the fringy stuff, but there are plenty more traditional music, art and theater pieces as well; in fact, more than 1,000 artists from across the nation will be here in our fair city for the 17-day festival.
Someone who knows all about the festival is this week’s profile, José M. Avilés, who, in addition to directing one of the shows, will be acting in two separate productions. Mr. A.’s résumé as an actor, director and educator is much too long to recite, but I’ll just throw out that he’s done everything from Shakespeare to children’s theater, both here and in New York. Avilés is currently the director of education outreach for The Arden Theatre Company.
PGN: Tell me a little about yourself.
JA: My family migrated into Philadelphia from Puerto Rico and for the first seven years, I grew up in the Spring Garden section of the city. My grandfather had a bodega and my whole world was there, partly because the Catholic church there had the only Spanish Mass in town. Then when I was about 7 or 8, the area started to get gentrified; a lot of us got pushed out so we moved up to Northeast Philly. Soon after that, my parents divorced. In all that time, my mother never took the opportunity to go into Center City. In the Latino community, our whole world was within a three-block radius. There were a few factors for that; one was the idea that the pueblo, the home, was where you raised your child. That may have been a vestige from coming from an island where your world was limited geographically. There was also a language barrier that kept people close to home and, in general, there was the sense that “downtown” was not for us. Everybody knew everybody in our neighborhood. Our little area was where all of our friends and family were and where life happened for us.
PGN: What made you want to cross over the line?
JA: I think being a gay child, even though I wasn’t out, I knew I was different and knew that I was going to be in the arts. I always felt on the fringes, on the inside looking out, and I was always in search of more. I knew that there was something out there that I had to venture to. I knew that if I didn’t find it for myself, no one else was going to be able to show me the way.
PGN: Where did you go on your first trip into Center City?
JA: I was in a public middle school and decided that I didn’t want to graduate from that school. I was very adamant about it. I wanted to go to an arts school so I went to my counselor and said, “There has to be an arts school somewhere that I can apply to.” They told me about the performing-arts high school on Broad Street but told me that I’d be best suited to go to a trade school. They were trying to push me into a box that I didn’t fit in. They had this alternative school where they put kids who were being disruptive and difficult, in with kids who were excelling, I guess hoping we’d rub off. That might be great for the challenged kids, but not so good for me. I was like, “First of all, I’m a gay child, sooo that doesn’t seem like it would go well for me. And second, I know what I want and where I need to be.” So I went home and told my mother about CAPA [Philadelphia High School for the Creative and Performing Arts], and she was also against the idea but for different reasons. So I filled out the application myself and forged her name. I was granted an audition so I then had to figure out how to get downtown by myself; I’d never ridden the subway but I figured out how to get down to Broad and Spruce [CAPA’s original location] all on my own. And that’s kind of the story of my life, venturing out on my own to make my own path.
PGN: How’d the audition go?
JA: [Laughs] I completely blew it! I had memorized a poem but once I got there I was in such a state from the trip I couldn’t remember a single line. Luckily for me, they got me to calm down and said, “Just tell us a story … ” and I told them how I got there and it worked. A few months later, my mother got a letter in the mail from the school saying that I’d been accepted! She was angry but couldn’t stay that way since I’d taken such initiative to find my way out into the world. She was more upset about the fact that a 13-year-old was going to have to take a bus and subway into the big city every day.
PGN: Had you done any theater before that?
JA: In middle school we had some art classes but not really any theater, so I did more fine arts, sketching and stuff. In elementary school we actually had a huge arts program with dance and art and theater. My fourth-grade teacher is my mentor and inspiration; she taught literacy and was the first person to integrate arts into the classroom. We had quite a few students who didn’t speak English so she used the arts as a way for us to all communicate. I owe a lot to Miss Creighton. I’ve actually taken the arts program that I run at the Arden back to my old school. I want to make sure that the kids today get the same inspiration that I did.
PGN: What was the first play you ever saw?
JA: I wasn’t exposed to a lot of art except for on TV. So I always wondered how I got bit by the bug; I guess Miss Creighton but also at the time movie musicals like “Grease” were really popular and one of the parents in my neighborhood decided it would be fun to recreate the entire thing. She cast me as Danny Zuko, which is the part that Travolta played, and my sister played Frenchy. We blocked off the street and she piped the soundtrack out of her window and all the parents came to watch. Everyone still talks about it. We were always creating events for fun, mostly staging mock weddings.
PGN: Then you went on to CAPA. What struck you most when you got there?
JA: It was like being in the movie “Fame.” I can distinctly remember the sounds of people rehearsing and the smells and the feel of being there. First of all, it was where I met my people. I was like, “This is where I’m supposed to be!” The building was a disaster back then; the elevator broke regularly and you’d have to walk 15 flights to class but when you entered the lobby there were these old broken shimmering chandeliers that looked magical. Everything had a surreal quality about it. We’d all go to the movies or shows in our leg warmers and jazz shoes and we were all going to be in the arts. It was great fun.
PGN: And after high school you went …
JA: To Carnegie Melon in Pittsburgh.
PGN: I’m impressed! They get about 2,800 applications each year but only admit about 20 students.
JA: Yeah, it was exciting. After Carnegie, I moved back to Philadelphia but I wasn’t in a good place mentally. Before I left for school, I proposed to my high-school girlfriend. It was totally ridiculous; I went to an arts school, I could have been totally gay but I guess my background and Catholic upbringing held me back. I figured I’d give being straight a go and then I could at least say I tried. But when I moved back, I had to tell her it wasn’t going to happen. I had a cousin who worked for a small airline in Florida so I decided to move there. They gave me a job as airport security, which was a joke. I was all of 125 pounds soaking wet, but from there I got to work for PanAm and eventually became a flight attendant. In Florida, I went to my first gay bar and it was amazing. I remember Lisa Stanfield’s “Been around the world and I, I, I …” was playing as a drag queen lip-synched to it. I met my first lover and boyfriend at PanAm and never looked back. As a flight attendant, I got to see the world, which influenced everything I do.
PGN: And speaking about what you do, you’ve had quite the theater career.
JA: I have! I think I’ve done really well! After PanAm went out of business, I moved back to Philly and started doing theater. I was never interested in film or TV. Because I was a Latino actor, I knew that it was going to be hard for me to find work. I wasn’t neutral-looking enough to play other ethnicities and I had an accent, so I decided to be strategic and look for work behind the scenes as a way of introducing myself. I got a job at the Wilma Theater and attended opening nights around the city. I soon got to know everyone and shortly became the go-to Latino actor for everyone! I worked at every theater company in Philadelphia and vicinity.
PGN: Now you’re a director as well as an actor, and doing not one but two projects for the Fringe Festival.
JA: Yup. I’m directing a show called “One Day Old,” which is the true story of Operación Pedro Pan, where in the early 1960s about 14,000 children fleeing Castro’s Cuba were flown to the U.S. and placed in orphanages and churches across the U.S. It was written by Iraisa Ann Reilly, who is also a former student of mine! Members of her family got to the states through this operation. The kids would get here and lose all connection to their birth families until some 30 years later. Some kids never got to see their parents, who were stuck in Cuba and/or died. It’s a fascinating story and she seamlessly connects it to Peter Pan and the loss of identity.
PGN: And the other show?
JA: “The Duende Cycle,” created by two women — Eliana Fabiyi and Tanaquil Márquez. It’s actually two plays. The first is Federico García Lorca’s classic tale “Bodas de Sangre (Blood Wedding),” reimagined in modern-day Miami, and I play the machismo father of the bride. It’s done in both Spanish and English with all of the elders speaking Spanish and the younger people speaking English. It’s funny, I’ve always played Latino characters but never really had to speak Spanish! The second play is “I Only Came to Use the Phone,” inspired by Gabriel García Márquez’s short story. I get to play an evil doctor in that one. Both shows are wonderful tales of female empowerment, freedom and loss.
PGN: You grew up with our mutual friend Noel Zayas so I feel I can tease you. Where do you get inspiration for your machismo? Not for nothing but it’s not the first word I’d use to describe you!
JA: [Laughs] I know, right? I go to my elders, my ancestors, for inspiration. To my father, who was very much that. One of the reasons I got into directing was because I wasn’t castable for certain roles because I didn’t have that masculine energy, but lately I’ve been tapping into my inner dad. I’ll read something and think, WWDD: What would dad do?
PGN: Are both shows accessible for English-speaking audiences?
JA: Yeah. “One Day Old” is a bilingual show but it’s about the loss in translation so even if there are a few parts you don’t understand, that’s kind of the point. You’ll be experiencing the same confusion the elders do in the show. In “Blood Wedding,” they’re going to have captioning for the Spanish scenes.
PGN: Cue random questions. If you could change places with one person for a day, it would be …
JA: Martin Luther King Jr. I directed a play about the civil-rights era and I’d love to know what it was like to be him and to move and inspire a nation of people.
PGN: What was your craziest moment on stage?
JA: I was playing a drag queen in a strange play about Dante’s Inferno. I played a character named Afro and he had a big wig and was part-actor, part-street walker so I had practically no clothes on, just a little sarong. I had a knife that I was supposed to use to cut the rope on a stack of newspapers and I accidentally cut off a piece of my finger, so I continued to do the show as blood was gushing everywhere but the audience had no idea that it wasn’t part of the scene.
PGN: That sounds pretty macho! Who would you want on your side in a fight?
JA: Ha ha! I’d go less for the physical and more for someone who could strategically get us out of it. Like RuPaul! He’d find a way to defuse the situation with humor and fierceness. He’s so smart and quick and he’s 6-foot-4!
PGN: Finally, you’ve done several Fringe shows. What makes the festival special?
JA: It is a platform for artists who don’t often get the opportunity to work in this city. A lot of artists get put in a role of actor or writer or director, but they can actually do a lot more. This is a way for them to share other talents and it’s also a great way to get the new generation involved in the arts. Young writers are able to self-produce here, and that’s big because it’s so hard to break into the industry. It’s exciting for the audience to hear new voices and, as an actor, it’s fun because you have the freedom to change and fuss with a role. And you can fail, because the Fringe is a place where you can throw it out there and risk it all. And that’s how you create winners — putting it all on the line!
The Philadelphia Fringe Festival runs Sept. 9-24. For more information, visit fringearts.com.
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