Puerto Rico is Andréa Agosto’s father’s land, and the island carries heritage and weight that has been passed down to her. She recalls talking about Puerto Rico’s culture and history, the good and the bad, as a pastime with her father growing up. When she entered the performance space as an actor and singer, she never thought that this part of her would be seen onstage.
“To even do any theater with, for, by, or about Puerto Ricans, I honestly wasn’t sure that that would happen for me.”Andréa Agosto
“As a theater artist, not just here in California, but also when I was in Kansas City, when I was in New Mexico, I think I can count on one hand, how many Latina roles I played, and then, Puerto Rican roles, zero,” Agosto said. “To even do any theater with, for, by, or about Puerto Ricans, I honestly wasn’t sure that that would happen for me.”
And yet.
“Reading this play over and over again has made me feel like I'm not alone, which is very, very lovely,” Agosto said. “We’re social creatures for the most part, and to find out that somebody else has a similar experience to you can do wonders. You're not this little island alone, in this big, vast ocean. There are other countries around.”
About the play
“Notes on Killing Seven Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Board Members” is a play by playwright Mara Vélez Mélendez that explores Puerto Rican experiences of decolonization, gender identity and the spectrum of drag. The play is being produced in collaboration between Diversionary and Moxie Theatre, which is the lead production company in the play.
The main character, Lolita, is a Puerto Rican transgender woman. The play begins when she enters the Wall Street office of the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Board with a gun, ready to exact justice for her home — a place where she wants financial independence. But through conversations with the receptionist, who embodies all the members of the office in drag, it’s unclear whether Lolita will follow through.
"Who gets to decide what's best for you? Who gets to decide what's best for your identity, for your culture, for your history, for your story?”Andréa Agosto
“I feel like Lolita wants what many Puerto Ricans want, simply meaning what's best for Puerto Rico,” Agosto said. “But that's where things get confusing, because who individually gets to decide what's best? That’s a huge question at the end of the day for anything: Who gets to decide what's best for you? Who gets to decide what's best for your identity, for your culture, for your history, for your story?”
Agosto and the team at Diversionary are currently in the pre-production phase; rehearsals will begin April 2.
On getting to Diversionary
Agosto started with Diversionary as a volunteer and eventually became the inaugural artistic fellow in 2020, also acting and directing along the way. She saw the theater through the peak of COVID-19 in 2020, organizing Zoom meetings with the hopes of sustaining the community. According to Diversionary, they’re the third-oldest LGBTQIA+ theater in the United States. The community at Diversionary, she said, is everything.
“I don't think I can talk about the community of Diversionary without talking about the LGBTQIA+ community, and, as a community, we are so varied. We are so different,” Agosto said. “But the fact that we can respect each other at the end of the day is a beautiful thing ... When you are able to dive into those conversations as a community, it also bonds you. It also makes that closeness richer, because you understand that there are complexities to the people within it.”
In her time as the artistic fellow, she helped produce Diversionary’s season in 2020.
“I was reading all of these scripts, these new plays, having these in-depth discussions, talking about how we pick seasons and things like that and making sure we're asking the right questions when we're selecting these scripts,” Agosto said. “It was really cool to be on that side of the process, and to be able to get that experience because I don't think I would have been given that experience at a lot of other places. I feel like a lot of my life has just been fighting to stay in theater.”
She’s now a marketing associate at Diversionary. When she heard “Notes on Killing Seven Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Board Members” would be coming to Diversionary, she said she knew she had to be a part of it; more importantly, she had to direct it.
“To be able to do this play and immediately recognize things like the fact that the main character is Lolita and what she's doing, I was like, I know this story,” Agosto said. “The cultural familiarity is mind blowing. It's overwhelming. It's a privilege. I want to also make sure that I am doing my heritage and my people justice.”
Connecting to Lolita and the play
While this play is set in the 2000s, Lolita’s character echoes the activism of the real life Lolita Lebrón who entered the U.S. Capitol in 1954 and shot at the ceiling, calling for Puerto Rico’s independence.
The experiences of the fictional Lolita, who has seen her country struggle, resonate with Agosto too.
“It’s this frustration that has built over years and years, watching your ancestors have that frustration, watching your family members have that frustration — what do you do with that frustration?” Agosto said. “How do you handle it? Do you do something about it, or do you just keep it moving?”
Agosto’s family faced hardship in Puerto Rico, especially after Hurricane Maria.
“One of my cousins lost their home in Puerto Rico because of that. I couldn't talk to one of my other elderly cousins. For like weeks I was freaking out,” Agosto said.
Coming to terms with this history, while heavy and, at times, difficult, also offered an opportunity for learning — something her father instilled in her through their conversations. And this desire to learn extended to other parts of identity as well. Agosto said this play dives into gender expression and identity, which she has also navigated.
“When I first started to really question my gender identity, it was during the pandemic,” Agosto said. “I was home with myself mostly, and if you're just there with yourself, you're like, 'Okay, well, let's break this down.' Who am I? And how do I go about moving in my spaces and being around people and people I care about as myself, in the most authentic way I can be?”
She said this play walks the line of moving beyond just accepting your identity to choosing to recognize your gender identity.
“Recognizing can be very, very difficult when you've had the wool pulled over your eyes for so long, and you don't know what else is out there, you can't see anything else,” Agosto said. “And when that slowly starts to lift and you can see yourself in your entirety, it is a transformational moment.”
While the transformation of Lolita, the receptionist and other characters is yet to unfold onstage, Agosto said she’s anticipating the ways this play continues the story and experiences of Puerto Rican people and broadly what it means to be authentically “you.”
“For San Diego audiences, I want this play to mean not just a night out at the theater but a night out at an educational yet fun drag show that makes you think about the world and yourself and your place in it,” Agosto said. “And what would you do to make the world a better place? How can we move forward as a city, as a San Diego city, as a San Diego theater community? How can we move forward together?”
“Notes on Killing Seven Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Board Members”
On stage May 5-26
Moxie Theater 6663 El Cajon Blvd., Rolando
$20-$43 moxietheatre.com
