S2E7: Brisa Areli Muñoz
In this episode, Hayley and Amy speak with Musical Theatre Factory artistic director Brisa Areli Muñoz about creating stories in a way that centers justice and communities, expanding our definition of what musical theatre can be, centering radical care and embodied healing, and reimagining artists’ roles as agents of creative change in their communities. Scroll down for episode notes and transcript!
Episode Notes
Guest: Brisa Areli Muñoz
Hosts: Hayley Goldenberg and Amy Andrews
Music: Chloe Geller
Episode Resources:
1776 the Musical - Broadway and national tour
Mercedes - Oye Group and Musical Theatre Factory
Guest Bio
Brisa Areli Muñoz (she/her) is the Artistic Director of Musical Theatre Factory, an organization that develops changemaking new musicals in a joyous, collaborative community free from commercial pressures. Brisa was an inaugural Artistic Director of New York City’s first-ever All Inclusive All-City Theater Ensemble, a NYC Department of Education citywide theater company that creates original musicals with teens of all abilities. Brisa has also served as Manager of Community Partnerships for The Public Theater’s Public Works program, a major initiative that invites community members to take classes, attend performances, and join in the creation of ambitious works of participatory theater. Muñoz has directed and facilitated work on Broadway, across the world, and in communities in partnership with the Roundabout Theatre Company, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, American Repertory Theater, Center Theatre Group, The Kennedy Center, The Public Theater, Carnegie Hall, REDCAT Cal Arts Theater, Arts Emerson, New Jersey Performing Arts Center, BRIC Arts Media, Sojourn Theatre, Oye Group, CUNY Creative Arts Team, Hi-ARTS, CO/LAB, and Actionplay.
Find Brisa Online:
Instagram: @brisaareli and @mtfmusicals
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Episode Transcript
(Music)
Hayley: Hello, beautiful people, and welcome to the Women & Theatre Podcast! We're your hosts, Hayley Goldenberg…
Amy: …and Amy Andrews. Grab a cup of coffee and join us as we talk to people in the theatre industry about their experiences with womanhood.
Hayley: On the pod, we interview people with different gender identities, from different backgrounds, with varying levels of industry experience and professional roles.
Amy: Our goal is to build community and pool our collective wisdom to break down the barriers we continue to face.
(Music)
Hayley: On today’s episode, we sit down with Brisa Areli Muñoz. Brisa is the Artistic Director of Musical Theatre Factory, an organization that develops changemaking new musicals in a joyous, collaborative community free from commercial pressures. Brisa was the inaugural Artistic Director of New York City’s first-ever All Inclusive All-City Theater Ensemble, a NYC Department of Education citywide theatre company that creates original musicals with teens of all abilities. Brisa has also served as Manager of Community Partnerships for The Public Theater’s Public Works program, a major initiative that invites community members to take classes, attend performances, and join in the creation of ambitious works of participatory theatre.
Muñoz has directed & facilitated work on Broadway, across the world, and in communities in partnership with the Roundabout Theatre Company, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, American Repertory Theater, Center Theatre Group, The Kennedy Center, The Public Theater, Carnegie Hall, REDCAT Cal Arts Theater, Arts Emerson, New Jersey Performing Arts Center, BRIC Arts Media, Sojourn Theatre, Oye Group, CUNY Creative Arts Team, Hi-ARTS, CO/LAB, and Actionplay.
Hayley: Hello, beautiful people. We are here today with the brilliant Brisa Areli Muñoz. Brisa, can you please introduce yourself, share your pronouns, and tell us a little bit about what you do in theatrical spaces.
Brisa: Hi everyone. My name is Brisa Areli Muñoz, she/her pronouns. I am a theatre director, I am a cultural worker, I am an educator and a healing practitioner interested in looking at new works and the ways that we create stories in a way that center justice and in a way that center community and robust art making.
Amy: I'm so excited to hear more about all of those things. To start off, can you take us back to the beginning and tell us a bit about how you first came to theatre and your creative work in general?
Brisa: I always start the story off with my parents. My parents were choreographers of folklorico, Mexican folk dance. And so in some ways I grew up and through the theatre in the velvet auditoriums of south Texas, which is where I was born and raised, right by the border. And so, in lots of ways, they were the ones who showed me that art is community capital. I saw the ways that art and culture were bringing people together. I saw the ways that it actually kept folks alive and enlivened, when you think about their spirit. Even though I started dancing at a really young age, I didn't actually approach theatre until I was a senior in high school. My sister was a performer in the same high school. I was playing basketball and had plans of having a basketball career in college. And then I tore my second ACL and had my second total knee reconstruction by the time I was a junior in high school.
Hayley: Wow.
Brisa: Which basically left me with no knees and a thoughtful sister who was like, "Well, hey, do you wanna take your mind off of it? Do you wanna audition for a play with me?"
Amy: Oh, that's so sweet.
Brisa: It was through that entry point that I ended up getting really excited about the work and saw the connections between my parents' work and that work and helped to develop a grassroots theatre organization that still lives in the Rio Grande Valle, the Valley, which is where I'm from. It was through that grassroots organizing of community theatre that got me interested in applied theatre.
When I was in college - I went to Baylor University. I was about to graduate. I thought, "Gosh, like I'm studying psychology and neuroscience, but I'm also studying theatre. What do these things have to do with each other?" And then someone said, “Well, have you ever heard of Augusto Boal and applied theatre? And I hadn't at the time. And all of a sudden, this world of tools opened up for me, and I started to see theatre as not just a mechanism for entertainment, but actually as a vehicle for education, for transformation, for community development.
And all of my explorations in New York City, when I finally moved here to get my master's in applied theatre at City University of New York, that's where all of these ideas started to coalesce. And I started to imagine, “Okay, well what can this form be? What is it now? And what would we like it to be and how do we create the circumstances for it to be so?”
Hayley: I love hearing your story and like how the river got us here. That's the best way that I can say it.
Brisa: Yes, that's a beautiful way of naming it!
Hayley: Brisa, you are the artistic director of Musical Theatre Factory. Would you mind sharing a little bit about what led you to that position and what you're excited about doing with the organization?
Brisa: Yes. It all comes back to the source, really. My father was an artistic director, and so that's what I understood. And this opportunity came up to be a part of this incredible artist service organization, Musical Theatre Factory. It's based out of New York City, but it partners with artists all across the world. And we develop changemaking new musicals in a collaborative, joyous space and environment - centering BIPOC and trans - LGBTQ folks, disabled folks - providing resource to have their stories explored and excavated. That work has been deeply meaningful.
I'm just on the other side of being a year with the organization and so I'm really excited to continue to get to know how robust this community is for being just shy of 10 years old. And to witness the caliber of artists that this organization has helped to foster. I've been really excited about imagining new ways for artists to find themselves in the fold, particularly folks for whom have not necessarily seen musical theatre as an avenue that is accessible for them.
A lot of times when I talk to folks, I ask them, "What are the first three words you think of when you think of musical theatre?" And a lot of times, they're really homogenized answers. Not surprisingly so when we think about the antecedents of the work and the history of it coming up and through time in the United States. But I usually ask them, “Okay, and what if those words were completely different and still equated to musical theatre? Can we expand our definition of what we think this form is? Can we separate out music and performance and dance and bring them all back together again? And how can we imagine new - what we believe musical theatre to be...” That's been my deepest excitement and exploration as I've been sitting in this role.
Amy: That's very exciting. Brisa, can you tell us a bit about what else you're working on creatively right now?
Brisa: I'm the Associate Director of 1776, which first premiered at ART and then moved to the Roundabout on Broadway and is now on its national tour. And I'm also simultaneously working as a director for this project with Oye Group and Musical Theatre Factory entitled Mercedes. It's a project that is looking at caregivers of those who are suffering from dementia, particularly family members or relatives. We are using lots of different mediums, documentary, XR, a staged play, and pop-up healing rooms that are now manifesting across New York City. Being the bridge to connect caregivers to tools and resources that they might not have recognized that they had access to before.
It's also a way to celebrate and champion this particular woman, Mercedes, to celebrate and honor her life and her livelihood and all that she did for her family, her community. And so that's another project that I'm working on. It's been really profound and surprising how many people dementia touches. The profoundness of that, the sort of immediacy, the importance of making visible the invisible, right? Turning these statistics into a community of people who actually can be leaning on each other for support.
Amy: What a beautiful use of theatre - the idea of creating a community around that.
Hayley: Absolutely. We've been touching on it a little bit in all of these questions, but I'd love to give you the opportunity to name this. Do you have a creative mission that guides you through all of the different things that you do?
Brisa: I'm someone who learns through the doing. And so lots of times, I'm using theatre as the vehicle for embodied practice. The type of work that I enjoy is participatory, it's experimental, it's immersive. But it's also about straddling that really fine line of hooking audiences in to engage in a way that feels authentic for them. It is through that kind of fine line of how people choose to immerse themselves in a story or are encouraged to participate and share their voices or maybe even dictate the action. I'm interested in works that are shifting the course of events because audience members have been thought enough about their role as actor-performers in this space that actually we can be learning things together. And all of that for me sort of ties back to equity and justice and accessibility. So it's through this way of thinking about the types of works that I wanna create that all of those values kind of find themselves present in.
(Musical transition)
Amy: Let's talk about womanhood. I would love to hear about how womanhood fits into your identity now and how it has done so in the past, and how that's all kind of bound up with your work.
Brisa: A lot of the power that I've found in my womanhood has actually been through spiritual practice and meditation. So much of this 3D life as a director and an educator and as a Chicana woman has not been easy, has been rough. There's been a lot of experiences I've had with misogynistic people, with people who see me as less. And all I felt like I was able to learn from those lessons was resilience. And it wasn't until I started deeply diving into spiritual practice that I started to realize that those things are real lessons about how the world is but also your power within it. I have a really beautiful ancestral relationship with my grandmother, my mother's mother, Maria. It has been the guidance of my grandmother, the guidance of people like my mother, that have allowed me in some ways to tap into my feminine power.
We live in really patriarchal systems. Things like being grounded and calm and kind and gentle and generous could be seen as weak. There are times where I'm having conversations that I know that folks might see that as such. And actually, it is the thing that's holding your organization together right now. I'm grateful that women, in some ways, have been allowed to be socialized to be caring and affectionate and those sorts of things. I revel in those gifts and those opportunities. So I think a lot of my experience through this work as a woman has been, "Okay, how do I understand the systems that I'm living within? How do I access my feminine power, and how am I using those skills and tools to hold space in radical new ways?"
Sometimes centering this kind of care and love can just be seen as like, hippie. I see it as deeply radical work. Sometimes when we think about radicalism, we can only look through the lens of the disruptor, as if those are the only roles in this larger social justice ecosystem, when actually there are many roles, right? There are weavers, there are healers, there are storytellers. And so this idea of radical love, I think, is deeply sourced through my divine femininity. I'm grateful that you all have asked this question ‘cause it feels so integral to who I am and my practice.
Amy: You mentioned in your introduction that you are a healer. Can you talk a bit about how that plays out in your work and in your life?
Brisa: I am a Reiki practitioner. I also have been engaging in this meditation practice called Kundalini Activation Process, for probably about two years now, that's about embodied practice. It's about lying on a mat and tapping into your highest self and like allowing past selves to manifest in your mind's eye so that you can learn from it, so you can grow, so that you can heal old wounds, so that you can imagine anew. What has been really beautiful about that particular practice is that it starts with lying on a mat and there's a facilitator who has access to this energy frequency who's just playing music. You're expected to do nothing but lie there.
I was just so captivated by it because I am someone who is so inclined to music and dance and movement. So in some ways, it's tapping back to this ancient way of learning. And recognizing that these forms - dance or poetry - they're not just things that you're taught to do. They are of you. The deeper you understand this, the more you find that the body moves you more than you're moving your body. This spiritual practice has allowed me to see, in some ways I've been thinking about it backwards this whole time. I've thought, "I have to be able to master chords on a piano to be a good pianist," when it's like, actually there are just notes in front of you. You can let your soul speak and you can just pick those random notes. And if you just do it over and over and over again, it becomes deepened. It becomes like the music is speaking.
And when we think about the relationship between art as healing modalities or art as social change, it's those kinds of ways that I'm talking about. A lot of times, we just think about “art as social change” being a play that's about an issue. There are some core spiritual lessons that we can be learning through these forms or allowing them to teach us. This kind of idea of embodied or immersive practice is that discovery. How are we coming back to are most human selves through this interaction that is invoked with music or invoked with movement? Those are the kinds of spaces that I get really jazzed to help envision.
Amy: It's so powerful. We've talked a lot in this space about the gatekeepi-ness of theatre in general, but particularly of theatre education spaces. It's so empowering to remember that this is a thing that can be taught, but it's also a thing that exists deep within us and that is like part of who we are as humans.
Hayley: Our inner teacher is there with us.
Amy: Yeah, exactly. That we can be our best teacher. Yeah.
Brisa: There is such wealth and knowledge that exists inside of us already, that if we just dare to make a different choice, right. It might be like, why am I picking up my phone right now to scroll through social media. Is it actually ‘cause I'm anxious? Oh, should I maybe hit pause on this and should I just lie down and let myself feel anxious? One of the core ways in is to just like lie down and be for a moment or sit down and be, and sometimes it can be the most uncomfortable experience. As someone who has been practicing for years. There's never a time when I don't just lie down and it's not just like a wave of things coming at me in terms of what my body or mind or spirit is trying to process at any given time. But if we're not giving ourselves that permission, if we don't even know it's a way in, and actually, the best way out is through right? Release, allow. It's been one of the biggest spiritual lessons I continue to be tapped with every single day. Am I going to send another work email right now, or am I going to pause ‘cause my body needs a moment to just understand what's going on with itself right now.
Hayley: Especially in this capitalist society and system in which we live, that pressure to always be…
Amy: Doing!
Hayley: …at the ready and doing stuff. As opposed to taking that moment to reflect and to sit with something and to work through the thing. I think it's important, but it's not necessarily valued externally all of the time. I'm curious about how you think about balance in your life with all the things you're doing. You're an artistic director, you're on 1776 right now. How do you take care of yourself?
Brisa: It is my biggest life mission to understand how to create that equilibrium for myself. It is in some ways my sole purpose to understand how I can use all of this energy and all of this passion and enthusiasm that I have, and how am I actually gonna sustain myself along the way? It is a constant struggle. I have found the brilliance of a 15-minute lie down or a 15-minute meditation moment. Sometimes it's all I can do. What's lovely is that this work is remote, and so I get to sort of bounce around what's going on at the Factory in New York, but it also allows me the flexibility to be where I need to be in certain moments. I take 45-minute meetings and then I take 15 minutes to meditate, because it's the only thing that's going to set me up for the next thing.
But I will say that the biggest challenge is this constant bouncing around. On one hand, part of my spirit is energized. And in other ways, it provides chaos. At present moment, the biggest challenge is how I can prioritize this routine of getting activity, not just mental activity or spiritual activity, but physical activity. Sometimes I feel like I can handle the really hard things, and sometimes the really basic things feel so difficult.
Hayley: That's so relatable.
Brisa: When we think about that space of self-love and self worthiness, you know, we're so reinforced by the impact that we give to others,
Hayley: Yes.
Brisa: You receive positive feedback that people value your presence and your thought and your energy, right? And somehow that dominates our own relationship to ourself.
Amy: Brisa, what are some changes that you'd like to see in the theatre industry?
Brisa: In some ways, my goals are so large that some days they feel so unattainable, but it is useful to say them out into the world. I'm zooming in on the United States because so much of my work is centered here. I believe that there are not enough mechanisms for people to get access to this sort of work in their lives. And I think a lot about the access points or the entry points. Even just on the micro, how a community gets access to art as a vehicle for healing... I just wanna contribute to building more and more ecosystems, like actual systemic opportunities, for more and more people to get access to arts programming.
So in some ways, this conversation that folks are having about the industry and particularly Broadway - it's one part of the journey. There are many artists who are excited about that particular avenue as a platform for their work. And so on that front, it feels like: Great, how can we be championing these new voices, and how can we find a way for this industry to meet artists where they are in terms of who they are?
But on the macro, for me, it's not solely about the industry. It really is about: What is the relationship between a society and art and culture? Where is art and culture being placed in our current society? And my opinion is that it is very siloed, if we look at it from a resources perspective, in relation to other industries.
Now granted, media and entertainment does actually acquire a lot of funding when we think about film. But when we think particularly through the lens of theatre, it can be really challenging. My hope is for art and culture to be moved more central, towards the fabric of society. Artists are incredible resources that could be tapped in meaningful ways that are not just about putting up plays. They are about working across sector to imagine creative solutions and possibilities for their communities, for their local organizations, for their cities. And so, my deepest desire is, how do we create more sustainable structural ways where this sort of work with artists at the front can be made more possible so that folks can actually recognize, “Oh yeah, this is within me actually, and I can use this as a tool.”
And not only can I do that to protect my own livelihood, but like - Real community impact, r eal human impact can be caused by our gathering together in these ways. So it's kind of like the big picture here of all of it.
Amy: Yeah, that's really a big picture! And I love it.
Hayley: Something that comes up in a lot of our interviews, Brisa is: until society actually values the art that we're doing, then the art that we're doing is not going to get supported in the way that we'd like to see it.
Amy: With the impact that we want it to have.
Hayley: Exactly.
Amy: I hadn't thought about it in quite that way of like - in order for society to value the arts, society first has to have more open, broad access to the arts to understand what it is and to make those human connections.
Brisa: There are real, tangible ways that governments, that cities can be thinking about this question more robustly. And it's not to say that those conversations aren't happening, it's more about how are we all coming together, you know?
Amy: Right.
Brisa: I'm thinking about the US Department of Arts and Culture, which was like a grassroots org that was not actually backed by the government, because the government doesn't actually have a Department of Arts and Culture, but they created their own mechanism for which this kind of mass work could be done.
And actually this leads me to another project I'm working on. So in partnership with this project called One Nation/One Project, it is a national arts-engaged project that is using its antecedents as the Federal Theater Project back in the 30s, where the government did actually back resources to support artists to put work out as a means of healing the fabric of society.
This reinvention has come in collaboration with the National League of Cities. And One Nation/One Project, this artistic organization championing an opportunity for something like 18 cities all across the United States who have applied to be a part of this participatory engaged project that brings together cities, artists, and health practitioners as a means of solving this question. Which is really exciting. Edinburg, Texas, which is the city with which I've grown up and am native of, was accepted to be a part of this cohort. I am the artistic lead on the project. And so this large, participatory, civically engaged project is going to premiere in July of 2024. And it's actually going to be codified in a Netflix documentary that's produced by JJ Abrams.
It's this idea of all of these desires I'm spouting about the ways in which the arts can be more central to the fabric of cities and communities like across United States. It's very much that precipice that got them excited about championing this kind of work. So I'm really excited about it, ‘cause it's a way to tackle this problem that is actually national in scope. It's not just about like local communities doing it on their own, but rather a whole bunch of communities coming together to figure out what could this mean if we were thinking about this intersection of city artist health.
Amy: That is so cool. And talk about full circle. It's so cool that you get to bring back all of these ideas and things that you're working on to the city you grew up in. That's amazing. What a cool opportunity.
Brisa: I know.
Hayley: What a beautiful thing. Beautiful. Yeah.
Amy: Yeah.
(Musical transition)
Hayley: For our listeners who are just starting out in the industry. I'm curious about if you have any wisdom to share about something that you wish you had known when you started on this journey of theatre and community care and activism and all of the different things that you're doing.
Brisa: I am someone who learns through doing. And so my biggest advice has always been to just do. The only way I ever found myself present in the spaces I'm in now is because I decided to make my own things. I didn't feel confined necessarily. I have lots of dreams. I want to put them out in the world. Let's do this in collaboration with like-minded artists. And it was through that that I built relationships. It was through that that I built my practice. And so... so much of my advice is always about, how can one take back their own agency? How can they not put it on other institutions or people, but how can we be sourcing the mechanisms within ourselves to get ourselves where we want to be? It's not necessarily easy. If you are committed to that ultimate goal, you will keep at it, right?
There's something to be said for someone who just says, “No, this is the way that I want to be, and so how am I gonna manifest that?” The biggest offering I'd give to folks is to not give up and to lean closely on the folks for whom champion you or like see those visions for the world too. So much of the world can tell us the opposite. Especially as women.
Hayley: Yeah, totally.
Brisa: But being willing to stay around those who champion you and your larger visions is also something I'd offer to folks who are just starting out and trying to find their way in. And ask lots of questions. Dare to ask people that you trust, all sorts of questions. The only way I've learned is by daring to just ask sometimes the most basic questions, that maybe other folks might be too afraid to bring into a space, for example.
Hayley: I love that you said that though, because I think especially as women, we're conditioned by society to be nervous to ask for what we want to ask for, what we need to make it known that we don't know something or want more information about something.
Brisa: Yeah, absolutely.
Hayley: Is there a specific topic or question that you think the theatre industry and society at large would be served by asking more right now?
Brisa: Yes. How can we see artists as massively untapped tools that, if tapped, could change the very fabric of society?
Amy: That feels really important. I'm excited for that conversation to happen.
Hayley: You're already doing it too.
Brisa: There are so many antecedents to this work. I'm thinking about folks like Jan Cohen- Cruz. I'm thinking about Hector Aristizábal. I'm thinking about Bell Hooks. I'm thinking about Adrienne Marie Brown. So many incredible contemporary references towards this idea of collective liberation and what that looks like. And so in lots of ways, the conversations are happening.
I'm curious about, what are the spaces that they're not happening in that they could be happening more in? What are artists' relationships to their own communities or their own local organizations, and how can they start to imagine their role in those spaces as creative agents of change? Because it also takes artists being able to say, "Well, I'm not just gonna settle for what the industry has said that my role in this work is. I'm also going to invent and imagine anew.” And, you know, some of these folks are really leading the ways and championing and building infrastructure for how that is, so...
So I get excited that that work continues to be championed. But slow and steady wins the race.
Hayley: When you think about the conflict that we're facing in the world right now and in the arts right now, what are some tangible ways that artists might be able to bring more bravery to those spaces?
Brisa: I think it takes real collaboration to build a brand new ecosystem or infrastructure. It requires all parties’ consent and buy-in and engagement. And I think that a lot of the problems that we see present in our industry today have a lot to do with the ways in which there's still more spaces to be connecting all of these different departments or creative teams and actors or crew members.
There are ways for a production to be in more community and dialogue than they are right now, so that we can create the best spaces for all of us. And I think because those worlds are siloed, I think it creates problems. When we think about the role artists could play in this, it's again, that idea about stepping into one's own agency, about like, "No, I have a real value here. Not solely as an artist but as a change maker."
Hayley: Like, citizen of the community. Yeah.
Brisa: Yeah! And part of being that citizen of community means then having to sit with the thorny complications or contradictions of the system that's been built.
Hayley: Mm-hmm.
Brisa: And require communication and care and grace. All these things that I have been demonized for, you know, "Oh, you're so soft." That they think actually don't service a process, when it's like no, actually, I think we need a little more softness. All of us. All of us in all of our positions and roles.
Hayley: Yeah. Talk about a more feminine theatrical space.
Amy: Absolutely.
Brisa: Yeah, one that's rooted in care and grace and compassion, you know. Those are the things that I hope for, but it does require every single party to show up for that conversation in those ways. And it does make me wonder, what are the ways that artists could be even more prepared to enter those spaces? Because in some ways, it's kind of also bursting the door open, you know?
Post-COVID has allowed for new ways for actors to be advocating for themselves and banding together for rights for them as a group and an entity. But sometimes [they] aren't completely exposed to the systems and structures beyond that point. What do we do when there's inequity in pay? What do we do when there are certain folks who are not upholding the rigorous values of care and compassion or justice or transparency?
Those things come up in theatrical process, you know, things get messy. We need to all be able to have the tools that we need to move through this together if we're trying to create this anew... but I ask myself, where are the spaces where all of us get those tools? Where is MTF the mechanism for that sort of conversation? Where is my personal practice and relationship to this larger gap that I'm noticing? That if we all had the tools, perhaps we actually could engage in some meaningful change making together. But when systems continue to operate as they have been, it doesn't necessarily leave much room for that to be possible.
Amy: Yeah, that's a really good point. Brisa, what are you most proud of in your life and in your work?
Brisa: I am most proud that I have discovered that my soul purpose - as in s o u l - soul purpose is this work that I'm doing right now. And that in moments where I think, well, maybe I should just deviate it. Gosh, this is so hard. Like maybe I'll just, you know, go and live in a forest and write a book.
Hayley: We've all fantasized about that particular thing at some point. I think in this room.
Brisa: Exactly. Yeah, exactly. And so when I think about the thing I'm proud of, it's like, I'm proud of the ways that I've continued to center community in my practice. It takes real effort and labor and love to show up in community on the regular. And sometimes I just wanna go to that forest. Or sometimes I wanna become a monk. But I know that my purpose and my calling is to show up in these ways, and I know sometimes that my work requires me to then sit in the fire because of it. Like, holding the chaos of what's around and trying to transmute it in a way that's actually gonna use this fire as a creative spark and pulse. So I'm proud that even when I have these dreams of going to the forest or becoming a monk, that I find myself right back, because I know that this work is hard but also meaningful work.
Hayley: That's a beautiful answer. Thank you for your time today, Brisa, and for your vulnerability and bravery and all the wisdom.
Brisa: So grateful for you all. Can't wait to keep the dialogue going, and congrats on all the work that you're doing.
Amy: Thank you so much. Brisa, can you tell the listeners where they can find you on the internet please?
Brisa: Yes, you can find me on Instagram @brisaareli or @mtfmusicals.
(Music)
Hayley: Thank you for listening to the Women & Theatre Podcast. We’re your hosts, Hayley Goldenberg…
Amy: And Amy Andrews. If you like what you heard, subscribe and give us a 5-star review wherever you listen.
Hayley: You can also follow us on social @womenandtheatreproject to make sure you never miss an episode.
Amy: The music for this show is written by talented Women & Theatre community member Chloe Geller.
Hayley: Thanks for listening, everyone. See you next time!
Amy: Bye!
