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Dramatists Guild member Marisela Barrera “gets” The Count. Born and raised in Texas where law mandates public high schools have a Fine Arts program in place, Marisela was an assured, committed drama student in The Valley. So after high school, with clear eyes and a full heart, Marisela went off to college. That’s where she first ran into racism and gender bias in casting for campus productions. “That,” states Marisela, “was my life’s inciting incident.”

 Her immediate strategy was to begin writing her own material often either casting herself or directing. And she did get productions. With Marisela’s success in pre-empting exclusion, it made sense for her to pursue becoming a tireless advocate for the inclusion of diverse voices.  

Forty-three and a single mother, balancing several part-time gigs at various local arts organizations, Marisela admits that her cultural work has always been rooted in her sense of social justice birthed back in her undergraduate days. She is currently in her second year as a Quest Graduate Teaching Fellow at Our Lady of the Lake University here in San Antonio where she is working on an MA/MFA in Creative Writing, Literature, and Social Justice. Marisela believes she can best reclaim her own and her culture’s history through education in programs where “I am finally learning the craft of writing and practicing discipline.”  

Marisela is already putting lots of her hard-earned knowledge to work as a founding member of SALTA (San Antonio Latina/o Theatre Alliance) an active group that advocates for independent artists and theatre arts organizations and serves to cultivate, promote and present Latino/a theatre in San Antonio and South Texas. Founded in 2013, SALTA seeks to establish strategic partnerships with non-profit and educational organizations, municipal agencies, and businesses. This young organization driven at full steam by some amazing creatives like Marisela and whom she refers to as “our teatro de aquellas,” strives to increase access to quality performing arts programming with an emphasis on under served audiences, to advocate for cultural arts education and professional artistic development opportunities, to nurture the continued expansion of an engaged and culturally diverse audience, and to participate in the ongoing growth of the South Texas creative economy. And is this advocating and networking paying off?  

Recently SALTA member Anna De Luna had her new work, My Arab Fall, produced at Palo Alto College. And Marisela had three of her new works, Cuero/ La Ruby Red/y El Big Bird produced at Jump-Start Theatre. Both Anna and Marisela’s productions were critical successes. Jose Ruben De Leon has a new performance in the works through San Antonio’s Classic Theatre. These are amazing accomplishments in a city not completely in tune with the need for new theater work. 

Also in its two short years of existence, SALTA has produced “World Theatre Day and Teatro Rasquachismo Celebration” both years. Plus Joel Settles, also a SALTA member, is the new Performing Arts Director at the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center. So yes, there’s significant harvest already. 

SALTA will continue to advocate for San Antonio teatristas nationally by maintaining a valuable relationship with LTC (Latino/a Theatre Commons). Because of her activity in SALTA, LTC approached Marisela and asked her to lend some of her talent to their national organization. Marisela now serves on LTC’s Steering Committee and is bringing San Antonio into an arena of cultural encouragement and notice. Marisela says that, “The whole idea of Commons is like the Knights of the Round Table: the democracy, everyone working towards common goals.”  

So many of Marisela Barrera’s common goals are ours also. Thank you, Mari, for all you are doing to right and write such need change.                 

[photo caption: SALTA members at TCG Conference in Dallas with Luis Valdez (pictured, left to right: Joel Settles, Adriana Sanchez-Navarro, Jose Ruben De Leon, Luis Valdez, Marisa Varela, Anna De Luna, and Marisela Barrera)] 

srinear@dramatistsguild.com