Teatro Vivo’s Fully Interactive La Pastorela 2022

I walk into a lobby full of familiar and unfamiliar faces anxiously waiting to be called into the theatre. Every year since 2010, I have either seen or performed in Teatro Vivo’s annual La Pastorela, and while I always appreciate seeing more Latinx stories and bodies on stage, I have found myself yearning for more community engagement. Nonetheless, my friends have told me that this year’s production is unlike anything they’ve ever seen before. As I am getting my ticket, the “receptionist,” Oscar Franco, announces that the house will be opening shortly. Then, a “crew member” bursts through the doors of the theatre and awkwardly proclaims that the cast’s tour bus is stuck in traffic. In confusion and disbelief, I look around to others in the lobby for answers, but the reality of the situation becomes clear: I won’t get to see the play anytime soon. Before I have the chance to ask for a refund, though, a “volunteer” working at the concession stand steps forward and suggests that the audience could perform their very own version of La Pastorela this year. After all, many audience members have seen the play multiple times, right?

Versions of La Pastorela are often performed at Christmastime throughout Northern Mexico and the United States, retelling the Catholic story of the birth of baby Jesus. Though there are many adaptations, productions typically relate the journey of los pastores who travel to Belén, or Bethlehem, to offer gifts to their king and his parents, Mary and Joseph. La Pastorela has become an annual tradition in Austin, Texas thanks to Latinx and Indigenous theatre company Teatro Vivo and other teatros that have come before it. Every year, the presentation includes a unique script, musical score, choreography, and sometimes audience participation at the end of the play when los pastores meet baby Jesus. That final offering had always been my favorite part of the play, as it was the first time many of the performers had the opportunity to go up on stage. Those moments reminded me that while the scripted version of La Pastorela was history, its significance to the community was timeless.

What if audiences were responsible for creating their own story based on previous knowledge and experience? What more can be gleaned from an old, tired piece of literature like La Pastorela?

The story of La Pastorela explores hopelessness and perseverance within a community, which is especially relevant now as the world comes out of a pandemic and as communities of color lead social movements that acknowledge and reckon with injustice. On the global level, humanity continues to recover from COVID while also battling environmental issues; on the national level, our communities continue to struggle with immigration issues and racial reckoning; on the local level, Austinites have also had to band together after an unexpected winter storm in February of 2022 left many households without power or running water.

While Teatro Vivo’s production of La Pastorela didn’t engage all of these social issues, it modeled how community collaboration helps us overcome issues and build responsive spaces. In most retellings of La Pastorela, the pastores have to work together to complete their pilgrimage and fight the devils and obstacles along the way. In this production, the audience plays those characters, which helps us recognize our community’s capacity to collectively and creatively solve problems. The story of the pilgrimage to see Baby Jesus on its own is heartwarming, but watching a village unite on that journey and share in the gratification of getting there is truly encouraging and satisfying.

There is typically a barrier between a play’s universe and that of its audience, even if theatre often encourages spectators to reflect on the performance, but interactive theatre disrupts this relationship. In his 2022 essay “Playabale Plays: Toward a New Interactivity,” Drew Paryzer describes interactivity in theatre as work that “jolt[s] our audiences out from a distanced mode of processing into one of embodied action,” one where audiences are encouraged to be “more than simply spectators.” I see a lot of Teatro Vivo’s work, and I have participated in several productions as an actor, but I didn’t realize I would be more than a spectator for La Pastorela 2022. The production asked: what if audiences were responsible for creating their own story based on previous knowledge and experience? What more can be gleaned from an old, tired piece of literature like La Pastorela?

Teatro Vivo created a script that was more of an outline, essentially a lesson plan to be facilitated by “actors.” The play was devised by writers, directors, and theatremakers, and then the ultimate contributor was our community of Latinx families and neighbors who live around the Mexican American Cultural Center. At La Pastorela 2022, Austin community members of all ages had a place where their gifts, knowledge, and ideas were celebrated in their final performance–or rather, their offering to one another.

Even those who had expressed reservations sang softly under their breaths.

Upon arrival, each audience member received a name tag that indicated which of four groups they would be a part of. There was a dance group (the devils), a singing group (the angels), an acting group (the pastores), and a visual art group (las estrellas), and each group was led by an actor/facilitator. As per the volunteer’s suggestion, the audience prepared to tell the story of La Pastorela by brainstorming, on big post-it notes, the critical elements we recalled from previous encounters with the play. Some common themes I heard shared across the groups were: good vs. evil; the different ways of gift giving, such as dance, music, and art; and the connection between the pastores and the Dreamers. From there, we broke off into groups based on our name tags and followed the actor/facilitators to separate spaces within the Mexican American Cultural Center.

I was part of the singing group with accomplished Austin actor and teacher Madi Palomo, and we convened in a rehearsal studio where chairs were already set up in a circle for us. We were a small group of maybe twelve people. Madi asked us to share our names and our relationships with music. Immediately, we found ourselves bonding with other members of the audience, our community. I shared how my love for singing developed after hearing Selena Quintanilla on the radio as I was growing up. Suddenly, the group was debating in Spanish about the best ranchera bands. Even those who didn’t understand Spanish wanted to be in on the discussion, and Madi was happy to engage everyone and invite members of the group to translate for one another.

Madi then shared printed lyrics of “Noche de paz” (“Silent Night”). The lyrics were typed in both English and Spanish, but everyone was encouraged to try singing both versions as a group for the final sharing. Immediately, I saw some apprehensive faces and worried that people would lose interest in participating. Thanks to Madi’s guidance on pronunciation and the strong trust we’d fostered with each other, even those who had expressed reservations sang softly under their breaths. Others simply hummed along, and one of the group members, a teenage boy, shared his guitar skills with us and learned the chord progression for the song. In the span of about thirty minutes, we had learned (or reviewed in some cases) a song in two different languages and formed new friendships along the way.

Once we were confident with our offering, Madi brought us back to the lobby to reconvene with the other three groups. Nervous yet excited to see if the “performance” would come together, we found seats in the theatre. The lights dimmed, and Oscar Franco, the “receptionist” (who was really the director), gave an opening speech. The actor/facilitators shared the Indigenous origins of La Pastorela in Tenochtitlan, Mexico, and how performances were exploited by Franciscan friars who forced them to perform their plays in Spanish with Christian sentiments. Then, actor/facilitator and high school theatre teacher Juan Leyva called upon his acting group. The audience roared in support of their fellow community members who put on costume pieces and accessories. Juan read parts of the story of La Pastorela while the group acted according to Juan’s readings. The dance group followed, and next came the singing, and finally the art group placed the ornaments on the set while the singing group continued to hum “Noche de Paz.”

On the night I attended, a facilitator selected me to present a monologue to reflect on the evening. They invited me to fill in the blanks, “Including tonight, I have seen ____ versions of La Pastorela…” and to think about how it felt to participate and witness loved ones participating in the production. I shared how moved I had felt seeing community members engage in discussion despite language barriers. I shared, “Getting to watch the community, our community, share the Pastorela together tonight was heartening and inspiring.”

Teatro Vivo offered its audience the space to explore and construct knowledge together.

In this production, Teatro Vivo offered its audience the space to explore and construct knowledge together. I was surprised by the extent to which audiences were willing to engage in collective theatremaking without warning and with little prior experience. While not everyone may have been comfortable with this level of vulnerability, the script emphasized letting go of perfection, which fostered a natural willingness from the majority of the community. The facilitators prioritized interactions between audience members before working on the performance so that we felt comfortable learning and practicing in front of one another. They also referred to the final presentation as an “offering” to Baby Jesus, which reinforced togetherness as opposed to focusing on an individual’s performance.

Meanwhile, being in a supportive space gave audience members the opportunity to share talents that perhaps weren’t celebrated in other spaces. It was remarkable to see that shy teenage boy walk away so proud to have shared his gift with his parents and new friends, his community. I can only imagine that such a joyful, encouraging experience may have motivated other audience members to share their gifts in their own lives. La Pastorela 2022 was the true gift, from Teatro Vivo to the community, from the community to one another. I walked away feeling full and inspired.

At the end of the production, Oscar invited everyone onto the stage for a “cast photo.” There was no hesitation from anyone to jump up for the photo. We all were the cast. Then, I found myself saying “goodbye” and “bravo” to people I had just met that night. In all of the theatre I have seen, I have never felt so connected to the rest of the audience, nor prouder of my community for being vulnerable and present. I realized then that I wanted to share this with others, to ask for more theatre like this.

At the beginning of the production, Juan posed the question, “What is the essence of La Pastorela?” To me, it’s about gifts—not the gifts we hold in our hand and buy at the mall, but the gifts we all have within ourselves, the collective gifts we have when we come together and support one another. Teatro Vivo’s gift, and the essence of this year’s La Pastorela, was the space for us to see ourselves and our community reflected and illuminated on stage.