Harumi Hirata: Whose Stories do we Tell?
Japanese costume designer and cultural advocate whose research-driven practice interrogates representation, identity,
Japanese costume designer and cultural advocate whose research-driven practice interrogates representation, identity,
German scenic designer whose kinetic scenography builds sets that move with the
Mexican cultural worker, director, and playwright whose practice is rooted in collective
Classic plays for community theatre: Shakespeare, Greek tragedies, Chekhov—masterpieces with zero royalties.
The Canada PQ 2027 team on The Seventh Fire, matriarchal curation, and
Rodolfo Robles Cruz inherited his art before he had a name for it. It came from his father holding court at the dinner table, pulling an audience closer with a whisper and splitting them open with a joke. It came from the Chicano poets of Fresno and the farm workers who taught him what it means to insist. It came from two homes, Carucheo Grande and California, and from everything that lives in the space between them.
He makes theatre the way his communities told stories: with urgency, with rhythm, and with the conviction that what happens in the room must be worth remembering long after the room goes dark. For Rodolfo, the stage is not an escape from the world. It is where the world comes to be witnessed.
Rodolfo Robles Cruz arrives in this edition of NEW TALENTS carrying his history like a score.
My journey as an artist was sparked by my communities. I consider it an inheritance. As an artist, I am deeply influenced by my two homes: Carucheo Grande, Michoacán, and Fresno, California.
My community in Mexico sparked the art of story-telling. With my family, our histories are kept orally. I recall my father holding court when he told a story. He had complete command of his audience, pulling them closer with a whisper, pushing them away with dramatics, and making them burst out laughing by cracking a joke.
Fresno sparked the resilience of making your own work. It taught me the poetics of the immigrant artist, the Chicano poets taught me my history, the blue-collar farm workers taught me my work ethic, and I was shaped by the strange dystopia of suburbia and the power of the redlined neighborhoods just a few miles south.
The spark has grown the more communities I am involved with. I learn from every person I encounter. I hope this spark serves the American theatrical landscape just as much as my hometown communities. For me it is important to be an active member in both worlds at all times.
My mind goes straight to a workshop reading I directed of SPREAD by Jesus Valles. The story is about four ninth-grade boys who gather at lunch in a Texas high school to make “spread,” a concoction inspired by their ties to the prison system.
I remember being struck by their language, they spoke in vulgarities, the same way boys from where I grew up talked. Free of inhibition, like my mom would say, unos groseros. But it struck me because this was an unfiltered look into the lives of these young men. Theatre often feels like an escape, and in communities where I come from, prioritizes Eurocentric voices.
But this allowed me to dig in my own bag of direct experiences, and allowed these actors to use their long formed training, which in this case was their own personal lives.
To me, it was revolutionary. I am deeply grateful to Jesus and to SPREAD, which is now making its debut at INTAR Theatre in New York. It was an honor to be a pebble in the legacy of that show.
I think the biggest challenge has been my time here in grad school. The time focusing on my craft has been invaluable, and the artists/mentors I have met have been incredible. However, being in an academia bubble as the world goes through major ebbs of flows sometimes creates a feeling of powerlessness that stifles creativity. Sometimes I wonder if what I am doing, or if my work as an artist, is doing enough for the world. A world that feels like it’s screaming for rest.
But I am an artist, and my job is to live in these moments, art fights back, art heals, and art advocates. I believe artists are engaged in the work of cultural memory, however, not merely as documentation of a bruised world, but also a testament of the resilience of humankind.
Toni Morrison has an essay titled No Place for Self-Pity, No Room for Fear where she writes: “I know the world is bruised and bleeding, and although it is important to not ignore its pain, it is also critical to refuse to succumb to its malevolence.”
The world teaches me to be a wiser, stronger, more engaged artist.
My people, my history, and other artists inspire me the most. The stories of resilience and fortitude make me push forward.
I am deeply inspired and influenced by my Mexican identity and by my experience as a child of immigrants as a migrant myself. I think this inspiration leads to my work acting as time capsules of sorts. Capturing these ephemeral stories for people to experience. A form of oral history happening right in front of an audience to never be experienced the same way ever again.
I am inspired by stories that center rhythm, assimilation, or migration. I am inspired by folx like Jesus Valles, Octavio Solis, Maria Irene Fornes, Luis Alfaro, Marisela Treviño Orta, and Virginia Grise to name a few. I am inspired how their identity is always worn on their sleeves, and part of the work they do.
I am in constant conversation with myself about my own identity, how it is not only inescapable but a central framework in my own process of creating art. These artists, these humans have taught me that even when approaching work not explicitly about POC experiences, I can approach it through the lens of my own identity.
This often makes my work feel rhythmic, sharp, and grounded.
I hope that the work I do highlights the ephemera of theatre, and puts into practice a version of oral history. I want people to feel lucky to have been in the room to witness something special, enough to go home and perhaps hours later, or months, or years to come, continue to talk about it and maintain its legacy by word of mouth.
I hope to achieve this by coding in secret messages through staging, special moments for the audience to resonate with, finding the rhythm of not only the show but the room the show is taking place in, a moment of high spectacle, and by helping guide real visceral human performances on stage.
I truly hope that my work continues to create temporary micro-communities that connect and remember each other through a shared experience, and fond memories of intimate magic.
Support artists—share this
Off-Book is the Skene newsletter for artists and makers. Profiles, opportunities, and editorials, free. New subscribers also receive the 2026 Performing Arts Survival Guide.
Practical career guidance for performing arts artists and makers. Take it with you.
