Host Josafath Reynoso sits down with Martin Acuña, performing arts marketer and host of Backstage Talk, the only Latin American musical theatre podcast still running after six years.
Martin recorded episode one on his phone at 9:30 on a weeknight, whispering so he wouldn’t wake his dad and brother next door. Two and a half weeks later, Broadway shut down.
By the time he landed in New York on an O-1 artist visa in 2023, the friends waiting for him were people he had only ever met through a screen. Fifteen years of work went into that visa case. He explains exactly how.
He is also honest about the cost. He was bullied out of posting as a teenager. He deleted the videos. He kept going anyway.
We get into the double-edged sword of feeling close to strangers online, why he refuses to monetize the thing he loves, the day someone stopped him in Midtown and called him the Latino podcaster, and why joy became his north star.
Key takeaway: send the message. The worst outcome is silence, and it almost never happens.
Full episode, shorts and highlights on Youtube y Spotify
Timestamps.
- 01:00 – Growing up in the arts in Colombia
- 03:20 – Two productions in twelve years
- 05:59 – The night Backstage Talk was recorded
- 10:29 – BroadwayCon and the first Spanish-language panel
- 13:08 – Fifteen years of building an O-1 visa case
- 15:07 – Building a New York community from Colombia
- 21:29 – The double-edged sword of online closeness
- 24:19 – Judgment, bullying, and posting anyway
- 29:06 – When he stopped performing for the internet
- 31:37 – The advice: send the message
- 34:41 – Joy as the north star
