An interview with M. Ramirez

1. What do you think makes this series different from all the other monologue and scene books?

I taught school directly out of writing school, and what struck me immediately was how inactive most monologues written for kids actually were. It seemed odd that - as a teacher - I was supposed to ask my students to tone down all their energy when performing. I found that the more active the kids were during performance, the more they enjoyed performing, and the more their peers enjoyed watching them. So I started limiting the material to ONLY the active stuff, and I found that the better the material was, the fresher it was, the more my acting classes seemed to teach themselves.


2. What did you LOVE about writing this series?

I love the fact that - as a young Hispanic-American - I was asked to write for young Hispanic-American students. I love the idea that those performers are being served, too. However, the publishers and I made it a VERY important point for the monologues to never be "about" ethnicity, so we wouldn't exclude kids that weren't of Hispanic descent. The "ethnic" stuff here is subtle - sometimes they call grandmothers "Abuelas", the characters have favorite Spanish foods, but other than that, the kids never have to "play" their ethnicity. The "Abuelas" and the "arroz con leche" is all part of the world the characters inhabit, but it's not ALL they inhabit.


3. What are a couple of things you can tell teachers to help them understand how great My First Acting Series can be in helping their students understand themselves and others?

First of all, I think if a teacher's going to do any kind of "monologue" unit in a class, I think it's important to have SEVERAL books ready. The last thing you want is for three kids to fight over the same monologue. (If they all do it, it can get awkwardly competitive, and if you only let ONE do it, whoever doesn't get it feels shortchanged.) Secondly, I think it's important to re-stock your shelves often. I know it sounds cheesy to say "buy tons and buy often", but I think it really helps when the monologues are as up-to-date as they can possibly be. Kids today talk very differently than they did in the 80s, or 90s, or even two years ago. They'll recognize a piece of phony, dated dialogue faster than you or I, so I think it's important to make sure the monologues you're working with are relatively up-to-date.

There's a kind of catharsis when a kid finds a monologue that SOUNDS like he or she speaks. Suddenly "acting" is a real possibility, not just some imagined fantasy only Daniel Radcliffe can do. I think there's also something special about having kids find monologues that feel "tailor-made" for them. I think they'll take more pride in the work, I think they'll be able to connect to it personally, and I think - ultimately - the product and the experience will be richer.


4. Is there one person who inspires you to pursue theatre and dramatic writing? How does this person affect your life?

This might sound a little odd, but the one person who inspired me tremendously while putting these monologues together was an author named Dav Pilkey. Teachers might know him as the guy who writes the "Captain Underpants" series. While it's not the most sophisticated literary work, I don't think I've seen MODERN KIDS captured on paper quite as accurately. The Disney channel pop-stars are all trying to sell clothing lines, the Nickelodeon characters are all trying to sell action figures, but the "Captain Underpants" kids reminded me of 90% of the kids I remember teaching. They're awkward, frustrated, and not-so-talented. They don't like authority, the world seems like a crazy place, and they don't have anything other than their brains to get them by. They can be very funny, or very crass and kid-like. They're full of contradictions and only one thing is constant: every single day is a weird adventure. Even though they're two-dimensional, they're very REAL. I like that. THOSE
kids I can relate to, because I was one of them. (In many ways, I still am.)

5. Can you share the moment when you told yourself, "This is what I want to do for the rest of my life: Theatre!"

I don't know if it was a moment, maybe it was a sequence.
That sequence looked like this:

Fifth grade: I didn't get picked for teams at kickball.
Sixth grade: Nicole (the second-cutest girl in our grade) didn't like me back.
Seventh grade: I didn't make the baseball team.
Eighth grade: No football either.
Ninth grade: A failed attempt at starting a band.
Tenth grade: Nicole (now the third-cutest girl, but still my favorite) was getting REALLY into drama.
Eleventh grade: So was I.

Seriously, though... No, I don't think I ever felt that MOMENT, but looking back on it, and looking around at a lot of my peers in the world of professional theatre, I think we were a lot of those hard-working odds-and-end rejects from other disciplines. Most set painters I know started out as other kinds of painters, but they didn't like the solitude, so they painted their first set for something like the JCC's production of Grease and they've been doing it ever since. Most directors I know started out as the kids who run for student government president but lose to the popular girl with the killer smile. I think that's an important thing to know as a teacher of young drama delinquents... A lot of these kids trickle into your classes because other social structures (or football coaches) have put them there. Not every "drama kid" comes with a stage-mom or musical theatre aspirations. Some of these kids just want a place to develop, find their voices, and learn for themselves how to navigate the murky weird waters of the real world.