Daily Inspiration: Meet Jacqueline Castillo

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jacqueline Castillo.

Hi Jacqueline, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
My sister-friend Chanel Bragg and I started United Colours of Arizona in 2016. But, we first met doing “Hairspray” together at The Phoenix Theatre Company back in 2010. We both continue to perform and evolved into directors and educators.

Chanel eventually because what we joking call the “unofficial Black rolodex of Arizona,” fielding calls from theatre makers that were seeking to hire local performers and didn’t know where to find them. I told that she should be getting paid for this kind of consultation and casting work, but instead we worked together to fill the gap. We held workshops and classes for performers, made sure that internships and other nonperforming jobs had capable candidates of color and now we are stepping our toes into the waters of producing.

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
It’s been a little difficult in that before the events of George Floyd and the pandemic, not a lot of predominately white theatres were supportive of us. I don’t think that it was malicious, but I think that they had the privilege of not noticing that they were only hiring Black artists during Black History Month and rarely hiring other POC at all unless they looked white on stage or the script SPECIFICALLY required a POC. That was frustrating for sure. Unfortunately, it can take a lot of convincing for some people to accept us onstage no matter how talented many of us are.

But I think that hearts are changing. The pandemic shutting down our industry gave people some time to think about what shows they are producing, how inclusive they aim to be and exactly how they can reach their goals in being truly nondiscriminatory.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
Between the two of us, were most known for performing with various theatres in and around the valley. I have enjoyed directing children’s theatre productions and several youth theaters and that is honestly where my heart is. I love working with young people and watching their eyes light up when the absolutely nail a song or a tricky piece of choreography. Chanel accepted a position as the Associate Artistic Director at Arizona Theatre Company making her the FIRST Black leader at the company. I couldn’t be prouder of her for taking on that awesome responsibility.

With UCAT, I think that what sets us apart from other community theatres is that we aim to offer our trainings at low to no cost, which is hard. We are always searching for grants or donors to help out those in our community who have been historically excluded from theatre spaces because of race, money or both. We also strive to be the community’s theatre. We take our work as ARTivists seriously and hope to be able to offer radical hospitality concepts in the near future.

So, before we go, how can our readers or others connect or collaborate with you? How can they support you?
People can support our work by donating their time, their space and their money. If you are an expert in any particular field, we welcome you to donate your time and help us in that area. Perhaps you are a lawyer, a caterer, a dance teacher, web designer. We’ll take you.

Support us with your space by donating it to us for workshops and rehearsals. We will ALWAYS need space.

Support us with your money! Everything that goes into a show costs money, Send us a check, Venmo us at @U-C-A-T or donate to us here: https://bit.ly/UCAT-FA

We call these our Thee Ways to Give and you can learn more about them here: https://www.unitedcoloursaz.org/shop

We are also open to working collaboratively with business and other theatre companies and to create workshops, foster mentorships, and coproduce concerts and full productions.

The final way that anyone can support us is by buying a ticket to our shows. Our production of the Last Five Years will have production in English and Spanish on alternating days. https://bit.ly/LFYLUCA

For the English stream: https://bit.ly/L5YEnglish

For the Spanish stream: https://bit.ly/LUCAespanol

Contact Info:

• Email: unitedcoloursaztheatre@gmail.com
• Website: https://www.unitedcoloursaz.org
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/unitedcoloursaztheatre/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/unitedcoloursofaztheatre
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgvlO3F4n9v0LSIWb66xKow

Image Credits
Images were taken in LFY/LUCA rehearsals by Chanel Bragg.