Rising Stars: Meet Victoria Tamez

Today we’d like to introduce you to Victoria Tamez.

Victoria, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I grew up in Whittier, CA and my parents grew up in Pico Rivera and El Monte. I’m lucky that my mom was intentional about putting me in activities because she didn’t have the chance to really do that when she was little. So as soon as I was potty trained, I got put in dance class (it was my bribe for getting out of diapers haha – but it worked!). That was like 2 and a half I think. And from there, I was dancing tap, jazz, ballet, hip-hop, lyrical at Dance Image and was on their dance team and then doing cheer team and competitions through the Whittier Community Center. All really local. It was the best time – I made some amazing friends and I loved going to competitions and putting together the dance shows with these girls who you basically have grown up with and improved together. But I also knew deep down these girls were DANCERS and …. I felt like I just wasn’t on that athletic level but I did my best to keep up. They were so inspiring. Some of those girls went on to be like Laker Girls, Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders, and dance professionally in LA. I just knew I couldn’t do it like they could. I didn’t have the drive like they did for it. But I did love it.

Then in middle school, I was lucky that I got picked to be the Witch in the all-school production of The Wizard of Oz. I just felt like something really clicked. I had always noticed that when I danced or cheered, I always enjoyed the pieces that had a strong story that was being told with the choreography and costume – so now I understood that kind of storytelling in theatre was more of where my “drive” or “passion” lied. It all started to come together. I think what I liked best was really exercising my empathy and really try to step into the shoes of another person. I think that’s another reason I always really liked watching movies, tv, and reading as many books as I could that I found interesting. I loved to escape into the shoes of another through stories.

But knowing how to dance and move served me so well! I’ve heard acting instructors say that dancers can make some of the best actors because they have so much access to their bodies, breath, and movement.

Once I knew that theatre and acting was something I was interested in I tried to start googling and trying to find classes or and general advice on how to get started as an actor. I found some blogs, podcasts and would go to the library – anything I could find for free and cheap. The price for acing classes were unaffordable for us at like $1,600 for just a few weeks of classes. So I was able to find a local option and started auditioning for the Whittier Community Theatre Junior company and learned so much (headed by Kate Barrett at the time).

And then I moved middle schools and was lucky that Sheri Mitchell (who is currently an awarded music professor at Three Rivers College) was the theatre teacher at that new middle school and she open my eyes to a whole new world. It was truly like the moment Dorothy enters Oz in the movie and it goes from black and white to Technicolor. She taught us true quality theatre education and she created a true artistic community for us. I was so lucky she saw how badly I wanted this whole acting thing (when a lot of other adults thought it was a phase that would pass) and took me under her wing as a mentor and because my theatre fairy godmother.

She helped us put on the most professional quality theatre productions and taught us how to be empowered creatives (even if it was on a shoestring budget). She didn’t baby us and we loved it. She pushed us to be better – and it was all out of passion and love. She also worked at the Pacific Symphony at the time and she would help us get great tickets to amazing world-class music and theatre productions, bring us as volunteers passing out programs and we’d get all excited to get dressed up and work at an actual artistic venue and even meet the artists sometimes. She really provided us with education and access. It was so fun and so incredibly powerful.

She absolutely changed the course of my life forever (for the better) when she told me about the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts and that I should audition for it. I was in the 7th grade at the time and it seemed too good to be true – it almost sounded like High School Musical which had come out a few years earlier. I didn’t wanna get my hopes up. But she explained that it was a free public school that trained young people to be professional artists and took them seriously. She arranged for our theatre group to go on a school tour of LACHSA and I was completely sold. I felt I needed to go there like my life depended on it. Thankfully Sheri was generous and trained me intensely for the whole year leading up to the audition. I auditioned and I cried when I got the letter a few months later that I got in. I had literally prayed for it.

So I was at LACHSA and it was some of the most intensely transformative 4 years – it was better than I even dreamed it would be. It was a true conservatory – college-level – acting – program ….but high school-aged kids going through it. Nothing watered down. It was hard physically, emotionally, time management-wise – but it really prepared us if we wanted to go into the professional field of art making. The immersion gave me the chance to really explore and discover who I was as an artist at my core. It helped give me a metaphorical and physical voice. I even had chances to grow as a student of social justice.

Then LACHSA led me then to The New School for Drama and I was thankful to get a good scholarship. I did my BFA in Dramatic Arts and was really excited to get the chance to learn and work in New York. In the program, I was able to sharpen my acting skills but also find myself as a director and as a playwright (two things I didn’t feel confident in at all initially) – which was so incredibly valuable. It all makes you a better actor. I also started on a new program that would allow me to have both my BFA in Dramatic Arts and get my MA in Arts Management and Entrepreneurship in 5 years. So thankfully got into that program and got those.

Then when I graduated, I was able to come back home to LA and spend time with my mom and help her through her recovery when she got ovarian cancer. Then…the pandemic happened, haha. And everything for me teaching artist-wise just dried up and then as an actor nothing was really allowed to be in production during the first half of the pandemic but self-tapes were happening – so thankfully I was able to get a lot of practice in.

Last year brought the best surprise when I got a call in the summer of 2021 and got the offer to fill one of the newly opened faculty spots at LACHSA. So when August 2021 rolled around, I was starting as the Theatre Department’s 1st year foundational acting class. I was so nervous but also so excited to be of any help and pass on everything that I’ve found useful in my work as an actor to fresh young artists who are just as passionate. I just started my second year teaching at LACHSA – things keep moving quickly so it’s exhilarating.

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?
Personally, as an actor it was learning that what makes me different isn’t what makes me weak – what makes me different is my superpower (like America Ferrera said). When I first got into acting, I wanted to fit a mold. I wanted to act “right”… “properly”. …but now I know what I actually meant: I wanted to act like those who got the most opportunities and space in the professional world.

Because from what I saw as a child – white was the default…the preference…in every tv show, movie, story I read in school. So I had this strange idea that if I wanted to act well…I had to “act” this “idea of whiteness” I had.….and discard anything from my physical, emotional, vocal behavior that would have me to traced to my “non-white” roots. I thought good training meant I had to strip myself of anything that gave me away as Latine/x because I was under the wrong impression there wasn’t any room for that in Shakespeare, Ancient Greek Plays, Chekhov, Arthur Miller, etc…I was misled – but I now know that we are all equally human at our core.

I’m happy that, in theatre specifically, there are more substantial roles being written for women and communities of color with narratives that put them at the center of the story – I think it would’ve helped me to access those kinds of stories and texts earlier on, so I’m happy the students of this current moment are getting more experience with that.

Another challenge is, at times, figuring out how I need to negotiate between what the creative team/ director’s idea of what a “woman” or “Latina” is versus what I know it can actually be from my own experience…and also how do I do that without being labeled “difficult” or “hard to work with” even if I approach it in the most polite way possible. What ends up happening is they want me to fulfill what their limited idea of a Latina is so badly…that I end up bringing a stereotype to life and it helps them solidify their bias. I don’t actively want to confirm harmful biases…and as an actor is can be an easy thing to slip into…the industry is always asking it of us – I think it’s more subtle than before, but some of the residue is still there. It takes a lot of creativity and stamina to find a way through it with integrity.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
What drew me to acting and storytelling to begin with was the fact that it showed me a way to develop both my physical and metaphorical voice – and then to actually be seen, heard, and listened to when I was using that voice and sharing a story. As an actor, I think that I’m very interested in being an “artist- citizen” – which means being aware and questioning not only how the world around us influences the art we make but also questioning how can the art we make affects the world around us. I don’t want the impact of an important story to just live on the stage or screen – I want it to bleed into our lives, even in conversations around the dinner table or in the car ride home from the theater. I want the art I believe in to affect the greater culture in the direction of positive social change. I feel art has the power to do that.

Particularly I feel that what might set me apart as an actor is in how my training expanded beyond the traditional model – and involved an introduction to critical thinking and social justice. At LACHSA, I was part of a program that used the arts and facilitated dialogue to reduce prejudice and conflict among youth. I learned about racial-bias, gender-bias and homophobia in the classroom and how to use improvisational theater to train students and teachers in conflict resolution. It was one of the first times I understood how my art could have an immediate impact. As a person, it helped me see everything in a new way – but as an actor, it especially transformed how I brought characters and stories to life – and even how I collaborated. It allowed me to see more of the nuances in human behavior. Because of this program, I was able to look at my work as an actor through a new empowered lens – a more active lens. The art-making didn’t stop in the classroom, my best friend from that class and I created a web series in college, Meet Me @ the Clinic, that focused on issues we really care about as humans and artists – and through a lens that was uniquely ours.

Another thing I loved about my artistic education experience is that, at like 14/15 years old, I started learning how to be a teaching artists and figure out how I can pass on the tools that I’ve gained so far to others. So when I got into LACHSA, I was with Sheri doing Trinity Theater Project and being in the shows and then being an assistant director/ choreographer. Then once I was at LACSHA, I had an amazing teacher Susie Tanner who had her own arts programs through her company Theatre Workers Project for both children and adults. Then once I was in college, I had internships with Ensemble Studio Theatre LA, People’s Theatre Project in NY, Williamstown Theatre Festival. When I was in these positions, I was always thinking of how I could increase the rigor and quality of the curriculum so that students could get more out of the experience sooner. How could these students unlock more skill AND joy faster? I think that is something I’m always asking myself.

So as I’m working as a teacher in-person, I’m looking to expand how I can still be of help to other artists at any time and any place. When I was going through my Master’s course, I knew I wanted to focus on artistic education; so my thesis was all about how I could create online video courses for teachers who did not identify as artists/teaching artists – but were tasked with leading the arts programs at their school (which is what happened to my cousin-in-law at the time). So I‘ve wanted to expand into the online teaching space for a while, and this past year I’ve started working on a blog called Actors Conservatory Corner that would serve as a free online education space filled with the same quality theatre training resources and information that I’m teaching in my classrooms. The blog will be filled with all of the lessons and tools that I felt that I desperately needed when I was starting out and googling for guidance.

We all have a different way of looking at and defining success. How do you define success?
To me, I have success when I am living in my joy. When I was with the American Theatre Wing’s SpringboardNYC program Danai Gurrera blessed us with her presence and talked to all the acting students. She told us, “Joy is not happiness. I might not be happy in the moment, but I know I’m still living in my joy. Joy is knowing you are in a place you want to be and doing something you want to do.” My goal is to keep following my joy for as long as I can.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://actorsconservatorycorner.com/
• Instagram: @_victoria.tamez_
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNfXLSgD1oQlzMi9JVNGQTA
• Other: @actors_conservatory_corner

Image Credits
The first headshot is the work of Jerry Camarillo Photography