(upbeat percussive music) - [Announcer] Funding for this episode of "Que Pasa NJ" with Carlos Medina has been provided by: Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, the New Jersey Economic Development Authority, Hackensack Meridian Health, the Engineers Labor-Employer Cooperative 825, PSE&G, ROI-NJ Business Magazine.

- Welcome to "Que Pasa," familia.

Today's episode is packed with inspiring conversations featuring influential figures in both film and Broadway.

Let's kick off this episode with Jaime Lozano, a groundbreaking musical theater composer and director, celebrated by peers like Lin-Manuel Miranda.

We'll also chat with Cynthia Lopez, the multi Emmy-winning CEO of New York Women in Film and TV.

And finally, we spotlight KO, the Tony Award-winning actor who will star in a new play called "Siluetas" in Philadelphia at the Temple University Theater.

(upbeat Latin music) Today we're thrilled to spotlight Union City's own Jaime Lozano, a visionary musical theater composer and director, held as the next big thing on Broadway by Lin-Manuel Miranda.

Welcome to "Que Pasa," Jaime.

(speaking foreign language) - Thank you for having me.

- So Lin-Manuel famously praised the work that you do.

How has that praise and that interaction with Lin-Manuel impacted your career?

- I mean, I have been very lucky to find great people in my journey in the city, and I was lucky that he mentioned me one interview thatn he did, like, almost like 10 years ago or something like that.

And he mentioned my name when someone asked him about who was the next big thing coming into Broadway.

And I was so lucky and honored that he mentioned my name, and such a big responsibility, (laughs) because now I have to work harder.

- You have the weight of the Lin-Manuel Miranda endorsement.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But that's what I love about our community, that it's a community that we support each other, that we lift up each other.

And I think that's very important in what we do, because at the end, what I do, that is music, that is theater, is something that is very human.

We not working with machines, we're not working with numbers.

We are working with hearts, with minds and being able to lift up each other, I think that that's something beautiful as human beings.

- Your work has been celebrated internationally.

How has your Mexican heritage, your Mexican roots, played a part in the work that you do and the storytelling that you do?

- It is a very important part.

I always say definitely that maybe in my career, if I am living in Mexico, my career could be very different.

But the fact that I'm far away from my country, there's always a need to reconnect with your roots.

There's always a need to look back.

And all my music, all my stories are very close related to what I am as a human being, as an immigrant, as a Mexican, trying to do a living in the city.

So all that is my music.

I use a lot of Latin music, Mexican music, because I think that you can tell stories using all kind of music, even Reggaeton.

And I use all that kind of music to tell stories about us, about our people, about our community, our paisanos, our familia.

- So you were the first Mexican to ever receive a Master of Fine Arts from the NYU Musical Theater Program, writing program.

- Yeah.

- Tell me about that experience.

Being the first of anything is, you have a weight on your shoulders.

You're kind of representing the folks that are gonna come after you.

- Yeah, it has been one of the craziest things that has happened to me because I wasn't the only Mexican to get the full tuition scholarship, but the only Mexican maybe to, I don't know if to apply, but to be accepted and graduated from that program.

And the weirdest thing about about it, that they grant me that scholarship and they accept me with me speaking no English at the time.

- Wow.

- Back in 2007, when I got here the first time, I didn't speak any English at all.

I remember to have these terrible headaches every single day because I couldn't understand what they were saying.

Since then, I know a lot more Latinos have been in the program, even a few Mexican, and I have been always reaching to them.

When I know that there's a new Latino or a new Mexican in the program, I'm very like, oh, I was in the program also, you need any help, you need anything, I'm here.

So I try to reach to that people and have a conversation, have communication, to be that familia that we should be.

- Yeah, and talking about familia, you have a play, "Jaime Lozano and Familia."

Tell me a little bit about that project, and how you integrate diverse artists into your work.

- Yeah, this project is called "Jaime Lozano and The Familia."

and this Familia, the Familia is this group of musicians and of Broadway performers that are like Latinos in some ways.

Some of them are immigrants as myself, others are like second generation, third generation.

And what we do is they sing my songs, my songs that are, as I mentioned before, most of them are about this immigrant journey with this Latino music.

And we have been performing all around the city in some of the most important venues.

We even have two albums called "Songs by an Immigrant" and we are working right now on the third album.

We are recording the third album right now.

They're supposed to be released before the end of the year.

And we have a concert coming up on July 31st at Lincoln Center as part of the Summer in the City festival.

- [Carlos] Beautiful, beautiful.

- We have this huge outdoor stage right in the middle of Lincoln Center in front of the Metropolitan Opera, and we're gonna put people to dance, we're doing like a Latin music, it's a free concert.

So very excited to be doing this contract, Lincoln Center.

- You have a project called "Revolucion Latina."

How do you integrate your work with also speaking to social causes, social justice?

That seems like what this project inspires and attempts to do.

- Yeah, I am so honored to be collaborating with this nonprofit organization called Revolucion Latina.

They say that it's a revolution of evolution.

- Okay.

- It was actually, this organization was created by a few members from the "In The Heights" Broadway musical.

- Great.

- And what we do is like educational programs for kids, educational program for young actors, young dancers.

We did an album with Broadway artists.

So we we're trying to support and give the community opportunities to develop their artistic sides.

- What do you tell our viewers who are contemplating a career in the arts?

I know it's a very arduous journey, but can you give our viewers some tips on what could help them in that journey?

- Just do it.

Because sometimes we are thinking about or planning or we are thinking too much.

And the reality, if you want to dance, dance.

If you want to write, you write, you want to sing, sing.

And once you start doing it, you're gonna find your own path.

But if you still thinking, oh, I gonna do this or that, it's just gonna stay there in your mind.

So just go out there and do it.

- Thank you for joining "Que Pasa," and good luck on the show in July at Lincoln Center.

That's very impressive.

(speaking foreign language) (upbeat Latin music) Let's welcome Cynthia Lopez, CEO of the New York Women in Film and TV, and former commissioner of the New York City Mayor's Office of Media and Entertainment.

Welcome to "Que Pasa," Cynthia.

- Thank you so much for having us.

- How did you get your start in media?

- I always wanted to watch television, and I had a mother who really was discerning about what she let my brother and I watch on TV.

We grew up during the Vietnam War.

She was very careful about what images we were allowed to see about what was going on.

And my biggest fight at home was, what do you have against David Cassidy?

So I think that very early on I was very drawn to media and the potential of what media could do.

- You were part of "POV," and during that show, there was something called Diverse Voices Program, which not only offered mentorship, but also offered financial assistance.

Tell me about that program and the success of it and making PBS and "POV" have more diverse voices.

- Well, I have to say that's one of the programs I am very proud to be associated with.

We received funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to select, it was between four to eight filmmakers a year.

The funding was between a hundred to $150,000 per project.

I have to say, some of the diverse voices that we selected to be on the "POV" series are now quite renowned independent filmmakers who are doing incredible work.

So people like Laura Poitras, Shola Lynch, Michele Stephenson, these are all sort of Academy nominated, Emmy winners who've gone on to do many, many important things.

I know that this program "Que Pasa" airs on PBS.

- Yes.

- And so to me, PBS is about reflecting the diverse voices that exist in the world, right?

And so to have these women who are now veteran filmmakers have their first, second, third films on "POV" was quite an accomplishment.

And so I often refer to it as a team effort.

- Now as CEO of Women in Film and Television, tell me some of the goals of the organization and how that interplay between New York and Jersey, being so close together, how it also benefits New Jersey filmmakers and diverse artists?

- Well, first I often describe NYWIFT, New York Women Film and Television, as we are an association of women who are the working class women of the media and entertainment industry.

I often make the clarification, we are not the one percenters, we are the working class folks, like many of the people here who are behind the scenes making what I consider the magic happen.

So we are an association of those women.

We are one chapter, we are the New York chapter, but there are 50 chapters internationally.

Part of what our mission is, to ensure that women take their rightful place in the media producing industry.

We know there are very few women directors, and even those directors who get national recognition don't usually get the footprint of continuing to work on an ongoing basis and getting the recognition for that.

So part of the goals that we set are to, one, recognize excellence and vision.

Two, do master classes for training and professional development, and three, to bring up the next generation of women filmmakers, media producers, content producers.

So those are a couple of our goals.

- To me, collaboration, especially for an organization such as yours is key.

You've had some major collaborations and partnerships impacting corporations and public media.

Tell me what's your secret to that collaboration, and how has it been going for the organization?

- One partnership that comes to mind, we aired a film that was called "Two Towns Of Jasper."

It was a very devastating documentary, if you will, because it was a look at the dragging death of a man named James Byrd in Jasper, Texas.

And the community was very divided, if you will.

The white community saw it one way, the Black community saw it another way.

The filmmakers, one Black, one White, went into the community and literally shot two separate films and then went back into the editing suite and created one film, and that's the film that "POV" aired.

And a series of us, not just myself, many of us came together and we said, how can we really look at this cautionary piece of information?

We know this will not be the last dragging death of a Black person in America, but how can we impact and make change?

So "POV" partnered with the Oprah Show.

We partnered with Ted Koppel, and we had a week of programming that was dedicated to race in America.

And it ended with Ted Koppel doing a Town Hall in Jasper, Texas, bringing together people in the white community and people in the Black community.

So many people have said "POV" was on the forefront of doing that kind of partnership to make change and impact change.

- There's been a big push for diversity both in Hollywood and film and Broadway.

How do you feel we're doing?

Are we doing enough?

Is there progress being made at the end of the day?

- Is there progress being made in terms of diversity?

I think there is.

I think the challenge that we have in 2024 is that, just getting diverse people to participate in the production, if you will, is not enough.

We need diverse people making decisions about who gets opportunities, who gets resources, and who gets distributed.

I also think just when it comes to media, as the former commissioner of media and entertainment for New York City, there's just so much more we can be doing.

We need to be able to work with corporations and government and hold our government officials accountable to making investments so that we have women writers, so that we have Latina writers.

- Thank you so much for joining us.

You gave us very valuable insight, and thanks for becoming part of the "Que Pasa" Familia.

- Thank you for having New York Women Film and Television.

- [Carlos] My pleasure.

- It was a pleasure being here.

(upbeat Latin music) - Next we spotlight KO, formerly known as Karen Olivo, a Tony Award-winning actor with over 25 years on both Broadway and TV.

Welcome to "Que Pasa," KO.

- Hello.

- A couple years back, you famously quit Broadway, and I'm gonna make sure I read this properly, you said, "Building a better industry is more important than putting money in my pockets."

What changes, if any, have you seen in the industry?

- I don't think it would be fair to say that I've seen a whole lot of changes in the industry.

By stepping away, I really meant to step away.

I do have friends who are still in the industry and there are rumblings, but, that's their experience.

I will say for myself, what I'm noticing is that there's a lot of artists who are looking for more agency, and I think that that puts pressure in certain areas.

And so that is a change.

I feel like artists are mobilizing in a different way.

So I think, yeah, I think things are changing, not to the level at which I would like them to change, that remains to be seen.

- In 2020, you transitioned to teaching.

Tell me how that journey from teaching from Broadway, tell me about your journey.

- Yeah, I'd always dabbled in teaching.

I had taught at UW Madison.

I taught at Cincinnati Conservatory of Music while I was working professionally.

My father was a teacher.

I knew that it was something that I was always going to go back to.

My favorite place is the rehearsal room, and the rehearsal room models a classroom in a lot of ways.

So part of me stepping away from the professional stage was so that I could really work on the artists and support artists as they were going into the field.

I feel like an informed and a strong artist, and in this case, a student, is sort of the catalyst for change.

So yeah, I mean, I've enjoyed it.

It's been a huge learning curve.

Academia is nothing like the professional world.

(laughs) Lots of systems that I have to navigate.

But yeah, I feel like I'm making the change, the foundational change that I wanted to make.

And yeah, it's been rewarding and challenging.

- Tell me about the work you're doing with the Mosaic Training, which I believe you're one of the co-creators of that project.

- Yeah, so, Mosaic Training program came out of the pandemic.

There are a lot of Broadway centric or Broadway adjacent training programs for high school students that would pop up.

And during the summer specifically, students would travel and they'd be able to work with different artists.

And what I was noticing was that not only were we all online, but those students who would've been able to be in contact with artists, it was all sort of diminishing.

And so a handful of, I think there were three of us, we started discussing what it would look like to offer a free training program to students of the global majority that had some form of financial hardship.

And it started with me and a handful of friends and colleagues that agreed to come online.

And we taught, I wanna say the first session was like eight weeks.

And it has been going strong for quite some time.

And it's one of the most fulfilling things that I think I've done, primarily because I would've been one of those students.

I did not come from any sort of generational wealth or financial means.

And so all of the art training that I received was through community theater or anything that was free.

And so, yeah, it's been really rewarding and they're just so wickedly talented, they are so wonderful and generous, and all of them are ready to step into spaces where they can change spaces.

And representation is so important.

- I see many of the organizations that you support and that you feel are valuable, such as Democracy Now, Pay Equity Standards.

Can you share a little bit about that work and what it involves?

- I'm usually either promoting things that I see that they do online, or, Pay Equity Standards is really about making sure that arts workers are being paid not only a living wage, but a comparable wage to a lot of the other people that you would see.

Historically, creatives, directors, choreographers, composers, they make a very specific thing, and producers take even more on top.

And so Pay Equity Standards sort of leans into the fact that anyone who's a part of making art and in the artistic process should be paid accordingly and comparable.

And then Democracy Now is actually, it is a news organization that is online that I find for this period of our history, it is the most, I would say, honest.

And it's not media that's filtered, and I don't find a lot of propaganda.

And so I support them.

And they talk to a lot of artists, they talk to a lot of writers, specifically about stuff that's happening overseas.

So I try to spend as much time as I can listening to those artists.

I learn a lot about things that are happening outside, and really truthfully, as an artist who's also working for change, it's really inspiring to see people other places that are working in these ways.

- So, KO, tell me how Power Street Theater was able to convince you to be in the play "Siluetas" and return to the stage.

Tell me about that process.

- I'm an artist and I wanted to keep making art, but for some of the reasons that we already discussed, the professional arena is not really making the change that I wanted.

So I found Power Street by way of a workshop that was being done at the O'Neill Theater Center.

And when I met the creatives and I met the writers, what I recognized where they were, Power Street is a value centered theater company, equitable practices, comparable pay, all of those things are like their central focus.

And they're also inside the community, specifically in Philadelphia.

And they're working consistently, for a very long time they've been a part of the community.

And so those are the kinds of artistic spaces that I wanna lend my voice to and that I wanna be a part of because I feel like that is the area for us to make change.

It's not about the money, it's not about awards.

It's about filtering all of your art back into the community and also showing what the community is to a broader audience.

And Power Street, that's the kind of company that is actually doing the work that they say that they're doing.

And then on top of it, the piece is fantastic.

It's about ancestry and it's about displacement.

And they're all really important topics for today's age.

And so in terms of an artist who wants to work for social change, I'm actually able to make art and speak about things that need to be spoken about.

And so it was a marriage made in heaven.

And it's one of my favorite pieces alive.

- I love it.

I love it.

And I love that Power Street has a pay what you want to to be able to see the play, that's amazing.

- This is what I'm talking about.

This is what I'm talking about.

- I know it runs until June 23rd.

So if people haven't seen it yet, please get out there.

- It's also important to say that they are also raising funds so that we can provide childcare at some of our matinees, which is another sort of like, it's an important way of supporting the community.

There are so many people who have children and can't afford to get a babysitter to go to the theater, and these are stories that need to be heard by some of these people.

So they're doing the work to support the community to come into the theater and see themselves.

And I think we might still be fundraising, so that's something that people can, they can donate.

- Yeah, I'm very excited and proud of the work you're doing, and proud to have you on "Que Pasa."

Thank you for being part of our familia.

- Oh, thank you so much for having me.

(upbeat music) - So familia, that's a wrap on today's episode of "Que Pasa."

A big thank you to our guests, and don't forget to follow us on Instagram at QuePasaNJ and catch up on our five seasons streaming now on PBS.org.

Before we go, I wanna highlight the release of "Relentless: My Story of the Latino Spirit That Is Transforming America" by Luis A. Miranda Jr.

Praised by Rita Moreno as a wonderful book, the memoir also features a forward by his son, Lin-Manuel Miranda.

Check it out, more information on the screen.

- [Announcer] Funding for this episode of "Que Pasa NJ" with Carlos Medina has been provided by: Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey.

New Jersey Economic Development Authority, Hackensack Meridian Health.

The Engineers Labor-Employer Cooperative 825.

PSE&G.

ROI-NJ Business Magazine.

Thanks to the statewide Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of New Jersey.

Find out more about our familia at shccnj.org.

This has been a production of the Modesto Educational Foundation.

(upbeat Latin music)