This past spring, LATC presented the play Just Like Us directed by director, actor, writer, teaching artist and LACHSA alum, Fidel Gomez, Theatre ’97, and starring LACHSA alum, Blanca Isabella, Theatre ’20. Since they had worked together on the show, we thought it would be interesting to get them both in the same virtual room for an interview. The LACHSA Foundation’s Director of Development and Communications, Lisa Cassandra, sat down with them in June to learn more about these incredibly talented alumni.

Lisa: Blanca Isabella, you graduated from LACHSA Theatre in 2020 and then attended Boston University, right?

Blanca Isabella: “I loved BU. Yes, I went to Boston [University] and then for one semester I studied at LAMDA in London. (I believe Fidel also studied at LAMDA.) It was my study abroad. BU is partnered up with LAMDA. And their whole goal for the acting majors [with Study Abroad] is just go study, do something, go somewhere that’s not the US—go out and be a person, we don’t even care if you study acting. I mean I studied acting but I have friends who studied culinary arts in Italy, they did the craziest things—we just want you to go out and be a person and live life so this way you actually have some substance behind you as an actor.”

Lisa: What was your journey after LACHSA?

Blanca Isabella: Because of the pandemic, my freshman year of college I stayed in LA and was doing school via Zoom. I was also volunteering at a non profit called Legacy LA. I was passionate about arts education and learning about arts administration. While I was working there, there was a company called Company of Angels that shared the space with Legacy LA. They were workshopping this script, and they were like “hey Blanca aren’t you an actor, didn’t you go to school for acting? Can you come and do this table read for this script, the writer wants to hear the words it’s not an audition or anything.” I said okay yeah! I did it and I loved it. I remember thinking I just hope I get to audition. Then I kept getting called back to do more table reads, and I was like wow okay they are really developing this script! It turned into developing the script/auditioning people in their own way. And I ended up getting the lead role. So that was my first feature out of school, “Lolo.” It happened in the most untraditional way. I’m happy that I learned that lesson early on that sometimes what you think your dream is maybe isn’t going to happen the way you think. No! It’s going to happen in a whole (different way). I wasn’t going to tell my younger self to go work at a non-profit, so that way you can get a lead role in feature film. It just happens the way it’s supposed to be. That was the first thing I got out of LACHSA. Then come my sophomore year, that’s when I made the move out to Boston.

Lisa: So you had already had a professional job while in college. And you have been working pretty steady since college, right?

Blanca Isabella: I would come back home during the (school) breaks and try to do short films as much as I could and independent/indie films. And a lot of new work. My second professional theatre job was in Boston at the Boston Playwrights Theatre. It was so cool, I got do it with my best friend! BU is very different, they want you in class and they want you present for all your requirements, but they are also very encouraging of if you have work go do that and seek it out. All my professors were very supportive of me going to auditions and finishing a job. I had really good mentors at BU.

Lisa: Are you based in Los Angeles now?

Blanca Isabella: I am fully based in LA.

Lisa: Wow, that’s great! It’s good to have you back! The show that you were in, that Fidel directed was called “Just Like Us” at LACC. I understand from the reading that I did about it, is that it’s a story about belonging. To me that’s something that’s really important to the culture of LACHSA, is that everyone feels like they belong. Did you have that experience at LACHSA? And can you talk a little bit about belonging at LACHSA?

Blanca Isabella: The main reason I wanted to go to LACHSA was to belong somewhere. I’m from the San Gabriel Valley, so I’m a bit away from the city of LA. And out here where I was supposed to go for my district high school, there was not even a drama club. If there is an arts elective, it’s visual arts (not shaming visual arts at all, love visual arts) but that’s not my particular passion. My passion is theatre and I didn’t have that outlet here. And especially back then in the early 2000’s when I was growing up, all the acting classes were like in Sherman Oaks or Burbank. And it cost an arm and a leg. I grew up with a single mom and she was like that’s not going to happen. And not because she didn’t want it to happen, it just was not an actual possibility.

And I remember, I found out about this school (LACHSA) and I WAS going to go there. I didn’t know how, but I was like “I am going to go there!” And I did little acting classes here and there. And it just became my goal from 5^th grade moving forward. I wanted to go to LACHSA because it’s the best school and it’s the number one (public high school in the nation). I remember watching Fame High, the documentary about it, and I remember getting more excited about it. I was like oh my gosh, I want to go here and I’m going to work so hard to go! And come middle school, I just remember seventh grade into eight grade I was reading plays and different materials for my monologues. My whole existence at that point was about this school. For me it was a ticket to my dream and a ticket to actually belonging somewhere. Not that I wasn’t happy at my other school, because I had friends and stuff, but they just didn’t understand my passion. Life there was going to school, and talking about who you had a crush on. It was the more common teenager, pre-teen things (that were talked about). There is nothing wrong with that at all but my mind was consumed with art and this whole other world that I wanted to be apart of. So when I finally I heard about LACHSA and knew it was a possibility, it was the only thing in my mind.

I wasn’t fully trained, but LACHSA (thankfully) had a list of recommended monologues and I just went down that list and I picked. I did my audition. We waited. I remember we were at Tacos Gavilan and I was with my mom and my grandparents and my mom opened the email. I remember crying before she said anything because all this build up and mental preparation is all in this email. And I just remember getting emotional but I think it’s because for me it was everything, especially as a pre-teen. It was my everything. And then I finally got in and I was super excited!

When I got there I met so many friends, I had so many friends in the Cinematic Arts department, I had so many theatre friends, I have visual artists friends as well. I could connect to people, when you have that common passion, that common dream and goal – it’s a deeper connection. It’s still high school…there is going to be…I had a lot of ups and downs as well. You’re going through all the things that a regular highschooler does when you’re at LACHSA. It’s not always rainbows, but I was so happy there and would gladly go through all the ups and downs at LACHSA than at my district high school any day, because I was able to work every day on my art. That made me happy and made me feel the most authentic version of myself. So going back to belonging, LACHSA was the only choice for me at that time. That was my dream, that was my goal. It truly did make me happy. And I know so many people have different experiences at LACHSA but truly when I look back at it, it really was my home. My time at LACHSA nourished me in so many ways.

Lisa: That’s so beautiful. You are the reason the school was created. I mean the fact that you didn’t have access to programs that you wanted to have access to. The way the program is, the feeling of belonging, everything you described is what our founding visionaries had in mind when they created the school. They wanted to have a school that worked for people like you, someone who has to express themselves and has to have that intensive training because they love their art so much. So thank you, you expressed it so well.

Lisa: [To Fidel who just entered the Zoom] Blanca Isabella and I were just saying that the show you directed, “Just Like Us,” had a theme of belonging. And we were talking about that theme as it relates to LACSHA and the fact that LACHSA prides itself on a place where artists can belong and feel confident and comfortable in sharing their art. What was your experience like regarding that at LACHSA?

Fidel: I definitely feel like when I first got there I was like, great, there is a place for other weirdos and trippy people and it was actually cool to be weird at LACHSA. The trippier you were, the cooler you were. There wasn’t this jock mentality, that was semi-prevalent in my previous school. My best friend Ted Lange was in the visual arts department and we both came from a private school in the valley, transferring over in ninth grade.

It was great, it was such a culturally diverse group of people, people from all over the city. And it felt very welcoming in terms of acceptance, obviously there was always clicks here and there but there were never clicks of like “we hate you” or “they hate us”. It was always just like this is who you choose to roll with. I remember me and my friend Ted would walk around school, pumping disco on a boom box and that was accepted at LACHSA. You could do that. You could walk around all day playing the Bee Gees and nobody looked at you like “oh what is wrong with you” – it was just a part of the world. It was pretty awesome to feel like you were amongst people who were like minded and there wasn’t a lot of judgment.

Lisa: One of the things that is thrilling about LACHSA is that the students get inspired by each other. They have these amazing teaching artists who are working artists in the profession, and they get to be inspired by them, but there is something magical that happens between the students. They lift each other up and there’s a healthy amount of competition that also helps to raise everybody up. It’s stunning. Can you talk to that?

Fidel: There was definitely some competitive juice in my year in the theatre department. And then there were the older students, now looking back they were just kids but at that time it felt like they were thirty years olds – they were just two years older! The training we had at that time, the rigor—I really appreciated how rigorous it was. There was a lot of discipline involved. There were a lot of standards set in terms of where the bar was. I remember my first years at NYU, this was like review. I had done this already, obviously not everything, but it felt like LACHSA had been so much more rigorous than NYU was when I first started there. The standard was set by the teachers. Miss Silva—when I was there Vicky Silva was the department chair and she hired some really excellent teachers. There was always this level that you were trying to achieve, to feel like you were doing your part to elevate your year, but also the department as a whole. I felt like I had to prove myself (not in a negative way). I think in the best possible way.

Blanca Isabella: I totally agree. I feel like my year also had a level of competitiveness as well. It was like who’s going to have the best scene? Who’s going to have the best monologue today? Oh dang, they brough props! We all had that level of good competitiveness because you need that as an artist, you want to get better. You’re learning from each other, you see someone doing something that maybe is at the next level and you’re like “next week I bet I’m going to be there too.” I had a lot of cinematic arts friends and I love the cinematic arts department as well. Every week they had to make a proof of concept or make a short film. That inspired me so much. When I was on set I learned so much being with them, but also just seeing how the idea that’s in their head [came out] next weekend. “Let’s shoot it!” That, for me, made things so much more tangible and I think that it was good as a young actor to see that. Yes, I am studying acting, but also there is cinematic arts too, and I’m passionate about both. That was something that was amazing at LACHSA, the interdisciplinary-ness of it all. And even though, yes, my major was theatre, I could express myself in different ways and learn about different things. So even though I wasn’t in the cinematic arts department, when I was observing people from there, I was learning from them. Let me take these lessons from you, and also I was applying things I was learning from other people to theatre. So things I was learning on set, the way that we would prepare, I would apply that to the way I would do my process on set. And I still do that, I apply things I learn in theatre to being on set, and things I learn on being on set in a rehearsal room.

I agree with Fidel, once I went to BU…I realized I was so blessed and so lucky to get this education so young, you know? At this age I’ve already been studying this for now going to be eight years, going on nine years. Most people are like “oh I have my MFA, now its’s been eight years.” When you go to LACSHA or you go to a performing arts high school and then go to undergrad, you’re like yeah, I’ve already done my time of an MFA. It’s really awesome and cool to have that level of training in your body at such a young age.

Lisa: You both worked together on the play Just Like Us. Did you know each other before that?

Fidel: Yes, Blanca was one of my students when I taught at LACHSA, that’s how I knew about her. She was one of my best students, in all the years I was there. I knew she was back in LA and I was like who better than to audition for this role. I brought her in. I honestly haven’t seen her act in probably five years or more, so I didn’t know what was going to happen. You can obviously see the talent was still there, you know the technique had advanced. We had a lot of amazing people audition for this show, including Blanca. It was really eye opening to see, there is so much young talent out there – all is needed sometimes is an opportunity to put them in front of people and put them on stage. This was the first time we worked together professionally.

Lisa: How long did you teach at LACHSA?

Fidel: Honestly I was in and out. I would teach for a semester and then I would get a job. I would say cumulatively probably three years total. I also directed a show there, where I wasn’t necessarily teaching but I was working with the students. I know I made it very hard for Mrs. Hunter to keep employing me because, you know the inconsistency. The students also deserve consistency. Being there everyday really matters. Having that solid base for the students is really important. So eventually I decided to let it go (teaching job), even though I’ll still talk to Mrs. Hunter here and there about maybe coming back to at least direct a show. I always have a passion for working with LACHSA because that’s where I first picked up everything I do.

Lisa: I love that the two of you collaborated. Do you find yourself collaborating with other LACHSA grads? Do you stay in touch with alumni that you knew in school and do you work together?

Blanca Isabella: I have so many friends who are actors and filmmakers now and still doing it. We were in the same class. Some people who were a few classes ahead of me. I’ve kept in great touch with a lot of my LACHSA community. I’m really grateful for many of us from my year and a few years ahead of me kept at it and stuck with the arts. I’m really happy to see that.

Lisa Cassandra: Especially since you went through the pandemic.

Blanca Isabella: Yes, and we were tested. The pandemic said, “Do you want this or do you not?” And we were like, “Yes we do”.

Lisa Cassandra: Fidel, do you also keep in touch with people from LACHSA?

Fidel: Yes, absolutely. Ted and I ended up forming a theatre company. He was a visual artist at the time but he got more into writing and acting. So we started a group called “The Vault” with another LACHSA alumni named Aaron Garcia who actually wasn’t there when I was there, we met afterward, but he was also from LACHSA. He is one of my best friends now. So I definitely have kept in touch with people. I also have friends who I don’t necessarily collaborate with. Obviously I am much older than Blanca so the bonds are not as tight as they once were because life happens, people move away, but some of my very best friends to this day are people that have gone through LACHSA and who I met at LACHSA.

Lisa Cassandra: What’s next for both of you now? Fidel, I know you are in Hamlet which I am so excited to see. But tell me a little bit of that and then what might be next on the horizon for you.

Fidel: Yeah, right after we opened “Just Like Us,” I had about ten days off and then started rehearsals for Hamlet. That was an amazing experience working with Robert O’Hara who’s a true pioneer and visionary. An unapologetic artist. He takes big chances and big swings, which as a director is kind of a learning experience for me. I get caught up in, “I want everyone to love my play”. And I mean like obviously Robert wants people to like his plays but also part of him that is like “If you don’t like it, [too bad]. There is a part of him that is very unapologetic and that’s been amazing to see. The cast is lovely. There is a lot of great actors working at a really high level in the show. I always like to be around artists that I can be inspired by, that I can learn from. I think it’s my favorite environment to be in. So we will be doing that until July 6^th I believe.

I have several other projects, too. I am actually just about jump on a Zoom right after this. I am developing a new musical with a buddy of mine Eduardo Enriquez. It’s in English, Spanish, and Nahuatl (which is an indigenous language from Mexico). We are going to do a workshop of it in Summer. I’m also working on a collaboration with two artists from Mexico City, a project called “Born in America.” We did a workshop here at the LATC. We’re going to go down to Mexico and probably film it and work with them for about a week then do a more substantial workshop with some more production behind it. I’m also collaborating with a writer named Gabe Rivas Gomez (no relation). We’re working on a play called “Level Up.” We’re going to workshop it this summer in Atlanta at the Alliance Theatre. It’s about a young trans girl, who kind of lives in this online world where she can be her true self. She goes on this journey of self-discovery that helps her come out to her father who’s not accepting of who she is. It’s a really beautiful multi-generational story. So these are the three things that are happening in quick succession. And then in the fall I should be directing, “Just Like Us” again at East Los Angeles College with an all-student cast. It’s going to be a very different show, but I’m excited for that.

Lisa: And Blanca, what’s next for you?

Blanca Isabella: I just booked my first national commercial, which I’m very excited about. I can’t say what it is yet, but I’m very excited. It happened so quickly. Literally we wrapped our show and then the next day I had this self-tape and I filmed it. It just happened super quick. I’m on wait and advised for a tv show right now, so I’m praying it goes through but we’ll see. But things are fully happening!

I have a short film that I’m doing later on this month. I have a lot of film work. I have a short film in the fall. I’m in talks with Danny Pfeiffer and Carlos Cardona—they just won best episodic at LALIFF. (And I was in an episode of a show that just screened at LALIFF also.) We’re in talks about doing a feature called “Brujeria” about immigration and horror. It’s going to be a cool one.

And then I’ve been getting into writing. I wrote a play called “Para Siempre” and it’s been workshopped a little bit here and there throughout the year. But I’m going to keep developing it. We’re hoping that later in the fall—I want to take that inspiration I got at the cinematic arts department and fully direct it and step into that side now. So, I’m still collaborating with some of my friends who are filmmakers about that. Hopefully by the end of the year we’ll shoot that, which I’m really excited about. That would be my first ever writer/director credit in a film. So we’ll see. And of course, I’m always auditioning that’s the name of the game. I love auditioning. Especially when I get to do an in-person audition! I love it because I get to act. I just treat it as an opportunity to act.

I’m just so happy to be where I am. It’s like they say, you tell God your plans and then He laughs at you. As an actor, you have all these things lined up, or you have a thing in your mind and God’s like, “Oh by the way you’re actually going to do this instead.” That’s how I got my first feature. Your plan is like I’m going to do this and then God is like “Oh no, you’re going to work here and then you’ll get your first feature.” You never know how your journey pans out. I’m very grateful for how everything is panning out right now. It’s my first year out of college.

I am so grateful to Fidel and I am so grateful to LATC for giving me this opportunity to be in “Just Like Us.” It’s a great full circle moment, from LACSHA, to BU, and then now back home to work with Fidel. Mrs. Hunter came and saw, “Just Like Us”. That was beautiful. It’s been a beautiful culmination of all these different parts of my life, coming together again.

Lisa: It’s been awesome meeting you both. Is there anything you want to say about LACHSA, your experience at LACHSA, or your experience in the business that relates to LACHSA?

Fidel: I was invited to address the graduating class a year or two ago and it made me really reflect on my experience there. My creativity, my imagination had always been a part of me, but I feel like the first kind of real steps towards manifesting this in a real-world way started at LACHSA. It was the first place to actually show me forms of technique, really taking steps to craft what your imagination can think of… how to bring that to life? How do we put that before people? How do we present it? I’ve carried that throughout my professional career. I told the graduating students that we used to play this sound ball game or Zip-Zap-Zop, where you pass the sound. I told them in the speech that I hated this game. I hated it with a passion. This is just something the teacher makes us do because they’re bored or want us to pass the time or whatever. But then it hit me when I was really thinking about it – this transference of energy from one human being to another is the basis of all acting. That’s what I tell my actors. You send energy, you receive and change and then you respond. That is the basis of every scene and every play. I mean, it’s really amazing to think that something so simple is really extremely profound and that journey started at LACHSA, understanding things like that. There are so many things you learn along the way, many seeds were planted at LACHSA that later came to fruition. It’s something that I always hold near and dear to my heart, my experience there.

Lisa Cassandra: It seems to me it’s a place where you first get validated for your art. You feel like you’re safe, right? Which is so important to the artistic process.

Blanca Isabella: Yes! And to hear it from your mentors, to hear it from your teachers. From [Mrs.] Hunter, who is someone who when I was there, I would call her my “Theatre Mom”. Exactly what you’re saying, that validation of you can do this, and you’re good, and that’s why you’re here. That’s another thing, when you’re there it’s so easy to wonder if you belong there –  especially when you don’t come from a family that traditionally does this. I was the first one in my family to pursue anything in the arts. So when I got into LACHSA – boom – and then in the day-to-day you start questioning yourself, “do I really belong here, am I good enough?” To have those moments with your teachers, or with your peers and say, hey I see you, you are supposed to be doing this. Those moments were everything. And at LACHSA you get to have that. It’s like I see you, you’re meant to be doing this and also let’s work on this to make you better. That’s thing I always appreciated, especially with my teachers at LACHSA. (They) never sugarcoat anything. And I love that. It was always like, “Hey you’re doing good work kid but also remember what I told you about this and this and that.” And I love that. I love being in that environment of people always pushing you.

I’m always going to vouch for LACHSA, I love it. It really was my everything. My number one goal from 5^th to 8^th grade was to get into this school. That was the only place where I could really express myself in this way. And once I was there, I was always so conscious of “I’m so lucky to be here.” I’m going to get emotional, but I remember having day where I would get tired because I have this test or this rehearsal after school and it’s so overwhelming and then you get pulled into peer pressure wanting to slack off or whatever. And then you’re reminded, “you know how many people from my hometown, from my little city would kill to be here and have one lesson at LACHSA…have one workshop here?” And I was consistently reminded of that when I was there. That’s why I will never take LACHSA for granted because I was so blessed. Obviously, it took hard work and I worked to be there. But I was also blessed that I got in, and that I had the support system to guide me to be there because it changed my life.

I truly believe…I know I would have found my way to acting somehow, but LACHSA really was what made my dream a tangible actionable thing. It let me know this is not just a dream, this is something that I can actually do. And here is the roadmap that you can take. That is for me what LACHSA was. And that is something I always loved about LACHSA, that they were always up front about what you put in is what you get out.

What I would say to LACHSA students is that LACHSA is an incredible school, with incredible opportunities, so much to learn, so many people to learn from – take everything! Take every opportunity, take every creative risk, take every lesson to heart. Use your time there because it goes by so fast. And when you look back, just like Fidel says, “You’re going to be like wow” And you’re still going to be using the things that you learned from LACHSA later. It’s a beautiful place—it molded me and shaped me. I’m always going to promote LACHSA, forever. It’s an incredible school.

Lisa: We agree! It is an incredible school. And we are so grateful for your time and wisdom. Great luck to you both!