We were lucky to catch up with Ernest Figueroa recently and have shared our conversation below.
Ernest, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.
One the most meaningful projects I have been invloved with is my 23 year association as a co-founder of the national theater conference Directors Lab West. Founded in 2000, Directors Lab West is an eight-day national theatre conference offered to mid-career directors and choreographers by invitation only. The theater conference consists of panels, discussions, workshops, lectures, and symposiums offered free to 30-50 mid-career directors and choreographers in residence at the historic Pasadena Playhouse. Directors Lab West has always been reflective of the current waves moving through the American theatre providing a space for mid-career and emerging directors and choreographers to have a dynamic exchange and interaction with their peers.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
Since my early youth I wanted to be involved in the performing arts and sought out continual opportunities wherever I could find them, which included a boy’s choir and participation in forensic competitions in junior high and then onto theater in high school and college. While others were involving themselves deeply in the burgeoning 99 seat theatre scene in Los Angeles, I found opportunities to express myself with more supportive youth church camps writing and performing sketches and then moving on to full length plays and finally being the founder of a small faith-based theater company producing traditional and original work including writing my first musical. Circumstances led me to a small liberal arts college in McPherson Kansas where I earned my BA in Speech and Theater Education. Returning to Los Angeles I began working professionally and quickly went from the administrative staff at the famed Groundling Theater to the Pasadena Playhouse to Lorimar Telepictures. Seizing an opportunity to broaden my work I attended the University of Hawaii, Manoa earning an MFA in Theater and Dance with an Emphasis in Directing. This led to opportunities to perform in Hawaii and broaden my work to include television production. I also spent time teaching and directing in Alaska at the renowned University of Fairbanks Summer Fine Arts Camp. After completing Grad school, I was invited to teach and direct as a guest artist at Fairfield University in Connecticut. This led to a professional position as the National Education Director for Plays for Living, Inc. in New York City. Family dictated a return to the west coast where I began working for Telemundo and then eventually produced and directed the award-winning talk show Adelante! focusing on Hispanic role models. I returned to theatre when invited to be the Associate Artistic Director, Dramaturg and Casting Director for the Sacramento Theater Company. It was from this opportunity I applied to the Lincoln Center Theater Director’s Lab. The following year I was awarded a Drama League fellowship with the Roundabout Theater Company working on a new play “Blue” starting the Tony award winning Phylicia Rashad eventually taking the play on tour with Leslie Uggams. It was around this time, along with five other NYC-LCT Alumni that we founded Directors Lab West settling in Pasadena California in 2000. I eventually took my varied skills and moved on to serving the city of Pasadena department of Cultural Affairs while simultaneously working for Mattel, Inc. as an Associate Director and Performer with the “American Girl Revue”, the second longest musical that has run in Los Angeles. I was then solicited by actress Bonnie Franklin to produce and direct stage readings of Classic and Contemporary American Plays (CCAP) for LA County underserved juniors and seniors. Shortly thereafter I was named the Artistic Director of the Group Repertory Theatre in North Hollywood but was quickly scooped up by the newly opened presenting house Broad Stage in Santa Monica where over the next eleven years I served as the Producer of over 900 performances of the highest caliber work in music, theatre, dance, jazz, classical music, lectures, and multi-media events with such performers as Josh Groban and Mikhail Baryshnikov. After the pandemic event I left the Broad Stage and was offered a position working as an on-air personality and DJ at Z1077 FM. Coming out of the pandemic led me to an opportunity to serve as a consultant with the
Leadership Transition Team with Arts Consulting group where I help find and place the next generation of leader within the arts sector. As the only remaining founding member of Directors Lab West, I still produce the annual conference which relaunched in 2023 as well as occasionally still find opportunities to direct staged readings, do dramaturgical work, and direct fully staged theatre.
What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?
I think there is a story we are told that in order to achieve your goals you must have a solid and specific defined map to get ‘there’. However, I have found there have been so many ‘theres’ in my life, that setting my sights on one might have caused me to miss others. It wasn’t until halfway through my journey that I realized I had been living by an unarticulated philosophy. I realized that guiding principle was “to never say no to an opportunity”. I have had successes in many of the goals I did manage to set for myself but never in the timetable that I thought would happen and perhaps not at the levels I had hoped. Dwelling on the near-misses sometimes led me off the track entirely. But ultimately, I came to realize it was through all the ‘other’ unexpected achievements is where I have frequently been most fulfilled. Perhaps it was because they were unexpected. Patience is not simply a virtue; it is a necessity. As time goes on, I have been able to realize the many bullets I have dodged in not getting what I wanted when I wanted it. By walking through the open doors, and not bemoaning the closed ones, I realized the success in reaching the summit of mountains I never intended to climb and have celebrated lessons learned by embracing the joy of those achievements
Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?
As a young man I wanted so much to be an actor. I gratefully have done that and done it successfully. But I think what many non-creatives may not see is that I achieved so much more success by widening my field of vision and opening the umbrella. I wanted to be a successful actor, until I started to direct and realized how much more fulfilled I was in that. I Then realized my organizational skills as a director led me to the innate ability to be a successful producer. That skill set allowed me to achieve a much larger goal and that was to make a living working in the entertainment field. That is something that allowed me not only to succeed but achieve success. To make a living as a performer certainly could have been the goal but by being less myopic and expanding my vision to “being successful in the entertainment field” provided so many more opportunities. I tell people you can only harvest the field you sew your seeds in. If that field was only acting, then that may have been the only opportunity to succeed. By expanding the net there was so much more for the asking. Finally, early in my career I learned that my efforts may never be enough. The disappointments were too profound. Wallowing in self disappointment and standing still was not the way to succeed. However having faith that there was some larger plan kept me from despair and helped me to know that whatever path I was on was indeed the right one. I now help others find their next artistic endeavor. All roads have led to my position as an Associate Vice President with Arts Consulting Group, and I needed each and every one of those many roads travelled to get here.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.ernestfigueroa.com
- Facebook: Ernest A Figueroa
- Linkedin: Ernest A. Figueroa
- Other: www.directorslabwest.com