We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Luísa Galatti a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Luísa, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

The most exciting part of acting in projects that I’m producing is the immense passion that drives me. I always knew that I didn’t want to be an actor just to perform. I’ve always known that only performing wasn’t enough for me. Don’t get me wrong, performing is a beautiful art form and my first love. However, my dedication to telling the story from multiple angles fuels my best work. My best involvement in a project is usually when I’m producing it – or I was lucky and got cast in something that I truly love. One of my biggest flaws is that I cannot engage in anything I don’t genuinely enjoy, which leads me to pursue only the things I love – it’s a blessing and a curse.

Recently, I had the opportunity to produce and perform in Diana Son’s ‘Stop Kiss’, under the direction of Suzanne DiDonna at Theater for the New City. This beautiful story revolves around two women who fall in love, but tragedy strikes when one of them is viciously assaulted after their first kiss in the streets of the West Village. I played Callie, the one who suffers less physical harm and has to deal with the painful aftermath of the incident. The play weaves back and forth in time, making me experience the most enlightening and devastating moments of my character’s life within a mere 20 seconds, repeated eleven times. It was an immensely challenging and rewarding experience delving deep into this character development. I found myself pondering over details, dreaming about ideas and symbols, waking up already in character and commuting to rehearsal like that.

Now, I’m super excited about Et Alia Theater’s next production, ‘Until Dark,’ written and directed by Federica Borlenghi. I will be playing the youngest of three sisters who are going through a very delicate moment in their lives. The play reflects on consent and the intricacies of sisterhood, while testing its ties and boundaries.
I like to say that working on a character is like falling in love. Suddenly, all you can think about is them and what they would do in certain situations, where they like to go, what they listen to… the list is endless. And when it’s over… damn, there’s the heartbreak.

Luísa, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My name is Luísa Galatti, and I’m a scene artist based in New York City. I call myself a scene artist because it best defines the diversity of roles I take in film and theater productions. Primarily, I work as an actor and producer, but I’m involved in multiple aspects of a project. My journey began when I was just 9 years old, performing in school, and never stopped. I can’t recall a moment that “the big decision” was made because that had always been my path.

I started my theater career in São Paulo, my hometown, performing in plays like “Distopia Brasil” directed by Pedro Granato. In the beginning of 2020, I moved to New York to study at The Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute. In NY, I ended up making many great artistic connections and opportunities to bring projects to life, so I’ve been shaping my career here ever since.

Soon after arriving in New York, I joined Et Alia Theater, an international women’s theater company. Our goal is to provide a platform for diverse voices, bringing together a unique blend of foreign and immigrant perspectives. Over the years, we have staged several productions including ‘Stella, Come Home’, a dance-theater piece that translates the iconic American play A Streetcar Named Desire into movement through the sound of music from our countries, and ‘This is Me Eating___’ an immersive theater installation made of women bodies as they deal with their relationship to eating.

In collaboration with a collective of artists in the city, I have also led some film projects, including ”Til Morning,’ a short film about Julia, a young woman who has to choose between surrendering to her family and selling herself to a stranger. I also produced ‘Fog Around August,’ a short film that captures a drunken conversation between two friends-turned-lovers, offering a glimpse of a young man’s desires, or lack thereof.

After collaborating on multiple projects, I teamed up with Ryan Cairns and Cornelius Boeder to create “It’s On the Box Collective,” an artistic collective that seeks exploration rather than definition.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

It is very important to me that I keep exploring the multiple possibilities of being me. A very strong process that I’m constantly going through is transforming the way I look, particularly my hair. Every now and then I drastically change my haircut or color, and it always turns out to match the creative process that I’m going through and the characters that I’m playing. It comes from a need of letting go of accumulated heavy energy built up with all the stressful side of being a creative, overtly sensitive person. In 2019 I cut my hair very short for the play “Distopia Brasil”, in 2021 I dyed it platinum it for my character in “‘Til Morning” and in the beginning of this year I dyed it red for “Stop Kiss”.
I discovered this need for hair experimentation at a young age. I remember cutting my hair into a short bob, and it aligned perfectly with the character I was playing in “Fame”, Carmen Jones. Almost subconsciously it was helping me build characters and stay in the universe of the plays that I was putting up.
It’s fascinating how people look at you differently with a new haircut or color, and that influences your behavior as well. It’s artistically fulfilling to go through that process over and over again, and I believe that to be one of my strongest artistic traits.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

Always look to consume from local sources. And I mean from grocery shopping to theater. Whenever you can support hand-made, home crafted or independently made products, please do it. It’s really hard to compete with huge commercial companies because they have resources to reach a huge pool of people, whereas smaller businesses struggle to build a clientship. It is also more sustainable and fulfilling to engage in this lifestyle – you get to know the source of the things you’re consuming and get to know the creators. So whenever you can, shop from that local store (check out https://www.precyclenyc.com), buy jewelry from a local artist (check out https://www.instagram.com/watersignstore/), go watch theater from independent local artists and so on and so forth. And, of course, refer everything you like to your friends – spread the word!

Contact Info:

• Website: luisagalatti.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/luisagalatti/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/luisa-galatti-0b74a01a2/

Image Credits
Alexia Haick from Stop Kiss, still from Who Were You in New York by Stella Rea, Alexia Haick from White Rabbit Red Rabbit and photo from Distopia Brasil.