Gladys Ramirez has some large sneakers to fill, taking up for Susi Westfall, City Theatre’s founder, a truth of which Ramirez is properly conscious.
“They’re large sneakers to fill, everybody is aware of Susi, so very large sneakers to fill,” says Ramirez. “Susi got here to be on the helm of a giant cultural establishment in Miami when that wasn’t a factor.” Ramirez provides, “When I graduated from New World School of the Arts, there weren’t quite a lot of ladies in cost, a lot much less Latin ladies. For me to be a Latina girl on this place now, I’ve so much to dwell as much as, and I do not wish to disappoint the neighborhood.”
A fixture within the Miami arts neighborhood theater, Ramirez realizes that so many members of the neighborhood, in a technique or one other, have been concerned with City Theatre and says, “Susi has been great about letting me do my factor and switch the chapter on to this new period of City Theatre. She’s been very encouraging, and we have labored properly collectively.”
Westfall will stay on the City Theatre’s board of administrators, leaving the group in additional than succesful fingers. Ramirez’s life in theater started on the ripe previous age of 10 when she was within the college manufacturing of Annie. But she wasn’t fascinated with enjoying the red-headed lead; she was a fan of one other function.
“I noticed Carol Burnett play Ms. Hannigan, and I auditioned and obtained the half within the college manufacturing. It was my first style of theater in fifth grade, and that is the place a lot of my private ardour comes from,” Ramirez says.
She continued performing in performs all through highschool, and her connection to City Theatre started shortly after she did six seasons of its Shorts Gone Wild, the corporate’s LGBTQ collection. She was additionally working with Fantasy Theatre Factory.
“I used to be going wherever I might discover work, and I stored getting employed again for Shorts Gone Wild, and I cherished it. That expertise allowed me to play a variety of characters as a substitute of being stereotyped to play the Latin lady,” Ramirez says.
Margaret Ledford, City Theatre’s creative director, gave Ramirez her first alternative to direct, resulting in doing 5 or 6 extra directing positions.
Prior to taking up at City Theatre, she labored in neighborhood engagement and public programming on the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami within the Design District and the Norton Museum in West Palm Beach, the place she was director of viewers engagement.
“All of this was an ideal studying expertise. I obtained to see issues from the opposite facet, find out about group and administration in addition to managing bigger budgets,” she says.
Then, like so many individuals, the pandemic modified issues for her, and he or she felt she wanted to return to her old flame: theater.
“I felt like I’d completed so much. I knew I wished to do my very own factor, then Margaret and I began the dialog. She talked about Susi was contemplating transitioning, and I got here to City Theatre in October 2021 as common supervisor,” Ramirez says.
Over the course of that 12 months, when Ramirez was common supervisor, she says, “Susi started going over every part it took for the transition.”
Being in cost additionally comes with private targets and missions, which as govt director, Ramirez has many.
She desires to place the “metropolis” into City Theatre and make investments locally. As the launching pad for Hollywood darling Oscar Isaac, who did a Summer Shorts in addition to the careers of different playwrights, Ramirez is aware of they’ve assist across the nation.
“My function now’s the right storm, using my neighborhood engagement and programming with theater background and making what we produce and the way we current it a significant funding,” she says.
That contains growing their profitable City Reads program additional, increasing it to different cities and counties and for different ages, in the end growing neighborhood partnerships.
“We wish to use our platform to increase the dialog. Those sorts of concepts are what we wish to transfer ahead with,” Ramirez says.
Also, she desires to have a look at how City Theatre’s applications match into each other and the way they’re reaching audiences even from a growth standpoint, and to proceed the momentum of Give Miami Day the place “what we raised for was phenomenal for our dimension,” she says.
Finally, “we have to work on the drain of expertise each on stage and behind the scenes — what can we do to carry the theater neighborhood collectively to have these sources, have native folks in these roles, and discover methods to collaborate with the theater neighborhood,” she says
Ramirez is as much as the duty saying, “I’m getting into the stage in my life that I wish to put my head down and do that, take possession.”
– Josie Gulliksen, ArtburstMiami.com