Actor Bobby Soto and Director Marissa Chibás Cultivate Community through Theatre

Bobby Soto’s mother put him in acting to stay out of trouble when he was a kid. The way it turned out, he liked it.

For the last fifteen years, Soto has been seen in films like The Tax Collector, A Million Miles Away, and Generator Rex. As he’s glided from one project to the next, he’s questioned his place as a Latino actor in the Hollywood landscape. He expected more authentic scripts, more honest stories that reflect his experience.

He asked an old acting coach where he could find the level of work he was seeking.

“The way you find it is you get your friends and you work on something you … believe in,” Soto tells LATV, relaying his coach’s advice. “That’s how you produce projects that will fulfill your soul.”

When the writers’ and actors’ strikes paused studio filmmaking this year, Soto felt the artist’s call to create. Why not find an alternative avenue for all that untapped talent? Los Angeles may not be famous for its theatre, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be.

Honoring the advice of his coach, Soto cracked open José Rivera’s play, Cloud Tectonics, and assembled a team of powerful creatives to help fulfill his mission on stage.

The story: two brothers heal each other’s wounds when a mysterious woman shows up and inspires them to feel love again. The mission: to further and expand Latino storytelling from the perspective of Latino artists themselves.

Soto met Marissa Chibás—a friend of Rivera’s—on a zoom call. They shared many of the same passions and artistic viewpoints. Cloud Tectonics was a meaningful narrative for them both. Unified by a kindred collaborative spirit, they knew, together, they could inspire audiences to feel the depth of the story’s many reflections.

“I was so honored that Bobby brought me on to direct this production,” Chibás tells LATV. “The play is about us really paying attention to the magical that is in every day, and how time stops when you fall in love.”

Chibás is a writer, director, and producing artist at CalArts Center for New Performance. As the daughter of a Cuban revolutionary and runner-up Miss Cuba, she understands firsthand that real life is often stranger and more magical that any fictional re-imagination.

For over 40 years, Chibás has captured life’s beautiful simplicities through dialogue, movement, and craft. Partnering up with Soto was an opportunity to imbue her creative vision into one of her favorite plays. Including and impacting their Latino community through the process was as important as telling the story itself.

“Where are the roles for the leading Latinos?” Soto says. “Where are those parts and positions for the writers and directors to come in and get involved? It’s like, here we are. We are right here.”

The play was written by a Latino for the Latino. Soto ensured all production partners uplifted the Latino experience, as well.

When the production needed to eat, they engaged Latino-owned restaurants and catering services. When it came time to design the playbill, they brought on a Latino artist to add new imagery to the show. In calling up existing colleagues and cultivating new ones, Soto has been humbled by the sustained belief in this project in and out of the theatre.

“Part of the reason we’re feeling this cariño and love from our community is because we don’t get our stories reflected back enough,” Chibás says.

This production of Cloud Tectonics is coming to Los Angeles at a time that begs for more accurate, honest, and imaginative representation. Coming straight from the heart, these creatives are telling their own stories. And by bridging universal themes with cultural specificity, Rivera, Soto, and Chibás challenge audiences of all backgrounds to think about their own relationship with love.

“To me, community is support,” Soto goes on to say. “Community means commitment. It doesn’t matter, at the end of the day, what color you are, what color your skin is, if you’re red, white, pink, yellow with polka dots, what it means is how you commit to someone’s dream and how you see it through [to] fruition.”

Chibás wants the audience to leave with open hearts and expanded imaginations. Soto suggests savoring that moment of stillness when the play ends, turning to your left and right, and sharing that immediate sense of shared inspiration that comes when the curtain falls, and the story is implanted in your heart.

Check out our exclusive conversation with Soto and Chibás on LATV’s new TV-series, Storytellers.