A Conversation with THE DIPLOMATS Team
Director Salvio Gado, Associate Producer Brandon Rodriguez, and actors Courtney Feiler and Chase Wheaton-Werle answer questions about the streaming production
Also available as a video.
Random Acts will stream Nelson Diaz-Marcano’s The Diplomats from November 26-December 7. Proceeds benefit Brave Space Alliance.
Salvio Gado, Director: The Diplomats is about a trio of friends from college who are brought back into each other's lives…
Chase Wheaton-Werle, Actor: Two days before the fateful 2016 election.
Courtney Feiler, Actor: There are differing opinions going on, and old wounds get brought up.
Brandon Rodriguez, Producer/Actor: A lot of stuff unfolds, a lot of truths come out…
Chase: And the three of them begin to wonder if the relationships they had so strong in college can even be maintained at this point.
Brandon: Carlos is a very interesting person…he is very complicated. We are very similar in a lot of ways. He’s the first person in his family to move to the mainland…and I myself am I first-generation Mexican American, so we both share the struggles of living between two worlds and not ever feeling like we fully belong to one or the other. And navigating that is very tricky, very nuanced, and it’s something that I think only people in our situation can fully understand and empathize with.
Courtney: I started the play thinking that Annie and I are not very similar, but as the play went on I realized that we are pretty much the exact same person and we both need to work on tolerating differing opinions.
Chase: I feel like we all had that friend who is really well-meaning and probably a good person at their core but is just kind of slightly behind the social curve.
Courtney: Adapting this play for a digital audience has been frustrating at times. I think it’s hard not to wish we were all in the same space, but I’m really proud of the work that we put into it and I think it really works over Zoom.
Salvio: Ultimately I think it was a great learning curve. I think it, you know, definitely inspired me for more projects to do during this time that we have at home. And it was so wonderful to still see actors bring their energies and bring their personalities even when we can’t be in the same room.
Chase: Which Ido think ends up tying back in thematically with some of the themes of the play, because in many ways it also deals with how we engage with other people online.
Salvio: The Diplomats is important right now because, one: it’s the first [presidential] election post-2016 for us in the U.S., but mostly I think it’s for those of us who’ve maybe felt a little too comfortable in the past four years, and those who have preferred to sit back when they’ve expected change.
Courtney: For me, it’s been a good way to work through the trauma of the 2016 election and sort of remember where we were mentally at that time, and I hope that watching this show will help people heal from the last four years.
Chase: If I were to describe The Diplomats in a word, I would say The Diplomats is messy.
Courtney: Complicated.
Brandon: Relevant.
Salvio: Four years later and, you know, we’re still asking each other the same questions. I think The Diplomats ends on a note that’s saying…what’s in the future? What’s next?
The Diplomats is available to stream at RandomActsChicago.com November 26-December 7. To make your suggested donation or learn more, visit RandomActsChicago.com. Proceeds from the production benefit Brave Space Alliance.