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They gavetheir second pilla burial with a flower on top in their parents backyard.
HIV has always been a part of my presence.
So it became inevitable it would then become a protest.
I felt like part of the family, Cazares says from their home in Portland, Oregon.
I found my place both as an artist and a theater professional.
Their protagonists are on the run or looking for a way out.
Annihilation perches on the edges: poverty, genocide, catatonia, addiction.
This artistic limberness has gone hand in hand with the Workshops political identity.
Afterward, it released occasional accountability updates with the goal of becoming a fully anti-racist organization.
But when it came to calls for a cease-fire, Cazares encountered a stubborn silence.
Its a cognitive dissonance, they say.
Palestine has always had a fraught existence in the New York theater world.
After her death, the actorAlan RickmanandThe Guardianeditor Katharine Viner created a show based on her journals and emails.
(Nicola declined to speak for this piece.)
Rickman decried the theaters decision as censorship born out of fear, andTony Kushnercalled the situation ghastly.
(It has since dissolved.)
The Workshop formed a partnership with the Freedom Theatre and visited the company in Jenin.
My experience with them has been excellent, says Said.
In its current relationship with the Freedom Theatre, the Workshop is threading a small needle.
(Sheta has yet to be released.)
She did not mention Israel or the war in Gaza.
It was a real-estate scam from the 80s, they say.
Most of these places had no water from the city.
We still dont have a sewage line.
Its another form of apartheid.
When they were 14, they dug a dike so their family could access water.
The architecture was creative and beautiful; residents were building their dream homes from whatever materials they had.
Theres something about being from the border that is incredibly linked to whats happening in Palestine, Cazares says.
One of their transformative experiences with theater occurred as a Dartmouth undergraduate studying abroad.
I remember that feeling and that sense of theater, says Cazares.
This impossible thing: creating a river onstage.
Since the siege on Gaza, Cazares hasnt been able to write.
Instead, their strike has taken on the dimensions of theater withInstagram as their stage.
On New Years Eve, they began digging a shaft tomb about three feet deep in their parents backyard.
Their partner and friends helped them dig.
They enjoyed the process of seeing the various layers of earth.
Burials, they add, were the first form of theater, a way to channel grief and memory.
They imagine doing a protest-cum-performance like that.
Still, the strike has gone on longer than they expected.
On day 41, for the first time since they seroconverted, they were no longer undetectable.
The longer this goes on, the higher their risk for stroke, kidney failure, and heart disease.
Some of their friends and family have asked them to stop.
Their sister-in-law told them, No ones asking you to do this, Victor.
We need you here.
But Ive given my life to theater, Cazares responds.
This is my life.
They persist in their belief that the New York Theatre Workshop will do the right thing.
I believe they can do it.
I believe they can do it, they repeat.
I believe they believe it.
I believe they know that calling for a cease-fire is the moral thing to do.
I ask Cazares how far theyre willing to go.
Oh, hospital bed, they say.
The way I view my strike is physicalizing their inaction.
But theyve spoken to me.
They can visualize my life.
Theyve seen me be among them.
What Im hoping is that my life means something.
Correction: A previous version of this story stated that NYTW cancelled the production ofI Am Rachel Corrie.
According to the Workshop, it was indefinitely postponed.
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