Suddenly Theater! Justin Lucero’s rise to Artistic Director at Theater Latté Da

Headshot of Artistic Director Justin Lucero standing in the Ritz Theater giving Jazz Hands.
Artistic Director Justin Lucero at the Ritz Theater, home of Theater Latté Da.

Many theatrical artists know from their first steps that they are called to the world of the theater. Their childhood ambitions and activities are oriented toward this awareness. They crave the limelight. They dream of growing up to act, direct and work in the theater realm.

None of this applies to Justin Lucero.

Yet Lucero has served for the last year as Artistic Director at Theater Latté Da, a powerhouse of musical and music-inclusive theater in the Twin Cities.

Lucero, instead, came across theater by accident. “I had not ever dabbled or even considered a career in theater until well after college,” he recalls. That college involved earning a degree in International Marketing and Business from Texas Christian University in Fort Worth. “I pleased my parents” with this achievement, he says.

But his initial work didn’t take him to marketing, but rather to education, as he took on the role of a kindergarten through eighth-grade teacher of German at a language magnet school in El Paso, Texas.

Again — no theater.

“But my best friend was a theater major at the University of Texas at El Paso,” he recalls. “I kept encouraging her in her field. Then I dared her to audition for a local dinner theater production [of Beauty and the Beast] that I found intriguing. She kept waffling and I said, ‘If you do, I will.’

“I went to the audition. She stood me up.”

“I auditioned and got cast in a principal role [of Cogsworth], and it shifted my entire being.”

Lucero then dabbled in community theater in El Paso and used theater as a tool to teach German in an immersion style.

Now, he had the bug, and, he says, “I shocked everybody and left my position as a department head and moved to London to get my training in Theater Directing in East 15 Acting School,” a conservatory of note located at The University of Essex in London.

Catch-up learning followed as Lucero came to the “very obvious conclusion” that directing is what he was meant to do. “I never looked back,” he says.

Lucero’s first academic position was as a professor of directing at The University of Houston, but before joining Theatre Latté Da, he had risen to a tenure track post also as a professor of directing at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

At that school, he served as head of an undergraduate BFA program, and during his four years with the faculty, he also taught at the MFA graduate level. He was chair of the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee at the school as well.

In short, he says he was, “very, very active as a professor.”

In tandem with his posts at UH and CMU, Lucero “freelanced” and served as Artistic Director at El Paso Opera for 7 of the 14 seasons with which he has been involved with that organization. This experience “cemented” his consideration that the “gravitational pull” of theater, for him, is music theater.

Secure in this prestigious academic and professional world, Lucero recalls that, “It’s kind of a forever gig — you don’t consider leaving.”

But everything at Theater Latté Da lined up so perfectly with his aptitudes and ambitions that, he says, he had “no choice but to say yes” when they made him an offer.

Latté Da exclusively programs and champions music theater, which, Lucero emphasizes, includes but is not limited to traditional musical theater productions. “We dabble in anything that has music as a central element,” he says, such as opera and more traditional plays which include music.

“No other place in the country actually does all three of those, which is exactly what I had dreamt for myself: a company that wasn’t exclusively musical theater, but left room for plays with music and opera,” Lucero says.

Stage shot of Sondheim’s Sunday in the Park with George, 2024, El Paso Opera.
Sondheim’s Sunday in the Park with George, 2024, El Paso Opera, directed by Justin Lucero. Photo by Photography by Annabella

Lucero’s directorial style is a result of his experience as much as his creative powers. “I love bringing my musical theater sensibilities to opera, and bringing my opera sensibilities to musical theater,” he says.

For him, this means using music to “heighten” the overall theater experience, making it, to use his words, “hyper-theatrical.”

“The second you put music into anything on stage, it’s automatically heightened,” Lucero explains. “I love theatery-theater when an audience can’t forget that what they’re watching is theater. I love things with visual impact. I love work that is hyper-colorful.”

At the same time, subtlety and minimalism have their place in Lucero’s theater: “If the script calls for a living room, you can have a lamp and a couch, and you have a whole living room,” he says: “If a character dies, it can be a change in lighting or costume, and everyone agrees the character has perished without flailing in a physical way.”

Lucero says performers at Latté Da enjoy “how we think about the work as a contribution to the greater art forms. We think about our place in the future development of musical theater; the overall contribution to the art form.” Lucero notes that casting and rehearsal processes, and the inclusion of instrumentalists, all serve to broaden how musical theater is considered.

“We really think from the ground up with every given project — what is being said not just by the piece, but by how we do the piece,” Lucero says.

Latté Da’s audiences are “very special, and they have high expectations,” Lucero says. “Not in terms of production quality, necessarily — they’re interested in challenging work, work that makes them excited about new approaches and new voices. If we ever did something that was cookie-cutter, they would tell us that they were disappointed. They’re not coming to be entertained: they’re coming to support art.”

During his first year at Latté Da, Lucero says his work has been “less about what I’ve changed and more about what I’ve continued. I loved being able to take the trajectory that we were on maybe focus it a little bit more.” Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Access are important goals. He notes that he, as a Latino, sees very few people in peer positions who are also Latino.

Lucero promotes the overall theater community in the Twin Cities. He hosts a monthly breakfast gathering with small- and medium-sized companies’ Artistic Directors, and he sees himself in the role of unifying and improving communication and mutual support among members of the Twin Cities theater and artistic community.

“I love to support their work, and in the year that I’ve been here I’ve seen well over 100 shows in the Twin Cities,” Lucero says. “It’s been wonderful to experience the extremely deep and rich artistry and talent in the Twin Cities theater scene. I’ve been completely blown away by how much rigor and innovation and creativity there is here.”

Lucero says he has found the Twin Cities in general “really welcoming and friendly. I feel like there was not a bumpy transition whatsoever. I love how cosmopolitan it is and how much is offered. I love film and I love food, art and music — I find so much to do in the Twin Cities.”

Lucero’s advice to aspiring performers and directors? “There is not one obvious path to success,” he says. “When you want to be a full-time artist, everything in your experience will eventually fuel that art. If you’re walking in nature, if you’re having family time, if you’re generally curious, have the belief that that is someday going to come out in your art.”

Lucero concludes, “I want to make sure that people are proud of whatever their contribution is to Theater Latté Da. The people who work on our staff, the people who volunteer with us, the people who perform with us or the people that attend — I want them to find themselves in the work that we do, and as long as I’m doing that … I can be proud of myself!”

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