Previews: CRABS IN A BUCKET at MATCH

So what’s the deal with all of these CRABS running around Midtown and terrorizing folks in the area? It is all part of one of the MOST talked about pieces in Houston right now. In my ten years of writing for BROADWAYWORLD, I have never gotten so many emails requesting we cover a show. The bad news? I can’t catch CRABS until Saturday, and they CLOSE that day. The good news? I got to talk with Laura Moreno about this play by Bernardio Cubria. Laura, her husband, and her six-year-old daughter produced and directed this crazy show! It stars Houston favorites such as Gabriel Regojo, Brittny Bush, Adina Opalek Owen, and Scott Searles. This limited run is ‘PAY WHAT YOU CAN’. And you only have Thursday, Friday, and Saturday to check it out. I will let you know why in the interview below! 

Brett Cullum: Bernardio Cubria used to be part of the Houston Theater scene, but now he is in Los Angeles. He moved there?   

Laura Moreno: He did. Now he's in LA. He's writing for a show called ACAPULCO on Apple TV+, and they're about to start their 4th season. Have you seen it? If you haven't seen it, you should totally see it. It is so funny. Parts of it take place in Acapulco in the 1980s, and then they're also set in modern-day. They go back and forth with the flashbacks and stuff. And it's hysterical.

Brett Cullum: Okay, alright, cool. Well, then, I've got my next binge. I am going to have to subscribe to Apple TV to do it, but there we are! Laura Moreno, you always cost me money! Okay. So this play is CRABS IN A BUCKET. He wrote it in 2019, if I'm correct, is that right?

Laura Moreno: It was around 2019, and he actually came in for winter break, and we all got together at my house. I'm sure he had had other people read it, but we all got together at my house, and we read it out loud with like a couple of actors, and we were like, “Oh, my God! This play has to be done!” Then, just a few months later, the pandemic hit and everything shut down. He wrote it back around 2019, but he's had this kind of story in him for a while. 

He says a lot when you talk to him about it, that growing up, when people would talk about the Latin community, they would say, “You know, it's just crabs in a bucket! That's what it is.” He had an experience within the Latin theater community that made him feel like, “Why aren't we all cheering each other on? Why aren't we lifting each other up? We're always going to be in this bucket if we don't.” And he said he got in front of his computer one day and wrote it out. He had to get it out of him. Whenever he writes, he does it to work through something he's going through. And that's how this happened.

Brett Cullum: And you are just producing this on your own, right?

Laura Moreno: I am. I got a grant, but then I’m also fundraising and crowdsourcing and doing a couple of other things, and so it's a little bit of everything. And then my husband and I are putting in money as well. As we've been working through rehearsal and we've been working through being in the space, we're actually filming it as a film as well. And so the theatrical experience is definitely going to be different than the film experience. But we do want to be able to share it and make it more accessible to everybody, because we feel as though this particular question that's being asked through the play, which is “Who are you in the bucket? Who are you? And what do you do? How do you approach this kind of bucket mentality?” 

There have been a lot of people who walk out. You go over to them afterwards. And they're like, “I'm thinking, I'm thinking, which one am I like? Who am I in this bucket?” Do we lift each other up, or do we hold each other back? We want to make sure it's the story, and the idea of it is a little bit more accessible to a lot more people to be able to start thinking about it. I know for Bernie. It was about the Latin community, but it could be about our local industries here, or it could be about our local art scene. It can be about what we see happening right now within the Democratic Party. It can be about how women in workspaces, women in creative spaces treat each other. It can be in any situation. Do we lift each other up, or do we hold each other back? Are we ripping each other apart, or are we asking everybody to play by the same rules, even though we're all individuals? 

Brett Cullum: One of the things I think is interesting. You mentioned that Bernie or Bernardo was really thinking of the Latin community, but the four actors you have cast to play crabs are pretty diverse.

Laura Moreno: They are, they are. His biggest thing is he said, “I really think it's going to need to be done in the round, or the thrust. And so that's why we waited for Matchbox One as long as we did, because we wanted to make sure that we had a black box that we could turn into a bucket, and so everybody comes in to sit in the bucket. The program is printed to look like a fancy menu. And so you come in, and it's like your appetizer and the entrees and the couturements and stuff. And so the idea is there's this capitalistic feel of the bucket. A lot of it is the hustle of the bucket, and so the way when we broke it down, the idea was “Where is this bucket? What's the purpose of this bucket? What if it's people?”

And the other thing, he said, is, the cast has to be diverse, it has to be. When we were auditioning for it, we started talking about what it means to put certain bodies in certain roles, and so when we were casting it, it was the question of what happens when Bev, who is the one who's very innovative, comes in and wants to change the bucket? What happens when she's white? And what happens when she's black? What story does it tell? And so talking about like a lot of the stuff that's been happening lately with DEI and things like that. Black women carry the brunt of a lot of things. And so what does it look like for this black woman playing a crab to come in with all this innovation and positivity and spirit, and all of that? Then we watch the bucket crush them, and still be able to find hope in it. And so we were talking about how it really parallels how life is right now, and how do we continue to find hope and the strength to go on when everything around us is just tearing us apart. 

Brett Cullum: You have a large number of collaborators for this one? 

Laura Moreno: We have over 20 artists and artisans who worked and put their hands on this project, whether that was like someone coming in to do clowning for us, somebody coming in and actually just painting and distressing everything. We had someone come in and do the crab puppet and all of the crab legs that lay around and get used in the show. So there was an artisan who came in to do pretty much everything. It took a long time to get it up. And then once it's up, it's just a short run, because we're renting the space.

Brett Cullum: I've heard such great things about this show. I have been a critic for BROADWAY WORLD for over 10 years, and I have never gotten so many requests to come to see a show until CRABS IN A BUCKET. And it's been amazing because it's not just like the general people. I mean, it's people who run theaters. It's people who are actively involved in the theater community. I've been very impressed by the reaction to CRABS IN A BUCKET! What are you hoping folks get out of this? 

Laura Moreno: My hope is that this is just to encourage people. It is scary. Self-producing is so scary, and taking this plunge and doing it to the fullest is a scary process. My hope is that people who come to see it or read this they keep creating and keep trying. And one of the things one of the rules of clowning is, try, fail, and try again. And so we say that a lot when we're, you know, working in the rehearsal room with the crabs. Try it. If we fail, we try again. And so it was for me. The biggest thing was telling Bernardo's story. We had been wanting to say it or tell it for so long. You know the journey of the bucket, and especially with everything going on in the world right now! Who are you going to be when you're in the bucket? What are you going to do? And then the other thing is, is just creating a space of creativity and kindness and exploration for the artists and giving them, giving them their their platform to create and to collaborate and really shine is the biggest thing. Even in the short run, I'm hoping that everybody who has come to see it walks away thinking of those things. I've got to keep creating. I have got to keep doing these wonderful things because we need the individuality of the artist to shine through and continue to take these risks and tell these stories.

Brett Cullum: Well, you have to dump the bucket out on July 19th! I am so sad that this is not a long, extended run! What's next for you, Laura? What are you going to do after escaping this bucket?

Laura Moreno: There are a couple of things that I would really love to do. My husband and I have a very small production company, and we do a lot of documentaries. We'd like to start doing more interviews, documentary interviews that get turned into theatrical pieces.

Brett Cullum: Well, I am coming on Saturday to check this whole thing out. I plan on eating at KURA across the street! I may have to order some crabs in honor of this whole thing! 

Laura Moreno: Absolutely. We can't wait to have you in the bucket.