INTERVIEW: Gotham Storytelling Festival to feature work focused on diabetes
Photo: Gastor Almonte will perform his solo show The Sugar at the Gotham Storytelling Festival. Photo courtesy of Mike Bryk / Provided by Emily Owens PR with permission.
FRIGID New York’s annual Gotham Storytelling Festival is back Nov. 2-14 at Manhattan’s Kraine Theater. This year there is a variety of different storytellers and productions to see. One of the offerings deals with the important health issue of diabetes and how a person may change their life before and after diagnosis.
Gastor Almonte wrote The Sugar, and he also performs in the solo piece. The show follows Almonte’s story of a near-fatal hospital stay that ended with a diabetes diagnosis, according to press notes. The play looks back at that incident, with the playwright asking why diabetes is such a prevalent issue in his family and neighborhood.
The Sugar will be performed Tuesday, Nov. 2 at 7 p.m. and Tuesday, Nov. 9 at 7 p.m. (on a double bill with Jackson Sturkey’s The Devil). The show joins with many other entries at the 10th-annual festival, which features works by comedians, actors, storytellers and many others.
Recently Hollywood Soapbox exchanged emails with Almonte about his new show. He’s a comedian best known for his appearances on Comedy Central, Vice and PBS. His debut album is called Immigrant Made. Questions and answers have been slightly edited for style.
What can audience members expect from The Sugar?
A funny and heartfelt story of how I came to terms with this new thing in my life — being a diabetic. It was a big change. (During the quarantine I missed my family and orange juice, and not always in that order.) But it’s been a necessary change that the doctor tells me is for the better.
Is everything in the play autobiographical? What’s it like to write about yourself?
Yes it is, and it’s how I function. So I’m not sure if it’s “normal” or weird so much as my standard operating procedure. I’ve often told my wife I’m far more comfortable talking out an idea on stage first before talking it out with her. She understands but is less than thrilled with the rooms of comedy and theater show-goers who peak into my brain first. Did I mention she’s a saint? She’s awesome.
How important is it for people to know about diabetes and take extra precautions?
Incredibly so. When I got home, I was blown away by how cavalier everyone I asked about it was. A ton of my friends, family had it and never discussed it with us. They just treated it like an assumed “rite of passage” as opposed to an avoidable or manageable condition.
When did you first fall in love with theater and realize it was a creative outlet?
On Sundays, all the men in my family would sit in a circle and tell each other stories while my aunts hung out inside and the kids played. One day, I told a funny story, and my dad let me sit in with the men. I heard stories about their week, unfiltered for the first time. No care about cursing or worries about the kid overhearing — it was incredible! I wanted in. So I kept telling stories every Sunday in hopes of being invited back. For months, they sucked. But when I finally figured out how to tell coherent stories, they left me in, and I learned the power of how stories bring us together. I’m just doing that with a different circle of people every night.
Will there be a life for this story beyond the upcoming festival? What’s the future hold?
I’m going to continue running the show for the rest of the year and early 2022 before eventually filming it and releasing it as my next comedy special. It kind of forces me to stay the course with the diet and insulin shots, right? I can’t film a special about the importance of diabetic awareness then fall off my own treatment! That wouldn’t work well in the “hero’s journey” version of this special that I’ve laid out. But it would make for a cool documentary.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Gastor Almonte’s The Sugar will be presented Nov. 2 and Nov. 9 at the Gotham Storytelling Festival. Performances take place at the Kraine Theater in Manhattan. Click here for more information and tickets.
