Downtown Spotlight: Verve
Christine Nathanson
With her pixie cut, red lipstick, and vivacious spirit, Christine Nathanson embodies a theatrical social entrepreneur. After a few minutes with Christine, it’s clear that she was born to be on stage. She graduated as the top Theatre Arts major at Westmont and was also an advocate for social justice across campus. The downtown semester created the perfect platform for Christine to embrace her dual passions for social justice and performing arts. It also gave her the confidence to be a starter. She is now the active co-founder and director of a theatre collective with the mission to creatively share the stories of underrepresented populations.
I was excited to call up my spunky former classmate who spoke from her office in San Diego. She is currently directing 4 plays for a theatre collective on top of juggling a full time job with MOXIE theatre. She began sharing about her journey and I felt as if I had entered one of her theatrical compositions complete with Christine’s characteristic flair.
After graduation, Christine was accepted into the Praxis Future Founders Program. This 2-month-long program seeks to equip young entrepreneurs in launching “redemptive ventures of their own.” Christine worked as an apprentice for A House on Beekmen, an NGO in New York City. Christine, hungry for an adventure and a more diverse climate, packed her bags for the South Bronx.
Although she gained substantial networks through Praxis, she felt adrift when she moved back to Southern California — unemployed and confused about what to do next. In the midst of this, she received a phone call with the opportunity to work for a tech company in San Francisco. After a series of scattered phone interviews, she flew up for a live interview and was offered a job. This seemed like the obvious choice, but something about the company didn’t feel right to her. (Which may have something to do with her interview trip involving late night sushi and karaoke.)
Christine came home conflicted. So what did she do? Called up Rachel Winslow. After voicing her concerns, Rachel pushed her to use the negotiating prowess she learned during her semester downtown to rework their offer. Christine remembered the specific class on negotiation and skills to confidently challenge the offer. They were unwilling to move. So, she quickly called back Rachel. Christine summarized the conversation can in her breezy style:
“First, I was like, I don’t really want to do this, and she was like well maybe you should, and I said well I don’t want to, and then she said well then maybe you shouldn’t, and then I had my answer.”
What Christine needed was permission to say no to the “sure thing” and trust her instincts. This was a refreshing decision but one that left her, “super unemployed,” as Christine put it.
During this dry period, Christine kept revisiting the question, “What if I still want to do this whole theatre thing?” So, she took advantage of her network in San Diego and reconnected with an old mentor who is also the Executive Artistic Director of MOXIE theatre. A women-run company, MOXIE “creates more honest and diverse images of women…through the intimate art of production.” Soon after, Christine became MOXIE’s Box Office Manager.
This role wasn’t necessarily connected to acting or directing, but she was working for a company she believed in. Christine also shared how this is where she began confidently practicing some of the skills developed in Westmont Downtown. She said:
I used the tools and hard skills that Rachel taught us to create my own niche job. I had the opportunity to gain authority. Tasks were thrown at me but I used confidence, authority and negotiating to maintain leverage and do the work I felt I was called to.
She quickly moved from Box Office Manager to Business Manager (where she is now). While Christine was finding success in her administrative work, after several months she hit a wall because, as she expressed, “this mundane work started to drain my creative soul.” Christine’s “drained creative soul” combined with her observation that MOXIE lacked diversity made her eager to start something new. And that is how Ma’arte Theatre Collective was born. She joined a group of friends with a similar vision to “share untold Filipino-American experiences through dynamic storytelling in the theatre.” What began as a one-night cabaret featuring musical acts turned into a theatre collective showcasing plays and monologues. As Christine puts it,
“We are just a group of theatre artists and friends and happen to be filipino who were sick of seeing only white shit and are putting on our own stuff.”
When asked about the name Ma’arte, Christine noted how it is a Tagalog word meaning creative or artist with the modern translation of diva. They picked this name because they believe that everyone has a story. And that every story should be told.
Ma’arte had a recent event in San Diego showcasing six short plays (4 directed by Christine) and 1 monologue. Even though this group of passionate entrepreneurs are just getting started, they are already bridging the ethnic gap in the theatre by creating space for diverse cultural experiences. Christine and her team are determined to continue highlighting the Filipino-American experience.
When asked how she manages to produce for Ma’arte on top of a full-time job Christine voiced: “Ma’arte is my work but also it gives me great joy. Boring [administrative] work is worth it when I get to direct at the end of the day.” After several months of searching and uncertainty, Christine is finally finding her niche. To be successful as a “theatrical social entrepreneur,” she needed her work to intersect with her passions for both theatre and social justice.
Christine concluded her story by naming how the downtown program gave her the courage to take ownership of her work without the fear of failure. She knew when she completed the program that she had the tenacity to unite her strengths and convictions with her talents as a starter. Ultimately, her work requires her to have the “tenacity to keep fighting until I figure it out.”
