ABSTRACT
In Marga Gomez’s Latin Standards, the solo performer and comedian ruminates on the future of her career, her family legacy, and the city where she loves and lives as it shifts. Gomez vacillates between her recent adult past as the producer of a Queer Latinx comedy night in San Francisco, California, and the past she experienced as a child, watching and learning from her father, nightclub singer and comedian Willy Chevalier, as he hustled together a career in 1950s New York City. Gomez has built a stand-up comedy and solo performance career that centers on her relationships with family and a deep commitment to activism. This chapter includes excerpts from a 2017 interview conducted with Gomez by the author. During the interview, Gomez makes observations about the intersections of theatre, stand-up comedy, and activism and about the ways that relationships with parents and understandings of gender shift over time, illuminating her process as a solo performer. Through the interview, Gomez highlights why these stories matter to her and to Latinx performance and the American theater.
