Who We Are
Gavin D. Pak — they/them/their
Executive Artistic Director & Founder
Hi! My name is Gavin D. Pak. I was born in Los Angeles, then went to school in Chicago where I spent 8 years diving deep into my queerness and studying theater in the storefront theater/new work development scenes.
My theater journey started as an actor in the hopes of embodying the representation that I myself desperately sought. While I have to say my “Sweeney Twink” was legendary, the uphill battle of only being called in for stereotypical work, or work that was not authentic to my experience—knowing the people behind the table were not seeing myself or my peers for the entirety of our identity, talent, and being—lead me to seek new ways of opening doors for artists like myself.
Believing the best way to give opportunities to folks like me was by creating stories about people like me, I turned my attention towards writing, focusing on themes of Asian queerness. My first short play Fresh Out the Closet was presented as a reading at the Goodman Theatre through the “Our Perspectives: Asian American Plays” series. I developed my first feature length play prefer not to answer, or other in The New Coordinates’ Writers’ Room. prefer not to answer, or other had its first reading in The Syndicate’s “First Read” series. The experience was empower, organized as a weekend of play readings featuring exclusively the works of transgender and non-binary playwrights. To see work written by and featuring trans artists in front of audiences of trans individuals was the first moment I felt as if this medium that I loved truly represented me and gave me a complete feeling of community. The real gem of the experience however was in watching the tireless efforts of the collaborative and caring producers of “First Read” carefully and lovingly bring these readings to the stage.
While I continue to act and write, my “First Read” experience helped me realize how I most want to affect meaningful, long-term change and informed my life mission: to foster a theater company that is founded on the principles of creating opportunities for marginalized artists and appropriately valuing their experience and labor.
There is no future I can imagine where trans artists are not fundamental in shaping its culture.
I love theater—the art, the practice, the community—but opening my eyes to my own intersectionality compelled me to critically engage with the medium I loved as much as it did my own identity. This industry breaks the hearts of our most marginalized members, seemingly incapable of protecting us, or seeing us for the totality of our talent and experience. This is where I put in my effort to change the status quo. I want to queer the canon. I want to foster a new queer canon. I want to pay diverse artists and respect their time and labor. I want to be transparent and thorough in establishing safe practices and environments. I want to provide an alternative to the standard we’ve been expected to accept from commercial theater. I want Pothos to set a precedent so anyone, anywhere can point to our work and become a beacon for their own community.
Thank you for reading all this!
Adam Schwartz — He/Him/His
Artistic Producer & Founding Member
Hello! Nice to meet you! My name is Adam Schwartz. I’m a lifelong Californian and an active member of organized social justice groups and civic action matters in the South Bay area. I strive to use my voice and privilege for the betterment of the community around me.
Theater has always been near and dear to my heart. While striving to be an astrophysicist, I improved my mental health by signing up for every theater course possible in high school and college. Wherever I’ve been in my life, I’ve made my closest friends and connections through sharing theater together. Through my high school and college days, Gavin and I bonded through too many Les Mis singalongs and Illinois suburb community theater productions.
To me, there is no substitute for the kinds of bonds and community one can form creating live theater together. However, I’ve also seen firsthand some of the ugly realities of putting together theater under the current unchecked and normalized practices—disrespect towards often unpaid artists, inequitable auditioning and casting, and institutional failures when it comes to making safe environments for people of all backgrounds and abilities. Seeing the work marginalized artists have put in for so long to rectify these wrongs, I’m honored to be able to contribute towards an honest, intentional push towards healthier, more socially-minded intersectionality in theater.