Adriana Sananes

Actor and Narrator
Headshot of a woman.
Photo courtesy of Adriana Sananes
Music Credit: Original guitar music composed and performed by Jorge F. Hernández, and used courtesy of Mr. Hernández. Adriana Sananes: They met me on the road coming into town. Minerva, María Teresa, Mamá, Dedé, Pedrito, Nelson. Noris was weeping in terror. All of them were sure I had been singed to nothing from what they’d heard on the radio after the bombing. No. Patria Mercedes had come back to tell them all, tell them all. But I couldn’t speak. I was in shock you could say. I was mourning that dead boy. I didn’t keep count on how many had died. I kept my hand on my stomach, concentrating on what was alive. Jo Reed: That’s actor Adriana Sananes, narrating an excerpt from Julia Alvarez’s novel, In the Time of the Butterflies. I’m Josephine Reed and this is Art Works, produced at the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2010, In the Time of the Butterflies had been chosen for the Big Read and we produced an audio documentary about the book as supplemental material. We were looking for someone to narrate excerpts of the book for us, someone equally at home in English and Spanish, and who understood the art of narration. Enter Adriana Sananes. Adriana is an award-winning narrator who has recorded well over 100 audio books in both Spanish and English. To be fluent in different languages is one thing. To be able to perform in two languages, only using your voice to convey characters and nuance, that’s a real gift. Adriana is also a gifted performer on the stage in both Spanish and English speaking theatre. So she’s equally at home in the small confines of the recording booth, inhabiting all the characters of a book, as she is on stage, in costume, with colleagues in front of an audience. Adriana Sananes: You know, I love theater, and I love narrating, so I consider myself really lucky that I've been able to do what I like. Jo Reed: Tell me about you. Where were you born, where were you raised? Adriana Sananes: I was born in Uruguay. Montevideo, Uruguay, the capital. And when I was six, my mom remarried, and we left and we, I was raised in Spain. We left for Spain. My stepfather was an architect. So we went there. I did all my elementary school years in Spain, in Madrid. And then things didn't work out very well, and I came to live here with my dad. At the age of 12. My dad was a violinist. His name was Israel Chorberg, he passed away a year-and-a-half ago. And he was the Concert Master of American Ballet Theater all through the '70s until 1983. He was Concert Master of Mostly Mozart Festival, and all the companies that would come from overseas, including Dance Theater of Harlem, and Alvin Ailey also here. I used to get tickets to everything all the time. And I used to go backstage to pick him up, and see Mikhail Baryshnikov and all. All these amazing people, Pinchas Zukerman, everybody, you name it! And I would shake their hands. So it was a very, very privileged childhood. Jo Reed: So art was always a part of your life. Adriana Sananes: Yes, my mom was a painter, my father a violinist, as I said. My stepfather was also an architect and a painter. My husband is a musician, Pablo Zinger, he's a conductor and he's a pianist. That's how we met actually, because I went to Manhattan School of Music for piano. Yeah, so a lot of people in the family are artists. Jo Reed: And you grew up speaking both English and Spanish? Adriana Sananes: No, I didn't speak English until I came here at the age of 12. The only thing I knew how to say was, "The cat is on the roof." <laughter> Jo Reed: Where did that come from? Adriana Sananes: I don't know! I don't know! <laughs> I'm not sure. Then the first thing my father taught me was, "Say ‘Fine,’ when people ask you, ‘Hi, how are you?’ say, ‘Fine.’" So the first word I knew how to say was basically, "Fine." <laughs> And I learned here. I learned by going to school. My dad just took me to what is now the Lab School, 17th Street Public School, Middle School. It wasn't a bilingual education, it was just submersed in English right away. So when you're a kid, your mind is like a sponge, and you learn right away. Jo Reed: As you said, you went to the Manhattan School of Music and studied piano. So music was your first love? Adriana Sananes: Yeah. For me, when I was little and I came here, it was immediately ballet and piano. Ballet and piano. Ballet and piano. I studied at the American Ballet Theater School. Then I went to Performing Arts High School for Music, while I kept studying ballet outside. It was never acting. I never thought it would be acting.

Jo Reed: How did you make the switch to acting?

Adriana Sananes: When I finally went to Manhattan School of Music, I realized, "I can play my pieces very nicely, but I'm not a complete musician. You know, I cannot read music easily." They also emphasized being a solo pianist at the time. Maybe more than today, I'm not sure. It wasn't really for me. So the last year, my senior year, the Spanish Repertory Theatre on 27th Street, they were looking for chorus girls, doing a musical there, a zarzuela, and which is a Spanish operetta. And they were looking for people, for girls that could sing and dance, and act a little bit, and you know, I could sing, I could dance. So I auditioned and I got a little role, and I started and then as soon as I got onstage, it was like, "Oh, my god! This is for me!" <laughs> So it was good that I knew music, it was good that I knew to dance, to move onstage. And so I did that, and then they asked me to do a couple of little roles in Doña Rosita, The Spinster, it’s the Lorca play. And there are couple of little roles. One is a friend of Doña Rosita, who actually right after she comes onstage plays a piano. So everything I did kind of came together. You know, I could play a little bit, the piano, I could dance pretty well. And then I started acting. I started studying at HB Studios to hone in on the craft. It was my senior year, I finished my high school music, but from then on, I didn't do anything else except acting. Jo Reed: You began at the Spanish Repertory Theatre, which is a fabulous place. Did you also do English theater as well? Adriana Sananes: Yeah, yes. Yes, I did quite a few plays, like a Theater for the New City, and then Children's Theater with different companies. And a Ben Johnson play. Yeah, I tried to do a lot of stuff. You know, anything that came my way, I would do. Which is what I recommend young people to do, just do everything. Then as the years go by, you choose and pick, if you can. From the get-go, I did both languages, until I was just a member of the Spanish Repertory Theatre. Jo Reed: When did you join the theatre? Adriana Sananes: In 1985, they asked me to join the company. Jo Reed: Tell me about working at the Spanish Repertory Theatre at such a young age. Adriana Sananes: For me that was a training ground. They treated me like royalty. They were wonderful to me. And through them I won the Princess Grace Theater Fellowship. It is a repertory company which is amazing. In the United States there are very few repertory companies. So it was a great experience. Non-stop, we would do five, six different shows per week. They would be in rep. So we'd do a Lorca today, an Eduardo Machado tomorrow. We'd do a zarzuela the next day. So you cannot stop learning from this, you know? It's just all kinds of styles and all kinds of roles. Jo Reed: When you're doing plays in Spanish, I would imagine just because the language itself is so different from English, that in a way, it has to be almost a different sensibility than when you're performing in English. Adriana Sananes: Yeah, you know, I'm asked that question often. And I really don't know the answer. As an actress, you just immerse in the role from wherever it is. I mean, granted, my first language is Spanish. So there is an affinity to it. However, I have a wider vocabulary in English, because I was raised here from 12 on, so even though I have a slight accent, you know, you learn much more sophisticated vocabulary. Jo Reed: The big words. Adriana Sananes: Right, the big words. The three-syllable words. I'm not sure. I think they're in two different places in my brain, and neither of them is heavier or weightier or deeper than the other. I think it depends on the role. Jo Reed: I just talked to somebody who's a translator. And I'm fascinated by the way sensibility changes when language changes. Adriana Sananes: Well, if I step back and look at both languages, English is such a mix of languages. It's such a mix of all kinds of variations from different languages putting together in some kind of melting pot. Spanish, to me, is more colorful. I mean, things have gender. So in that sense, maybe the color of the language infuses something in the plays. I don't know. It's strange. It's like, I don't think Tennessee Williams, for example, works really well in Spanish. Just as I don't think Lorca works very well in English. Jo Reed: You did the Spanish version of To Kill a Mockingbird. Adriana Sananes: Yes! I did that last year. It was great. How many times do you get a book like that to narrate? Cuando mi padre fue metido en el colegio de abogados, regreso Maycomb y comence a hacer. Maycomb, a unas treintas kilometros al este de embarcadero Finch, era la Capital de contado al mismo nombre. La oficina de Atticus, en el edificio del juzgado, con tenia poco mas que una percha para sombreros, una escupidera, un tablero de damas, y un codigo de Alabama en perfecto estado. Jo Reed: So To Kill a Mockingbird translated well into Spanish? Adriana Sananes: Yes, absolutely. It was great. Jo Reed: While we're on this, before we talk about your moving to audiobooks, in either your stage performances, or in audiobooks, have you ever narrated the same book or performed the same role both in English and in Spanish? Adriana Sananes: Hm. I can't think of it at the top of my head. Actually, Eduardo Machado is a Cuban-American playwright, and he wrote a trilogy. I did the three plays. Two at Repertorio, at the Spanish Repertory Theatre. And one at Theater for the New City. The one at Theater for the New City was in English. I mean, that's the closest I can think of right at the top of my head. And there is a sing-song in the Spanish language that does not appear in English. There's the Cuban sing-song, there's the Cuban rhythm to speaking. Which doesn't really-- I mean, unless you put the accent on, and everybody in the cast puts the same accent on, it's not going to translate. It's like Tennessee Williams, you know, the Southern, you know? Jo Reed: Exactly, right. Adriana Sananes: How do you translate that? You make it from the South of Spain, maybe, but it's not going to be the same. <laughter> Jo Reed: Now how did you move into narrating audiobooks? You have done over a hundred? Adriana Sananes: Yeah, yeah. Jo Reed: What? Adriana Sananes: I believe it was 1983 or 1984. An agent sent me to this casting of an audiobook. It was a novel by Louie L'Amour, he's a Western writer, in English. So, of course, they needed the role of Juanita, <laughs> you know how many Marias and Juanitas I've done? <laughter> And I went there, and I auditioned and he cast me. That was the first audiobook, and I was really young. I was-- I had just started pretty much. And when I got there, audiobooks, at least at that time, or from what I can gather, they were done slightly different. So when I got there, there were about eight actors. One was the narrator, and the other six or seven were acting the parts. So the Director and Producer had broken them down. So we all acted the audiobook. But the fascinating thing was that they had this man who was in his late 60s come in with a little suitcase full of incredible stuff in it like coconuts and bells and whistles and a telephone, and he did all the sound effects. And this man had worked in radio many years before. Tt was just fascinating all the stuff that he could do with the sound. So what we did was an audiobook with sound effects. We acted the whole thing. It wasn't just one narrator, which is what eventually I started doing. Just one narrator doing all the characters and the narration, everything. So that was fascinating. I fell in love with it. Jo Reed: So from that time on did you become a full-fledged narrator? Did you begin doing lots of audiobooks? Adriana Sananes: Well, not right away. I did little things, documentaries. Obviously, commercials, which all actors do. Industrial narrations, documentary narrations. And then eventually, a company called Recorded Books, they're very big. They had a Spanish Language Department for audiobooks for ten years. And Manuel Herrera was the director of that department. And we did a lot of books in Spanish, a lot of books. It was like 24 books in Spanish per year. And it was absolutely great! However, the demographics have never caught on. So I think in 2010, they stopped the department. You know, my daughter, even though she's completely bilingual, if she were to get an audiobook, she would listen to it in English, because she's English dominant. A generation older than I might not listen to audiobooks. It hasn't caught on yet. Also in Spain and South America, it hasn't caught on either. Jo Reed: That was my next question. Adriana Sananes: Yeah, it hasn't caught on. Jo Reed: But you also, obviously you do books in English, as well. Adriana Sananes: Yes, when they need that slight accent, you know, and they need an accent that if it's an author from Spain or Latin America, Central America, or if it takes place in one of these countries, so they like to infuse it with a slight accent. Jo Reed: Let’s hear another sample. Adriana Sananes: I returned to the place of my birth, to Teatlán, and to my own name 13 years ago. Mamí and Chucha, the ones who called me Chupita, are dead. Now in the Golden Zone of Teatlán, the resort city of Sinaloa in México, I sit in the chair of Tía Chucha on my roof, in the good light of the morning sun. The chair is the same. The roof is of a different house. Mine. Jo Reed: That’s Adriana Sananes reading Kissing the Virgin’s Mouth by Donna Gershten. Adriana, let’s talk about the process of narrating these books. How does it work? Adriana Sananes: The process basically, for me, is you read the book first. And then you read it again, and you break down what voices you want to do, what types of voices you want to do for each character. If it's in first person, you want to-- you might want to infuse that first person pretty much with your own voice, so you don't veer off, and then do the other characters. And the other characters is not just pitch, it's how would you act it. I mean, I always go from the point of view of how would I act it onstage. How would this person move, or even when you're recording, you kind of move differently to add something to the character. I don't mean move big, because you're working with a microphone. But there's some body language. And there's so many adjectives, you just write down the name, and the name of the character, and you write down a whole bunch of adjectives and then you have it in your brain. And it's quite an interesting process. It's like doing theater, doing a one-woman show, where you do a whole bunch of characters onstage, but only with a microphone. Jo Reed: And you also have to have a memory of what those voices are, because that character has to have that same voice every time he or she speaks. Adriana Sananes: Exactly. Exactly. So more than the voice, and more than the pitch, I think it helps with the color, the adjectives you infused in that character. Is it a nasty character? Is it a sweet character? Is it a velvety voice? You know, there's so many things you can do that it's not just pitch. I think the adjectives give you more than, "Oh, it was high pitch." Well, high pitch could be anything. You know? Jo Reed: How is it doing men? Adriana Sananes: Oh, <laughs> well, it's never going to sound like a man! Therefore-- Jo Reed: Obviously. Adriana Sananes: Yeah, and well, there are some people that can do men really well. There's some actresses out there that I just take my hat off. But nevertheless, it's still, it's how does this character speak? More than does it sound like a man, you know what I mean, you know, <laughs> low. <laughs> Is this character rough, you know? It helps. And it helps to have a little pad where you write all that down, and I did one book in Spanish. It was a trilogy, and it was for young adults. And it had like 35 women. It was like the Harry Potter, but for girls, kind of, and it was written by Maite Carranza, which is a Spanish writer from Spain. And 35 women. It was incredible, because all of them had traits of animals. And that helped so much! That actually it helped me in other narrations. Put animal traits maybe? And that was quite a lesson, because I said, "How am I going to do 35 women?" You know? <laughs> Jo Reed: That is hard! Adriana Sananes: Yeah, yeah. But it was so much fun! Jo Reed: How long did it take you to do that? What are we talking about in terms of time? Adriana Sananes: You mean to narrate a book? Or the process before narration? Jo Reed: You've done the process, now you have the book, and you go into the studio. Adriana Sananes: Well-- Jo Reed: Obviously, depending on the size. Adriana Sananes: It's two to one. You know, if it's a ten-hour book, you'll probably, more or less, be narrating for 20 hours. That's the kind of the percentage. Jo Reed: And you're in a small booth? Adriana Sananes: Yeah, in a small booth, by yourself, with the director hopefully, because a lot of times they do away with directors. You're just with the engineer who works as a director. But I think it's always good to have a third ear. Rarely do they say anything. That’s the wonderful thing, also. It says a little bit about they let-- they cast me because they know I can do it. So they let me do it. But they are just so good at saying, you know, "Well, maybe you could go this way. Or maybe you could infuse this character with a little bit of this.” Oh! It's terrific! And that's the third ear that you need. A lot of people are doing it at home, and you know, with their own home studios, which I think is fantastic, but you have to be really good at listening to yourself, not only catching mistakes, but the nuances, also, of characters and storyline. I'd much rather work with a director and engineer. I don’t like working alone. Jo Reed: Is there a length of time that you can narrate, you find yourself getting into kind of a sing-songy almost groove, where you have to like take a break so you can-- Adriana Sananes: You know where that happens, and you have to be careful, with a non-fiction book. With fiction, you're narrating, you're doing dialogs, you're doing characters. So it would be odd. You know, you would catch yourself right away getting into sing-song. But with non-fiction, you can, because it's just facts. A lot of times, it's just lists, or facts. You have to be careful to keep the audience engaged. So you can't fall into sing-song. You have to be very careful. You have to do it almost like a fiction book. "Give it some character!" <laughter> Jo Reed: How is it going back and forth from the little booth to the stage? Adriana Sananes: Oh, my god! You know, I'm so lucky! You know, I love theatre and I love narrating. Unfortunately, there aren't that many Spanish books being done now. Except the Library of Congress that does some. But it's great! I love it! You're onstage, you're with a live audience, every night is a different story. And then you're in the booth, and it's a finished product. I consider myself really lucky that I’ve been able to do what I like. It’s not easy for many people. Jo Reed: How have you seen audiobooks change over the years? There's been such a growth in that business. I mean, as you say, unfortunately, not necessarily in Spanish, but in the business itself, it really is quite extraordinary. Adriana Sananes: Well, yeah, I believe it's going from the mom and pop stores to like big time, you know, Macy's kind of. Every book available is being recorded. Every single book. I think a lot of celebrities are getting into the bandwagon. It's a beautiful thing to do. So finally, it's taken hold, and people have really taken to audiobooks, because they use them everywhere. For cooking, for traveling, for at the gym, even when they're just relaxing in a beach, I mean, it doesn't matter. It has caught on with the imagination. People really love it. Jo Reed: Let’s go back to your work in the theatre. I know a play of yours closed recently. Tell me about it. Adriana Sananes: This play, it was called Implications of Cohabiting. It was written by Vanessa Verduga. She's a young Ecuadorian woman. She actually was in the show, and she played the lead. And I played her mother. It was in English. And it was at Theatre Row at the Clurman Theater. And it was nice, because you got to see, well for me, the typical Hispanic family, who one is an architect, one is a lawyer, they're dysfunctional. It's just a family, a Hispanic family, as opposed to the trade characters, is that how you say it in English? The trade characters of quasi-commedia dell’arte. You know, the maid, the usual Hispanic actors that you see everywhere. Jo Reed: The stock characters. Adriana Sananes: The stock characters, there you go. The stock characters that are the drug dealer, or the janitor, or the maid or the nurse. This was just a Hispanic family, like any family. You know, typical family with issues. It was just a great run, all of August at the Clurman, and it was just a great bunch of people to work with. Jo Reed: So do you like to stagger work, do a stage play, do an audiobook, do a stage play, do an audiobook, is that how you work it? Adriana Sananes: You know, it depends on the situation. Before that show at the Clurman Theatre, I did a show with Tiatro SEA, which is the Society of Educational Artists in the Clemente Soto Velez. We took it--it was a big puppet show. And an actor and I were storytellers of A Midsummer Night's Dream. So the actor and I were the storytellers onstage, full costume and everything, moving, dancing, whatever, with a big book doing all the voices. And that was such a treat, because it was combining theater and audiobooks, in a way. You know, you're there as a storyteller. Jo Reed: And the puppets behind you were the characters? Well, the puppets were the characters. We were actually doing the voices for the puppets, but we were seen and we were in complete costume. And it was like an Afro-Caribbean take on A Midsummer Night's Dream with these huge gigantic puppets, medium puppets, small puppets, tiny puppets. We did it here and we took it to Puerto Rico, and it was the first time I went to Puerto Rico ever! It was just beautiful. It was just beautiful, yeah. Jo Reed: And that was in Spanish? Adriana Sananes: That was in Spanish and in English. We'd do one show in English, one show in Spanish. And then-- and it was outdoors. Jo Reed: Oh, so there was something you did in both Spanish and English! Adriana Sananes: Yes! There you go! <laughter> That's right! Well, you see? You need that third ear, right? <laughter> When I did it in English, the character voices were somewhat different than in Spanish. Some. Well, Hermea and Helena, for example. Hermea, I made her with a lisp. So that worked well in both languages. Hermea had a lisp and she was sweet and simple and kind of silly at times. So that worked in both languages. But then I wasn't really getting Helena in English until I thought of Irene Dunn or Katherine Hepburn, you know, 1930s, and a little bit like this. You know, and I started doing Helena a little bit like this. Like swell! Everything's swell! <laughter> And I went, "Oh, my god! I could never do that in Spanish." In Spanish, she just sounded very Caribbean, or I think I did her Caribbean and a little rough. And it just wasn't transla-- Jo Reed: Can you give me an example? Adriana Sananes: In Spanish? Jo Reed: In Spanish. Adriana Sananes: “Bueno chega tu sabes, tu algo poquito ase y como un poquito coana tu sabes y tiene la cocita esa la music y que su y aha” That kind of thing. <laughter> But it wasn't translating, you know, that accent in English. I wanted to do something else. There am I doing something in Engli-- so things like that. Things like that was a treat to do. Was really a treat to do. Jo Reed: So in one show you combined English and Spanish and theatre and audiobooks. Adriana Sananes: Yes, yeah, but it was like funny, because combining theater and audiobooks onstage! I mean, I don't even know how to explain it! I mean, where else would I have done, you know, it's like voicing puppets. It was just beautiful! It was just so much fun to do! Jo Reed: It costs a lot to go to the theater, I find. Adriana Sananes: Yeah, Broadway, it does. Jo Reed: Broadway. But even off-Broadway. You know? Adriana Sananes: Yeah, it depends on the company, right. Everything has gotten so expensive. Rentals have gotten so expensive, insurance has gotten so expensive. You know, the actors are not getting paid so much more. It's more about the logistics of putting a show together, producing the show. It's gotten so expensive. The youth of America, who's worked hard, it's not easy for them, unless they wait for a lottery ticket, or they wait online for standing room, if they ever get in, you know? Jo Reed: As you say, it's hard then to generate new audiences for theater, because it's self-selecting and the people who have money are the people basically who can go. Adriana Sananes: Yeah, pretty much. Jo Reed: But that makes me think about Spanish language theater. Adriana Sananes: It's not expensive at all. Jo Reed: That was my question. Adriana Sananes: Not at all, not at all. If it's an equity house, $25/$30, something like that. It's doable, it's doable. Again, it depends on your circumstances, of course. It's not like Broadway and some off-Broadway houses. No, the Hispanic theater is very accessible. Jo Reed: So tell me what's next for you? Adriana Sananes: Right now, nothing. <laughter> Right now, absolutely nothing. That's how it is. That's how the business is. All of a sudden, you just finished a play, you finished doing this narration and that, and you know-- Jo Reed: And then there's this-- Adriana Sananes: There's this lull. It's always been like that as a freelancer. But you can't worry too much. I'm sure something else will come up. If I do one play a year, I'm happy. Jo Reed: Adriana, thank you for coming in. Adriana Sananes: Thank you, thank you so much! This has been so much fun! Jo Reed: Thank you. That was actor and narrator Adriana Sananes. You’ve been listening to Art Works produced at the National Endowment for the Arts. To find out how Art Works in communities across the country, keep checking the Art Works blog or follow us @NEAArts on Twitter. For the National Endowment for the Arts, I’m Josephine Reed. Thanks for listening.

Moving between Spanish and English on stage and on the page.