Daily Inspiration: Meet Matt Zambrano

Today we’d like to introduce you to Matt Zambrano

Hi Matt, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
Growing up in a trailer park on the North Side of Denver, I didn’t have much access to arts or arts education. However, I will never forget the day when a touring theater troupe performed an assembly at our school, and my eyes were opened up to the world of acting and comedy. The group was Kaiser Permanente’s Educational Theater Program, which for nearly three decades provided assemblies centered around physical and emotional health to schools at little or no cost. I remember people smiling and singing, I remember a giant weevil riding around on a scooter, and I remember being given a toothbrush upon exiting the cafenagymnatorium. But what I remember most was learning for the first time that there was a job where people could act out and play in front of other people…and I knew that’s where I wanted to be. Until that point, like most kids my age, I had only ever considered growing up to be a firefighter, or an astronaut, or a ninja…but suddenly I had a a new path where someone like myself, who felt most authentically themselves performing for others, could find purpose. It was a great honor twenty years later to join the Kaiser Educational Theater Team as an actor, writer, director and facilitator, and to this day I keep a sticker of “Eevil the Weevil” near my workstation. Though I am a professional Equity Theater Maker who has worked at some of the biggest houses in the country, TYA (Theater for Young Audiences) has always been and will always be a part of my Artistry. In some ways, I feel like this is how I give back. Currently, I am performing in a TYA play at the largest Regional Theater in the Rockies, where every day I get the opportunity to give the gift of theater to a young person who may be finding it for the very first time.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The biggest obstacle for an artist such as myself is the same for most artists: financial stability. As a gig-worker in the Theater industry, one never knows where their next job is coming from. We live in a perpetual recession, sometimes only working on a few projects a year, which is rarely enough to make a living wage. Because of this, many artists have to take on “day jobs” or “legit work” in order to supplement their art, which diminishes it’s value. My good friend and collaborator Becky Baumwoll once framed it for me in a way that made a lot of sense: Theater is an “experience good”; meaning people have to pay for a ticket to a show without having seen it, and hope that their experience was worth the ticket price. In today’s economy, fewer audience members are willing to take that risk on new and emerging works. This creates a feedback loop of theaters producing safe, appealing titles that will sell tickets and new works taking a back seat. This becomes a challenge to an Artist such as myself who believes in continually questioning the current paradigms we have in place, champions underrepresented and marginalized voices, and understands that if we want to cultivate the next generation of Theater Goers, we have to reimagine what it is to be a Theater Maker. As legendary Denver poet Lenny Chernila said: “This is the time for reinvention. No better time. No better time!”

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I am a multi-hyphenate artist who describes himself as a “Facilitator of Experiences” (a phrase I’ve borrowed from Dr. Lisa Mitchell, who I had the absolute pleasure of working with as a Teaching Artist for Disney on Broadway). I am an Actor, Writer, Director, Mime, Teaching Artist, Poet, Zoom Santa and all around outside-of-the-box thinker. Currently, I am producing and directing a 1940’s Improvised Radio Show called “The King Penny Radio Show”, which runs every month at Rise Comedy Theater in Downtown Denver. I am also in pre-production for two shows I am directing in the spring: “Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery” at Lone Tree Arts Center, and “On Your Feet”, the story of Emilio and Gloria Estefan” at Town Hall Arts Center at Littleton Town Hall Arts. At the beginning of the year, I started an LLC called “Chalk & Fire Studios”, which focuses on coaching, teaching and mentoring in the arts. Last week, I created and facilitated a workshop called “Democracy & Dragons”, which looked at Activism though the lens of the world’s most popular role-playing game, D&D. The name “Chalk and Fire” comes from the end of Thornton Wilder’s play “Our Town”, where the Stage Manager describes the stars in the sky as “Chalk or Fire”. To me, that’s what arts education is: begin by drafting your idea, sometimes it gets erased and rewrtitten, but inevitably it takes that leap into being something dynamic.

What’s next?
My dream is to someday own and run my own Arts Space. A café and rehearsal space by day and bar/theater by night, that offers a healthy mix of new and experimental work, mixed media artists, and plays and musicals that speak to the current human condition. In 2020, I decided that if I was going to keep doing this thing that I love I wanted to help make the spaces I like being in. Spaces that value Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, Access, Education & Empathy. I can do that as an actor by how I show up and treat others, but I can do it much more successfully as a director, and hopefully someday an Artistic Director. But right now, I am enjoying getting better at what I do in a city that I love with people whose work I respect and admire.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.MattZambrano.com
• Instagram: @Kiddenver
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/matt.zambrano
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/RevMattZ
• Other: https://www.KingPennyRadio.com

Image Credits
Personal Photo – Credit Bjorn Bolinder
Wolf w/ Pirate hat – Amanda Tipton Photography
On the docks – Amanda Tipton Photography