The Live Journal of James Stevens-Arce

This happened a couple of weeks ago, but we've confirmed the actress we want to play the part of Loyda Gotay (pronunciation guide: "LOY-dah Goh-TIE), the 17-year-old girlfriend of the protagonist's older brother, who is physically abused by her father. Her name is Jo Blanco and though she's about eight years older than the character, she can convincingly play 17 if you keep her make-up to a minimum and her hair dark brown and simple.

As coincidence would have it, she and my daughter Tara both played on the Academia del Perpetuo Socorro (Academy of our Lady of Perpetual Help, which is also my alma mater) high school volleyball team together, her father and I both played on the APS bowling team back in the day, and her mother and my wife Tita both went to University High School together.

Joemy (Jo is her professional name; her real name is an amalgam of the names of her father, Joe, and her mother, Emily) studied acting at the Televisa (Mexico's largest TV network) actors studio, one of the few Puerto Ricans ever accepted, and was cast in a number of telenovelas (Spanish soap operas) of theirs before relocating to the States a year or so ago, where she recently appeared in a Lifetime Channel television movie titled Vanished.

She currently resides in L.A., and her husband works for a management agency whose clients include the likes of Nelly Furtado.

On Monday, Ed Trucco, the actor who played the immigration agent who interrogates the drug-smuggling protagonist of Maria Full of Grace, phoned from New York to confirm his willingness to play Pepe, the father who abandoned the family six years earlier but returns at their moment of crisis to try to redeem himself in their eyes.

Elia Enid Cadilla, one of Puerto Rico's finest actresses and, I'm proud to say, an old friend, likes the script a lot and has agreed to cameo as Dr. Matta, the mother's oncologist, even though her part will require only two days to shoot and the pay is minimal.

She also offered a couple of excellent suggestions for enriching the character of the father which I plan to incorporate into the next rewrite.

(Pronunciation Guide: Elia = ELL-yuh, Enid = Eh-NEED, Cadilla = Kah-DEE-yuh.)

Katy Franco has agreed to play Meche, the cancer-stricken mother of our movie's 10-year-old protagonist, Tito. As a recent cancer survivor herself, Katy should bring a special empathy to the part. (ASIDE: The first syllable in "Meche" is pronounced "meh", much like the first syllable in "Melanie," and the second is pronounced "che," much like the first syllable in "Chevy Chase." Meche is the Spanish nickname for Mercedes. Oh, yes, and in Spanish, "Katy" is pronounced close to, but not exactly like, "catty.")

Today (Wednesday) my two partners (Leslie, our producer, and Até, our entertainment attorney) had lunch at El Patio de Sam in Old San Juan with a former judge who is very influential in the fraternity which owns the rights to the marathon which will be featured in our movie. He told us he likes our project and will recommend the fraternity grant us the rights and provide the cooperation necessary for us to produce the film.

I also spoke to a graphic designer I often employ and he agreed to design a poster, logo, and other graphic materials we'll need as part of our fund raising proposal on a deferred payment basis.

Tomorrow (Thursday) we meet with a CPA whose firm is experienced in providing accounting and payroll services for film productions and in meeting the reporting requirements set up by our local film fund. We need to find out the full extent of the services they offer and how much these will require us to add to the production budget.

Friday we expect to audition our first candidate for the part of Tito Aquino, the 10-year-old boy who is the film's protagonist. Markie is the oldest son of Yarah, Tita's sister Mari's oldest daughter, and I had occasion to use him in one of the series of toy commercials I wrote, produced, and directed in the late '90s for Play-by-Play Toys & Novelties.

Leslie thought Markie has the right look for the part in a recent photograph I showed him a couple of days ago. Unfortunately, Markie lives in Florida. As luck would have it, though, he and his family were flying in tonight for a cousin's baptism and another cousin's first birthday party which will be celebrated on Saturday and Sunday, respectively, so we're taking advantage of this serendipity to give him a screen test to see if he has enough natural talent to be able to handle the role.

Our fingers are firmly crossed.

Yesterday I spoke with the actors we'd like to play the parents in our movie.

Ed Trucco, the guy who played the immigration agent who interrogates the drug-smuggling protagonist of Maria Full of Grace, is in New York, so he and I chatted over the phone. I've known Eddie since he was a teenager and his oldest brother, Harold, who went on to be head of programming for the Univision Network, was my production chief when I was the creative director at the San Juan office of Foote Cone & Belding/Caribbean in the late '70s.

Katy Franco, who is a well-known actress in Puerto Rico, happened to be in town (she lives in L.A., but still keeps an apartment here and had just wrapped up a one-woman show at the San Juan Beaux Arts Center last weekend), so we met for lunch at Fuddrucker's. I first met Katy in 1981, when she was just starting out and I failed to cast her as one of the three chorus girls in the Neil Simon-Marvin Hamlisch Broadway musical They're Playing Our Song which I was directing for Civic Theatre's fiftieth anniversary production.

Each is currently reading the script and will let me know this week whether they're in or out. We need a commitment now so we can use their names and photographs in our fundraising presentation.

After an almost three-week hiatus while I worked on re-writes, today we resumed casting the male roles in Souls: Angelo, Dana, Klein, Paco, and Sacrovir. Ran from 11 A.M. to 6:30 P.M., with a pizza break somewhere in the middle. We begin casting the female roles -- Mayra and Gladys -- at 11 A.M. on Monday. After that, callbacks.

And probably more pizza.

In unrelated news, when I got home this evening Tita made crepes slathered with sliced strawberries, chocolate syrup, and whipped cream.

For dinner.