So, who's Georgie?

Hello, whoever's out there!

Jorge Castilla here. Friends call me Georgie. I like Georgie, sounds cute LOL.

Born and raised in the White City - No, not Minas Tirith as in "Lord of the Rings", but the Mexican White City of Mérida - capital of the beautiful state of Yucatán, all the way South, yeah, close to Cancún and the gorgeous Mayan Riviera.

I'm the eldest child at home, now 31, and the only male. Dad’s a veterinarian specialized in poultry and owns a hatchery and a couple of farms. Mom’s a teacher and owns a tutoring school. My sisters are 29 and 13 and they're both a riot. Love them so much. One’s a lawyer, the other a nightmare – I mean, a teenager! Lol!!! – who happens to be a star in figure ice skating. Yes, I come from a very loving family. A very LARGE family, indeed, on both sides, since my dad has 4 siblings and my mom has 7, so of course I grew up surrounded by loving cousins who nowadays have children, so the family is just getting bigger by the hour!!! We love traveling, movies and the arts in general… Oh and looooong seasons at the beach!!! 

Talking about arts, theater has been my life for a while now. I actually have a BFA in Theatre. I also made an Associate’s Degree in Costume Designing. Supposedly I’m well trained as an actor, playwright, director, lyricist, composer and costume designer. During my college years I ran three different theatre companies whose productions of original plays filled a few important local venues and playhouses. I’m also the author of a few awarded dramas and musicals such as Imperio Andino, Dies Irae and Sandalwood Park.

From 2005 to 2008 I worked teaching Acting, History of Theater and Showcase for young students, while putting together famous plays such as Christopher Hampton’s Dangerous Liaisons, Eugéne Ionesco’s The Bald Soprano, Pedro Muñoz Seca’s Don Mendo’s Revenge, Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice and musicals like Into the Woods, Seussical The Musical and Oliver! 

Later on I went my own way again founding CASROD Productions, a company supported by the Department of Cultural Affairs of Yucatán. This company still continues producing original works of young Mexican playwrights and teaching workshops. During the period 2007-2008, my musical Muero porque no muero was an unexpected success, while my production of Jorge Muñoz Luisillo’s Los pingüinos son homosexuales was featured in the Wilberto Cantón Theater Festival, a selective annual program in Southern Mexico. Nowadays I work for Teatro SEA, Bordinni Brothers Productions, HADA Productions and Bridge Playhouse in New York City, and I’m also an active member of the Jane Austen Society of North America (JASNA) and Country Dance New York (CDNY). 

Mom, Me, Gina & Pau dressing up for tea. LOL!!!

                                   

But costumes are my TRUE PASSION, especially when it involves lots of research on specific periods, since I specialized in Historical Costumes from Medieval to Late Victorian/Edwardian. I have done costumes for more than 25 productions so far and I am currently working on a website to show some of my favorite designs.

Costume Design has been quite an interesting journey for me, since I never truly planned to make it a career option. It was more of a hobby sprung from necessity. You see, though Mérida has a huge cultural background, theater, as in many other cities around the globe is very limited and although it has many awesome local troupes doing pretty cool stuff, we do not have what we’d call “an Industry” for it. So, if you want to put on a show with a higher level of production quality, you have to do magic in order to get everything ready, since we don’t have a large community dedicated to production design.

As I mentioned before, I’ve been teaching theater for youngsters for quite a while now, and back there in Mérida I actually founded a company of young thespians that would explore many different dramatic genres, from the classics to the newest Broadway musicals. We had a lot of fun, but it was always a huge challenge getting the whole production ready. So I always HAD to take care of the costumes because I always liked fashion and historical clothes and didn’t know anybody around who knew as much as I did about it. So, as time passed by and I got to travel a lot, many professionals kept telling me my designs were better than I thought they were and many friends advised that I should take costume designing more seriously. Thus I went to Madrid to take some professional courses and started getting gigs to do it at a more professional level, and nowadays, though I still consider my talent a “work-in-progress”, it has become what I truly love to do.

A costume sketch I made recently for a project I'm currently working on.

Four years ago I moved to dreamy NYC cause one of my best friends – who had been living in the city for some time then – introduced me to her boss and I got a very nice offer to work for a Latino children’s theater company in Lower Manhattan. So here I am, 4 years later, an educated Mexican living in Washington Heights doing children’s theater and other stuff of the kind in a city where theater actually HAS AN INDUSTRY. Yes, of course the journey has been very challenging, but also incredibly thrilling. So far, I’ve designed costumes for 5 productions in New York which, considering that Costume Design has become a freelancing side-job is not bad at all!!! LOL!!!