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The following is the third in a series of collaborations between The Paper. and the New Mexico Black Leadership Council set to run throughout Black History Month. Through these features, we will explore how our state’s diverse cultures have impacted and continue to impact the New Mexico landscape.
Everyone’s got a story about the last fun thing they did before lockdown. It helps us grapple with what we lost in the pandemic. It seemed like I had just found out about The Tannex — an underground music and performance space in the Barelas neighborhood — when it went away.
“March 13, 2020 was our last show,” says Marya Errin Jones, former curator and managing director of the space. Three days after that show, COVID-19 shut everything down.
A Space for Community & Creativity
The Tannex, which was originally founded by Jones, Joe Cardillo and Andy Lyman, was one of few Black-run spaces in Albuquerque; after Lyman and Cardillo left, Jones carried on for another five years.
It was a venue where an introverted person like myself could show up — not knowing a soul — have conversations with three different people and run into somebody I hadn’t seen in years. Intentionally curated to host women and people of color on every performance bill, The Tannex was a place where everyone was welcome.
“I hosted about 500 events at the Tannex,” says Jones. “It was a hard thing to let go of.”
The End of an Era
Because of the pandemic, plus development changes in Barelas, the beloved
community space shuttered in 2020.
“I tried to hold on in some ways, but there was no end in the foreseeable future at the time. There was no vaccine, no protocol for safety. It would be irresponsible to keep doing things,” says Jones.
Like so many whose lives were derailed by the pandemic, Jones had to figure out what to do next. Now she’s earning a doctoral degree in American Studies at the University of New Mexico. She’s directing a play at The Vortex Theatre this May. Jones also owns an arty vending business, The Wyrd Machine, located at Sister bar. And she continues to run the annual ABQ Zine Fest.
I sat down with Jones at Zendo Coffee to chat about that journey. Note: In the following Q&A, answers have been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
The Paper.: Let’s talk a little bit about losing The Tannex to where you are now.
Jones: I decided to pivot and applied for a spot in the [UNM Department of Theatre and Dance] as a playwright. I’ve been a writer all my life — still have a writer’s bump on my finger. It felt like the right thing to do. I had been working in marketing at [Central New Mexico Community College], but it wasn’t enough to satisfy my hunger to make things.
So I got my [Master of Fine Arts in May 2024] and have been writing plays. I was a finalist for the [New York Theatre Workshop’s 2050 Artistic Fellowship]. I spent this past summer working at CalArts as a writing instructor for CSSSA, the California State Summer School for the Arts.
That was intense and amazing to be working with brilliant young writers. One of my students won one of the Herb Alpert awards. It was incredible to be learning from all those kids and to guide them as well [and to] get excited about their work and about making new work myself.
Tell me about this play you’re directing and how you got involved.
I’m directing a play called Clyde’s, and it’s by two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning
playwright Lynn Nottage. [Nottage, a Black playwright, was featured in a 2017 New York Times article as one of two female playwrights who had until then, despite awards, not been on Broadway.] She writes plays about working class people and their survival.
I love strong characters. I love Black-centered performances, and Clyde’s is one of them. The classic, almost deity-like central character, whose job is to put recently released from incarceration individuals who are trying to start over to work. But it’s also a comedy and rich and authentic and energizing.
As I’m reading this play — I really wanna do this. I’m excited by her work, and I’m excited by integrated companies. That’s critical to understanding the conditions of the American spirit. It’s American life. Figuring out how we get along together, how we make it through together.
What have been the challenges and rewards from leaning even harder into what you really want to do?
I think, in some ways, it’s gravity, it’s mere physics. It’s really trying to stay vertical in a world where you’re the nail and the events around you — that’s the hammer. It’s learning to be flexible in the face of struggle and adversity and erasure.
Even as a playwright, there weren’t that many Black actors in the [UNM] program, so it was odd to be trying to write plays with Black people in mind and Black voices without enough [Black] actors. There were some. But there were some who were being diverted towards film instead of stage performance.
So that was a challenge. My thesis play had two incredible community actors in it who were not students. That was a necessity to be able to realize my plays. After that experience, I really have decided that’s a must. If I’m writing Black characters, I do expect to be able to see them as Black people on stage. That is critical.
One of the reasons why I want to do this play by Lynn Nottage — I want to see a world that’s centered the way that she’s intending it, and to experience what that is like, and to have other people experience that same feeling. Maybe you’re in learning mode, maybe you recognize yourself, maybe you feel alienated. Those are all valid feelings in a world where the center shifts depending on your environment and who’s in it.
There’s just so many ways to express oneself as a writer. I’m inspired by working class stories. I’m inspired by integrated stories. I’m inspired by magic. There’s room for all of those different ways of expressing art. I’m inspired by the Harlem Renaissance and all the Black folks who came before me. All the playwrights we don’t know, buried in archives. I feel like, in some ways, I’m here to fill in those gaps.
Now, more than ever, it’s important to be vigilant about one’s life existence. Eyes, teeth. Get everything checked and in order, so that you can live. And to pursue the ideas that come to you. And they come to us all the time. And not to be afraid of tomorrow.
Tomorrow is absolutely going to show up.
Connect with Marya Errin Jones
maryaerrinjones.me
Save the Date for Clyde’s
In Clyde’s, a truck stop frequented by truckers making the long journey across Pennsylvania is staffed exclusively by formerly incarcerated individuals who are looking for their shot at redemption.
May 16 – June 8
The Vortex Theatre
2900 Carlisle Blvd. NE
vortexabq.org/clydes.html
Save the Date for ABQ Zine Fest
ABQ Zine Fest is New Mexico’s longest-running festival of zine culture.
Oct. 4
Six O Six Studio
606 Broadway Blvd. SE
instagram.com/abqzinefest
Check Out Wyrd Machine at Sister
The Wyrd Machine is a vending machine at Sister bar stocked with inexpensive “arty things and weird things,” often from local, national and/or woman-owned businesses.
Sister
407 Central Ave. NW
instagram.com/wyrd_machine