Meet Kailey Agpaoa | Actor, Vocalist Performing Artist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Kailey Agpaoa and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Kailey, what do you attribute your success to?
I think back at all the times that I was told I couldn’t make it professionally as an artist and I know for sure that there have been four things that have never failed me: a love and respect for the craft, spite, grit, and an unwavering belief in myself. I wouldn’t have been doing this for as long as I have if I didn’t have all for of these things, but I can definitely pin down the most important element. This past year has been a tremendous year of growth and self-reflection for me as an artist, as I’ve been preparing to audition for grad school. I’ve been really doing my best to step out of my comfort zone by taking opportunities that would’ve really terrified me a year ago, pushing myself in my actors training, doing more professional theatre, and staying focused and intentional about the work I’m doing. I’ve been checking in with myself a lot through the ups and downs of the past year and I’ve realized that the biggest thing that’s kept me going as an artist, and specifically as an actor, is the unshakeable belief I have in myself and my future.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I’m currently working on my personal statement for grad school and I’ve figured out it’s so hard to put my artist’s journey into words. I grew up moving back and forth between Hawaii and Japan. Hawaii is where I was born, and Japan is the place my parents were consistently stationed throughout my father’s years of service for the Navy and both of my parent’s time serving federally. Sometime in between, I lived for two years in Italy. Due to all of the moving around, I was blessed with the opportunity to travel Europe and Asia when I was forming my concept of the world. There were certain aspects of my identity that I didn’t understand yet hat made me feel very confused when I was a kid. I don’t feel like I dealt with much blatant racism living on a military base, but I knew I didn’t feel right in any of the friend groups at school. I ended up hanging out with a lot of other people that felt outcast at school. I knew I found a home in music and the arts. I took every opportunity to be onstage because it was the one place I felt seen and understood.
Now that I’ve been performing for so long and I’ve made a transition to doing more paid work, I see that what I wasn’t able to resolve was a struggle that many children of immigrants and AAPI families go through: Learning how to assimilate and feeling left behind by my culture and people. Human bias is a natural part of socialization and there was so much expectation placed on my as a brown, Filipino-Okinawan person in a femme body. I didn’t recon with my queerness up until I was in my late teens and early twenties because I never had the space to explore that. I did theatre all throughout the time I spent discovering who I was and feeling this expectation from my peers, family, and community is one thing. Understanding this is a part of the industry when it comes to branding, one’s “look”, etc. can be incredibly challenging when you’re developing as an artist and young adult.
This year, after training and working more as an actor, I’ve come to recognize how this has affected me and I feel like I’ve finally arrived at a place where I’m giving myself the permission to show up authentically in my work, without any want or need for validation from anyone watching me. This has been incredibly freeing. Since moving to San Diego, I’ve done a lot of theatre for young audiences, which often aims to teach school aged kids important lessons about how we relate to the world and those around us—lessons that can be hard to leach in formal education. As much as possible, I also love to do devised and new works because I love being privy of the next generation of voices in American Theatre.
Being able to stand in my power and be a proud representative of the queer and AAPI communities is really what keeps me going as an artist. I love playing outspoken, witty, indignant, sharp, characters as brown, AAPI femme-bodied person because I feel like I’m disrupting a narrative that people have for folx who look like me. My favorite roles I’ve played in San Diego (outside of children’s theatre) are Janet in the Rocky Horror Show at OB Playhouse, Yitzak in Hedwig and the Angry Inch, and Girl 1 in The Chronicles of Kalki at Moxie Theatre. All of these roles gave me the space to show myself as an artist in so many different and important capacities. I’ve tried unsuccessfully for so long to fit into the Eurocentric and hegemonic idea of beauty and womanhood, but I’m finally learning to relinquish myself and my artistry over to the parts of myself I’ve been hiding for so long. It takes a ton of gall and bravery to do that, even here in San Diego where theatres are trying to be better.
I mentioned earlier that I’ve worked a lot with my coach, Sohina, who is apart of Encompass Collective—a group of global majority actors from the Geffen School of Drama at Yale who offer resources to other developing BIPOC actors. This community of artists are a huge inspiration for the work and advocacy I do in the San Diego theatre community. Theatre was originally created for the masses, and I think the ultimate goal for a lot of theatre makers is to unite and educate people in through this artform that peers into human experience so intimately. My darling friend Mikaela and I host a monthly event called The Playground where we create a space for the community to jive with each other outside of competitive audition settings, and performance settings. We read a play and discuss how the play is important in the context of our community and world at large. The Playground is relatively new, but we have expanded it since our first iteration in July, and it is continuing to grow each month! Being in community is such an essential part of my artistry and it’s been a real pleasure and privilege to be able to be bringing so many amazing people together.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
There are so many spots in San Diego I love! Being that I love art in all of its forms, if I had a friend coming in from out of town, I would definitely take them museum hopping in Balboa Park. I’ve always been the type of person who could spend hours at a single museum, I’ve still wanted to explore the Museum of Us–they always have such interesting exhibits there! Another location I love to make a day out of is Carlsbad. The Revolution Roasters in Carlsbad has an awesome thrift store/café called Captain’s Helm. Thrift shopping is another favorite past time of mine. Captains Helm has so much curated vintage and thrift and other super cool pieces of home décor and accessories.
I’m a huge foodie, and I love all the genres of food. Formoosa on Convoy has this dish called pork over noodles that I think about at least once a week. If my visitor friend had enough of a sweet tooth, I would definitely take them on a boba or ice cream tour around town. My favorite thing to do is the flavor tour of monthly flavors at Salt and Straw, and they now have locations in UTC, One Paseo, and Little Italy.
I’m a glutton for theatre and live music. I mentioned that I work for the San Diego Symphony by day, and we have the beautiful Rady Shell at Jacobs park as our outside venue, but there are also so many smaller venues that have such a cool vibe. I went with some friends to a Studio Session by Future is Color in Barrio Logan and figured out that improvisational jazz may be one of my new favorite genres. In nearly every corner of San Diego, there is awesome live theatre happening, so I would definitely take a visiting friend to see a play if they were interested: From larger theatres like La Jolla Playhouse and the Old Globe; to our awesome midsized theatres like Moxie Theatre; to the many community theatres in the area, there’s so much to see!

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I was shouted out by my dear friend and collaborator, Mikaela Macias. She is an incredible support and creative that I’ve had the pleasure to work with this year. We’ve been working together on our community play-reading project, The Playground, and it’s really developed since it’s inception. We’ve had an incredible amount of support from our community, from local theatres like Moxie Theatre, and from incredible advocates and mentors like Desirée Clarke Miller and Farah Dinga. My main acting coach, Sohina Sidhu from Encompass Collective has also been an incredible support since I started my grad school audition prep journey. I’d also like to shoutout my bosses at my day job at the San Diego Symphony, namely Kym and Casey, for allowing me to be crazy and follow my dreams. The work culture and environment at my day job is so foreign to me because they really encourage my personal growth and growth as an artist. I think any artist that isn’t wholly dependent on the money they make creating should find a day job that takes care of their needs, but also supports their pursuit of their artistic dreams without question. Once I got a stable day job that supported my pursuits, it seemed like doors started opening for me, and I had the time and space to show up as my best self. I think not having that in the beginning was something that held me back a lot when I was just trying to establish myself here in SD. My darling partner and family also just deserve an award or massage or something. All these people in my life are all superheroes to me, and they constantly support me and inspire me to keep going. I am very lucky.

Instagram: Personal: @kailey.potato ; The Playground: @__the_playground__

Other: kailey.agpaoa@gmail.com

Image Credits
Danyon Olson, OB Playhouse, Mikaela Macias, Maurizio D’Errico, Daren Scott