Maria Maya debuts as musical director and says she misses acting

Maria Maya, 41, debuted on stage when she was 13 years old, but continues to leave room for firsts to this day. At the moment, the artist — best known to the general public as an actress in Globo soap operas — is preparing to debut as a musical theater director.

It will be in the Brazilian version of “Bring It On”, which premiered on Broadway in 2012. The production is based on a 2000 film of the same name. In Brazil, released as “As Apimentadas”, the feature explores the rivalry in a team of cheerleaders preparing to compete in a national championship.

“I’m a dancer by training, I lived in the United States and I’m always going back and forth to New York, feeding myself with the genre, honoring my classmates [artística]”, says Mary to F5. “But directing a musical was never exactly my option. I ended up prioritizing other texts and didn’t give myself the opportunity to dig through the genre.”

Carioca, Maria recently moved to São Paulo and believes that this work will mark a new phase. “I am inaugurating a stage of my life”, she evaluates. “I’m happy to be able to work in this genre that is so consolidated in the city and so valued not only by the class, but by all the companies that subsidize the shows here and by the public that attends, values ​​​​and prestige.”

With its premiere scheduled for 2023, the show is in the rehearsal phase, with a cast of more than 30 young people. “I call the actors my children”, he says. “It’s the children I didn’t have and that I’m putting into the world (laughs). It’s beautiful to see how they trust me, my work and my words.”

Although, in general, musicals give little chance for changes in their adaptations, she says that’s not the case with “Bring It On”. “I am open to putting my perception of the work and what my actors can offer me as a resource”, she explains. “We don’t have the obligation to assemble exactly like the original. The producers are giving this freedom.”

She also believes that there is room for the eminently American theme to touch the Brazilian public. “The text is universal precisely because it talks about these interpersonal relationships that take place within that school environment, a training environment”, she evaluates. “Our protagonist wants to be a great cheerleader, it’s a particular ambition of hers, but she realizes that she won’t be able to do it alone. This idea of ​​the collective, which we learn, is the same in the United States or Brazil.”

Away from the small screen since “Amor à Vida” (2013), Maria ended up standing behind the scenes since then. His directorial debut, eight years ago, was almost by accident. She had bought the rights to “Little Boy” by American Nicky Silver, whom she invited to run the show. As he was unable to come to Brazil and the play had a deadline to premiere, she had to take the reins of the project.

“It was through this ‘problem’, let’s say, this hole in Nicky’s agenda that I ended up discovering myself as a theater director”, she jokes. “It was all very organic.”

About the job, she says it is much less glamorous than one might imagine. “People who go to the theater and see that show happening, sometimes, don’t have the dimension of how complicated it is to do all that engineering”, she says. “There are countless professionals to make all that magic happen.”

Not that there was a lack of inspiration at home. After all, Maria is the daughter of Wolf Maya and Cininha de Paula, two of the best-known theater and television directors in Brazil. “My parents were pioneers of musical theater,” she recalls. Even so, she says she is not worried about the charges that may appear.

At least not like when she debuted in the soap opera “Cara & Coroa” (Globo, 1995), directed by her father. “It’s funny, this kind of demand came up in my artistic trajectory much more while I was establishing my identity as an actress”, she compares.

However, she claims that no one demanded more from her performance than herself. “This came much more from myself, from my obligation to value my family’s place”, she says. “It was such a brilliant family, so talented, that I forced myself to at least correspond. Not only to my parents, but to my family as a whole. Imagine being the great-niece of Chico Anysio, granddaughter of Lupe Gigliotti, cousin of Marcos Palmeira and Bruno Mazzeo and goddaughter of Nathália Timberg…”

As for directing, perhaps because she is more mature, she has not been feeling this pressure. “When I became a director, it didn’t show up,” she says. “On the contrary, I think there was even a certain curiosity precisely because I was the daughter of two great directors. Which path would I take? And I ended up following paths quite different from theirs.”

She does not rule out, however, directing soap operas, a genre in which her parents also became famous. “Who knows? I want to pluralize the opportunities in my life”, she says. “I believe that, as an artist, we should take advantage of as many opportunities as possible. Invite me, I’m always open to collaborate.”

Incidentally, she is not accepting invitations only in the directing area. Recently, she agreed to return to the camera in the short film “Duas”, by her friend Ana Cavazzana, about two co-workers who fall in love. To her surprise, she ended up being awarded best actress at the Tietê International Film Awards.

“I was so far away from acting,” she says. “I’m flattered by this recognition. So much so that this desire to act has reawakened me.”

He has also contributed to his review of several works that are being reruns, such as “Chocolate com Pimenta” (2003), on Globo’s afternoons, and “Caminho das Índias” (2009), on Viva channel, in addition to “Amor à Vida”, that entered the Globoplay catalogue.

“When I was younger, I didn’t used to see myself,” he confesses. “I was very critical. I just watched to see everything I had wrong and try to correct it in the next work. Today, I don’t have so much self-criticism. I think it has to do with maturity. least, it gets a little more relaxed with life, right?”

At the moment, she is starting to prepare for her first series for streaming, “O Som e a Sílaba”, which Miguel Falabella is developing for Disney+. “It’s been very interesting at this point in my life, at the height of my 40s, to be returning to acting”, she celebrates.

Even with almost a decade away from the spotlight, the public still follows the actress’s life with great interest. “I think it’s because I’ve been working since I was very young,” she says. “I went through countless generations, I had the privilege of having made very successful soap operas at a time when the internet didn’t have that power, people valued TV a lot. So it ended up, in a way, staying in people’s memory.”

In addition, it has a new audience that arrived through social networks. “The younger generation ends up identifying with me in a different way, sometimes because of my lifestyle, sometimes because of my positioning, whether affective or in life. “Senior Blogger”.

On social networks, exchanges of statements with his girlfriend, marketing executive Amanda Labrego, are common. In fact, Maria says she supports the wave of artists who have been openly declaring their sexual orientations, without this being a factor that weighs on their careers.

“I’m glad we have the opportunity to normalize this issue,” he says. “This experience of living with our truth supports our work. It is very important for me and my colleagues, but also for the acceptance of the public and society as a whole.”