My Awesome Place: An Autobiography of Cheryl B

Poetry, ,

I recently read a great book that I just have to recommend to you all. It’s called My Awesome Place: An Autobiography of Cheryl B, and it’s an excellent portrait of a young writer finding her voice and her awesome place in the world.

I knew Cheryl B back in the nineties at NYU. She went on to become a playwright, poet, and spoken word artist in New York. Sadly, she passed away way too soon in 2011.

When I finished this book, I felt I had to pass it on. It’s the kind of book that should be passed around. Then I started to get all poetical in the head. . .

This book is for that girl, that girl who’s too fat, too shy, not a straight A overachieving high school student. This book is for that girl who gets told she’ll never be anything except a toll booth fare taker. This book is for that girl whose parents don’t understand or maybe sort of do but can’t talk about it because the words don’t come out right. This book is for that girl who dreams of being more than what everyone around her thinks she can be even though she doesn’t know how to do it exactly. This book is for that girl and her friend and her friend’s friend. This book should be passed around while music’s blasting and the pages should get stained with beer, cigarettes, weed, and aquanet. This book shows that girl how to get to that awesome place.

You can get My Awesome Place on the Topside Press website.

Most Unsuccessful Playwright Ever

playwriting, , ,

Yep, right here. Most unsuccessful playwright ever. And I hate superlatives.

Hello Lafpiers,

It’s my blog week here on LAFPI. So I had a whole big comic riff planned for my Monday post. I had planned to talk about how I had absolutely nothing happening in my playwriting world and how I was now aiming for a lack of success instead of success and how once I realized that I became a happier person even though to desire a lack of success instead of success is very un-American.

Then last week I got an email from Tiffany Antone. Darn you, Tiffanyyyyyy!

Tiffany is producing an evening of plays about pets, and I had sent her some monologues which I had totally forgotten about. Anyway, she’s putting my monologues in her pet play evening and would I be interested in writing another monologue?

Of course I wrote another monologue. So now, I have something theatrical happening and I can no longer be the most unsuccessful playwright ever. I’m bummed. I’m seriously bummed.

Meanwhile, on the cover of the most recent LA Weekly was a drawing of William Shakespeare with a laptop and the headline: Why Be a Playwright in LA? Inside, Steven Leigh Morris wrote a very engaging profile of four Los Angeles based playwrights. The article can be found here.

Personally, I’ve never been very good at being a playwright. I can’t figure out the secret handshake, and my wardrobe is all wrong. I just like to write plays that are crazy, sexy, cool.

But I could relate to the LA part of the headline. I’ve been looking around LA and asking myself why am I here? Sure there’s a great acting pool, but great actors can be found all over the world. Sure seventy degree February days are nice, but so is rain. Why am I in LA? I don’t have a witty answer for that one. I just know it’s April 2013, and I’m still in LA.

SNAPSHOT: A True Story of Love Interrupted By Invasion

Playwright, Uncategorized

Sinnott 2 higher res

Mitzi Sinnott has a big story to tell.  Mitzi Sinnott has the kind of story that a writer would kill for, a story that makes most other personal journey tell-alls seem somewhat trivial.  But like all big stories one lives through, the price paid for doing just that — and coming out on the other side — makes the gift of the story that much more deserving (even to those envious writers among us).

In her one-woman show, Snapshot: A True Story of Love Interrupted by Invasion, Mitzi Sinnott tells the story of growing up in the South as the daughter of a white mother and black father.  There’s enough story right there for a novel and sequel, but Mitzi’s father was sent to Vietnam, and the man that returned was not the vital, artistic, loving man she knew, but a haunted shell who was ultimately diagnosed with schizophrenia.  Mitzi’s attempts to get to know her father led her to Hawaii where he was living and to coping with the death of the man as she knew him.

She tells this story through re-enacting moments of her childhood: of facing schoolmates who taunt her for being the product of a mixed marriage, of a mother who does her best to keep it together in those challenging circumstances.  She gives us a glimpse into her father’s days in the all-black barracks as he sends letters — and love — to his family back home.  She deftly moves between the roles of unsure enlisted, worried mother, bullying schoolmate, scared little girl and confident storyteller.  And she does it with humor and levity.

That’s the thing: despite the weighty subject matter, Mitzi never asks for our sympathy or pity.  Rather, using various tools to tell the story (projected images, the re-enacting of key moments, even dance), Mitzi shares this rocky journey as opposed to dumping it mercilessly.  It helps that the woman we see in front of us is a sheer delight, brimming with confidence, glowing with the desire to let us in, because we know she made it through to the other side, a better person — not to mention, storyteller — for it.

The gift of her burden will pay her, and her audience, back many times over.

Snapshot: The True Story of Love Interrupted By Invasion plays Thursdays through Sundays through April 21 at the Greenway Court Theatre.

— Jessica Abrams

Finishing the thought

Uncategorized

Back in the day when I was limber and shoulder pads were in, I used to cool down from ballet class to Pachelbel’s Canon in D Major. I am listening to it now and I finally hear music and it feels good… There, I’ve said it. Tonight, I feel good. And even as a twinge of anguish for the loss of my friend sweeps down my spine, I am drawn back into the music and with it toward new feelings of hope and anticipation for the future.

I kicked off the evening with Chris Isaak’s Wicked Game after an amazing drive to Walnut with a friend to shop for rugs, of all things. But it was fun. Then, sitting, drinking juice and eating a bowl of soup, watching him play with my dogs, talking, enjoying the weather, the sunset, I used the word “faith” in the context that I believe things are going to be okay.

I thought faith is a simple enough word, but then I use words liberally, like I’m icing a big, sloppy cake. Am I able to reconsider the words I use, know why I am using them, apply a logical thought process and be able to defend them? He wants to understand Me… No different than a reader of one of my plays.

Finish the thought, Bennett. It’s a good note.

Porch light

Uncategorized

I had a dusk-to-dawn porch light installed because she is not here to light the candle in the window. I had a motion detector light installed under the garage eave because it gets dark at night. I am surrounded by light. I am also immersing myself in noise to staunch the quiet. I would say (write) music, rather than noise, but I don’t hear it yet. I hear dry, but connected, tones that do not move me. Music used to move me… lying on the living room floor with my eyes closed, Really listening to “Hotel California”… Playing the grooves out of “Rumours”… Rerunning my “Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)” 8-track tape.

I wrote a play with music in January. I’ve titled it “Bender”. I wrote original lyrics and convinced playwright Karen Fix Curry to write the (lovely) music. The play started as an experiment in dialect. I determined to write three connected one-acts but they blossomed into a full-length instead. It’s about three women who discover their individual, unique voices once they finally accept each other’s friendship and themselves for who they are. It was selected by OCPA Studios for a reading on April 27, 2013 at Stage Door Repertory Theatre in Anaheim. But she won’t be there to experience it. So I’ll dedicate it and the day to her. And the next day I’ll rest, meditate and pray for the strength to get out of bed.

From a distance

Uncategorized

I mean, can you have this much stuff? Surrounded I was. Walls coming down on me. The smells of her and dust and filth. Uncluttered I am now after disposing of… so much. Yes, it’s freeing. I’m pondering, releasing, transitioning more every day. Write a play, some say. It’s too soon… feels hinky. Or is it? I do feel the stuff zooming, hiding when I turn to peer around at it, skirting my subconscious. God dammit. I know there will come a day when I sit down in the freshly laundered purple pjs she bought me from Bloomies, my first, but where she spent her young professional years shopping. Sitting in a newly painted room with slide guitar playing in the bg to cut the unnatural silence of me not yelling because she was hard of hearing. It feels usury to think about it now. The wound is too deep. It’s too soon. But i know, someday, I’ll write. And it pains me now because it means I am that much farther away, removed, which makes me madder — even as I know I’ll be cherishing, paying homage to her… It’ll be from a distance.

Transitioning

Uncategorized

Charlotte, as she preferred to be called, died peacefully on March 18th at the tender age of 84. It is not my intention to be flippant in the use of “tender age” rather than “ripe old age”. My dearest friend didn’t want anything to do with old people and became as if five-years-old again in her later years. In fact, I was wont to call her Baby Charlotte, a nickname she had when she was a much younger woman, before I knew her.

Charlotte said, “I’m not going to die tonight” and I’m guessing through the sheer force of her indomitable spirit, she did survive until 12:35am on the 18th. I am devastated. Once the shock wore off that first day, I felt as if a rocket launcher sent a missile through my chest. The wound was both gaping and terrible.

She got mad at me when I got fat and grew my hair out, as I was no longer “chic”. But, in general, to her, I moved the sun and the stars. I was the smartest kid on the block. Who is going to ever think that of me again, I wonder… Who am I, if not seen through Charlotte’s eyes?

We joined households seven years ago and she was the first person I spoke to in the morning and the last person I said “sleep well” to every night. Charlotte was my best friend. She was also the person to whom I read scenes and dialogue and talked about conflict and action and plays and life and politics and animals and controversial issues in the news.

Charlotte studied at the Pasadena Playhouse back in the day, did summer stock, and moved to New York where she wore a mink hat with a black ribbon, high heels, red lipstick, gloves, and worked for an esteemed theatrical producer. Later, in Los Angeles, she worked as a casting assistant on many recognizable films and television shows.

While I mourn my friend and find myself surrounded by silence, I wonder, now who is going to read my work? Who is going to be my sounding board, my confidant, my champion, my best friend, my muse? I wonder if I’m strong enough to stand alone. I am certain she was prepping me for this day. God, I miss her.

That Was Easy

Uncategorized

I just had something fabulous and easy transpire. Back in January I saw that Laura Shamas was having a staged reading of a play directed by someone whom I met years ago at Actors Theatre of Louisville. That director is quite good at comedy… and I have a comedy… so I got the director’s email address from Laura and contacted him about reading my script.

He graciously agreed to read it… and then did so in just a few days. We met a few days after that, seemed to be on the same page – he gave me just a handful of easy-to-execute notes that I agreed with… and then he sent the rewrite out to a couple three theatres to see if they were interested, with him attached to direct.

He heard back a short time later from an artistic manager at one of the theatres. He liked the play and has now passed it on to his board for consideration in their upcoming season.

Wow, that was easy!

Why can’t finding a director for my screenplay be as easy? (I’ve been through three of them – two dropped out and one I just let go last Friday.)

Oh, hold on. Maybe I should tell you the full story behind the stage play launch. I finished it two years ago this month and had a couple of readings of it that were hysterically funny. I thought it was ready to submit.

I diligently sent the script out, using contact names so the submissions wouldn’t be “cold” and so my script wouldn’t land in the slush pile. A year and a half went by… and radio silence. Nothing. Even with follow-up emails from me. Then Fierce Backbone (my writers’ and actors’ group) gave the script a thumbs up for production. We’re low on funds at the moment, so it was going to have to be a co-production at another theatre. Our managing director sent my script out to some theatres… no nibbles.

But once the director got involved and had his name attached, people were interested – including a theatre where our managing director had sent the script (gosh, they didn’t remember getting the script the first time – even though they had a conversation with our managing director about it!).

I’m sure this is a great lesson in perseverance. It’s also a lesson in feeling equal to the energy of the well-known stage director. It’s a lesson in trusting my intuition when I had a gut feeling to contact him.  It’s a lesson in letting someone else help shepherd my project.

Now I’m telling the universe that I WANT THE SAME THING TO HAPPEN WITH MY FILM SCRIPT TO GET A GOOD DIRECTOR AND LAUNCH THIS PUPPY.

Commitment to Art

Uncategorized

Just read an article by Randy Lewis in the L.A. Times today about how he and some friends made a commitment to sing Mozart’s choral piece “Ave Verum Corpus.” As a daily ritual. And they’re in different cities.

I said in my letter to Randy just now, I don’t know the piece and I don’t know many of Mozart’s compositions (a few of the “greatest hits,” sure), but Randy’s article gave me goosebumps and tears. Here’s the link to it:

The Power to Lift and Heal

“The Nether” – The Virtual Realm and Realtime and Evolution of Our Value System

Uncategorized
There were many thoughts and emotions I walked away with after seeing the preview of “The Nether”, by playwright Jennifer Haley.  I was mostly impressed by the relevance of the story to what is playing out in real life with the increasing debates in the areas of governance and activism between politicians, big business and the people who use the internet.
The story exposes a dilemma between the want to escape and the need for intimacy.  The medium this dilemma plays out in is “The Nether” which is the evolution of the the internet.  Gamers log on to the domain of a server remote from the immediate space  of “here” to the virtual world where they become avatars with an anonymous realtime identity, and where actions do not bear the weight of consequences.
This fantasy game becomes the target of “authority”, and another layer of a “cat and mouse” game plays out the realtime within the confines of a shiny metallic interrogation room between the creator of the game and the detective.  The intent of the creator is to provide a haven of anonymity to participants in the projected virtual world that is nostalgic of the Victorian era that is romantic and has the symbolic veil of innocence of a little girl, named Iris.
Iris is the mythic woman-child who is subject to the ultimate fantasies of her suitors.  She is the apple of the eyes of her creator who oversees that the rules of the game are adhered to in their proper time.  To Iris, he is the master she ultimately wants to please.  As any entity that is conscious of their existence, she accumulates thoughts and experiences that evolves to emotional needs:  love, intimacy and validation of existence – to be needed.  These thoughts and experiences are powered from the organic core of participants to the game.  The journey of the characters’ are played out in virtual space and time, then brought back to have meaning and weight in realtime.
In returning to realtime and the relevance of this play I think that not enough attention is being paid to the debates about regulation of the internet.  There are heros who act to awaken us to the reality of the intrusive and covert surveillance activities of the governments around the world.  To whom does content belong to?  What rights does anyone or organized body whether or not they are the elected “authorities”, or powerfully rich companies that can lobby governments to legislate laws to curb and control access to content.
Among the group of heros who has championed and continues to fight for the value of freedom, specifically in the realm of the internet and its outreaches are:
  1. Aaron Swartz.  He was a social justice activist who lead in the defeat of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).  Had SOPA not been defeated, then the operation of the internet would have granted giant corporations boundless censorship powers.  He was the creator of RSS (Really Simple Syndication”) which changed how people get online content and allowed for accessing different sources of information.  As an example, RSS enables how millions of people get their podcasts.  He committed suicide in January  11th at the age of 26, under the extreme pressures of the prosecution of the government – charging him with 13 felony charges under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA).
  2. Jacob Appelbaum – A computer security researcher who is a developer and advocate for the TOR project, a system that enables users to communicate anonymously on the internet.  He and two other individuals, has been the target of government in its investigation by secret efforts to gather private information for the purpose of its investigation into Wikileaks.  The federal appeals court had granted the government a warrant to subpoena and acquire the Twitter records of the subjects of their investigation.
  3. Julian Assange (the recent recipient of  the Yoko Ono Lennon Courage Award for the Arts in absentia)
Yoko Ono: “This 2013 Courage Award for the Arts is presented to Julian Assange.  With your courage, the truth was revealed to us – thank you – and gave wisdom and power to heal the world.  On behalf of the suffering world, I thank you.  Yoko Ono Lennon.  Thank you.
Some common themes in the cases of these men is they were subjected to covert surveillance that was sanctioned by governing bodies who are  “protecting” our freedom.  They were interrogated, detained and threatened to lose their right to express themselves in their acts to educate and to provide the tools to the public to maintain our value of freedom and truth.
It is monumental and ironic.  It is frightful to think and know that the government has been given carte blanche, under the guise of the “Patriot Act”, to poke and dig into the private virtual realms of our lives, then prosecute to protect us from what is deemed to be terrorist acts.  Let’s face the the mirror and judge ourselves for our own thoughts and acts.  We may discover a conscience that knows what is real and of value.
I was blown away by the brilliance of the work presented in “The Nether”, simply by what it is magnifying in our conscience.  Be aware, be conscious and do not lose touch with our humanity.
Without being one sided on the issue of freedom on the internet I mention the story of Manti Te’o, a Heisman Trophy runner up, who was the victim of an internet hoax.  He began a relationship with a woman via telephone conversations and the internet, and never had the chance to see the relationship to life, because the girlfriend died of leukemia.  The media painted the image of a football hero who fought and was victorious in the football field, because of his love and devotion to the woman; and people had donated generously to charities in the name of Manti Te’o’s cause.  Everyone bought into the intrigue.
As described by Te’o and the Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick in a statement after Deadspin.com, that broke the story of the hoax, “the player was drawn into a virtual romance with a woman who used the phony name Lennay Kekua, was fooled into believing she died of leukemia in September.  They said his only contact with the woman was via the Internet and telephone.” (source – Huffington Post 01/17/2013)
In closing, I mention words from Te’o in an interview,
“As people we have to realize that we’re all people, somebody is somebody’s son, somebody is somebody’s daugher.  And I try to picture it that way.  Would you want somebody doing that to your son?  Would you want somebody doing that to your daughter?  If not, why do it?  Through this whole experience I’ve learned that.”
If any of what I’ve said today rings a truth in you then I encourage you to see “The Nether”, in what it has stirred in me about values.  The playing realm can evolve, because we are entities of creation.  But what maintains is our values and how we treat each other.  “The Nether” will be playing at the Kirk Douglas Theater in Culver City from March 19th to April 14th.
Iris (not verbadim, but from what I remember from the play):  “I’ve been thinking about God.  Not God in the person sense, but God in how we are to each other.”