Soul Work – Part 1

Uncategorized

Soul work is house work.  These words came to me at 4:30 this morning while scrubbing the kitchen floor with vinegar-water, and the dog soaked in the warm bath to wash away the stench of urine.  This is soul work, I thought.  I love her, but man… this is tough.  I miss the days when I can bounce out of bed and grab the leash while Chloe eagerly waited for me at the door, running to and fro in her excitement to play outside in the crisp cold morning and explore the canyon.  Now she’s fifteen years old.

Some mornings, like today, I’m happily relieved that she is aroused by the sound of my voice calling her name, “Chloe?”  It’s the last day of 2012, and I wonder if she’ll be with me next year.  I hate myself for asking this question.  To ask it, seems like a betrayal.  I swish the water around her back legs and kiss her nose.  She looks at me, perhaps wondering if she’s being a burden.  Or is it me projecting my thoughts and feelings on her?  I love you I tell her and kiss her again.  You’ve been a wonderful friend.  I don’t mind.

I’m thankful that I have clean water to do this work.  The water is the medium between the spirit and the soul.  There’s a line in the movie “The Company” that goes like this,  “My mother said that rain is the tears of God cleansing away the sins of the world.”  I feel guilty on the days (and some of the days are strung along like paper lamps that I long to come home to a clean home.  Then I remind myself to be patient and loving, because the dog can’t help her condition.  She’s incontinent.  I don’t know when the right time will come to let her go.  I’ve decided that she’ll decide and let me know.

This phase of my relationship with an old friend has been soul work.  What I mean by soul work is getting to the grit and dirt of my frustration, my sadness, my fatigue and everything else that I would label as unkind and ugly about my attitude to the situation.  I cannot shun the work, because the only way through it is to work through it.  Soul work is akin to housework.  Eventually, I or someone I pay to do it, will need to apply the elbow grease to clean up the mess.  But it is the act of applying myself to the work that will absolve me of my “guilt” for my unworthy feelings.

This past year has been my hunger year for anything “soul” related.  I hunted down the thrift store for psychology and self-help books on the soul.  I read “Soul Stories” by Gary Zukov, and also his other book, “Seat of the Soul”.  These were good.  I found a treasure in Thomas Moore’s “Care of The Soul:  A guide for cultivating depth and sacredness in everyday life.”  Thomas Moore uses mythology and archetypes to describe the reflections of the soul like the lights of a crystal spinning on an axis.  In his book, I found the reasoning to accept my feelings.

There are many events that I question, “Why?”.  Some things just do not make sense despite my best intentions.  The challenge is how I choose to think and react to the circumstances.  In the beginning I didn’t understand the change happening to the dog a couple of years ago.  Then, slowly I began to open my eyes that the happy, limber puppy was suddenly an old dog.  She was suddenly a dog with arthritis and a heart that still bore the spirit of a loyal and trusting friend.

My experience with Chloe is one of other soul stories I am sharing with you.  It has been a very challenging couple of years.  I know a few in our own circle that have had their share of soulful experiences.  What keeps us going is that spirit of aspiring to be a better person.  It is a matter of awareness and choice.  I don’t mean to seem dogmatic like I’ve got it figured out, because I feel I’m so far away from that.

But I really want to forgive myself for feeling unkind sometimes.  The body is a perfect machine.  The organs work synchronously to sustain life.  When we cut our finger the systems works as a team and sends chemicals to the injury so that the blood will clot, and the immune system is activated to kill germs and bacteria.The body perfectly designed to expire after some wear and tear, or when the timing was just right for the body to be at rest.

Our society is obsessed with prolonging life and capturing timeless beauty.  I begin to open my eyes to the perfect-imperfect design of life and death.

After I drain the bath water and hoist Chloe over the lip of the tub, I tease her, “How did you get so big?!  How did you do it?”  I coo the words to her in a tone of loving humor.  At 5 o’clock I take a reprieve from the task.  I know that in a few hours I will be doing the  same thing over again.

Christmas Blessings

playwriting, ,

I have a confession to make – my initial reaction at blogging over Christmas was “What?  But I’ve got candy to eat and hug family and watch Holiday movies on repeat!! ”  But then I realized that it might be the perfect time to sit down and tap out some sentiment… I mean, last time I was blogging for the LAFPI, I was pretty much crying in my beer – feeling very overwhelmed and under-creative.

Then I co-produced a short play festival with my The@trics partner, and my groove came back with a vengeance!

There really is a lot to be said for donning the producer cap once in a while – it helps alleviate that dark and bitter sense of atrophy that a playwright can develop under the right circumstance (I’m broke, I don’t have the job I want, I don’t have time to write, I am tired of eating cereal for diner… you know what I’m talking about here).  Producing gets you our of the house, our of your pajamas, and away from the mini-bar.  You are busy!  You are working on a completed project!  You are part of something that is actually-by-God coming to fruition!

And it is empowering!

But it wasn’t just the “productivity” that pulled me out of my funk – it was the impact of the production itself that was inspiring!   Here were plays that were written to raise money for a local non-profit. Here were plays that by there very writing, mattered!  They weren’t just something written to suit a playwright’s fancies… they were written to get butts in seats so that the Coalition for Compassion and Justice in Prescott, AZ, could fund their poverty relief programs… these plays were written to help people… a purpose which, combined with all the creativity and passion behind/within/around it, reminded me of the power of theatre.

And that, dear reader, is what I needed to remember- what I needed to feel again, in my bones… I needed to feel the hum and throb and pull of the “why” of it all.

For why else do we write, but to make a difference?  Be it through laughter or revelation, catharsis comes to a hungry audience through the collaboration of many impassioned creationists… And I finally feel the passion coming back… driving me to sit back down and create!

 

“The Bitch Pack & LAFPI Hollywood New Year Event: To Bring Focus to Women Writers”

LAFPI, , , , , ,

by Laura Shamas

What happens when two groups who promote female entertainment writers in Los Angeles get together to start the New Year? On Saturday, January 12, 2013, 2 – 5 p.m. at Samuel French Bookshop in Hollywood, the Bitch Pack and the Los Angeles Female Playwrights Initiative are co-sponsoring a networking mixer for women writers who work in film, television and stage. The event is free and open to all.

The Bitch Pack is a group of active female and male entertainment writers who have joined forces in order to foster more work that passes the Bechdel Test, and to ensure that diverse women’s voices are represented in television and film. Their goal: “Changing Women’s Representation on Screen, Starting with the Written Page.” They look for screenplays that pass the Bechdel Test, and feature these on “The Bitch List,” which stands for “Brilliant, Intriguing, Creative, Tenacious Heroines.”  One of their ongoing projects includes an Award they give at Shriekfest for a horror screenplay that passes the Bechdel Test.  Their mentors include: Carole Dean, Bob Engels, Ari Posner, Dan Vining, Terry George and Susan Cartsonis. They are also affiliated with Pop Change.

The Los Angeles Female Playwrights Initiative is comprised of female and male theatre writers working toward fair representation of women playwrights on stage. LA FPI projects include a 2011 study of women playwrights produced in the SoCal area, which concluded that only about 20% of plays produced locally are female-authored and “Tactical Reads,” a partnership with The Vagrancy to present readings of female-authored plays, directed by female directors. The next Tactical Reads presentation is January 27, 2013.

Screenwriter Thuc Nguyen, founder of The Bitch Pack, says that the newest 2013 “Bitch List” will be ready for distribution by January 12, so there will be a lot to discuss at the Samuel French/Hollywood event. “We need this event to bring to light the fact that this town/our industries still don’t pay enough attention to women’s dialogue and women’s representation on stage or film. Our afternoon will have writers mingling together and hopefully new connections to bring our goals and missions to fruition!”

Lynne Moses, a founding partner of Appleseed Entertainment who writes, directs and produces for the screen and stage, feels the event is a vital one. Moses, the Communication Director for LA FPI, explains: “Women’s historic exclusion from theatre deprived the world of female voices for centuries.  Now that women are free to write for the stage and screen, there’s a lot of catching up to do!  The January 12th Hollywood event is a great opportunity to highlight the extraordinary work of women on L.A.’s stages and screens.”

Playwright Jennie Webb, a co-Founder of LA FPI, and Editor of the group’s website, feels the synergy between the two groups is a natural fit. “One of the things that we told ourselves when we started LA FPI is  ‘Let’s not say no.’ We wanted to focus on the positive and the possibilities while staying true to our goals: helping put women’s voices onstage.  So when we heard a cry in the wilderness from the Bitch Pack, of course we jumped at the chance to help one another by joining forces whenever possible. Playwrights work in film and TV, and vice versa: screenwriters want to play in theaters. Hopefully, by corralling our energies, there’ll be more women working in both fields, and more collective energy feeding us all as we move forward. Here’s a big ‘YES’ to connecting like-minded women in the new year.”

A future collaboration between the Bitch Pack and LA FPI may include a 2013 livestreamed reading event to feature L.A. women writers who work on stage and screen. Other possibilities: Finding new collaborators, exploring new creative ventures…and finding innovative ways to change the representation of women on stage and screen, by encouraging more women’s voices in the mix.

Bitch Pack & LA FPI Hollywood Event: Saturday, January 12, 2:00 – 5:00 p.m., Samuel French Bookshop, 7623 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood. Free. Open to all. For more details about the event: [email protected]. 

A COUPLE OF THINGS

Uncategorized

I’ve been asking myself. Do I blog about the general perception of community theatre or do I go right to shameless promotion? What the heck? Why not do both?

Lately, I’ve heard people disparage non equity theater, saying that the work is not on a par with equity shows. Having worked in both professional and amateur theater for many years, I think that’s a misperception, and that good and bad work is done by both. I’ve seen exciting shows at the Taper and the Odyssey, at the Elephant and the Blank, the Pacific Resident Theatre, etc. and some that were rotten.

I’ve seen exciting work at community theaters as well. I’ve been knocked out by some of Theatre Palisades’s shows. Lieber and Stoller’s Smokey Joe’s Café to name one, was superb, as was DiPietro and Robert’s I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change, and Alan Ayckbourn’s Things We Do For Love. The sets are often gorgeous and some of the talent that I’ve seen on that stage rivals that in shows I’ve seen in New York and Toronto. Amy Adams did a terrific job in Beth Henley’s Crimes of the Heart, for example.

There are differences. Generally speaking, the community theaters rarely take chances and believe that new work will not draw. I wish they’d produce more shows by women. (Was Agatha Christie a woman or was she born an icon?)

That brings me to the shameless self-promotion. Theatre Palisades is giving my comedy, Has Anybody Here Seen Roy? a good run in 2013. It goes up on January the 18th and runs through February the 17th, playing on Fridays, Saturdays at 8 pm and Sundays at 2.

Rehearsals are fun and exciting. I know many of you, like me, have been shut out of the creative process – I know some playwrights who have been not allowed into the rehearsal room – and I’m very grateful to both this director and the company who want me there.

The director, Susan Stangl, and an excellent cast are taking the time to establish the tone, go deep into the characters, explore the subtext and find the theme. The cast is delighted to be putting its stamp on new characters. The talk is lively, improvisations bring new discoveries, and the play grows as they work.

I’m not only allowed at rehearsals but am asked to clarify, contribute, and to rewrite when doing so improves the play. It’s just a joy to be part of the team and to hear my words coming to life.

If this play draws, maybe more community theatres will do more new plays by women. Or I’ll go back to my original plan and change my name to Agatha Simon.

Writer’s Block Redux, Redux, Redux

Uncategorized

I have been whining about Writer’s Block for a couple of years. Whining, fretting, raging – in despair. I’ve tried everything – exercises, games, ten minute nonstop unfiltered writing, resting, relaxing. Nothing. Zip.

In September, Valerie Ruel, an actress with the Kentwood Players, asked me if I had a short play she could look at. She was auditioning to direct at Kentwood and had to bring in a more or less full production of a short play for a one night workshop, which the membership would attend.

I gave her my favorite one act play, a comedy called Rondo a la Condo. It’s a forty-five page, one set piece with five characters. And she liked it. Not only that, she asked me to play a part in it. “Well,” I said, “Yes.” I think I may also have said, “Yippee.”

We rehearsed for a brief couple of weeks. Valerie was efficient and well prepared, the actors were fun and enthusiastic, and the stage manager transformed the existing set into a condo balcony in about ten seconds flat. On performance night, the audience loved it.
We all had a blast!

After it was over, one of the actors, Ted Pitsis, said, “People don’t put up one acts. Why don’t you turn this into an evening?” “Impossible,” I thought and put it out of my mind.

Then, walking down the street, the other day, I suddenly had a “What If?” Out of the blue. What ifs came tumbling after what ifs. What if this one act is actually the second act of a two act play? What if the first act took place fifteen years earlier? What if the one actor plays two different parts, one in the first act, and one in the other? Etc.

I made some notes and have made some more and I’m hope, hope, hoping that the note making continues and the lines start to flow.

It could happen. It’s happened before. Yippee.

Too old?

Uncategorized,

DC playwrights are watching their “in” boxes this week, awaiting word about whether they’ve been accepted into Arena Stage’s playwrights’ group. Six locals will be invited to join this elite bunch.

I’m not one of them.

And that’s fine. I have a weekly skype writing appointment with a fellow playwright in Omaha, a wonderful writer named Ellen Struve, who gives me feedback and keeps me honest – ie: keeps me writing. I’m also lucky to have found a great group of writers here in DC that meet monthly. They call themselves the Playwrights’ Gymnasium. And I still am a member of Ensemble Studio Theatre Los Angeles’ Playwrights Lab – though my attendance has been spotty of late due to that five hour plane ride. So I’m not lacking for writing groups.

But Arena’s cache would mean avoiding the slush pile when sending out plays. It would – to paraphrase Jane Austen – put me in the way of meeting other eligible theatres and literary managers. It could jumpstart a career. Woulda, coulda, shoulda.

Lately, we female playwrights have been counting noses – how many plays being produced are written by those of our gender. Theatres are more aware of that these days. Some progress has been made.

But the fear among other writers here in DC who were also not chosen to join the Arena group is that frankly, we’re too old. Too old to be considered an “emerging” playwright. Too old to be the hottest young thing out of an MFA program. Too old period.

Somehow, this hurts more than being told one’s writing is just not good enough. We can certainly work on our craft. Not much we can do about turning back the hands of the clock, no matter how much we spend on facial products.

I aged out of acting when the commercials slowed way down; I know I’m too old to write for television anymore. But I never thought I’d become too senior for the theatre. Particularly since when I attend most plays, I’m the youngest one in the audience!

I hope this isn’t sour grapes. I hope the writers Arena chose are truly wonderful, no matter what their birth certificate says. I hope they choose at least one person old enough to remember where they were when John Glenn flew in space.

After all, isn’t it the theatre that keeps us all forever young?

Old Friends

Uncategorized, , , , ,

I had the unusual opportunity a weekend ago to see and/or hear one of my earliest plays – and one of my newest ones. It wasn’t quite as embarrassing as looking through old photo albums full of 80’s hair. But almost.

MUM’S THE WORD was the second play I ever wrote – dialogue heavy, lots of phones ringing, a fairly simple story that was a tribute to one of my favorite genres in film: those 1930’s Warner Brother musical comedies. My characters didn’t sing. But I hoped the play would crackle with that fast paced dialogue between dames and saps. I hadn’t seen it in – okay, I’ll admit it – in nearly 30 years! I wrote it with a part for myself, of course. And it was a wonderful role: Jinx Riley, the gal born on Friday the 13th, the sucker for the wrong kind of guy. I kept the wonderful depression era secretary costume until just last year, when I admitted I’d never get down to that size again. Or play that part again.

I was surprised at how well it stood the test of time. Acoustics in the North By South Theatre space (a church auditorium in Glendale) were awful. And an electrical malfunction meant all the lights on stage left had blown out. So it was hard to hear the dialogue – or watch the actors’ lips for clues about what they were saying. But I wasn’t embarrassed by the script. Oh, sure, the turn around at the end came too quickly. But it wasn’t awful.

Earlier in the afternoon, I got to hear the ten minute version of an even shorter play for the first time. Ensemble Studio Theatre was holding its annual “Playday” reading series on exactly the same day that MUM’S was going up!

I had written LAKE TITICACA for a contest sponsored by DC’s Theater J. They invited playwrights to create a 5 minute reaction to Matthew Lopez’ terrific post-Civil War play THE WHIPPING MAN. I recalled the odd period after the LA riots when everyone was walking on eggshells. That grew into a five page piece, which was chosen by Theater J for a reading.

But since five minute plays are a rarity, I felt the piece had some room to grow. So I expanded it to ten minutes. But the EST reading was the first time I’d heard it aloud in that form.

Ouch.

This is the blessing that actors offer. You can HEAR and SEE what’s missing, what doesn’t work, where the klunky parts are.

But I was pleased to hear audience reactions – particularly from a trio of African American actors waiting to go on in the next piece. They got it. And looked around to find the author. Me. That made the day.

The experience of two plays in the space of a few hours was particularly valuable to me as a writer. Such a contrast in writing styles over three decades! I’m less verbose. Still interested in quirky humor, but more apt to let the audience figure stuff out.

I’m trying to let the experience reassure me as I try to get back to writing a new piece – much more similar to that first comedy than to anything I’ve written lately. I may not be Preston Sturges or Jane Austen or Tom Stoppard. But I am Kitty Felde. And while my work may not win Tonys or bring down the Berlin Wall, it has value.

Taking the new car out for a drive

Uncategorized, , , ,

It’s like that first ding in a new car.
It’s all shiny and perfect, those first few scenes of a new play. At least inside your head. Oh, the laughs it gets! How the characters jump off the page. What a clever girl I am.
And then you get that first ding, that hint of criticism. And the bloom is off the rose. The car just isn’t new again. And the play isn’t perfect.
I hate this part of writing – exposing pages that in your heart of hearts you KNOW has flaws. But you’re so in love with it, you can hardly wait to share it with others, confident they’ll love it as much as you do. But they don’t. They see the flaws you blind yourself to see. And they have the nerve to tell you.
I brought 30 fat pages of my newest play – a romantic comedy because I’m tired of writing “serious” plays – into my monthly writing group. (A note about this monthly approach: It’s hard to establish a rhythm when you only meet every month. I much prefer my weekly Skype writing partner for continuous feedback and a weekly deadline for pages.) I was the last to read. There was silence around the table. (I should have prepared questions I wanted the group to answer!) And then our fearless leader asked the question about the king’s clothes: what’s the play about? What’s at stake? Ouch.
It was enough to inspire me to walk the 2 ½ miles home. In the rain. And eat several Trader Joe’s dark chocolate sea salt caramels. And become fearful of even looking at the script again.
At least until today.
It’s still a good car, er, play. It’s just not perfect. But a little polish and TLC and it will still get me where I want to go.