Right now there is a need for our stories to be told from our perspective to illustrate the diversity that exists in the world. When I say our, I mean American Indians. But what happens when we tell do tell our stories and our own people don’t like it? When you are trying to spread knowledge and stories, but the victims of the crimes and their families feel cheated and used, who are you helping? As a writer, when you tell a story, who can tell it, when is it not “too soon”, when is just promotion to sell your work and profit from someone else’s misery.
While working on a devised piece on boarding schools, my theater group read brief pages from a book then improvised the story surrounding that page. One person was then assigned to write out the scene we had just performed and the next week we would read the new scenes aloud. We talked about it as a group and further changes may or may not happen, but the conversation did help us to understand the process as well as how others saw the story. As a group of American Indian performers from different backgrounds and tribes, our understanding of the boarding school experience differed, as did the message we wanted to give the world. As we read the stories from the book, that helped form our own interpretation of the actual incident. Not once did I consider how I was glorifying someone else’s pain or justifying the actions of the school administrators and parents.
These are the things that keep me from writing. I have so many ideas in my head, so many stories I feel need to be told, yet this feeling of betrayal sits deep inside shaking its head telling me it’s not my place. But who’s place is it then? Who can tell the story? Just this morning, as I was “researching” (procrastinating) to make sure I was going down the right path, I found a video from Adam Conover, from Adam Ruins Everything, telling the “True Messed Up Story of Pocahontas”. Now to me, he’s not really ruining the story. As native people we’ve heard the true story. We’ve listened to other natives tell the story, we may have even watched a PBS show or two about it. Yet it still amazes me that in this “everybody is native” culture that we live in, there is still shock. “I never knew that”. Yes, I know the story because I had the pleasure of playing the role of Matachanna, Pocahontas’s sister, in a play, so I was aware, but is that it?Is it because of the obscurity of Native Playwrights and Screenwriters? Does it really take a non-native comedian with a TV show to educate America? Is it less threatening coming from a “celebrity” rather than the actual people living it? Would people have known about Standing Rock had Shailene Woodley not been arrested with a t-shirt that everyone wants now, or Mark Ruffalo wasn’t live tweeting? Don’t get me wrong, getting the message out there is appreciated, but I continue to wonder why, if native people have been given the raw deal, why is it so difficult to actually listen to the stories from those who live it?
It is encouraging that this past weekend 3 plays opened from 3 women playwrights, who happen to be native. If it’s any indication of who should be telling our stories, I better get writing.
WHY: Upon entrance into Impro Studios there is a feeling of excitement that begins in your solar plexus and wiggles it way down to your toes, an antsy anticipation for what you know is going to be a thrilling ride. Ripley Improv does not disappoint with GLAM! Based off the hit Netflix series GLOW, GLAM is directed by Laurie Jones and features a talented group of actors – who happen to all be women – delivering on-the-spot storylines and characters that are funny, heartbreaking as well as audacious and brave. It comes as no surprise that you find yourself rooting for them all and forgetting this live show is NOT scripted ahead of time, while dancing in your seat to a wicked ‘80s soundtrack. We are living in most exciting times, where we get to see women not needing to water down who they are, creating stories with their own voices on their own terms! Go support the women of GLAM – you’ll walk out a bit taller.
It’s worth a plane ticket to Denver once a year to see what other playwrights are writing and thinking. This was my third (or is it fourth?) year I’ve attended the Colorado New Play Summit – a chance to see seven new plays in three days. For invited playwrights it’s an opportunity for them to workshop their pieces for a week with professional actors, directors and dramaturgs, plus get feedback from a live audience. For the uninvited, it’s a chance to talk to other playwrights, to have lunch with literary managers, and to experience COLD weather without strapping on the skis. I particularly enjoy attending because the Colorado New Play Summit makes the uninvited playwrights feel as welcome as those whose works are being put onstage. It’s also like a crash course in playwriting. I always come away with half a dozen new writing tips.
Here’s my overview of what I saw and what I heard:
It was a good year at the New Play Summit. Every one of the new plays was full of promise. Every one of them was unfinished and flawed in some way. Every one of them was exciting and stimulating.
And every one of them taught me something about playwriting.
Here’s what I learned:
Decide what to leave out
“Christa McAuliffe’s Eyes Were Blue” by Kemp Powers is a tough piece about how racism in America affects a pair of biracial twins (one light skinned, the other dark.) The inciting incident of the play takes place the day that the space shuttle Challenger exploded. The question for a playwright is: how much of the gruesome details do you include onstage? Is the audience old enough to have experienced it for themselves? Powers withholds specifics until almost the last scene. And then he lays them on with graphic delight.
Is it more powerful this way? I know that I’m a writer who could stand to go a bit more for the jugular. But I also wonder whether the graphic details about the Challenger disaster overshadowed the larger questions Powers wants to address.
Bad exposition
Several plays used the phrase, “did you know…?” or “do you remember…?” It seemed like a lazy way to take care of exposition. I’m going to scour my plays for this lazy playwright way of sharing information with the audience.
Take theatrical chances
In the play “Mama Metallica,” playwright Sigrid Gilmer puts herself front and center, working out her grief at losing her mother to Parkinsons. Sounds dreary, right?
It’s hysterical. Our main character is a playwright and both Tennessee Williams and Eugene O’Neill drop by to chat. The band Metallica also makes an appearance and plays a few numbers. The play is weird and wonderful and funny and touching. It’s truly theatrical. I only wish I’d thought of it. At least now, I’ll ask myself: have I missed an opportunity to make magic onstage?
Let your protagonist be the star
Two years ago, I saw a reading of José Cruz González’ “American Mariachi.” The reading was more of an ensemble piece. It sported a very large cast of women – something every high school drama teacher in Los Angeles would snap up in a heartbeat.
The full production in Denver focused on a single mother/daughter and father/daughter relationship. The story was easier to follow with a single protagonist and one main conflict. It was as though you could commit to the play because you only had to give your heart to one person onstage.
In the play “Celia, A Slave,” playwright Barbara Seyda took the trial transcript of a young woman hanged for killing her master and turned it into a poetic series of monologues. The language was beautiful, though we heard little from Celia herself. Instead, a cast of thousands told her story. Does a large cast make a play more powerful? Would an audience be more willing to give its heart to Celia if we had more of an opportunity to hear from her?
The power of music
Sigrid Gilmer had Metallica onstage. José Cruz González had an entire mariachi band! The music was both powerful and exciting. Plus, the musicians became our guide as the play weaved in and out of time and space. And how can an audience not be satisfied when they get a play and a mariachi band for one ticket?
Of course, music can work against you, too. Matthew Lopez’ play “Zoey’s Perfect Wedding” is one of those wedding-gone-wrong stories set in a crummy hotel with an awful DJ playing all the worst hits you can imagine. The groans from the audience were audible. And very funny.
Do you have to like everybody onstage?
One of my own favorite plays features a main character everybody loves to hate. It’s my orphan play that’s had lots of readings and no premiere. Most of the criticism for “Western & 96th” is directed at the ex-cop-turned-politico Mike Marcott. Me? I love the guy. I can’t understand why my audience doesn’t love him as much as I do. Is that the reason nobody wants to produce the play?
I thought about that watching David Jacobi’s “The Couches” – a piece inspired by the “affluenza” trial. It’s a wonderfully written play, but it’s not pleasant spending 90 minutes with the two main characters. They were horrible human beings. Horrible. I’ll be happy if I never have to spend another moment in their presence. (But I’ll bet Netflix snaps it up as their next series!)
Contrast that with Lauren Yee’s “The Great Leap” – a tale about basketball and Tiananmen Square. I dare you not to fall in love with every one of the characters in her play. I saw a reading of it at last year’s New Play Summit. The minute her characters came onstage, it was like seeing old friends. You actually missed them!
I don’t think it’s necessary to fall in love with all the characters in a play. But it’s sure a lot more fun when you do!
Hope you’ll consider joining me next February in Denver for the next Colorado New Play Summit!
I am a box office manager at a theater. Most of the time, I can handle everything with ease – maybe do a little playwriting during a shift, maybe get in a little reading – loved A Gentleman InMoscow – EXCEPT for twice a year when there is a Children’s Show.
The Youth Show has always had about 20 to 25 children in it – the current production has 36, ages 8 to 14 years – and they are wonderful. They work very hard with energy and joy, shepherded about by a few teenagers, and they continue to amaze me. During the rehearsal period, which uses the entire theater – the rehearsal room, the patio, the auditorium and the lobby, I can hear incessant drumming and lines read and songs sung and one day, somewhere in there, enjoyed the synopsis of Titus Andronicus on someone’s phone – EEW, SO GROSS! Later on, I found out 13 facts about Frederick Douglas because one of the girls was writing a paper on him and my computer was up and running. A small girl told me that 2 negative minus 2 negative is 2 positive. Who knew?
The children are supported by their exceptionally hard working and cheerful parents who build the sets, make the costumes, do the makeup, serve the food and clean up and on and on. And it’s all volunteer.
However, I don’t know if most people know this, but children have not only parents and grandparents but uncles and aunts and school teachers and school friends and neighbors and most of them want to come to one or two or three of the shows or maybe to all of them. Some people will reserve 20 tickets at a time. But the parents who book the tickets are dealing with people who change their minds!
And even though we have listed only 70 seats a performance on the online site – an inefficient operation called Ticket Leap – so that we won’t sell out, when those are gone, the rumor immediately goes round that the show is SOLD OUT even when there are 125 seats in the theater. The parents’ pain is palpable. NO!!!!
I am in a booth that is open to the lobby and inevitably when I come in to work, a parent will follow me. I can be taking off my jacket, putting down my purse, opening the place up and someone will say to me, “I know you’re not open yet but do you have two tickets for the Sunday matinee? Ideally, I’d like four.” There will be somebody behind her who says, “Isn’t that show sold out?” and the first person will say, “How would she know? She’s not even open yet!” And I will say, “That show is sold out,” and will hear “You’re kidding me. Right?” Wrong.
The lobby is adjacent to the box office – there is no door or window separating it – and the crowd is LOUD so that the person shouting through the box office window at show time from outside can’t be heard. Over the years, I’ve become somewhat adept at lip reading but am not always sure what’s been said. Opening night is the most chaotic but you would think after the searching for seats and the fear that we won’t have enough, that everybody would be in and happy by at least ten minutes after curtain – when someone will rush in from the auditorium and demand an answer to “So when did we allow reserved seating?!!!!”
After a stint, I lie in bed, thinking about the Monarch Resort Hotel in Pacific Grove just a block from the sea. I’m there, with my husband, watching the flickering embers from the room fireplace and contemplating the May arrival of the Monarch butterflies, which will fill an adjacent lot – thousands of them – none making a sound. It’s a beautiful dream, broken only by the sound of my husband, who teaches school, muttering in his sleep. “Sit down,” he barks.
What are you working on? That’s a question every artist hears and asks themselves a lot. My answer to that question for the last 10 months has been “everything but my art.” So much so that I have overworked myself to the point of illness. I have not had the flu for over 20 years and this past week, I have been under the weather, medicating per doctor’s order for flu-like symptoms. I am so annoyed with myself. I am supposed to be practicing balance. It used to be my way of life and now I am fighting to get back there. True, I have lost a lot this year and the pressure has sent me into a work-away-the-pain-mode but it doesn’t work away the pain, not really, you’re just tired.
What am I working on? Me writing…writing something every day because writing is the best thing I’ve found for pain. I can’t believe I forgot that… even for a moment.
Upon Bruno’s sudden and unexpected accidental death on his Yamaha, the world changed in varying degrees. Like a Google Map I am faced with re-centering my life. It’s not our life as a married couple, but my singular life.
‘dBruno Hervé CommereucMy mom gives me a well meaning advice this morning. Remove his clothes from the drawers to make room for yours. I bit my lip and clamped off the Mt. Vesuvius inside of me. If you have an opinion just keep it to yourself I wanted to scream.
People say, “He’d want you to be happy. You have to move on.” My intellect gets it but my heart doesn’t. Better to keep your opinions for later because right now I only need your presence and not your judgments. Be one of my dogs and just sit with me. It’s times like this when there are no words.
As a writer I write to make sense of what’s happening. I want to write but I can’t. My heart is lead and every limb and joint is heavy too. I want him to linger. I want his scent to stay. I cut off the string from the lemon tree where he hung the wasp trap. I save the knot because no one will ever tie a knot like Bruno… the way he would truss a bird before it goes into the oven to feed the lonely hearts and the empty bellies.
There are no words to put order in the midst of chaos. I move like an automaton to survive. Yes I’ve got that. I can’t let the wall of dignity crack lest ‘I lose it.’ Maybe this is why people offer structures to align myself to: “Have you thought about what you’re going to do?” Please don’t ask me this question in a phone call in between errands. It hurts my feelings.
Bruno
Words create order. A skilled writer and/or speaker can put disorder into order. A meteorologist can enlighten what’s happening in a hurricane. The eye of the storm is the calm surrounded by the vortex of violent forces that destroy what we believed as permanent. No matter how hard I tidy up, sweep the floor, dust the picture frames and put clean laundry in its proper place entropy will rule. It’s a matter of time. How long can I keep up this face of composure like Humpty Dumpty sitting on the wall?
The natural laws of the universe is held in place by a tension… Life is a delicate balance shadowed by that moment of “Time is up. Let’s go. Leave all else behind. You won’t be needing it. You’re a light traveller. You are light.”
On January 15, 2018, Bruno Hervé Commereuc was killed by a hit and run driver at the corner of 54th Street and Arlington in Los Angeles, California. The Los Angeles Police Department is asking for information to help in apprehending the driver of the grey Nissan 370Z (updated vehicle description from the flyer, below) who is still at large.
Americans live in a very goal-orientated culture. Every ad slaps us, shinning a light on our inadequate ability to be the best versions of ourselves and lays out each product as the solution. Every school works towards hitting testing quotas. Every life is valued against the milestones hit; those with career success, with a house and car, with a spouse and kids, with a 401k and dental insurance, with an instagram following…those are the ones we are taught to chase, to envy, to emulate.
We know money can’t buy happiness. We know that “successful” people can be depressed, struggle with mental health, loneliness, and feelings of worthlessness. It doesn’t stop us from chasing that ideal, however, as if it were the end-all goal. Sure, money can’t buy happiness, we justify ourselves in our pursuit, but it can make the daily struggles a little easier. Sure. Absolutely. But how many of us recognize when we we’ve reached an income where we can meet our needs and just stop chasing the next level up in money or recognition? No one. We all always want a little more.
We all always want a little more.
Is there anything wrong with that? Don’t goals help you to grow? Don’t they challenge you to constantly be improving? Without goals…then, what? If you stop progressing, isn’t that stagnation death?
Last month I went on the first real vacation of my adult life at 31 years old. The first vacation that wasn’t to visit family or friends or audition or scout a city to move to…I mean, technically it was “work” related, as I was attending a film festival for my webseries Seek Help, but that was really just the excuse to explore Montreal. I’ve wanted to go to Canada for a long time, and this was a great impetus. The festival just took up part of one day, but the other four days my significant gay bff, creative collaborator, and #notacouple friend Johnny and I just explored. We had no itinerary. We just woke up each day, strapped on our shoes, and started walking.
I was anxious prior to leaving. I’ll be honest with you, I didn’t fully understand “vacations.” haha What a weirdo! My favorite things in life have been creating. My apartment is filled with tools I bounce between every day making new things. I didn’t know what I would do without those–I couldn’t imagine being entertained and invested in wandering around. I mean, doesn’t every city have the same basic types of things? Cafes, museums, parks, restaurants, etc. So, what? I figured I would probably get bored and get some work done while there…some medical blogging, some Seek Help season two editing.
I didn’t though. I did no work at all. Johnny and I woke up early each morning, strapped on our shoes, and started walking. Sometimes it was snowing and our faces went numb from the Canadian cold. We ducked into a dozen cafes, ate so many delicious meals–meals free from TV sets, meals that were about the meals, and the company, and respite from the cold. We walked through Old Montreal on cobble stone streets with horse-drawn carriages. We went to the Notre Dame Basilica Church. We rode a huge Ferris wheel and saw the whole city from above. We watched “The Shape of Water” in French. We went to the Montreal Museum of Fine Art and lost track of time and space. We went on a tinder date. We held platonic hands to keep from slipping on ice. We propositioned a squirrel for a finger-to-nose kiss and got one. We ate poutine for the first time. We rode on a huge, light-up, musical teeter-totter. We navigated the metro. We talked and we tuned-out in our own internal spaces when we needed to decompress. And I was present and invested and entertained and content the whole time. A chronic migraine sufferer, I didn’t have to take my migraine medication once the whole time there. I had energy and happiness and relaxed muscles.
What I felt, I guess, was the joy of being present in the moment with no agenda. What I felt was living life like a radical improvisation where there is no script, and there are no goals, just a vague sense of having fun, saying “yes,” and staying present with my partner. While I did that I began to wonder why I ever wanted anything more than that…why I ever began to believe that I needed so much more to…what? Be happy? Be worthwhile? Be successful? What does that even mean? At one point, when discussing the future, Johnny was talking about an idea he had but then negated it’s merit saying that it was an idea that he could see living out because it would make him feel safe and happy, but wouldn’t be particularly risky or challenging. And it struck me–I said, “What’s so bad about being safe and happy? Do you know how hard those are to come by?”
“What’s so bad about being safe and happy? Do you know how hard those are to come by?”
Don’t get me wrong–I’m not saying not to challenge yourself. But there are many ways to challenge yourself, to grow, and learn new things and I think that’s always important to do. But I think there is this unspoken pressure in America that if you don’t chase the success of the wildest incarnations of your dreams that you are somehow always a failure. And we cling to that suggested failure as a means to beat ourselves up with, to compare ourselves enviously against others, but are we missing out on the greater values of life by putting this idea in people’s heads? This constant push to go bigger, be better, make more money, be more well-known, gain followers…ultimately, it’s an empty facade without enjoying each moment, presently, with those around you. Where is the push to just be present? To get off our phones and stop hustling our own image like we’re all running PR firms for our lives and see the world that’s actually happening around us?
Before I made the decision to stay in Springfield, MO (rather than return to LA) and focus on just making what I want, when I want, rather than chase the praise, validation, money, and reputation of others…I felt constant pressure. I felt I was always behind–since I was a small child! I’ve felt I’ve been failing in my goals for success. I’ve let go of that now. I’ve started focusing on the moment, each day, on recognizing the joys of where I am at, of investing in my community and creating as solely the necessary means of communication and expression that it is for me–rather than sweat the pressure of always working to turn my art into money. Don’t get me wrong, I think that is an admirable trait, honestly. It’s just not in my repertoire–it drains and depresses me. And that’s okay. We’re all calibrated differently! I’m just realizing that I would rather spend my days achieving the happiness of simply expressing my expression as I choose to express it, rather than putting all my life’s worth and value in the pressure of achieving some monetary, American version of “success” or trying to create art that pleases others.
I still have goals–but I don’t think about them in that way anymore. There are the things I have to get done for work-jobs and the things I have to get done to get my artistic-work finished. There are things I want to do, like learn languages, that I do in the spare, awkward minutes between parking my car and going into some place. There are things that are good for me to do that I do when I have enough time, like work out. There are things like playing a bigger role in helping to make my community a safer, more positive place that I prioritize now (I’m in the last week of my training to become a CASA, aka Court Appointed Special Advocate for children going through Foster Care). I also prioritize going deeper with friends, and allowing myself to carve out time to actively adventure…but these are all things I want to do. They don’t require lists with micro-goals, they happen because I want them to and so I do them. And old goals I felt pressured to do, like constantly be pimping the business side of my artistic pursuits, I’ve let fall away. Whatever opportunities come, great–but I’m divorcing my art of the American focus of “success”–I create because I’m a creator and if you get it, want it, great–I want it to always be accessible to you. If not, it’s all the same. I’m glad my little world is small and manageable–that I can create without the pressure of pleasing others, that I can make enough money to live from day jobs that I don’t loathe, and that I’m not burning myself out taking art jobs that make me hate the art I love. I just wanna wake up each day and put my shoes on and go, play, explore…and try to stay present and open to wherever the day and this life takes me.
It’s a whole new world and way of approaching life for me…and it’s exhilarating.
“And it shall be called The Struggle-Bottrell.”
One last thing. While Johnny and I were in Montreal, while I did feel great 99% of the trip, there was one evening where my spirits dipped to that place we artists know too well…in the gutters of self-loathing and despair. It was our first night there, the night before the festival. I had just showed Johnny several episodes of season two of Seek Help, which I’ve been feverishly editing. Soon I began my ritual beating up of myself over every imperfection. As Johnny and I sat over our fancy ramen dinner, it was agreed that “There should be a word that describes being both proud of the amount of work you’ve put into something, and being embarrassed or ashamed of the final product not living up to your vision” to which Johnny suddenly proclaimed, “And it shall be called The Struggle-Bottrell.” My sole purpose in telling you this is that I would love, love, love if my legacy on earth was to contribute my name to this description. So, please, if you’re ever in need of a word for this feeling, feel free to use this to describe your own Struggle-Bottrell.
This fall, I went back to school. After ten years of day jobs, late-night shows in black box theatres, publications of short stories in tiny journals, bad reviews and “oh-look-how-much-she-tried” reviews, and stealing office supplies and copy machine time from said day jobs (sorry, day jobs), I thought an MFA program was a real cracker jack idea. This of course meant I had to evaluate where I really am as a person and an artist – the least of which not being that I had to get the chicken pox vaccine in order to be allowed on campus because I had apparently never had it or at least it wore off at some point and we all know that chicken pox gets worse as you get older so I could have died, y’all. You know there’s got to be chicken pox hanging out with all the other diseases in those tiny light booths in LA black boxes. Died.
Here lies Chelsea. She was a bit melodramatic. But still.
I also had to write my artistic statement (again). And I don’t know about you, but artistic statements / statements of interest are the worst part of any application to anything. My version of hell would be an eternity of writing new vision statements, probably while having chicken pox and listening to the sound track of the 1967 movie Guns of the Trees – an artsy, dare-I-say pretentious film I had to watch for a film studies class and which made me viscerally and irrationally angry. Welcome to grad school.
I made some shit up of course (can I say “shit” on the blog? I just did.) I got into school, but I was on the waitlist first so let’s not get too puffed up about it or the quality of my statement. I’m very good at almost-winning things. Lesson: I’m never anyone’s first choice but I’m making a career out of profiting off of other people’s passed up opportunities.
Okay, found the door. Where’s the damn key?
My statement is fine. But in my first quarter I really started to understand the different paths we are all on – and knowing where you are and not caring where someone thinks you should be. That’s the key to a real eduction (inside and outside the classroom) and probably a great vision/artistic/interest statement.
[Full disclosure: I’m actually in the MFA program for fiction. After being waitlisted for playwriting programs twice, I said a big “screw you guys, I’ll figure it out on my own” to the Theatre Gods, and that’s what I did. My fiction needed some love and attention. It always blows my mind how theatre and literature generally know so very little about each other – the communities really should overlap more. But that’s another blog.]
I’m learning to become a new kind of student. It’s grad school. It’s a terminal degree. Grades alone are not going to get me where I want to be. Any other straight-A students out there? This is a big shift in mentality. I am learning how to approach each class now with the mindset of growing as an artist and a person. I’m not here for perfect grades. I’m here to write. I’m tired of trying to figure out what someone else wants me to say – because, news flash, I’ll never get it right. So lets get back to what is true. And I think this mentality can be applied to any opportunity we are applying to that requires us to articulate how and why and who.
On That Note – Optional Themes For Your Next Artistic Statement:
I am awesome. Give me money so I can do more awesome.
I see multicultural and radical race theory interwoven with the histrionic classical diegesis…(Doesn’t have to make sense as long as it sounds smart.)
I’m going to change the world.
The world will never change.
Puppets!
I’m trying to be better.
Sometimes it takes a long time to know what you’re trying to say.
I want my world to be radical and political and shattering but sometimes that means it’s a quiet story about a quiet person on a quiet but special day.
Marches are great, but I want to write about what happens once it is over.
Ghosts!
Burritos!
I almost died from almost getting chicken pox and now I understand this fleeting life we have and I just don’t have time to try to feed into what you think a playwright should be doing or thinking.
In our current political climate, we need theatre more than ever. Theatre can reflect the challenges of our current reality or it can invite audiences to escape it.
Let’s hear from artists who seem to find a way to do both, like playwright Adrienne Dawes and director Rosie Glen-Lambert, in Denim Doves produced by Sacred Fools, just extended through February 23, 2018 at the Broadwater Mainstage.
LA FPI: What inspired this piece?
Adrienne Dawes
Adrienne Dawes: Denim Doves began as a devised piece with Salvage Vanguard Theater in Austin, TX. We started building the play around the summer of 2013, around the time of the Wendy Davis filibuster. It was a gross sort of spectator sport to watch Democratic senators try for nearly 13 hours to block a bill that would have implemented some of the most stringent abortion restrictions in the country. My friends and I felt so incredibly angry… We poured all those feelings, all that “fiery feminist rage,” into creating a new piece.
We knew we couldn’t just scream at an audience for 75 minutes, so very early in the process, we played within comedic structures. How could we sneak very serious conversations into very silly premises? Dick jokes became the sort of “Trojan Horse” into talking about intersectional feminism, fluid identities and an oppressive government that considers female bodies as a commodity. We drew inspiration from Margaret Atwood’s novel “The Handmaid’s Tale”, Suzette Haden Elgin’s novel “Native Tongue” (specifically for her use of the feminist language Laadan), YouTube videos of hand bell choirs, and finger tutting choreography.
LA FPI: Rosie, what attracted you to directing this play?
Rosie Glen-Lambert
Rosie Glen-Lambert: I am always on the hunt to direct work that gives a voice to women, queer folk, non-binary folk, people of color and anyone who feels like their “type” isn’t typically represented in casting ads.
But beyond providing a platform to diverse performers, I have a particular attraction to plays that allow anyone besides white men to be “the funny one.” I believe wholeheartedly in the power of comedy. I think it’s a great way to unpack an issue that is challenging or to permeate a hard, un-listening exterior.
LA FPI: How does music play a role in this piece?
Adrienne:Denim Doves is more of a “play with music” than musical. There are specific musical moments that scratch the surface and reveal the darker, more sinister aspects of this world. Cyndi Williams is an amazing performer, playwright and lyricist who was part of the original devising team (she originated the role of First Wife). Cyndi’s writing is incredibly rich and unique. She brings a very serious, Southern Gothic quality that gives us a nice contrast to the lighter, bawdy stuff I bring. Erik Secrest composed the original score (and originated the role of First Son) that was performed by the original cast with church hand bells, the electric guitar and a drum kit that was hidden in plain sight onstage.
For the LA production, Sacred Fools collaborated with composer Ellen Warkentine to develop new music. It was wild to hear those old songs in a completely different way. I hope to find more opportunities to collaborate with female composers in the future.
Meg Cashel, Janellen Steininger and Teri Gamble in “Denim Doves” – Jessica Sherman Photography
LA FPI: We love supporting femme-centric projects. What has this experience been like, working with a female majority including writer, director, cast and crew?
Rosie: An unbelievable privilege. Here’s the thing: I believe wholeheartedly that gender is a construct. I believe that men can be soft and compassionate and women can be strong and authoritative. I believe that anyone, regardless of where they fall on the gender spectrum, has the ability to behave in any manner they choose; that how you identify or what you were assigned at birth is not the determining factor in your behavior.
With that being said, many women and femmes are socialized in such a way where they are often allowed to be softer and more empathetic, where men tend to be socialized to disconnect from emotion and consider those qualities as weak. This means that a rehearsal room that is full of women and femmes is often a room that is full of people who are willing to tap into emotion and create a space that is safe and welcoming. A room where someone can say “actually I don’t think my body is capable of doing what you are describing” and rather than a room of people rolling their eyes and a caff’d up male director yelling “just do it,” the team is able to slow down, consider this person’s perspective, and enthusiastically find a solution.
I think that we as humans are all capable of working in this manner, and I believe that by allowing women and femmes to lead by example men are changing their perspective on what a theatrical process should look like.
Adrienne: I was absent for much of the rehearsal process (I’m currently living in Tulsa, OK for a writing residency) but I can say that the rehearsal rooms and processes where I felt I made the most sense have always been led by women+ and people of color. Those are the rooms where I feel like I belong, where I feel like all my differences (all the many ways I am different) are seen as strengths. It’s a huge relief to feel safe and like my voice can be heard without having to yell over another person. In most rooms, it feels like a fight for survival, a fight to belong or to prove yourself. I prefer a room where I feel like my voice is needed and valued.
LA FPI: Amidst today’s politics, what would you like audiences to take away with them?
Rosie: The art that has come out of this past year reflects our national desire to unpack and discuss this past election, and our political climate. This desire is constant, and yet it is exhausting. People who are protected by privilege are able to, at times, disconnect from the insanity and say “I feel overwhelmed, I don’t want to be sad anymore.” And while that is a natural inclination, not everyone is able to make the choice to tap out. Those whose bodies are inherently politicized are never allowed a day off; they are never able to just not be black, or trans, or latinx, or a woman for the day. I believe that this play in particular – which begins farcically, raucously, and which, full disclosure, is just plain riddled with dick jokes – has the potential to trick someone who would never seek out something as serious as the “Handmaid’s Tale” and make them reflect on their privilege and invigorate them to recommitting themselves to a more active dedication to social change. I want people to get in their cars, drive home, kick off their shoes, and wonder if what they are doing is enough.
Adrienne: I hope we can make audiences laugh. I hope to give audiences some relief, some escape from the trash fire that is our current political climate. I also hope that even inside this extremely absurd world, audiences recognize how harmful misogyny and strict gender-based rules/expectations are for everyone. Everyone is hurt, everyone is affected. We imagine a future rebellion that mirrors past resistance movements, one that is led by people of color and trans/queer/non-binary people.
Tyler Bremer, Meg Cashel, Lana Rae Jarvis, Teri Gamble and Jennie Kwan in “Denim Doves” – Jessica Sherman Photography
Los Angeles Female Playwrights Initiative is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non‐profit arts service organization. Contributions for the charitable purposes of LA FPI must be made payable to “Fractured Atlas” only and are tax‐deductible to the extent permitted by law.
