#FringeFemmes Check-Ins: MexiStani!

Director, Female Artists, Fringe Festival, Global Feminism, LGBTQ, playwriting, , , ,

by Terry Holzman

Quick peeks at the work of #HFF17 female playwrights, “Women on the Fringe,” by Fringe Femmes who’re behind the scenes this year. Click Here for all Check-Ins.

Fringe Femmes


WHO: Sofie Khan

WHAT: MexiStani! Growing Up Mexican & Pakistani in America

WHERE: studio/stage

WHY: One of the ten Fringe Scholarship winners (awarded to shows that expand and diversify the Fringe community), charismatic comic Sofie Khan grew up with a Mexican Catholic mother and a Pakistani Muslim father in a predominantly Black and Puerto Rican Chicago neighborhood. Such a multi-culti stew makes for a deliciously funny and poignant solo show.

Sofie’s warm, relaxed, upbeat stage presence immediately invites the audience into her world. I love her positive motto: “If you judge a book by its cover, you miss out on the story.” And Sofie tells her story very well, relating the many instances where her “cover” has indeed been judged—by cashiers, TSA agents, White House staff (to name a few). Her story is both unique yet highly relatable as our country becomes even more of a melting pot and we’re all “mixed” in some way (mine is a strict Catholic mom and Atheist dad, which was difficult in its own way.)

Sofie reads our minds by answering such questions as: Does she identify more with her ‘Mexi’ side or her ‘Stani’ side? Has she been a victim of a hate crime? What holidays does she celebrate? All these questions and many more are answered along with her imparting sincere wisdom about all of us being part of the World Community, and wanting to create a “safe space and understanding for all…especially for LGBTQ and Muslim individuals”. (To that end, Sofie has partnered with the Naz & Matt Foundation which tackles “homophobia triggered by religion to help parents accept their children”. Brava.)

Though Sofie is “charismatic AF” (to quote the kids today), a compelling performance and a well-told tale is often not enough to make a solo show riveting. It must be theatrical as well. Otherwise, I could just listen to “The Moth” on the radio. I love seeing solo shows at the Fringe and how they run the gamut from basic stand-up to the use of multi-media, props, and other elements to amp up the show. Tightly directed by solo show dynamo Jessica Lynne Johnson, MexiStani! makes use of projections, audience participation, impersonations, and Sofie even performs a rap song. All of the elements add up to a theatrical and highly entertaining show. So entertaining that the serious themes slipped right by my brain and straight into my heart and had me thinking about them days later.

One final note: Sofie is offering a free 90- minute Fringe workshop with the right-to- the-point title: “Getting to Your Authentic Happy Self When You Feel Like Shit”. It’s at the Asylum Underground Theater, June 10 at am. Maybe I’ll see you there! 

HOW: http://hff17.org/4431

#FringeFemmes Check-Ins: In the Valley of the Shadow

Female Artists, Fringe Festival, LGBTQ, playwriting

by Terry Holzman

Quick peeks at the work of #HFF17 female playwrights, “Women on the Fringe,” by Fringe Femmes who’re behind the scenes this year. Click Here for all Check-Ins.

Fringe Femmes


WHO:  Katherine Cortez

WHAT:  In the Valley of the Shadow

WHERE:  Rogue Machine at the MET

WHY:  Not all of Fringe can be fun-and-games. Audiences (like me!) adore fun but we also want theater that helps us to understand what’s going on IRL (in real life).  This thought-provoking world premier ensemble drama was inspired by the 2016 shootings at the LGBT Pulse nightclub in Orlando on “Latin Night” in which 49 (mostly Latino) people were murdered by a single gunman.  The play explores how “fundamental belief systems can give a perverse inspiration to the execution of hate in the name of ‘love’.”

The play opens in chaos—projections of people dancing are quickly replaced by screams and panic.  Something horrific has happened and I was on the edge of my seat as the layers of what happened slowly unfold.  The focus is on Rafi (short for Raphael), a handsome, young man in a blood-spattered t-shirt who grimly stares into the distance.  He’s in shock, trying to understand and piece together the events of the evening.  Carmen, another survivor, shuffles in, missing a shoe.  A gentle detective arrives to comfort them, along with a uniformed cop (who is more judgmental than comforting).  Eventually Rafi’s fundamentalist Christian mother comes to take Rafi home and though she’s ecstatic her son is alive, she cannot contain the multitudes of bias she holds within.

Rafi also takes us into his recent past.  Questioning his sexuality and how he came to be at the Pulse nightclub that night and meeting a man there who is not who he seems.  In Rafi’s memory, we meet his eclectic club friends; foremost is Enrique (a hot, Latin charmer Rafi encounters at an AA meeting).  All good drama contains a mystery and this play has many.  The obvious question is: “Where’s Enrique?”  Rafi will not leave until he finds his lover and I was holding my breath, waiting…

The title comes from Psalm 23:4  “…though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me…” and refers to a Higher Power’s presence during death; but Katherine Cortez gives it another meaning—finding strength in love, all love. “Love is Love is Love” one of the characters says.   Cortez’s writing is entertaining, and thought-provoking. A good thing as I was afraid a play based on such a tragedy could be depressing.  And yes, it stirs up “the feels”, posits many questions, and  calls out for more understanding—from the characters and the audience.  And while the story made me sad, angry, and challenged, I was never depressed.  I felt the “thin edge of the wedge” of hope, hope that things can change with love.

There is much humor to balance the horror, especially among the supporting characters, including a laughing-through-her-tears compassionate trans woman.  Five actors played dual roles—each one wildly different from the other. (Especially impressive was Tania Verafield who plays the quiet Carmen but who quickly flips her hair to expose a shaved temple.  She adds a long feathered earring and fully embodies butch bartender Hawk.)  Special kudos to the Femme production members Heather Tyler (producer), Elina De Santos (director), Stephanie Kerley (set—her clever use of the standing set for Rogue Machine’s current production is outstanding).

One final note:  There will be a special performance and reception on the one-year marker of the Pulse nightclub tragedy on Sunday, June 11, 7:30 pm.  Proceeds will benefit the LGBT Center.  Parking at the MET is difficult, give yourself time to get there.  Your patience will be rewarded.

 HOW:  http://hff17.org/4749

 

#FringeFemmes Check-Ins: Tough Brown Leather

Feminism, Fringe Festival, Performance, Playwright, Women

by Constance Strickland

Quick peeks at the work of #HFF17 female playwrights, “Women on the Fringe,” by Fringe Femmes who’re behind the scenes this year. Click Here for all Check-Ins.

Fringe Femmes



WHO: Tonya Jones

WHAT: Tough Brown Leather

WHERE: Lounge Theatre

WHY: In a time when women are refusing to have their voices silenced and refuse to have their stories told for them, Tough Brown Leather is a testament to the powerful mantra: my time, my way. This solo show poetically takes us through the journey of a carefree little girl in love with
football to a woman who must learn to face her past while accepting her sexual self. Tonya uses her body, football and comedy to reflect upon a pain that often quietly eats away pieces of oneself. Tonya thrives and overcomes – using her voice to heal not only herself but, without knowing, other women who’ve also faced sexual assault. An inspirational theatre ride that Tonya owns with bravura. GO!

HOW: http://hff17.com4588

The FPI Files: Female Playwright in Space

Interview, Playwright, playwriting, Women, , , , , ,

When we heard that LA’s Fierce Backbone, home of some amazing women playwrights, was collaborating with the femme-friendly Drive Theatre on a new production, our ears perked up. And after learning the project was Amy Tofte’s murder mystery on a mission to Mars, WOMEN OF 4G, we felt we had to find out a bit more about what went on behind the scenes before this collaboration blasted off.

LA FPI: Love that a female writer is venturing into what’s often thought of as a male territory – space, the final frontier. What draws you to science fiction?

Playwright Amy Tofte

AMY TOFTE: I’ve always been into Star Wars and read tons of sci-fi. Even my plays/stories that aren’t sci-fi usually have an element of the fantastical or the famous “what if” being asked. I think I’m drawn to it because classic sci-fi is often related to allegory and challenging ideology. I’ve read somewhere that all sci-fi examines religion. I’d go further and say it questions what we know now by offering up an alternative of what could be. I was also raised and educated on truly magical theater experiences and I’m inspired to create moments that will be fun for an audience to experience together. I love seeing the impossible staged when I go to the theater.

LA FPI: Tell us a bit about the role the Bechdel Test played in the creation of this work, which has all an female cast.  

AMY: I think The Bechdel Test is important to all story telling and I think every writer should think about it. Novels, films, plays…it doesn’t matter. It’s important because I think we are brain-damaged as a society. All of us. It’s not just a divide that puts men on one side and women on the other. When you don’t have a society that represents true equality, the dominant (which is currently white male) becomes the default. It’s a real problem in stories and scripts. You’ll see a character described as “African-American” or “Chinese”…but then everyone else is given personality traits because the default is white.

Janlyn Williams, Jane Kim – Heidi Marie Photography

I give a lot of feedback on scripts and you still see really good writers who are very much about empowering women but their story somehow doesn’t give their female characters all the things a “default character” might get: the women in the stories will be denied making decisions and choices, denied making mistakes and having moments to learn, driving the action. I say we’re brain-damaged because that’s ingrained in us as children. I’m not saying anything new here. That’s why diversity is important in story-telling. If we don’t see women playing super heroes or leaders in our stories, we don’t expect them in our lives.

I’m also pissed off. I’m pissed off about the election. I’m tired of knowing that women are over 50% of the population and we still write less than a third of all produced plays and have so few reps in congress or as CEO’s of major corporations. It’s ridiculous we’re still even talking in these terms. But the best thing I know to do with that anger is to write a play with all women. And make them all complicated, interesting characters who get to kick a little ass when they feel like it.

LA FPI: Let’s talk about Fierce Backbone, a development lab that seems to be very supportive of women’s voices onstage. 

AMY:  Fierce has been the single most important artistic home I’ve ever had. The focus is on development and we produce when we have the resources and a script we want to produce. We’re now in our 10th year! Fierce has consistently boasted over 50% female playwrights in our Writers Unit. So it’s easy to also say the majority of our productions, workshop productions and readings have featured female playwrights. We’re very proud of that. I also have so much respect and gratitude for our actors. They are an incredible resource.

LA FPI: How did Fierce Backbone connect with Drive Theatre for this project?

AMY: Drive has been a friend of Fierce for a few years now. We’ve supported each other’s work and they did a workshop production late last year of one of our other writer’s plays (Defenders by Cailin Harrison). We’ve also shared development ideas and were always looking for projects that make sense to partner on.

I shared the first draft of 4G with Doug and Kat [Drive Theatre Artistic Director Doug Oliphant and Kat Reinbold, Curatorial Producer] in late 2015 and they got involved in the development process.  That was really energizing as we had a lot of new voices joining the conversation. Like any playwright getting produced, I feel very, very lucky! And I’m particularly lucky to see this through with people who have given so much to help the script grow.

[NOTE: This is Drive Theatre’s is a longtime friend of LA FPI and WOMEN OF 4G is its seventh straight production by a female playwright!]

LA FPI: What was it like in rehearsals, with such a femme presence… and and a male director?

AMY: OMG. It’s so amazing. And so noticeable. It also felt like the cast bonded immediately. It was like a room full of passionate, unruly schoolgirls one minute and then intense intellectual conversations about life and being a woman in this post-election world. It reminded me so much of all the great female friendships I’ve had over the years, where you can bond so quickly.

During our table work we all shared stories prompted by events in the play…times we were afraid, things we have to do as women that men don’t have to think about. It was also great having Doug there as our director because he was like a reality check that men are clueless about certain things in the lives of women. It made me realize that the making of this particular play could be just as important as the story and performance. I think we’re all taking away something special. These women feel like sisters to me, like we’ve all been through something together.

WOMEN OF 4G opened May 19, and plays through June 17 at the Zephyr Theatre in Hollywood. For more info visit the production’s Facebook Event  or http://www.drivetheatre.org/women-of-4g.html 

 

Jane Kim, Janlyn Williams, Samantha Barrios, Lily Rains, Cady Zuckerman, Jully Lee – Heidi Marie Photography.

 

Know a female or FPI-friendly theater, company or artist? Contact us at [email protected] & check out The FPI Files for more stories.

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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.

#FringeFemmes Check-Ins: Herpes: A Love Story

Female Artists, Fringe Festival, playwriting, Production

by Terry Holzman

Quick peeks at the work of #HFF17 female playwrights, “Women on the Fringe,” by Fringe Femmes who’re behind the scenes this year. Click Here for all Check-Ins.

Fringe Femmes


WHO: Cherise Pascual

WHAT: Herpes: A Love Story

WHERE: studio/stage

WHY: When I was handed a pink poncho and a condom—branded with the show’s name—along with the program (featuring a picture of the star dressed as a fluffy herpes lesion), I immediately thought “ahhhh, I’m at the Fringe.”

I use the word “branded” intentionally, because that’s how Cherise Pascual (aka “Cherry Cola”) the high-octane star and writer of this inventive solo show felt after being diagnosed with herpes. Sexual secrets are hard to reveal and even though it seems that “everyone has herpes now,” Cherise kept her herpes under wraps for a long time. As she says “herpes isn’t fatal, but it nearly killed me.” Her secret lead to substance abuse, fear of relationships, long-term celibacy, poor self-esteem and self-deprecation. Finally, to forgive herself, to survive, to live a life free of guilt, Cherise HAD to tell her story and she tells it with incredible humor, theatricality, and most importantly, a brave heart.

Directed by the “solo-show whisperer” Jessica Lynn Johnson, the charismatic “Cherry Cola” uses musical parody, projected images, hilarious props; she impersonates boyfriends, doctors, and her mother; and breaks the fourth wall to talk with the audience, all on her journey from self-hate to self-love. I was glad to be along for the ride. (PS: I won’t tell you what the poncho is for….you’ll have to go see for yourself.)

HOW: hff17.org/4504

 

#FringeFemmes Check-Ins: Why We Become Witches

Director, Female Artists, Fringe Festival, playwriting

by Terry Holzman

Quick peeks at the work of #HFF17 female playwrights, “Women on the Fringe,” by Fringe Femmes who’re behind the scenes this year. Click Here for all Check-Ins.

Fringe Femmes


 

WHO:  Kate Motzenbacker and Sal Nicolazzo

WHAT:  Why We Become Witches

WHERE:  Sacred Fools Studio

WHY:  This one-woman show was adapted from the novel “Lolly Willowes; or the Loving Huntsman” by Sylvia Townsend Warner and was a sensation when it was first published in 1926. Its feminist message is just as relevant 91 years later.

Lisa Wyatt plays Laura “Aunt Lolly” Willowes, an aging English spinster who struggles to break free of her controlling family.   Lisa is fascinating to watch as she slowly draws us into Lolly’s life: an endless round of taking care of others.  There’s a clever dimension of the supernatural as Lolly “tunes in” to her family’s comments, demands and criticisms through a radio.  It’s a little harder however, to “tune them out” as they constantly tell Lolly what she “should” be doing, where and how she should be living. I liked that the recorded voices emanated through an old “cathedral-style” radio (my grandmother had one just like it) which gives the voices a dose of spiritual gravitas.

And all Lolly wants is to be left alone!  She wants to leave London and move to the small village of Great Mop (population 227), where she can have a small house “and a donkey!” She eventually moves to countryside but soon after, her nephew visits and decides to stay.  While out walking, she meets Satan and strikes a pact.  I loved Lolly’s observation that “all women are witches….and even if they never do anything with their witchcraft, they know it’s there.”

Lolly Willowes appealed for a “life of one’s own” three years before Virginia Woolf called for her own room.  Kudos to Kate and Sal for finding this gem of a story and adapting into a poetic theater piece.

HOW:  http://hff17.org/4700

 

 

 

 

#FringeFemmes Check-Ins: Hey Hollywood, My Hustle Has ADHD

Fringe Festival, Performing Arts, playwriting, race

by Chris Farah

Quick peeks at the work of #HFF17 female playwrights, “Women on the Fringe,” by Fringe Femmes who’re behind the scenes this year. Click Here for all Check-Ins.

Fringe Femmes


 WHO: Rasika Mathur

WHAT: HEY HOLLYWOOD, MY HUSTLE HAS ADHD

WHERE: Lounge Theatre

WHY:
In this diversity scholarship winning show, Indian-American actress, improviser, and rapper Rasika (pronounced “Ross-ika”) takes us on her artist’s journey in Hollywood as she struggles with ADHD as well as finding relief in her diagnosis. This is a powerhouse one lady show where Rasika explodes with energy and commitment (until she gets distracted) but then dropping back in for sheer moments of brilliance. Anyone dealing with feelings of ineptitude in a town where everyone is working for their big break will find this show resounding. Also, for any fringers wanting to support females of color, YOU CANNOT MISS THIS SHOW.

HOW: http://hff17.com/4536

#FringeFemmes Check-Ins: Missmatch

Fringe Festival, LAFPI, playwriting

by Jennifer Ashe

Quick peeks at the work of #HFF17 female playwrights, “Women on the Fringe,” by Fringe Femmes who’re behind the scenes this year. Click Here for all Check-Ins.

Fringe Femmes


WHO: Amanda Conlon

WHAT: Missmatch

WHERE: The Actors Company

WHY:

Amanda Conlon takes us on a hilarious musical journey into the hell known as online dating. She is surrounded by supportive women, a judgmental mother, a loving gay roommate and the worst of humanity that only the internet could put together. The music is familiar but the lyrics are all hers. You know where she’s going as the first bar begins but that makes it all the funnier. Today, meeting a potential partner through natural interaction seems a thing of the past as she sings literally about not touching another human being. I laughed out loud as did the woman next to me till she cried “This is my life right now!”

HOW: http://hff17.com/4339

New on the LAFPI Podcast: “What She Said” – Alyson Mead with Dorothy Fortenberry

playwriting

Alyson Mead speaks with playwright Dorothy Fortenberry about Chekhov, the land, and indigenous plants as metaphor in her new play Species Native to California, an IAMA Theatre Company production currently playing at the Awater Village Theater.

Listen In!




What conversations do you want to have? Send your suggestions for compelling female playwrights or theater artists working on LA stages to Alyson Mead at [email protected], then listen to “What She Said.”

Click Here for More LA FPI Podcasts

An Interview with Constance Congdon

Conference, Interview, LAFPI, Playwright, playwriting, , , , ,

by Anna Nicholas

As a playwright fortunate enough to participate in the William Inge Play Lab this year, one of my favorite Master Classes was given by Constance Congdon (Tales of the Lost Formicans, Gilgamesh, Raggedy Ann and Andy and others). Connie’s been teaching playwriting at Amherst College for twenty-three years and knows her way around a writing exercise*. She graciously agreed to sit down and talk about her plays, writing for theatre and what if anything had changed for women playwrights since the production of her first play, Gilgamesh, in 1977.

Constance Congdon

 

AN: What was your earliest theatrical experience?

CC: I had puppets and used to perform puppet shows over the top of my parents’ bed. Later, when I was in Junior High, I played “Mammy” in A Feudin’ Over Yonder and got a lot of laughs. Though I love actors I never wanted to be one. (Note: I saw Connie kick it in the “Improv to Page” workshop conducted by Ron West and Catherine Butterfield. Connie can act.)

 

AN: Did you study theatre in College?

CC: I was an English major and not a great student. It took me 6 years to get through. Of course it didn’t help that I kept moving and had to pay for school myself.

 

AN: So, no theatre in college. How did you find your way back to it?

CC: I had lots of jobs but the life-changer was as a mobile librarian. I discovered children’s literature and reading aloud to kids. Something was sparked and that experience served me well when I began writing plays and musicals for the Children’s Theatre of Minneapolis. I hadn’t known that would happen when I boarded the book mobile.

 

AN: What was your first play and first production?

CC: Gilgamesh at St. Mary’s College in Maryland where I was teaching remedial reading at the time. They gave me a first class production. Not all my plays have been so lucky.

 

AN: Tony Kushner calls you “one of the best playwrights our country, and our language, has produced.”[2] But for whatever reason, I’ve never seen or read any of your work. I’m going to rectify that now and catch up on your canon.

CC: Thank you.

 

AN: You taught at Amherst College for twenty-three years. Over the course of your career in both teaching and playmaking you must have observed some changes in how women are perceived in the theatre.

CC: Not as much as I’d like. There’s more opportunity for women and the awareness of the need to produce women’s plays has increased, but there’s still a resistance to the female voice, whatever that means. It extends to Artistic Directors and Literary Managers and sadly both men and women.

 

AN: Now that you are retiring from Amherst, what’s your game plan?

CC: At 72, I am energized to see more of my work get to the stage. A few years ago, I was fortunate to be part of Profile Theatre’s one playwright a year with a few of my plays. And I have just finished a new work called Hair of the Dog: The Foule Murder of Christopher Marlowe as Uncovered by William Shakespeare and am working on a book on playwriting with Mac Wellman and Jeff Jones.

 

AN: What advice would you give to female playwrights?

CC: My biggest piece of advice is to apply for grants; particularly state grants if they’re available. It’s usually other playwrights like me who read the plays and make the decisions, which is good. And if there are no state grants, apply for any arts grants that exist. If you want to teach, get your MFA. It’s important for the boards and administrations of most colleges and universities to know you’ve been vetted. Go to theatre festivals and network. Familiarize yourselves with different theatre departments and submit, submit, submit. I also advise not to worry about reviews. I’ve never gotten good reviews and I’ve made my peace with it.

 

AN: I loved your Master Class and the “rant” exercise *. Can I share it with the playwrights who read the LAFPI blog?

CC: Absolutely.

 

Constance Congdon’s “Rant” Exercise: As yourself or one of your characters, write a rant for a solid 10 minutes. Let the vitriol out at a person or something you hate. Don’t edit and write honestly, like you’re going to rip it up. Have someone call time at 5 minutes, 2 minutes, 1 minute and 30 seconds. The idea here is not to break up the “planning” that often occurs in the writer’s mind about what you’re writing. When you’re done, read it. Take a breath and then write for another 10 minutes but this time you are writing the rebuttal to your rant. You can be the person ranted against, or someone else with a strong point of view about the first rant. The third part of the exercise is to go back and forth between the original rant and the rebuttal, taking one or two lines from each and you might just find yourself with the beginnings of a scene.

 

Anna Nicholas just returned from the 2017 William Inge Play Lab, where her play, Ocotillo was chosen for development. Annanicholas.com