The Female Science Fiction Writers of Tomorrow

Female Artists, Feminism, Girls, Performing Arts, Play, Playwright, playwriting, Theatre, Young Women,

by Korama Danquah

It’s not a secret to anyone that science fiction writing has, in the past, been a boys’ club. I can’t really tell you why. Perhaps it’s a carryover from the gender gap in science education or maybe it’s just that women feel it’s more productive to construct a real-world society of equality before creating elaborate fictional future worlds. Whatever the reason, there are 20 H. P. Lovecrafts for every Ursula Le Guin.

This weekend, however, marks a momentous step forward for women in science fiction writing. Five young women will have staged readings of their science fiction short stories at Sci-Fest LA’s Tomorrow Prize. These LA high school students will have their stories (1500 words or less) read by prominent sci-fi actors and all five finalists are women.

Screen Shot 2015-05-15 at 4.58.39 PM
Finalists from Left to Right: Ashley Anderson, Erica Goodwin, Janeane Kim, Ruby Park, and Athena Thomassian

The five finalists are a beacon of hope for female sci-fi fans. For decades women in science fiction have been seductive aliens and, more recently, captains and starship officers, but we have not often been the authors of these fantastical stories. These finalists and others like them are saying no to the boys’ club of the past and carving a place for themselves in the annals of sci-fi history. It is often said that “you can’t be what you can’t see,” and these young women are making themselves visible for female science fiction writers of today and of tomorrow.

The Tomorrow Prize readings take place on Saturday, May 16th at 4:00 at Acme Comedy Theatre (135 N. La Brea Ave, Hollywood). Tickets are available for $10 online and $15 at the door. All box office proceeds and any additional donations received that day go to the winner’s high school science department. 

Karen Black Acting On Film

playwriting

      by Diane Grant

My husband, Kerry Feltham, is a filmmaker who specializes in documentary films. I’m blogging about one of his films today because it is about the late Karen Black, who died on August the 8th, 2013. Called Karen Black Acting On Film, the film is up on Amazon Instant Video – $1.99 to rent and $7.99 to buy – and is really worth watching.

He and I followed Karen around as she made films and friends, talked about life in show business and shared her insights into acting technique. She had a prodigious natural talent but was also so disciplined and skilled, she made it look easy.

And it isn’t.

What is so good in the film is her understanding not only of acting, particularly on film, but about the courage and energy and strength it takes to keep going in show business, pushing through on the rough days, having fun on the good ones. The latter is pertinent to all of us, whether we are acting, writing, or producing in either film or theater.

Even when she was no longer at the top – and she had been for a long time in such films as Trilogy of Terror, The Day Of The Locust, Nashville, The Great Gatsby, Five Easy Pieces – she continued to work. Character work was her forte and she created wonderfully full characters, some odd, some funny, some sad, but always full.

Lately, I’ve thought quite often about packing it in. How many plays can you have in the drawer? How many staged readings of plays you long to see on their feet can you sit through? How many submissions can you make in a month? And to whom? Didn’t you submit that one to that contest in 2011? Or was it that one in 2012? Should you keep all those email rejections?

And we all tell ourselves the same thing over and over. It’s the work, the doing of it, the joy of doing it.

Karen was a vivid example of that joy.

Karen Black

KAREN BLACK Acting on Film

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Self Production Series with Anna Nicholas: #12 Rehearsal…

LAFPI, Playwright, Production, , , , , , ,

#12. Rehearsals – Or… Making it to Opening Night

by Guest Blogger Anna Nicholas

In the theater, things don’t always happen in a nice, sequential and unstressful order. And in Equity-waiver theatre—read low-budget—things not going as planned is the order of the day. Meaning a playwright doesn’t often have the luxury of a wonderful theatre to work in, fabulous designers to bring her vision to life, a positive casting period during which actors ideal for the roles you’ve written show up to audition and a smooth but exciting rehearsal period where each rehearsal builds upon the last; until finally your show peaks on opening night in front of an appreciative audience with top critics in attendance loving your play. Oh, would that it were so easy! In fact, getting a play up is more a case of overcoming obstacles—whether those obstacles be physical or mental. And with Villa Thrilla, we had our share of both.

Once we had our cast—a challenge in itself—rehearsal began with just four weeks until opening night. (For more on the challenges of casting, see this post in the series: https://lafpi.com/2015/03/the-self-production-series-with-anna-nicholas-9-finding-your-actors/) Four weeks is not much time when you’re mounting a new play with a cast of ten; particularly when it seemed impossible to get all the actors to the same rehearsals, even though the play required that their characters be on stage at the same time.

You do your best to get peoples’ schedules ahead of time in order to plan rehearsals but a few people in our cast apparently hadn’t heard about looking at a calendar to verify their availability before committing to doing a play. Did they not know about Yom Kippur or their Mother’s birthday when they signed on? Add losing a cast member one week into rehearsals, losing another cast member for 10 days when a parent became sick out of town and a third cast member who was so difficult to work with we wanted to lose him but replacing him would have meant losing another cast member we liked and there just wasn’t time to get new people up to speed.

The only advantage I can see to 99-seat theatre going away—and I truly hope it does not—is an advantage only to Producers. I guess they should get something for having to pay actors more. The advantage I see is that actors will need to make a greater commitment to the play they have agreed to do, adhering to rehearsal schedules for the privilege of earning minimum wage. Currently actors can pretty much not show up if they feel a little sick, have an audition the next day or realize there were important events they forgot—including their dog’s graduation from obedience school.

The fact that we didn’t have all the actors to rehearse when we needed them made a lot more work for Gary Lee Reed (Director), Josephine Austin (Stage Manager) and me. At the time, if felt as if it took years off our lives. Gary couldn’t tell what he was looking at with the stage missing up to 5 people at any given rehearsal, which resulted in having to block scenes multiple times; Josie was constantly changing blocking in her master script and having to phone errant actors who were late or hadn’t shown up; And I was not able to watch and rewrite during rehearsals, something I’d been counting on, because I had to stand-in for missing cast members—often two or three of them in the same scene. I was dashing around the stage speaking with multiple dialects and vocal timbres providing a real person for the actors who had actually shown up to rehearse. Some nights, we wanted to strangle someone—usually someone who was missing—and yet, we had to try to remain upbeat for the actors who bothered to come to rehearsal. What would be gained by screaming? I don’t know; we didn’t try it. But I doubt it would have improved the rehearsal experience, which I’d hoped would be a gloriously fruitful period when my play would change and grow in leaps and bounds. But alas, I didn’t get to have that on this one.

Being an AEA actor as well as a playwright, I like to think I understand actors but when I put my producer hat on for Villa Thrilla, I was shocked by the behavior of some of my fellow thespians. Emergencies are one thing but it would never occur to me to commit to doing a show, commence rehearsals and then spring a few “unavailable” dates on the producers.

In retrospect, I would have helped myself by choosing a play with a smaller cast but I’ve already explained why I chose this play in the post on Selecting the Work: https://lafpi.com/2014/12/the-self-production-series-with-anna-nicholas-3-selecting-the-work/

Shockingly, we did not have our entire cast onstage at the same time until 5 days before opening. And the only thing I can say by way of comfort if you’re considering producing your play, is that once we got to tech, the actors were mostly great. They showed up for the remainder of rehearsals, then performances and, for the most part, knew their lines. So you may get a few more gray hairs, but if you hire professionals, they will be there.

Next up: Ticketing, pre-sales and making some money back

What is a Heart?

playwriting

A conversation over instant message begins with:

A: What’s worse than losing your mind?
B: Death.
A: How about a heart turning to stone?
B: That’s death

I began with an inquiry on the expression “heart of stone”. With the approach of Mother’s Day, I wanted to have a heart-to-heart connection with my mom. I felt the distance between Hawaii and Los Angeles has created a permanent rift between us, and especially since I’ve never been good at initiating a phone call. During the times I tried, I couldn’t have a conversation with her because of the blare of her television. “Mom, turn down the TV”. “What?!” I’m afraid my mom’s heart has turned to stone. She lives alone, and she’s old. Ever since my father died, I think she’s walled off her heart.

This is my idea about the heart. It’s the engine that drives life literally and figuratively. In the literal sense the brain is the “control” center akin to the operating system of the computer. It regulates the body’s optimal homeostasis and gives the commands to the organs and glands to do their jobs. If there is an imminent threat I need to get away from then my brain tells my adrenal gland to give my body a little extra boost of adrenalin. So the gland drops a dose of the adrenalin into my blood stream, and my heart pumps the blood through the rest of my body. At the same time this flow of the blood removes toxins and other byproducts from the respiration of the cells. With every exhale the impurities are taken away. Every breath in and out is a cycle of life.

So that’s the mechanics of the heart. The heart is referenced with a breadth and depth linguistically in the Romantic and Germanic languages. The heart is the container of our emotional life. It is the motor of our motivations and aspirations. We use heart in our language that expresses our soul, spirit and our body.

If my “heart is not into it” then I either won’t do it or I do it badly.

If I don’t get the “heart of the matter” then I am missing the essence or the point.

If my “heart stood still” then I could either have been frightened that I catch my breath or I’ve been hit by a bolt of love at first sight.

If I’m “disheartened” then I’ve lost my spirit for something that I once had courage for. There’s the Latin origin of heart “Coeur” in courage. To be lion-hearted is to be brave and courageous.

When I say, “Don’t play with my heart” then I’m asking you to please be gentle with me.

I saw a production of Beth Henley’s play, Crimes of the Heart, at the Rubicon Theater in 2010. I savored that scene between Babe Botrelle and Barnette Lloyd in the kitchen where she describes how she shot her husband because she didn’t like his looks. The thrust of those words stood for her anger at her husband’s cruelty because of her affair with a 15 year old black teenager. After shooting him in the stomach, she made a big pitcher of ice-cold lemonade which she drank thirstily while he bled and moaned asking her to call for help. Out of her customary politeness she offers him a glass of lemonade – the whole thing executed with an absence of mind. In a 1998 review by Jamie L. Jones in the Harvard Crimson, he noted that:

It should not surprise audiences of Crimes of the Heart to learn that Babe Botrelle did not kill her husband when she shot him (she aimed for his heart but hit his stomach): she’s a good Southern woman, after all, and among the other myths she heard about men and women, she undoubtedly learned that “the only way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.”

It’s fascinating how the heart in language to represent the real, intangible and yet powerful aspects of our persona.

Going back to a heart turning to stone, I researched that the leading cause of death for women (short term and long term( is aortic aneurism where there is an abnormal bulge in the wall of the artery (the artery being the largest artery in the body). Medically, what can cause aortic aneurysms are (source: www.webmd.com):
• Atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries, which weakens arterial walls.
• Hypertension (high blood pressure).
• Local injury to the artery.
• Congenital abnormality. A number of conditions, such as Marfan syndrome or bicuspid aortic valves are present at birth and can cause weakness of the artery walls.
• Aging
• Syphilis used to be a common cause of thoracic aneurysms, but it is no longer as common

Could a long-term psychological-emotional trauma of a heartache lead to a heart of stone in its fullest sense. An emotional wound that won’t heal could render a person to choose to stop feeling their feelings as a protection, and so they become cold and unfeeling. There is a medical condition called Calciphylaxis. In Wikipedia, it cites that ‘a severe calciphylaxis can cause diastolic heart failure from cardiac calcification, called “heart of stone”.’ Also from the same source: Calciphylaxis can result from “chronic non-healing wounds and is usually fatal. Calciphylaxis is a rare but serious disease.”

Women tend to have a longer life span than men. Imagine generations of women whose husbands or boyfriends have died in the war, natural causes, illnesses or accidents. Some women succumb to the grief. It’s been 14 years since my father died. Since 2001, every year, my mother still prays novenas and holds masses for his death anniversary and birthdays. She carries a vial containing his ashes wherever she travels. I’ve stopped asking why she does it, because she responds with a sigh that sounds like I’ve treaded into private territory. Whether she does it from a sense of duty or the ritual of honoring their marriage, I feel she hasn’t allowed herself to move past the grief. I don’t mean for her to “get over it”, because that sounds like it is nullifying the sacrament of their marriage. Though I wonder if she still carries the torch for her departed beloved.

There is also the biblical aspect from the book of Ezekiel on the heart of stone:

Therefore say to the house of Israel: Thus says the Lord GOD: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came. I will sanctify my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them; and the nations shall know that I am the LORD, says the Lord GOD, when through you I display my holiness before their eyes. I will take you from the nations, and gather you from all the countries, and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you, and make you follow my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances. Then you shall live in the land which I gave to your ancestors, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God. (Ezekiel 36:22–28)

With the guidance of Jeffrey Keuss in understanding this scripture, he breaks it down to the Word of God (or the Hebrew word Rûaḥ which means the Breath or Spirit of God) which brings life to the inanimate stone.

as God breathed his spirit (rûaḥ) upon creation at the beginning of all things, this same spirit will remove that which is inanimate stone and bring life where once there was death. As deep calls out to deep, the same breath that blows away stone will reside as a living spirit to animate and enliven. This much is clear: bones come together in Ezekiel 36, but they don’t live until the spirit is breathed on them. It is the Spirit of God that animates, and it will also be the Spirit that preserves, redeems, and restores.

I ask these questions of myself that were suggestions from the same posting:

In Hebrew culture, having a “heart of stone” means that the core of one’s being is lifeless. What are parts of modern life that leave you feeling as if you are experiencing a “hardening of heart?” Conversely, in what ways have you experienced the rûaḥ of God breathing new life in creation of a “heart of flesh?”

Jeffrey Keuss is a professor at Seattle Pacific University.

I know my Mom has the heart of a woman, the heart of a mother and the heart of a human being. She is warm and tender and full of love. In writing about this I see now that this has been a season for me where I’m trying to put life where I feel I’ve stagnated. From my last blog Lilac Time I shared that I am feeling a dead end with my corporate job. My heart ache is not having the title of “Writer” in my Linkedin profile. I love Nancy Beverly’s profile. Flat out “Writer”. I wondered if anybody’s put down “Mother”. That resume of work experience and aptitude would be at the top of the list of the most desirable people to work with. (Maybe not everyone would agree.)

But within the last 10 minutes of writing this post I bought tickets to fly to Hawaii on my mother’s birthday which falls on Memorial Day this year, May 25th. It’s my chance to make a heart-to-heart connection with her, and I can turn down the volume of the TV myself.

Lilac Time

playwriting

By Analyn Revilla

The lilac season is very short. My room is suffused with its sweet scent. Lilacs have an allure with its delicate heads bowing to the ground in a humble curtsy. They remind me of childhood days in the cold north. I don’t know the physiology of these plants, similar to the bulbs of tulips and daffodils, that need the cold winter to hibernate. I look at the bouquet often even as I type words on the page. The cursor blinks and it waits to obey the next action.

Lately, I’ve been into analyzing dreams. I describe mine as fantastic. I think anyone who remembers their dreams would probably use ‘bizarre’, ‘strange’, ‘amazing’ when they put together the images and scenes that play out in their dreams. When I awake I’m curious to know what my dreams mean; are there messages being conveyed? I want to linger in bed and let it play out, but duty calls and I have to get up. I intuit that I could be missing out on something of value in my dreams, and I decided that I need to pay closer attention to it.

It was April in Vancouver and the lilacs were in full bloom. My dog Chloe and I walked on a street that had a generous hedge of lilac bushes. I wrote a poem that year called “Lilac Dreams”. Like dreams the lilacs were ephemeral, like the fog that sits on the lake. The moment is surreal, because it’s a tangible reality that lasts for a such a brief period of time.

So it goes with dreams. You’re in it during the REM stage of sleep which lasts maybe 3 minutes. Everything that happens feels real and has dream logic. One moment I am washing my face under the running waters of the kitchen sink and the neighbors can see me through the window then it changes. I’m sitting in a car with a girlfriend and we’re driving a slushy narrow road that we decide that we can’t travel on any further. So we turn back. I get out to direct my friend turn the car around. My feet are in the freezing cold lake and I have this magnificent strength to push the car onto the paved road so it doesn’t fall into the lake. Then another friend, a man, and I argue whether or not to continue on the motorcycle on the same road. There’s a tricky hairpin turn that forces the rider to glide into the opposite lane to navigate the way, but risks slamming head on with oncoming traffic. Plus the icy conditions will make it harder than it already is. I told him I’m not going to risk it. He said he’s going to go for it.

I’ve been researching dream symbols and this is what I’ve deciphered about my dream. People in my conscious life can appear in my dreams, and each one of them is an apparition of me. In my dream there was a woman and a man. They are the female and male aspects of me. The number 2 occurs in each scene. Two represents “the balance of masculine and feminine energies; or some balance in some area of life that is needed” (source “The Dream Book” by Betty Bethards). The kitchen is a work area where plans and schemes are “cooked”, and preparations for nourishment are made. There’s also a window which is the ability to see beyond a given situation – a view to the other side – “inter-dimensional awareness” (“The Dream Book”)

The feminine aspect intuits that we can’t continue the journey, so the decision is to turn back and not continue with the journey. A car is symbolic of the daily physical life and how it is used to manifest what I want. The course of the car is parallel to the direction my life is going. I am not behind the wheel so I am not in charge of the my life’s direction. A motorcycle means a need to have balance. The images in my dreams are symbols of a dialogue between my masculine and feminine aspects. My masculine nature decides to continue the journey despite the risks of the road conditions and the weather. My feminine aspect says ‘Wait. Stop. I’m not ready to take the risks.”

What context is this dream juxtaposed against? I’ve been seriously evaluating my career path and I’ve decided that I need a change and I need growth. My feminine side wants to be safe and it fears change; while my masculine side wants to bolt out and ‘go for it’ despite the limiting parameters.

This dream does not seem to give me an answer as to which course to take, but it examines the conflict within. So, I need to sit more with the decision and make the right choices with wholeness of being. How will I navigate this change? At times of upheavals I remind myself to be kind with myself by being aware of my feelings, being in touch with them and accepting them wholly. I need to balance both sides of me: one who wants to be a bull and charge forward and the other who wants to be bearish and roll with it.

The subconscious is like a winter scene where everything appears silent and still on the surface, but underneath it, there is the teeming subconscious – full of creativity. It flows and churns eddies of images. These dreams come to consciousness and my active consciousness is the tool to manifest them. I liken the lilac season to dream time. The moment is fleeting, and I have to be present and aware of the fruits they bear.

My D-bag Writing Partners

playwriting, Women, Young Women, , , , , ,

by Korama Danquah

I hate my writing partners.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “Oh my goodness! Korama! That sounds like a personal problem that you and your writing partners should discuss together.” Ordinarily you would be right. I’m an adult(ish type person) who likes to handle my problems in a (mostly) adult way. Talking to my writing partners would be the adult way to handle any issues. Except that they aren’t just my writing partners – they’re your writing partners too.

“What?” you just exclaimed “I don’t have any writing partners.” Or perhaps you wondered “Why does Korama think Lewis and Clark are d-bags?” (Side note: This imaginary conversation thing is really amusing to me) The particular writing partners I’m talking about are not of the human variety, but the nagging-voice-in-the-back-of-your-head variety; I’m talking about self-doubt and insecurity.

Everyone has self-doubt and insecurity in varying degrees, but the effects are most felt by people who do creative work. You can doubt yourself when you do a spreadsheet, but at the end of the day the spreadsheet reflects facts and figures, not your thoughts and feelings.

I have a particularly hard time with these silent partners – maybe it’s because, despite the fact that I consider myself a creative person, I am most comfortable with facts and figures. I am very clear with right and wrong, black and white, good and bad. Subjectivity scares me. I start to doubt that what I am doing is good or worth anything at all, like Semele started to doubt what she previously knew to be true.

For those of you who need a refresher, Semele was one of Zeus’ many lovers (not to slut-shame him, but good god, who wasn’t one of his lovers?). Hera, jealous of her husband’s human lover (who was pregnant with Dionysus the god of theatre!), disguises herself as an old woman, befriends Semele and convinces Semele to confide in Hera/Old Human Lady that she is banging Zeus. Hera then plants seeds of doubt in Semele’s head. She asks her how she can know it’s truly Zeus if she hasn’t seen him in his godlike form. On the one hand, that’s a valid point because dudes could totally be walking around pretending to be Zeus in an effort to bed women. On the other hand, douche move on Hera’s part because she knew exactly what would happen next. Semele asked Zeus for a favor and he promised, no swore, he would do whatever it was. She asked to see him in his divine form. Zeus reluctantly agreed and obviously seeing him in his true form killed her.

The story has several morals, the strongest of which is that doubt will literally kill you.

It’s hard not to succumb to self-doubt and insecurity – they are strong opponents. What I do these days is remind myself that I’m stronger. I’m not Semele or Hera or Zeus, at least not completely. I have a little bit of all of them: Semele’s humanity, Hera’s ingenuity, Zeus’ strength. All of these things are what makes me, and my writing, special and unique.

It’s easy to get comfortable with the right/wrong, good/bad dichotomies of this world, but if everything is one thing or another it loses part of its rarity. Walt Whitman once said “Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself. (I am large, I contain multitudes)” To allow yourself to exist in the spaces between black and white, to contradict yourself at turns, is to contain multitudinous, enormous beauty. I won’t allow doubt and insecurity to squash that, to make my work ugly with fear.

So screw you, writing partners. I’m working on my own from now on.

What I Learned About My Writing From A 6 Year Old

playwriting, Women, Young Women, , ,

by Korama Danquah

Yesterday evening I found a surprise when I walked into my gym’s locker room: a six year-old girl. There were other adults around who seemed to be unconcerned with her presence, so I went with it and said hello. I jokingly asked her if she was there to work out and she told me very matter-of-factly “No, I’m waiting for my Mommy.”

I like kids a lot, so I talked to her as we both waited for the class currently in session to finish. We talked about all sorts of things: birthdays (mine had recently happened and hers is today), our favorite Disney princesses, and her recent trip to Legoland. She was a very polite and talkative young girl. What struck me most about her is the fact that she was an endless font of questions. It started off with my asking my name, guessing (fairly accurately) how old I was, and when my birthday was. But then she began to ask more and more questions: Why do you wear glasses? I have an astigmatism. What’s an astigmatism? It means a part of my eye, called the cornea isn’t shaped right, so my vision is a little blurry. What should it be shaped like? It’s supposed to be round like a basketball, but mine is shaped more like a football. What’s that thing? My asthma medication. What does it taste like? Medicine. Yeah, but what flavor of medicine? And on and on.

A fairly accurate representation of her side of our conversation

 

I wasn’t bothered by her questions. Quite the opposite, actually. I enjoyed conversing with her very much and was sad when her mother came to get her (and not just because it meant that I was about to do what felt like 1,000 burpees). She was fun and engaging in a way that I find adults often aren’t when you first meet them.

Adulthood!

When I was driving home, I realized that I could stand to be a bit more like this little girl I met in my writing. I’m not asking enough questions. Months ago, I started writing a science fiction play called The Fortinian Orbs, but I abandoned it when it started to get difficult for me to continue writing. After my conversation yesterday, I realized that it was only hard because I wasn’t asking myself enough questions; the few questions I was asking, I wouldn’t keep asking until I got the right answer. When I told her that my inhaler tasted like medicine, she kept asking until I gave her an answer she thought was acceptable. There are a hundred different ways medicine tastes and even she knew I was giving a half-assed answer.

I’m going to pick up where I left off with The Fortinian Orbs, ask myself more questions, and give myself more answers. It’s OK if some of the answers are dumb – I’ll just keep asking until I can come up with better ones. And for those of you wondering, my inhaler tastes like chemicals and water that’s been in a plastic bottle in a hot car for too long.

The Self Production Series with Anna Nicholas: #11 Publicity…

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#11. Publicity…. or getting those B.I.S. (butts in seats)

by Guest Blogger Anna Nicholas

You’re probably thinking: Shouldn’t Anna be ready to start rehearsing this play already? And the answer is: Yes. In fact we are in rehearsals. But before they began, the publicity wheels had started to turn, so we’re going back.

Planning on how you’ll get the word out about your show needs to begin early—before casting and before you even secure your theatre; about the same time as you decide to self-produce your play. If you can afford to pay a professional, that person would be called the publicist. And if you think you’ll be able to get the best critics to see your show and have a sold-out run without one, I hope you’ll finish reading this post before you make your decision.

Getting audiences is NOT easy—not even for the bigger “better” theatres. If you have a star—and I mean STAR—in your cast, that’s one thing. But I see promotional material all the time saying something like: “A New Play by Elena T. Ruggiero,” (who?) “Starring Robert Urianisk” (who?) “as seen on Little Blip Theory, Cosmic Family… “ The point is, theatres try to pump up non-stars to star status hoping you’ll come see their shows. It sometimes works, by the way, so kudos for effort. But unless you have a real star in your show, I think you’re going to need help getting your show reviewed (hopefully positively) so you can use those reviews to pull in audiences. If your show gets some great notices from the more important media outlets—even without a star—you’ll most likely be able to put “butts in seats” (B.I.S.).

In Los Angeles, there are only a handful of publicists considered “worth it” in small theatre. That’s because their fees are a good portion of your budget. Our publicist, Lucy Pollak charges about $3,000 but she was worth it. Lucy and I started talking about Villa Thrilla 6-8 months before we began casting. That was lucky for me because had it been 2 months out, she couldn’t have taken the job. As it was, she already had shows lined up for the same time frame. Some publicists, like some designers, can handle 2-4 shows at a time. But ask your prospective publicist how many other shows he/she will be working on concurrently with yours. There is a point at which she can no longer handle the needs of all her clients You definitely want to avoid your publicist having two openings on the same night.

Getting the press to notice you is huge and made easier by having a good, reputable publicist who has solid relationships with critics. If, however, you are lucky enough to have Cate Blanchett or Stephen Tobolowsky in your play, chances are you could draft a press release yourself and people would come.

Be realistic–how much effort do you want to put into selling your show?—this on top of rewriting during the rehearsal period, not to mention all your other production duties. Take off your playwright hat for a minute, and look at your play as a package. Would you–if you knew nothing about your show and knew no one in it nor who’d seen/liked it—select your show to see out of the hundreds of offerings on a given night? And that’s just theatre offerings. How many times have you said to yourself, “Ahhhh, I’ll just stay home and watch TV”? If you’re honest with yourself, you’ll likely realize you need help to make your show stand out somehow. That’s the publicist’s job.

Here’s a list of what a good theatre publicist will help you with:

  1. Brainstorm how to publicize your show and come up with a pitch or pitches to sell it to local and (when appropriate) national media outlets—TV, newspapers, online blogs, radio stations, magazines etc.;
  2. Assist and give input about actor and director choices, letting you know if any of your options have some cache or marketability in your area;
  3. Call key critics early, hoping to get them to calendar your opening night. Your publicist may not be able to get a certain critic to come, but she’ll at least be able to get that person on the phone;
  4. Draft your press release and disseminate to any and all critics and media outlets. Then follow up by phone and email;
  5. Arrange for a production still photographer to shoot a dress rehearsal, get those photos out to media;
  6. Help plan and hype opening night and opening night party;
  7. Choosing graphics and advertising buys—online and in trades and local papers;
  8. Get you, your cast or members of your team interviews—online, on radio, TV and trades;
  9. Put press kits together to give to critics when they arrive to see your show;
  10. Coordinate with your ticketing services and house manager to ensure when critics reserve seats (for free) those seats are booked out and not subsequently sold;
  11. Assist with social media promotion. Lucy was not particularly savvy in this area but our talented Associate Producer, Jerusha Aimee Liu was. Jerusha built the Villa Thrilla website, Tweeted and also Facebooked for the show. This is becoming more and more important as social media becomes more prevalent and accepted.

As mentioned in a previous post, Villa Thrilla, was hampered by several factors in getting audiences: We had no stars nor did we have a recognizable name for the writer, producer or director so the show was a hard sell. Nor could we get anyone to review the show on opening night; perhaps because 16 other shows opened in LA on the same evening. Realistically, though—had there been only 8, we still would have been way down any critic’s priority list. There’s so much good theatre to choose from here. Even after opening, we had a hard time getting certain critics to in. The top ones, the most trusted ones, never came.

And as the reviews we did get came in, though most were very good, they did not, unfortunately, carry much weight. See anyone can start a website and call himself a critic. We also had one really bad review from a recognizable website/blog. This is my sour grapes story but I knew we were in trouble when I saw a particular man enter the theatre one day and was told he was a critic. He truly was among the most miserable looking people I’ve ever seen. Scowling, angry at the world—or perhaps just angry with his boss for sending to see our no-name play on a lovely Sunday afternoon. What a perfect choice to review a farce! Not. There was no way—if this guy’s face was any indication—that he would find anything positive to say. And he didn’t!

So, to sum up: If you’re going to self-produce your show—given all the work that entails—you probably want people to see it. Before you get too far into it, assess how difficult it will be to get audiences, bearing in mind things like the appeal of your subject matter/cast, location of your theatre, parking and even the local restaurants. Do you want to spend time promoting your show in addition to everything else you’re doing? If no, think about hiring a publicist. If, on the other hand, you think you can get butts in seats with no help from a professional, more power to you. May you fill your house every night with enthusiastic audiences!

Next Post:  Next time is compromise/collaboration I swear!

Setbacks: A Necessary Step For Progress

Female Artists, Film, Women, Young Women

by Andie Bottrell

In my last post on here in January I was talking about those ever-timely resolutions. Did you set some? How are they going? I pronounced that I was going to make monthly goals, rather than yearly goals, and really work with some new techniques to help me achieve my goals. The month of January was a success! I achieved my goals of writing 50,000 words in my first novel and working out 5 days a week. How great were those 50,000+ words? Well, a few were okay and the rest were cringe-worthy, but the point is I did it, right?!

Lady Killer

 

Fresh of my successes I was ready to set my goals for February and set out to re-write a Screenplay of mine. I also set more physical goals. As February ticked on, however, I was not meeting my goals. It’s not that they weren’t specific enough or that I didn’t have enough rewards/consequences in place–though, I do think not having as much moral support and people to give support back to did effect things in a huge way–mostly, though, I think I was just falling deeper into the old hat of depression. My January success turned into thoughts that asked questions in accusatory and derogatory tones, like, “So, was it worth it? All that time you spent working on that sh*tty-*ss novel? You still have nothing worth showing for it. And all those work outs–what was the point? You’re still f*ck*ng f*t, etc.”

February and March were spent mostly in bed, when I wasn’t working, struggling to find a way out again, to get back up and try again. And now, here we are in April, which, I am happy to say, is off to a great start! I am on my way up again. I got to act in a short film called DATING FAILS that will screen at The Moxie on Friday, April 24 at 11:30pm, Saturday, April 25 at 2pm, & Sunday, April 26 at 6:15pm. I’ve started running again, and not to jinx myself, but I have been actually enjoying it, instead of dreading it like I usually do. And, perhaps most exciting of all, I have been working on a new web-series that will premiere May 19, 2015 at www.landlockedthewebseries.com.

 

facebook cover landlocked

Landlocked is a story about a couple in a long-distance relationship struggling to stay connected as one of them deals with Panic Disorder with Agoraphobia. To me, when I am working on a new project it feels just like falling in love. It’s the first thing I think about when I wake up, the thing I daydream about throughout my day, and the last thing I think about at night. I find myself smiling for no reason imagining sequences or being moved to tears. Every song I hear I imaging playing under one of the scenes and every lyric relates to the story. So, I feel pretty sure I’m going to be okay for at least until the end of July when the series finale airs…and by then, hopefully, I’ll meet another, fresh, new project to fall in love with all over again.

In my research regarding Panic Disorder with Agoraphobia I came across this chart on the website Triumph Over Panic:

“This chart represents your practice program, leading gradually to full recovery. Each “P” stands for a panic incident. A “P” can seem like a setback at the time, but it is actually an integral part of your success.”

chart

 

I feel that, similarly, we create our art in these waves of euphoria, followed by the humbling reality of it not living up to our expectation of greatness, so we fall into depression due to our own self-induced perception of “failure” and then, because we are Artists and because that is the way through which we process life, we eventually create again. I think it is easy to feel like our chart is actually a circle that repeats itself in this never-ending unexceptionalism, but if we can start to see our perceived failings as the process through which we grow, we may take out some of the weight of those downward periods, rebound quicker, and even dare to say, “I can’t wait to fail more!” The quicker I fail, the faster I succeed.

Happy 5th Anniversary LAFPI Blog!

LAFPI, Playwright, playwriting, Women, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

by Robin Byrd

Today is the 5th Anniversary for the LA FPI Blog.

My excitement over the diverse voices that frequent this blog never wanes.  Pick a few bloggers and read their articles.  Tell me what you think.

  1. Jessica Abrams (past blogger)
  2. Tiffany Antone
  3. Erica Bennett
  4. Nancy Beverly (past blogger)
  5. Jenn Bobiwash
  6. Andie Bottrell
  7. Robin Byrd
  8. Korama Danquah
  9. Kitty Felde
  10. Diane Grant
  11. Jen Huszcza (past blogger)
  12. Sara Israel (past blogger)
  13. Cindy Marie Jenkins (past blogger)
  14. Sue May (video blogger)
  15. Anna Nicholas (guest series blogger)
  16. Analyn Revilla
  17. Laura Shamas
  18. Madhuri Shekar
  19. Kimberly Shelby-Szyszko
  20. Cynthia Wands

 LAFPI Blog 3