By Jessica Abrams

Can I bore you with details of my morning routine for a moment? First things first: coffee — I’m old-school; I use a silver stove-top espresso machine and Cuban coffee that’s a cocoa bean or two removed from chocolate milk. While it’s brewing and filling the house with the most amazing odor known to man, I feed the cat, clean the litterbox, and make my bed. Then, I take my coffee, now mated in perfect harmony with soy milk, to the floor of my living room where I begin a yoga practice that has been in place for close to fifteen years. It’s not virtue I’m after, it’s sanity: without it, I am not fit to engage in social discourse with another human.  In fact, without it, even animals should be afraid.  It, and the meditation afterwards, allow me to show up in the world in the way that I want to show up: relatively calm, often friendly and — for the most part — sane.

But about a quarter into my meditation, something gnaws at me.  I try to ignore it, but my mind wanders toward it, like my dog used to do when she knew there was a chicken bone lying on the sidewalk halfway down the block.  Not now, I tell myself; focus, dammit.  I try, and for a few minutes I succeed, but then I jump up and run to it; and as I see it come to life, my body relaxes — really relaxes, as opposed to yoga relaxes — like a junkie immediately after a fix.

I’ve turned on the computer.  I’m connected to the cosmic life support that even sleep and coffee and yoga haven’t kept me from craving.

What is it about seeing that gmail button sink like a soft pillow beneath the weight of my pointing arrow?  To see the list of emails line up like handsome cadets in a Taylor Hackford movie?  What about it causes me to interrupt my meditation — the only meditation I will most likely do for the next twenty-four hours?

There is the fact that I’m single, and email is often the first contact I’ve made with another human in my post-yogic state.  But if I’m  honest, I’d say it’s anticipation (cue the song).  Anticipation of that special email — the one with a star next to it whose subject line doesn’t mention something about a deal for a facial or a petition to fight the jailing of an innocent Russian pop singer.  It’s the one that says you won a contest or booked a job or even just have an audition.

It’s the one that, for an artist, says you exist. 

Most mornings I do not get those special emails.

So I started to ponder that craving for validation because, all joking aside, the need for a “fix” was starting to feel a little too real; and the flip side, not getting it, was responsible for more blah days than I wanted to admit.

For some reason my own self-initiated projects came to mind: a play I wrote and self-produced.  The web series I wrote, produced and star in.  Are those projects of any less value because I made them as opposed to Center Theatre Group or HBO?  Talk about commitment and confidence: Tyler Perry self-produced and self-funded his own work for years before someone paid him to do it, and even now, he retains full control of everything his company turns out.

Then, a funny thing happened: in stepping away from the slightly desperate need for outside validation, I started to see the broad sweep of my career.  I started to realize I’d be doing it whether someone tells me I fit into their idea of brilliant or not.  I’d do it even if the letter I’ve ceremoniously placed on my makeshift altar that informs me I’m a semi-finalist does not yield another that says I’ve won.  My epiphany (if you will) has given me a renewed commitment to my art.

And that (and my coffee) is what gets me up in the morning.

Artwork: The Timekeepers Daughter by Aimee Steward

by Cynthia Wands

Cold medicine makes you feel time differently: there’s a morphed, muffled sense of what time of day it is and what really is imporant. (Primary importance: where are the kleenex tissues and how many cough drops does it take to stop sounding like a barking seal)

I’ve been putting some effort in “Planning Your Year” for my writing projects – deadlines / workshops/ software.  But I’m also feeling a bit of a malaise – (why am I doing this/where is the kleenex/when was the last time I took the Mucinex…).

And then I found this:

The New Play Map

This shows on a daily basis where new plays are being produced. I don’t know why it made me feel so buoyed up to see this – but I am so relieved to know that new plays are actually being done. (And I will admit I wanted to see how many of the new plays were by women…)

But just seeing this map of new work being done, the far flung reach of where new plays are being made, just lifted my spirits.  And that’s an image I’ll carry with me in the coming year.

by Cynthia Wands

I gave myself the assignment of finding positive images/stories for women artists in 2013.

This was of some interest to me:

2013 Iconic Images of Women

But it wasn’t really what I had in mind. And then I found this:

100 Years of How Women & Men Dress Up

But I wanted something more – data driven. And I didn’t find what I was looking for.

I wanted a spreadsheet/world map/renaissance painting of how far women have come this past year – how much more visible and accountable women’s voices are in the arts. Yeah. I didn’t find that.

But on a more personal level, I can say that I have felt more influence from women in theatre and writing.  Maybe it’s because I’m hungry for that and I am looking with more of an appetite for those stories.

One of the women I most admire and follow is Judi Dench.  I’ve seen what an influence she is to the actors and theatre community in England – and I giggled when I heard that there is a bumper sticker seen in London that reads:  “What Would Judi Do?”

And then I found this image: Judie Dench and Maggie Smith, friends for years, fellow artists and brilliant actors.  I like the power of women being connected to women.

by Cynthia Wands

I found this article about books and reading and libraries from Neil Gaiman‘s lecture for the Reading Agency, delivered on Monday October 14  at the Barbican in London.  So much of what he has to say really resonated with me on the “now” of playwriting.  And in reference to the scary memory crunch of the web, I found this quote very compelling:

“In the last few years, we’ve moved from an information-scarce economy to one driven by an information glut. According to Eric Schmidt of Google, every two days now the human race creates as much information as we did from the dawn of civilisation until 2003. That’s about five exobytes of data a day, for those of you keeping score. The challenge becomes, not finding that scarce plant growing in the desert, but finding a specific plant growing in a jungle. We are going to need help navigating that information to find the thing we actually need.”

Neil Gaiman’s Lecture on Reading and Daydreaming

I was recently asked by a friend to read a script for comments and feedback, and there was a flash of memory to the days when I was sitting in a library, opening up a book for the first time and reading words that would become part of me. (Yes, it was a really good script to read. It was an actual script with three-hole punch pages.) It reminded me of the memory of actually holding a book in my hand, turning the pages, and enjoying the treasure of an object that could hold new surprises.

Neil Gaiman’s article reminded me of a “Hogwartian” place called Owl Pen Books in Greenwich, New York. Owl Pen Books is a crowded, musty magical place and reminds me how books, tangible worn out books, become a part of our memory. Like plays.

Owl Pen Books in Greenwich New York

by Cynthia Wands

Recently I’ve been listening to conversations about our “photo memory” generation.  This follows the idea that our young audiences are “seeing” a lot of visual content in their computers, Iphones, Ipads that represent their “memories”.  When I was a child I was lucky if I was included in the family holiday photographs of Christmas/Easter/Fourth of July/Halloween.  My father took some great photographs of our family – just not that often.  So we would really remember those images as “that really happened” for our memories. Nowadays, young people are instagraming their snacks.  So many images are being recorded of their everyday life, so the visual “store” of what their childhood/self image memories are legion.  And I wonder, how does that affect this generation in terms of what they see and feel in theatre?

I’ve seen some incredible images in my years of watching theatre: in 2001 I saw Judy Dench walking down a staircase in “Royal Family” like a cobra (that was a lesson in motion/controlled suprise); the scope of different worlds in the “Mahabharata”, the stage play directed by Peter Brook in 1985; and the rain that fell from the sky in “The Grapes of Wrath” on Broadway in 1990.  I loved being surprised by the power of those visual images.  They had a surprising sense of “new” about them and they’ve become prized memories for me.

So I was actually distressed to read this article about the exclusivity of men on a number of lists. Granted women have only been allowed to vote in the United States since 1920, so it’s understood that there is some catching up to do.  But I was weirdly horrified to see how many important groups of people do not include a single woman.  It reminded me of the “Dry White Male” season at the Guthrie. To see the images in the articles of all the men’s faces, and not a single woman in their leadership lists, was stunning.

It made me wonder, do young audiences assume that the voice and face of a leader is a man if what they are exposed to are only men as leaders?

I suppose the remedy to this would be to create lists that have women involved as leaders (along with men) and help share their faces and names as recognized “memories” of leadership.  But for now, I am going to make a cup of tea and take some cold medicine.

The lists of all men everywhere.

by Cynthia Wands

I celebrated the new year with pecking trials on my new (to me) writing software.  I’ve not been enthused about using software for writing plays – but Final Draft was given to me as a Christmas present and I am now on the learning curve with it.

I found a link regarding  the controversy on the Gutherie’s Male Only season – and found the comments at the end of the article very illuminating.

The Article: Checking Back in with the Guthries Dry White Male Season

by Erica Bennett

One of the tricks I use to keep myself writing is the self-imposed deadline. My deadlines are usually not “get it done by Sunday so I can go to a movie.” But, set myself up for a reading, get a date on the reading list, and cast it, all without a finished script. My current deadlines are 12/31/2013 for a draft and 1/4/2014 for a readable draft.

One of the great things about belonging to playwrights groups and listening to new works and critique is when you realize things like I just spent an entire year building characters and improvising with them on the page around which no action occurs? This realization absolutely shocked me. Clearly, I have a problem with conflict.

I am experiencing my first production in exactly six years and the past several months have been glorious. I stepped in as director of my short play for the holidays, Love, Divine. The journey has been filled with humble joy: I did that. The actors own it now. But I did that.

by Analyn Revilla

The first big choice to make today was either to go to practice yoga or do “other things” before I go to work.  The “other things” is a list of activities that aren’t part of my weekday routine.  These are “other” fun things that feed my soul:  read, write, play music, bake a pie, meditate and take the dog for a long walk.  I skipped the yoga class.  Later, when I was wiping away the flour dust and blueberry stains from the kitchen counter I smiled, because I recognized that I made the right choice.

 That feeling of knowing is intuition.  I can habitually and easily destroy this gift of intuition when I’m way too much in my head calculating the minutes and hours of the day, dividing the day with allocations of how much time I can spend on the to do list.  I’ve recognized that it can be a form obsessive compulsive disease to always be on top of my to-do list (checking it and checking it twice and checking it some more not just to put check marks and cross marks, but ensuring I’ve got everything in the list.) 

This is not my natural way, by the way.  I’m not a list person, nor am I the person to print the directions from Mapquest.  I’m more the person to get an overview of the direction and area that I’m supposed to be at, then I’ll use my nose to find the spot.  Indeed, I’m hardly on time, and exact in getting to my destination, because I end up discovering different roads and stopping to ask people for directions before I find my spot.  If you’re not that kind of a traveler then you wouldn’t want to be travelling with me.

 I know I can be more balanced if I was more organized and orderly, but I like the practice of using my sense of direction and intuition to guide me.  I attribute many of my wonderful experiences in life to my “adventurous” and devil-may-care approach to certain things.  It’s not uncommon that the “unlikely” and “illogical” choice is the right choice on many occasions in my life so far.

 But I agonize over making decisions and choices.  When I went for my computer science degree there was a point when I had to specialize.  I would guess that 60% of the class chose the option that would guarantee the best probability of getting employed upon graduation; the other 35% chose their area that was best suited for their interest and aptitude while the remaining 5% (which I’m part of) did not really choose an option.  But I did make a logical choice this way.  My option was “Decision Systems”.  It was about linear programming, and I thought “Ok, this is the one for me, because this will give the tools I need to make better decisions in life.”  The last laugh was on me, because the curriculum was heavy on statistics and linear programming and calculations, which is opposite to my nature.  

But it was possibly what I needed, because my computer programming career provided me with the means to have shelter and food, plus other amenities.  But having “blueberry pie” moments is equally necessary to fulfill my soulful needs, and gave me the sustenance to hope and dream as we all do during the festive holiday season with its lights, decorations, music and all-around cheer.  

Most of the year and throughout the days I live in the practical  world to survive; and rarely heed the small voice that asks to be heard.  As I read in one of my treasure trove books, “what good is a voice if no one is listening to it?”  It is only during this season that I relax a little more to restore a balance of slowing down and listening.  So now I’m open to giving more consideration to that little voice that pipes up, “Hey, let’s make blueberry pie, and forget about rushing off to the studio and feeling great after a good sweat.”

 Being in the midst of the end-of-the-year holidays, it is the period of observing traditions of rites and rituals that convey significances of the passing of time.  The observance of these rituals can be a mixture of being automatic and heart-felt, or one or the other.  As a child, my memories of Christmas were the rites of getting a tree, decorating it, and afterwards watching with wonder the flicker of lights in different colors.  It was this precious wonder that I want to preserve for all my Christmases.  The wonder is a knowing that All Is Good.  It is the intuitive knowing hope lives.  And choosing to be open to possibilities rather than calculating probabilities, which is the more expansive experience that deepens our soulfulness.