Hey hey, it’s Turkey Day! Er, Day Before Black Friday-day? Get Drunk With Your In-Laws Day?
Oh – haha – it’s Thanksgiving day. And there is SO much to be thankful for!
So aside from the usual gratitude points like family and friends and food and shelter and chocolate, there are things going on in the playwriting world that merit some LAFPI thanks.
Gender Parity it making progress. Kitty Felde did a nice write up about the DC/VA/MD theater commitment to producing female playwrights, and American Theater Magazine recently shared the list of most produced plays for 2013-14 of which HALF are by women!
This is good news.
Additionally, there are a host of female playwright centered festivals offering opportunities to lady scribes, so there’s really no excuse NOT to be writing, submitting, and submitting some more.
So let’s spend some time in gratitude land this afternoon for all that is good and evolving!
Playwright
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It’s been nearly 6 years since I graduated with my MFA in Playwriting and I’ve yet to land a permanent job of any kind. On one hand, this sort of lifestyle has afforded me the kind of creative flexibility that I crave. On the other, well, a girl can only eat so many cans of Spaghettios.
I’ve been thinking a lot about my path at present because I currently find myself on the job hunt again – this time in Texas! – and I’m contemplating applying for a 9-5 desk job even though I know it will greatly detract from my writing time. I’m kind of tired of the never-shrinking stack of bills on my desk. I’m kind of tired of putting off things like planning our wedding and talking about babies because I can’t afford it.
But I’m curious what ya’ll do to stay afloat. Ideas? Tips? Anyone else out there feel like a jack of all trades but a master of none? I look at the list of jobs I’ve held since graduation and it makes my head spin. No wonder I’m tired! I’ve never held fewer than two jobs at once, and for the last three years I’ve been juggling at least three.
I have an orphan play that keeps getting readings, but no production. I’m sure you have one, too. Mine is a play for young audiences with a controversial topic – a character in blackface – and revolves around a holiday festival most Americans know nothing about. (And I wonder why nobody’s produced it yet!)
I’ve discovered the reality of the marketplace in children’s theatres these days: lots of new plays are being produced, but nearly all of them are based on favorite children’s books or Disney movies. Like Hollywood, these theatres are surviving by offering audiences the familiar and the famous.
So I decided to adapt my play to a chapter book. I even found an agent who is shopping it around to children’s book publishers.
But now, news about the topic of my play is breaking out worldwide. I just wish I knew how to capitalize on it.
And so I appeal to you, the great brain trust of LAFPI.
The Netherlands celebrates Christmas as a religious holiday on December 25th – though I found the churches sadly empty of anyone under the age of 100 when I lived there. Instead, Holland celebrates December 6th, the feast of St. Nicholas – or, as he is known in Holland, Sinterklaas.
Most Americans know Sinterklaas from one thing: the scene in “Miracle on 34th Street” where Edmund Gwenn as Santa speaks to the little Dutch war orphan and sings the Sinterklaas song.
What most Americans don’t know is that when Sinterklaas arrives in Holland by boat from Spain (don’t ask), he’s accompanied by his buddy Zwarte Piet. That’s literally translated as Black Pete. And yes, it’s a Dutch person in blackface, complete with a bad Afro, overly large red lips, hoop earrings, and a clown-like costume.
The first time I saw Piet, I was appalled. My Dutch friends brushed off my reaction, insisting Pete was a Moor, or perhaps that dark from sliding down chimneys. They said he was a friend to Sinterklaas, not a slave. And that his crazy antics were amusing, not meant to ridicule people of color. Yeah, right.
I found it particularly interesting that there were now many people of color living in The Netherlands – from Suriname and Turkey and Africa – but none of them were called upon to play Pete.
In The Hague, where I was covering war crimes trials, I talked to the only American judge at the Tribunal, Gabrielle Kirk McDonald, an African-American former federal judge who became the Tribunal president. I asked her about Pete. She said every year, there was a debate in her group of African-American ex-pats about whether to make a big stink about Zwarte Piet or ignore him.
Judge McDonald became the inspiration for the adult character in my play THE LUCKIEST GIRL, the story of a ten year old African-American girl who moves to Holland with her grandmother, a lawyer at the Tribunal. Tahira is homesick. The last straw is when she discovers that Santa doesn’t come to Holland; instead, it’s Sinterklaas, and his politically incorrect buddy Zwarte Piet. Much to the horror of her grandmother, Tahira likes Piet.
This fall, UNESCO considered taking The Netherlands to task over Pete. And the Dutch reacted with a Facebook page devoted to Zwarte Piet that got a million likes in a DAY!
Everybody and their brother has been writing about the controversy: New Yorker, Huffington Post, the Economist, and tons of newspapers in Great Britain.
So here’s my question for you playwrights smarter than me: what would you do to capitalize on this kind of publicity? Does it help or hurt the chances of a theatre doing the play? Should I be sending it to British children’s theatres? What should I be doing???
Meanwhile, I’m excited that THE LUCKIEST GIRL is getting another workshop reading at 11 AM, Sunday December 1st at Ensemble Studio Theatre Los Angeles as part of their fESTivity/LA 2013 series. (3269 Casitas Avenue, LA 90039)
It’s directed by Susie Tanner, who loves the script, and starring the two actors who should be playing Tahira and her Dutch friend Jan: Tamika Katon-Donegal and Whit Spurgeon.
Please, please, please post ideas about marketing. And come on down for the reading at EST. Zwarte Piet might even have pepernoten and suikergoed (gingerbread cookies and sweets) to toss to the audience.
It’s been interesting of late, seeing a lot of new or newish plays that have major problems with plot. As in: nothing happens until the end of the first act, or the second act does not satisfy the desires of the audience set up in the first act, or the entire evening is just a series of short scenes with a twist at the end of each one. I may not be able to solve my own plot problems, but I can sure spot them in others.
I’ve put aside the new play I’ve been working on because of hitting the wall on plot.
Instead, I’ve been spending every early morning working on my second chapter book. These are the books designed to wean kids off picture books – designed for age 7-11 or so. I got frustrated that most theatres producing theatre for young audiences are adapting kids books rather than choosing original scripts. So, I thought I’d fight back by adapting my play THE LUCKIEST GIRL* into a BOOK. I even found an agent who’s shopping it around.
I rejoined the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators and attended a local conference last month.
And there I was, listening to book writers talking about … plot. Guess what? It’s all the same damn thing.
Conflict: You ask yourself what does my main character want? And what will she do to get it? Who or what’s standing in her way? Her desire conflicts with that of her antagonist. And you ask yourself why the antagonist doesn’t want her to achieve her great desire?
You start with the present world, then something happens to upset the apple cart.
Creating scenes: What character flaw or bad habit creates complications? Complications intensify, more obstacles, things get worse. Is there a single, driving force through all scenes? Are the heroine’s wants in the entire story?
Climax: the darkest hour that allows the heroine’s truest self to emerge. She takes charge of dealing with the story problem
The end: have we satisfied the expectations we have given our audience for what we promised at the beginning?
It’s the same damn Aristotelian story structure we all learned in Drama 101.
And so, now I find myself starting a new book**, knowing full well I’m going to have to wrestle with story structure again.
Just maybe not tonight.
*THE LUCKIEST GIRL: A ten year old African American girl who moves to Holland with her grandmother, who’s there to prosecute accused war criminals. Tahira is homesick. The last straw is when she discovers that Santa doesn’t come to Holland; instead, it’s Sinterklaas, and his politically incorrect buddy Zwarte Piet. Much to the horror of her grandmother, Tahira likes Piet.
**UNTITLED CAPITOL HILL CAPER: The young daughter of a Congressman walks dogs on Capitol Hill and solves the mystery of the Demon Cat of the Capitol Crypt.
So here’s some really big news that’s not yet public:
ALL the DC/VA/MD theatres are banding together and vowing to produce world premieres of plays by female playwrights.
It’s not official yet, but two different artistic directors have confirmed it.
This is a MAJOR step for female playwrights.
Unfortunately for DC writers, I don’t think it’s limited to us. Fortunately for you in Los Angeles, it looks like it will include you as well. So dig out that unproduced masterpiece and submit!
But more important than that, the challenge is on the table for theatres in OTHER cities – like LA – to follow suit. The pressure will be on THEM to produce ONE new play by a female playwright.
As soon as the DC theatre community makes it official, I’ll post the article and I’m asking each of YOU to send it to one or more theatres in LA.
One more word about being a playwright in DC. A recent study by our Dramatists Guild rep Gwydion Suilebhan showed that nearly one in three plays produced in Washington this coming season (2013-2014) are considered “new” – that means first, second or third productions. Unfortunately for local DC writers, fewer than 1 in ten plays is by a local writer, about half the number of locally written plays produced in DC during the previous season. Writers here ARE getting produced – just not in DC.
So LAFPI activists, start putting the pressure on LA theatres so I can get something produced out there!
What is the playwrights responsibility? Is this a question you ever ask yourself? I find, particularly when I am working on stories that deal with violence, that I start questioning why I want to put more violent images out into the world. I question if the “moral” of the story is strong enough to justify it- or if anyone could walk away from it “inspired” to commit further violence in the world. Obviously we can’t control what may trigger someone to go off the deep end- didn’t I read something about Catcher in the Rye being mentioned as inspiration by three different murders including John Lennon’s assassinator? Still, I find myself often struggling between what my responsibility may be as a person who seeks to put stories before the public and my desire to have free range to explore a variety of characters and circumstances without judgement or consequence.
I am a person who is vehemently opposed to violence. You could basically describe me as an optimistic, anti-war, vegetarian, pacifist and as such I feel I have certain responsibilities to, for example, not create a play that promotes or justifies violence. That said, my most recent play depicts the murder of a newborn baby and follows a character, who not unlike myself considers herself a pacifist and when this viewpoint is put to the ultimate test of fight back or die- she deciders to fight back. Violence for violence. To be honest, I was exploring my own theories and beliefs- something I like to do when writing- and was totally surprised by the decision to have her fight back. I then had to come to the conclusion that perhaps I am less of a pacifist than I originally thought and I had to admit that I could understand instances when violence may in fact be a necessary evil.
Then, just days after coming to this conclusion, I watched that Daily Show interview with Malala Yousafzai where she had this to say:
“I started thinking about that, and I used to think that the Talib would come, and he would just kill me. But then I said, ‘If he comes, what would you do Malala?’ then I would reply to myself, ‘Malala, just take a shoe and hit him.’ But then I said, ‘If you hit a Talib with your shoe, then there would be no difference between you and the Talib. You must not treat others with cruelty and that much harshly, you must fight others but through peace and through dialogue and through education.’ Then I said I will tell him how important education is and that ‘I even want education for your children as well.’ And I will tell him, ‘That’s what I want to tell you, now do what you want.'”
And then I had to reconsider everything again. The point of this post, however, goes well beyond my own inner conflicts with pacifism.
Plays don’t have to have morals, they don’t need to have a “greater meaning.” Plays can just be plays. Art. If it takes you on a journey and makes your insides come alive, then I think it’s done its job. Interestingly enough, my favorite play of the last year was Tommy Smith’s WHITE HOT which was put up by The Vagrancy at this years Hollywood Fringe Festival. This is a play with a lot of violence that left many people feeling depressed (thankfully, the majority seemed happy with being made to feel that way!) Personally, I found it invigorating and refreshing because of the journey, because of my identification with the expression of those deep, dark, unnamable human emotions, because it made me laugh and cry and not feel so alone and get turned on and become scared. I feel that when a play achieves those things, whatever “meaning” or “moral” it may be spouting (if any) becomes almost irrelevant- doesn’t it? Or does it?
It all comes down to this basic question: What is the playwrights responsibility? Certainly playwrights, when produced, have a forum in which their stories will be presented to a community and this is a sacred, difficult to come by, and much revered privilege. It seems there should be some responsibility when it comes to what we do with it. Why is this a story that needs to be told? What are the potential desired or undesired consequences of presenting this story to a specific community? Or should you think about these questions at all? To me it seems like the primary difference between playing with dolls as a child and creating theatre as an adult is purpose and intent. As a child, you create for creations sake- to have fun- to play pretend. As an adult, you create (certainly for those reasons as well) but with the knowledge that you are also holding a platform in your community that has the power to effect lives and change. I’m curious to hear what everyone thinks on the playwrights responsibility!
It was around 10am Sunday morning, October 13th and I was hauling industrial strength trash bags down to the end of the long parking area of my apartment building in Van Nuys. The contents made a lot of noise from the mix of empty wine bottles, cutlery, broken glass, potted plants, and the miscellaneous cloth of cut up clothes, no-good sheets and pillowcases. After making about 15 of these trips, I looked around my mostly bare apartment and deemed it “good enough” to make my escape. I had intended to move my chewed up couch to the curb and my neighbor had offered to help me, but when push came to shove and time ran out- he was no where to be found. There was no way I was going to attempt moving it by myself down a flight of stairs and up the long, long parking lot/driveway to the curb. I had managed such a feat once before in my life, but I was 24 then and a lot had changed in 3 years. I had also intended to offer all the items I couldn’t sell or fit into my car to my neighbors, but as mentioned- they were not home. So, I meticulously stacked, lined, folded and arranged in my OCD best a display of the items I was leaving behind in my apartment and wrote a little note to them to come take whatever they wanted, taped the note to their door, left my apartment unlocked, scrambled quickly into my car and took off down the open road- okay, not quite “open” road, I was still driving in L.A. for another hour and a half or more before I reached anything close to resembling an “open” road.
I had not foreseen my departure, though perhaps I should have, instead, it hit me like a ton of bricks the moment I had to call my mother to help me because I could not get myself out of a very serious financial pickle. When I realized what I needed to do, every fiber of my being screamed in totally overdramatic pain, “NO F-ING WAY! THAT’S NOT WHAT IS SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN!” And shortly after other wailing thoughts cried out about how I was a failure to have let this happen, how I deserved it, how I had lost my shot, how I hadn’t tried hard enough, how all my work was going to be in vain now, how I would probably die having only gotten this far- which is to say NO WHERE. Devilish, unproductive and super overdramatic thoughts that some may even call “self-centered” and “first-worldly.” To which, I could not rationally disagree. However, the artistic soul, as I have observed it, is anything but rational. This is what makes it great. This is what allows it to do and create things other people can’t. This is also what makes so many artists tragic figures. While other people long to have families and save money for nice vacations and travel and have a nice house and car and a retirement plan, artists long to make great art- and that’s about it. This art becomes our family, our jobs, our vacations, our nice things. This art becomes everything. Of course, there are exceptions, and balanced artists probably do exist somewhere, but at least for me, this has been the case. I can live far away from my family with ease if it means I get to make art with other great artists on a daily basis. I can deal with loneliness. I can’t deal with not consistently working toward achieving my artistic goals.
My expectations when I moved to Los Angeles almost 6 years ago were something along the lines of: 1. Act in everything I can, 2. Get an agent, 3. Audition for TV and Films, 4. Book stuff, 5. Live the life of a working actor. I considered my expectations realistic because I didn’t give myself a timeline to achieve these things. I knew that some actors lived in LA 10 years before they got any kind of significant “break.” I was ready for a life-long battle that was going to be hard and uphill- or so I thought. About three months after moving to LA, while sharing a mattress on the stained carpet of a bachelor apartment that had been converted from a utility closet, I began to have my first ever “how is this going to work” breakdown. It wasn’t the closet-apartment or the stained carpet or the shared mattress that got to me- it was the fact that I couldn’t get an audition for a crappy student film re-make of a bad movie scene for a one-line part, much less anything I wanted to play that broke me. I cried into my sleeping roommates arm, who refused to wake up for the drama. The next day I wiped my tears and decided to take action.
I started writing. I wrote my first short film. Then I produced, directed, and starred in it. I joined a writing group. I read book after book on writing. I did writing exercises. I made 5 more short films. I started writing features, and plays, poetry, short stories, title ideas, dialogue fragments, anything and everything. I joined a theatre company. I started something called Film Practice where every month for a year I would act and/or write/direct/edit a short film or scene with my friends. When I drove away from my apartment on Sunday, October 13th we had just completed our 10th month of Film Practice. My life since making the decision to take action, rather then wait for “Action” to be called was at least doubly improved. I was empowered and my artistic spirit soared with constant stimulation. On my 26 hour drive from L.A. to Springfield, MO I thought about how my passion had not diminished even slightly since my initial drive the opposite direction to LA, if anything, it had increased. I thought about my new goals and expectations. I want to be a writer/director/actress for Film/Television/Theatre. I want to be a female David Lynch-esque, Kafka-esque stylistic brand. I want to always be working, like Woody, from the last edit or curtain call of the last project to the first page of the new script. More than anything, I want to spend my entire life making a living doing what I love, what makes me excited to get out of bed, what makes it hard to go to sleep, what keeps me energized after 13 hours on set and only a half hour of sleep the night before. Elaborate, collaborative storytelling is the drug for me.
This is a super-sized expectation to carry, and the fears that challenge it have never been more loudly heard than in the quiet country of the bible-belt amongst the rain and cows and a Mother who worries how I will ever be able to live any kind of life on the expensive coast with the kind of work my Associates Degree in Occupational Studies from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts can get me. My irrational artistic soul tries to soothe me by telling me that if I just keep working at it, if I just never stop working at it, if I just work hard enough for long enough, there will HAVE to be some kind of payoff. Then, the migraine that is my rational brain-peanut-bitch pinches nerves and screams at me to “for the love of god” find some kind of stability to hold onto while I surf the seas of my creativity. And I am trying to listen to both. And I am trying to keep hope. And I am trying to stay creatively inspired midst constant anxiety of having left my home and life behind while I try to pay off the last 6 years of acquired debt and try to find a job here and deal with not being in a city where who I am and what I want in life are easily understood.
Managing expectations is hard. How do you keep dreaming the limitless possibility of dreams without making them so unrealistic that you’ll never be able to achieve them? The same can be said for managing fear- How do you allow yourself just enough fear to stay in touch with reality but not enough to keep you from avoiding life all together? I don’t have any answers, but am hoping to hear from other artists, particularly those further along in their journeys on how they’ve managed to balance survival jobs, life expenses, and creating the art they live for. Most the artists my age are in similar positions to me, working a billion odd jobs, occasionally living on credit cards, acquiring more and more debt that they have no illusions of ever being able to pay off, happy just to be making their art, and crossing their fingers nothing bad ever happens in their lives because they certainly don’t have insurance or a savings account. My move back to Missouri is my attempt to start over financially- get rid of my debt- build up some savings and learn how to manage my money better so that I can move back to LA, hopefully in a year, with slightly more solid ground under me and the tools necessary to support myself and my art and allow me stay there for the rest of my life. I’m looking at the long term and my artistic goals are a marathon; I’m going to need physical, emotional, creative and financial stamina if I’m ever going to get where I intend to go.
When you talk about Wicked, two names come up Winnie Holzman, the book writer and Stephen Schwartz, the composer/lyricist. Winnie spoke at yesterday’s LA FPI Gathering held at Samuel French here in Los Angeles. She spoke about what inspires us or what shuts us down as writers and how to navigate those waters. In order to do so, we must know what inspires us and work toward it and we must know what shuts us down and steer away from it. “Positive Denial” is a process she uses – in positive denial, one does not look at the whole picture. You have to have the blinders on like a runner who is in denial that anyone is there because they are running their race… We have to learn to be our own parent – a parent’s job is to encourage their children to develop their gifts and stay away from things that get them off track.
We also have to know what’s normal for a writer – the amnesia that happens when we begin a new piece, the feelings of being less than adequate for the task at hand, and the failures (projects that don’t seem to get picked or get picked but don’t go anywhere) between the home runs. Writers go through basically the same things regardless of their notoriety.
She talked about her play, Assisted Living, which she wrote with her husband Paul Dooley which looks at the ways in which people change each other without meaning to or knowing that they do. Assisted Living will be playing in New Brunswick, New Jersey at the George Street Playhouse, January 28 – February 23, 2014.
We all found Winnie to be such a lovely, down-to-earth, and powerfully fierce woman.
LAFPI Blogger Robin Byrd has been blogging since day one. Hers is an authentic voice determined to be heard.
1. How did you become a playwright? What brought you to theater?
I guess I sort of evolved into one. I started telling stories at three and a three year old usually acts out a story so it’s theatrical by nature of the storyteller. I had regular story time for my two younger sisters up until I was eight. Even then I was acting out the story using spectacle and character development. Decades later, I joined a very large church and in the orientation, someone said that a way not to get swallowed up is to join one of the groups so I went to a theater group meeting. This theater group would meet every month to discuss what the annual production would be. Nothing seemed to pass the preconceived “Bishop Test”- based on biblical principles and something he – Bishop Blake – would approve of for his congregation. This discussion went on for months. Out of frustration, I suggested we write our own play. I wrote a synopsis which I didn’t know was a synopsis at the time; everyone in the group liked it and the president of the group, the late Stuart Brown, told me to write it. I would bring in pages to the meetings and we would read them and then Stuart would go back to that darn synopsis and say but I don’t see this part and I’d have to keep writing till everything in that synopsis was in the play. Everyone in the group was very helpful with pushing me to write and giving feedback. After the play was completed, we did a workshop production of it. I met Charlayne Woodard, theatre artist extraordinaire and she greeted me like I was a playwright and that is when I knew I was on this theater artist journey. (Funny the things you remember.) Thus, with “In Times Like These (Is He the One?)”, I started writing plays; by the time I wrote the book for the musical “For This Reason (A Love Story), I knew I was a playwright and I could see my voice as a writer introducing itself to me.
2. What is your favorite play of yours? Why?
My favorite play is always the one that I learn something more about craft or my voice as a playwright.
3. What is your favorite production of one of your plays? Why?
“The Day of Small Things” would be it because my family flew out to Los Angeles to see it. My father was too ill to come but he was so proud of me. There was one scene where something went wrong with the lighting queues so the actors had to improvise and walk onto the stage while the lights were up. The scene was right after a funeral. The actors walked slowly onto the stage as if in shock of the events, they had to play their “just before moment” on stage; they walked in a synchronized movement as if to an inaudible dirge. It was magical, performance art at its best, had we been able to run the play longer, I would have asked them to do it again. (Actors – got to love good ones who can commit to their character and are able to react in character without losing a beat.) Moments like these are what make Theater so alive.
4. What play by someone else has moved you the most and why?
There are a few plays for different reasons: “The Zoo Story” by Edward Albee made me take craft really serious; “Body Indian” by Hanay Geiogamah made me contemplate sound as a character; “A Raisin in the Sun” by Lorraine Hansberry made me look at family dynamics; “A Star Ain’t Nothin’ But A Hole In Heaven” by Judi Ann Mason made me look at family secrets; and “The Glass Menagerie” by Tennessee Williams, taught me to embrace other dimensional storytelling; it’s a memory play and my whole life I’ve dealt with memory in some form. As a child the beginning of most of my sentences was “’Member when…” so when I got to high school and “The Glass Menagerie” was on the reading list, it not only reminded me of the late night PBS filmed plays I loved to watch. It felt strangely familiar. “The Glass Menagerie” bears witness to writing remembered things; it is a testament to what can be done in a play, that boundaries should be lifted like a fourth wall, if it will help to tell the story.
In my work, I deal a lot with memory, flashbacks, visions, and dreams. Writers are normally told to stay away from flashbacks, write what you know, write what you want to know, keep the story forward moving. What I know is flashbacks and pushing forward beyond them so it is inevitable that flashbacks would show up in my work. Perhaps, because I already had a good knack for remembering things, this made me susceptible to flashbacks. I don’t know. What I do know is that as a survivor of rapes (plural intentional), flashbacks ruled my life from the time I was 18 years/7 months/28 days old well into my twenties. Writing is therapy; sometimes you have to make your own closure. My way of dealing with the negative events in my life has been to channel it into my creative work. I like being able to take down the fourth wall – as it were – of the past as it intersects the present, that’s the moment of change for me, a moment of lingering inner impact where new futures can be forged in the flames. It’s like dreaming and opening a door you just walked through only to find it leads somewhere else but doing it on purpose, like throwing jacks several times to get a better layout which will give a better end result.
Tom Wingfield, “The Glass Menagerie” (at least it is my interpretation) hits this intersecting of past and present on more than one occasion; he discusses his wanderings and how un-expectantly he could see his sister beside him in memory and how he tries his best to get away from those recurring moments:
“…Oh, Laura, Laura, I tried to leave you behind me, but I am more faithful than I intended to be! I reach for a cigarette, I cross the street, I run into the movies or a bar, I buy a drink, I speak to the nearest stranger – anything that can blow your candles out!”
In his memory she blows them out. But he doesn’t change anything. He doesn’t go back; doesn’t start again. He just stays in his hell. I found that to be so sad. He never found a way out of the perpetual maze. He didn’t know how to dream another dream. I never want to be found not able to dream again…
5. Who is your favorite playwright? Why?
I am not sure I have a favorite. I do go on binges, devouring everything I can by playwrights that catch my eye.
6. How has your writing changed over the years?
I have become more confident in my gift. I know my sound and I try to be as fearless in my plays as I am in my poetry.
7. What type of plays do you write? (Dramas, Comedies, Plays with Music, Musicals, Experimental, Avant-garde …) What draws you to it?
I mostly write dramas but I also tend to have music in my plays, it just happens and I tend to write my own music. I have always loved musicals but have only written one to date with music, in addition to the composer’s music. I wrote a 10-minute comedy on purpose once just to see if I could do it. I tend to have laughter in my plays naturally but I do want to write a full-length gut buster one day. I don’t write experimental or avant-garde plays, that’s not to say I might not try at some point. I don’t care much for the abstract in art, poetry or plays. If I can’t tell what it means, I tend to move on to something else. I do write a lot about the revealing of secrets and the journey from bondage (emotional, mental, spiritual, and physical) to freedom. I think what draws me to the subject matter is the fact that I am a survivor and I want to leave bread crumbs albeit in the form of stories for others to find. I believe my plays take me to the door in the dream over and over again and each time I change the outcome on the other side as long as I can believe what I see in my mind’s eye can come to past.
8. Do you write any other literary forms? How does this affect/enhance your playwriting?
I write poetry. I got the nicest rejection letter once saying how my work was so lyrical which I think is due to my poetry background. I started out wanting to write fiction, one of my monodramas “Me, My Fiddle an’ Momma” started out as a short story. My professor at Indiana University said it was so full of dialogue it felt like a play. Some years later, I took an acting class with Ben Harney (Tony Award winner for the original Dream Girls) and he encouraged me to tweak it so I could perform it. I did. I found out more about writing drama by taking his acting class than I had in any book I read about drama. I’ve studied screenwriting at the American Film Institute in their certificate program and plan to write more screenplays.
9. Why did you become a blogger for LA FPI?
Jennie Webb, one of the co-founders of the Los Angeles Female Playwrights Initiative walked up to me at the second meeting for LA FPI and asked, “How is your life going right now?” Fine, I answered (not if you count everything that was going WRONG but I was in denial so technically, I was fine.) She smiled. “You want to be the blog editor?” Blink. Nod. “Be the blog editor. Yeah? Yeah.” Then she walked away to “herd” someone else to do something else. And I, never having written a blog article in my life, wondered loudly in my head, “What the hell, did I just commit to?” I sent copies of my first article to playwright friends on opposite sides of the continent – one in Sacramento, the other in Brooklyn – to get their opinions, because I was completely unsure of myself. I barely knew what a blog was, let along write one. But it has been the best experience and blogging helps tremendously with writing the essays sometimes asked for in submission packets.
10. What is your favorite blog posting?
I love all the different voices of the ladies who blog; they cover such timely subjects. I am not sure if I have a favorite of my own but I do feel that “Write it Scared” was very instrumental in me putting together a manuscript of poems that dealt with some scary dark places. And, just looking at my level of “going there” enabled me to become more free. In “She, Who Was Called Barren,” I wanted to experiment with creating an event depicting what it is like to survive trauma and how it can be a roller coaster of dark and light moments and what that feels like.
11. Who do you consider an influence where your writing is concerned? And, why?
I have a few influences but I would say Ezekiel, the prophet, mostly. God was always telling him to go do something theatrical to “show” the Israelites what was coming in their future. And, his language is so poetical. He used a lot of symbolism; I like to use symbolism as well and have received many a “rejection” letter commenting on how lyrical my writing is.
12. When did you find your voice as a writer? Are you still searching for it?
I found my voice a long time ago; it was recognizing that I knew my sound that came after I began calling myself a playwright. Because I started telling stories at 3 years old and oral storytelling requires one to have a way of telling, I think that helped me a lot in developing my voice. I like finding new nuances of my voice, that’s exciting to me.
13. Do you have a writing regiment? Can you discuss your process?
“Always be writing…” that is my mantra. I do a lot of internal work first so I turn over stories and moments in my spirit before any one story makes it to the page. I have to live it in some way before it will release authentically even if it’s a snippet of someone else’s story.
14. How do you decide what to write?
It is usually something that I can’t shake.
15. How important is craft to you?
Craft is very important to me. At one point, I had thought that playwriting was not for me because I was not sure how to do it on a level where I could be respectful of the craft it takes to earn the “wright” in playwright.
16. What other areas of theater do you participant in?
I studied acting and have performed one of my pieces as well as my poetry. I also have co-directed one of my plays and made costumes. The reason I came to Los Angeles in the first play was to study fashion design at Otis/Parsons (now Otis College of Design) – to specialize in costume and men’s wear – that didn’t work out so I had to do a paradigm shift which lead me to writing plays.
17. How do you feel about the theater community in Los Angeles?
As an audience member, there is something for everyone. As a playwright, I feel left out. The worst part is when I have submitted something to a theater/company and go to see new work that has elements of what I submitted in someone else’s piece. I would like to think that it’s a coincidence but when people can’t look you in the eye, you know they ciphered from your well. It makes one a little skittish, although, I must say that this has happened to me outside of Los Angeles too; I try to take it as a compliment – a rude one – but one nonetheless.
18. How do you battle the negative voice? (insecurity, second guessing)
A lot of prayer and rehearsing of positive results – a place that I go to remind myself that my gift will make room for me and bring me before great men. I have to know who I am and what my gift is and why it is. There is always a little “buyer’s remorse” but it passes; it usually only turns up in the submission process.
19. Do you have a theme that you come back to a lot in your work?
Family secrets, ghosts and surviving trauma.
20. What are you working on now?
Being more fearless – a play about Race and a book of poetry on loss.
Robin Byrd is an Indiana born playwright and poet residing in Los Angeles. Growing up in Indianapolis (sometimes referred to as the northernmost southern city), attributes to the playwright’s affinity toward southern themes and language in some of her pieces.
Her plays which include The Grass Widow’s Son, Tennessee Songbird (the place where the river bends), The Book of Years,Dream Catcher,The Day of Small Things, For This Reason, In Times Like These (Is He the One?), and, Me, My Fiddle, An’ Momma have been read and produced in Los Angeles as well as read in Nebraska, Maine, North Carolina, and recently in Washington, D.C. Robin has performed Me, My Fiddle, An’ Momma in Los Angeles; the piece was also read at the 1st Annual SWAN Day event in Portland, Maine in March of 2008. Her plays Tennessee Songbird and Dream Catcher have won “Best Concurrent Play Lab Script at the 2008 Great Plains Theatre Conference” and been selected as a semi-finalist for the 2008 O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, respectively. Her poetry has been read in venues in Los Angeles and Indiana and has been published in two International Library of Poetry books.
The playwright is a member of The Dramatists Guild of America, Inc., the Theatre Communications Group, the Alliance of Los Angeles Playwrights, Native Women Writers (at the Autry), and the American Film Institute from which she holds a certificate in screenwriting. For more information on Robin please visit her website at www.ladybyrdcreations.com.
“This Clement World”, as presented by Cynthia Hopkins is a “live documentary film”. If I hadn’t caught those introductory words I would be at a loss to categorize this wonderful and creative performance. Starting with the thoughtful title, “This Clement World”, I anchored to what is familiar to me; the word ‘clemency’, by definition is giving pardon or mercy as used in the context of religious and/or judicious subjects: To give clemency to a sinner or granting clemency to prisoner. The Merriam-Webster dictionary second definition of the word “clement” is “temperate, mild” .
The earth, to me, is not at all “temperate” nor “mild” as I know it. Populations are around the world are subjected to earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, tsunamis, wild fires and hail storms. This is not a clement world, though compared to other planets like Mercury or Mars, yes it is the most temperate and habitable planet for human beings.
The theme of the play alludes to the first definition of a merciful world that in our briefest lifespan (compared to the world’s long history), it has been mercifully bountiful with giving us the mines of minerals, fields of abundant food, forests of shelters and showers of rain, snow and sunshine among other things. Mother Nature is more powerful than human nature. Its wisdom to nurture us Mother Nature will always exists and evolve, but man may end up exhibiting the “failure of success”, if we should continue to destroy our human habitat.
Three story tellers describe their experiences and perceptions in a series of monologues that are intertwined over the course of the play. They channel their stories through the traveler, a woman who is a recovering alcoholic. She joins a crew of scientists and artists in a voyage to the Arctic Circle. There are 5 marine scientist and 10 artists from Russia, the US, Australia, Spain and Canada. plus the crew of Noorderlich. It is a 100 year old vessel that was restored to its original form by the owner and captain, known as “Captain Ted”.
At the beginning, she steps onto the stage and describes her situation. Afterwards, she steps behind a white screen that instantly turns into a film medium. We are transported to the “live” documentary. We are on the ship, observing her thoughts on paper. Each thought is scribbled across a piece of paper that is flashed across another screen, and moves as quickly as the hand can write down the thoughts. It feels like a silent movie and your attention is focused.
Like a dream, we move from different characters to the real character. The first one is a ghost of a Cheyenne woman who was murdered during the 1864 massacre at Sand Creek. “I was pregnant,” she moans. The symbolism of a future generation already dead imparts gravity of the moment in the past and present. Following her is an alien dressed up as a farmer. He explains his costume as a means of being recognizable. He is afraid that if we saw how foreign looking he is, then he would probably end up dead. The third character is a child from the future, and I’m sorry to confess that I missed this character.
My lack of attention to this detail is mostly due to my inability to “catch on” with what’s happening in the play, because the visual and aural textures of this multi-media performance were full of wonder. It was playfulness at its most inventive crescendo, without losing any balance. The closest experience I’ve had to seeing a live multi-media performance on stage was a long time ago, and the artist was Laurie Anderson. Cynthia Hopkins’ talent crosses over music, words and dance. I don’t know the persons (or groups) who helped her realize the vision of the props and the mediums to convey the various stories. I wish I did so I could give them kudos for their work.
Uhm…. There it is. I see the words jumping out at me on this page after several ruminations of what it is I’m trying to say about this piece of “heart work” by Cynthia Hopkins. It took a few rounds of research including reading Cynthia Hopkin’s blog during 2010. What do I see? “my inability to catch on”, and how we as a human species are slowly (maybe?) catching on that the biosphere is in a serious crisis that it will no longer sustain human habitants.
“Because although I don’t fully understand the climate crisis, I am beginning to grasp the mortality of our currently hospitable biosphere and the inter-related mortality of our human species, and I’m beginning to be possessed by a yearning to understand both the enormity and complexity of the climate problem as well as the thrilling possibilities for its solutions, and I’m beginning to be obsessed with the search for a way to be of service, to serve as a translator or conduit of information in whatever way that might be possible for me with my little voice and arms and legs to dance and sing the information into the hearts and minds of fellow members of my endangered species. – Cynthia Hopkins posted on Day 17 of the journey September 16th, 2010.
We go back to real time, when the woman returns to the stage, stepping out from behind the screen. She is dressed in a lumberjack shirt and jeans and confesses to hitting rock bottom. She lacks experience as an interviewer and on videotaping skills, but she persists to interview the guests on the ship to capture their professional and personal observations.
Despite the gravity of the messages there is lightness and light in the story telling. She apologizes for the poor audio quality of the interview so she mimes them while the interview plays on the screen. Her foreign accents and depiction of the character quirks are skillful and funny.
Towards the end of the journey she tries to draw parallels between her recovery from her alcoholic addiction to human kind’s addiction for things they don’t need; and its effect on others and the environment. She cannot find a metaphor, nor a resolution to the dilemma. Unlike the human lifecycle, the cycle of Mother Nature is vast and long and independent of human activities. It’ll continue to evolve through its volcanic actions, storms, earthquakes, tsunamis or meteor showers. But humans are finite as finite as our imaginations. If our imaginations can only stretch to our immediate gratifications then there is no future for the unborn.
This Clement World was written and composed by Cynthia Hopkins, designed by Jeff Sugg, and directed by DJ Mendel. It was presented at the Redcat theater on October 25th thru October 27th. It is scheduled to be shown in Toronto as part of Cape Farewell’s Carbon 14: Climate is Culture Festival on February 7th – 9th, 2014.
