Women on the Fringe!
LA FPI Video Blog featuring female playwrights @ the Hollywood Fringe Festival
In ancient Greece the playwright was poeisis: the act of making plays and the root of the modern word, poetry. It is said that poïetic (Greek for creative, meaning productive or formative) work reconciles thought with matter and time, and person with the world (Wikipedia).
The Hollywood Fringe harkens back to the 5th century’s annual Athenian competitions where notables such as Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides and Aristophanes established theatrical forms, which modern playwrights still rely upon. A lot has changed since these male playwrights, with their all male cast and crew, occupied the festivals of ancient Greece. With the hopes of uniting its colonies and allies, Athenian politicos exported the “festival” to help promote a common cultural identity. Today, LA FPI promotes “Women on the Fringe!,” with the hopes of uniting and supporting women playwrights.
Thought, matter, time, person, world – words poetics in their own right – remind me of my first interviewee, Jeannette Rizzi, and her one-woman show Blindsided. Jeannette is all heart. She kindly met me outside of the Hudson Theatre to assist me with parking. She warmly introduced me to her all male crew (some things never change), and eased into rehearsal as my camera rolled
Aspectabund and luminous, Jeannette graciously reveals her-story and altruistic nature in thought, word and stage presence. Throughout, she holds a mirror-like inner-strength reflecting confidence coupled with gratitude, attributes only those who practice self-love can embrace, as her comedic foothold sets the tone.
Thought, matter, time, person, world—inspiring, comedic, altruistic, confidant, gracious and self-love, these words resonated within me as I left the theatre. Blindsided is a gift of truth and beauty from writer and performer, Jeannette Rizzi. Enjoy the video.
“The Katrina Comedy Fest” is based on the true experiences of 5 separate lives who survived the hurricane of 2005. I was given a nod to write about “The Katrina Comedy Fest” because it’s still a relevant story. Natural disasters and catastrophes, like waves lapping on the beach, erase the tracks of lives imprinted on the sand.
I’ve visited New Orleans twice. The first time was in in 1991 when I got married in a small town called Buras. It’s about an hour south of the Big Easy. On August 29, 2005, the eye of Hurricane Katrina made its first landfall in the Buras-Triumph district, and the area is still in the process of rebuilding. On my second visit in 2010, I wanted to see the effects of the BP disaster upon the environment and the people. It’s unbelievable to see the ant work it took to watch people and helicopters putting up barriers to keep the oil slick at bay.
I sought out the old fire hall station where I was married by the JP with his deputy as witness. Like my marriage, the white-washed concrete building didn’t withstand the forces of wind and rain. I sought out Camp’s, the restaurant that served big bowls heaped with rice and oyster gumbo. That one had closed too, or the owners decided not to rebuild it after the storm. My memories of Louisiana linger, like the waft of good soul food that beckons. It was at Camp’s where I learned how to eat a crawfish properly as demonstrated by the happy waitress. She took one mini-lobster from the heap on the newspaper and used her thumb and index to flick the head off, and she sucked out the ‘best part’, followed by forcing the meat from the body with the same fingers. This technique ensures “less mess” and allows for continues eating, because there are plenty of hands going into that heap.
The story telling captures the sensitivity, nostalgia and steely guts of survivors in the face of a natural disaster and caught in the web of bureaucratic foibles. The stories of five characters, from different walks of life, belie a spirit of humor and a soul of surrender. New Orleans, historically, has always been at the mercy of nature because of its geography – it sits on the soft silt of the Mississippi River delta, and it opens up to the Gulf of Mexico. This relationship has grown more tenuous with the industrial revolution. The coast of Louisiana and Texas has been identified as dead zone, and is the largest hypoxic zone in the United States (source: Wikipedia.) Last week two explosions erupted in two chemical plants on Thursday and Friday. If the investigation comes up with any likeness to negligence that led to the BP disaster, then this reinforces some themes common woven into the lives of the people.
“The Katrina Comedy Fest”, refreshingly, does not focus on the politics. The play brings the event to a tangible level that can be digested as a languorous 5 course meal, beginning with the rising waters and ending with sobering shot of reality. It becomes a speculation game as to the strength of “this one” compared to the “last one” when the levees didn’t breach.
The stories are narrated through the voice of …
Raymond, a homeless, begins his story in the stadium. He discovers his “air freshener” ineffective against the heavy stench of bodies locked down. He’s prepared for anything being a homeless.
Antoinette is a savvy and bold owner of “Mother-in-Law Lounge”, and widow of R&B singer Ernie K-Doe. She keeps both her 15 year old granddaughter and a shrine of her late husband afloat during the storm. The statue donned with a sawed-off shotgun keeps away would-be intruders.
Rodney is a sweet southern gentleman shoulders the responsibility of keeping his aging parents plus new comers entertained and alive during the siege of rising waters. He keeps well inebriated with whisky and at the close of the storm realizes he had spent more with his parents than he’s ever done in a long long time.
Judy is a sweet and naïve older woman who meets up with 5 young people. She wanders out in the street of her neighborhood which had already been evacuated. She receives texts from her son, “Get out now!” She meets the pot-smoking youths who takes her with them to San Antonio in her son’s unreliable car. It is a miraculous trip that opens the life of Judy to young attitudes and wider latitudes.
Sonny, a tourist guide, stays a while and ends up in Oklahoma with high-pitched voiced black woman who likes to scream. His cool logic and street-wise experience keeps the situation moving until he is investigated by the FBI, because he’s carrying a big wad of cash in a plastic bag. How else does a person whose business is cash-based supposed to flee the floods of New Orleans?
“The Katrina Comedy Fest” was written by playwright is Rob Florence and directed by Misty Carlisle. It’s showing at The Lounge from Wednesday thru Sunday.
The Fringe Festival is in full swing. I’ve seen three shows of different genres and flavors, all of which proved to be fresh, fitting and funny. The Fringe is about all these and more, which are reasons for attending a performance and more to tickle your senses and blow your imagination. A stage and players with powerful stories to share is a lever to enlighten our minds, elevate our spirits and encircle the range of humanity in our hearts.
In writing about the the Fringe plays I’ve seen. The question in my mind is, “How is today unlike any other day?”
In Alyson Mead’s play, “The Other F Word”, today is unlike any other day for four women invited to a focus group about a pen designed for women, and it is PINK! The women are racially, socially and economically different. Carol is Asian and is married with children. She is shy and demure. Roxanne is black, a lawyer and single. She exudes power in her Armani suit and accoutrements. Daniella is of East Indies descent (it seemed to me), and she’s a man in transition to be a woman. She’s thoughtful and sharp, but hides showing off these gifts. Lastly, there’s Evie, Caucasian, beautiful, educated and single. She’s opinionated and outgoing. The women attend the focus group with different motives – whether it is for the $100 compensation, curiosity, opportunity or to fit in, they are forever changed by the dialogue initiated by a pink pen.
Sitting in the Lounge Theater at 4pm last Saturday, I listened to the monologues expressing their inner thoughts and true feelings. It wasn’t just verbally expressing to the moderator “Tammy” about the pen. Firstly, what kind of a name is Tammy? Is that even a real name? or is it a psychological setup for the bearer of the name to be a stripper. The women bark their opinions about the others which is a microcosm of their day-to-day life. It’s really not about the pen. It’s about their own perception, opinion, belief and attitudes about themselves, other people and situations. This is cleverly played out in the story by using the pen as the instrument – a great metaphor. The power of the word birth from thought and emotion as carried out with the pen.
They receive their checks in the mail, and again a tool is used to reveal a meaning – what is money? Roxanne deposits the check immediately, because she was taught by her parents that time and opportunity is wasted by an un-deposited check, and she’s saving up for fertility treatment. Daniella saves the money for her operation, a dream to realize her inner nature.
The journey that the women had embarked upon at the focus group, has conscious shifts and unconscious impacts on their views. Some can accept the event as a blessing that moved them to another direction on their path. For example, the shy and demure Carol grows. She breaks out of her self-imposed beliefs of only being a mother and wife, and becomes a successful leader and organizer of a group in her community. To another participant, Evie, she recognizes her pattern of dating losers, and breaks out by learning to spend time alone, by herself, to discover her inner beauty and to love herself.
In case you’re curious to know… the story of play evolved from a real-life event in 2012 when a company began to market the Bic Cristal “For Her” pen. People posted cutting and sarcastic reviews on Amazon that lamb-basted the marketing features of the pen as … “elegant design – just for her!” and “a thin barrel to fit a woman’s hand”.
“Finally! For years I’ve had to rely on pencils, or at worst, a twig and some drops of my feminine blood to write down recipes (the only thing a lady should be writing ever),” one reviewer wrote. “I had despaired of ever being able to write down said recipes in a permanent manner, though my men-folk assured me that I ‘shouldn’t worry yer pretty little head.’ But, AT LAST! Bic, the great liberator, has released a womanly pen that my gentle baby hands can use without fear of unlady-like callouses and bruises. Thank you, Bic!”
“Oh. My. God. I’ve been doing it all wrong. There was me thinking I didn’t need to worry about whether my writing implement sufficiently reflected my gender. Thank you so much Bic for showing me the error of my ways. Perhaps Bic will also bring out a new range of pink (or purple) feminine spanners, screwdrivers, electric drills and angle grinders so that I can carry out my job as a bicycle mechanic without further embarrassing myself? Luckily my male colleagues have managed to keep their disapproval of my use of their masculine tools to themselves. I’m so ashamed. And re-educated as to my place in society. Thanks again Bic!”
Dan Kaufman, a reviewer is quoted, “Men, don’t stand for this. Aren’t there enough products specific to women already? First it was tampons, now these pens? What other products will I have to suffer the indignity of being unable to purchase just because I’m a male person?”
The BIC spokeswoman, Linda Kwong, responded to a request for comment: “We appreciate hearing honest feedback from all of our consumers, whether it is regarding a promotion, advertising campaign, or product. As a global consumer products company, BIC wants to hear these important comments.”
The pink pen has given the opportunity for women to speak out about being branded, and perhaps that is the other F word.
I am by nature an optimist. I love to laugh and I don’t hold on to grudges. I am sincerely hoping that is the key to my longevity and will compensate for the lack of physical exercise. But as a Playwright and theatrical Director and Producer, I have also had my rose colored glasses ripped off of my face a time or two. I try and see the glass as half full, rather than half empty. But imagine that glass as less than a quarter full. Imagine two equal sized water glasses, one that is 80% full and the second that is only 20% full. Stand them side-by-side and visually take in that image. That will give you a picture of gender parity in American theatre in 2013… or rather the lack thereof.
The Hollywood Fringe Festival is always a good jumping off point for discussions on gender parity in Los Angeles theatre. The number of female participants is usually inflated because of the self-production element, which in all honesty, self-production is something I would encourage any woman with the skills and means, to consider at any time of the year. DIY! That is what motivated my Cofounder Michele Weiss and I, to found The Los Angeles Women’s Theatre Project, in 2007. I’m a Playwright and I understand the challenges that we face and I wanted to find a way to help more women get their work on to the stage, though all too soon realized that our efforts were only a small step in addressing an overwhelming need.
A playwright tells a story based on their unique perspective, which really does differ between men and women. As female playwrights, of course we can create male characters. And no doubt male playwrights can create female characters. But we’re talking about one simple thing. Truth. I had a cherished mentor and writing instructor who taught me the word, verisimilitude,the appearance or semblance of truth; likelihood; probability. He used to say that it was essential that a play possessed verisimilitude.
There is a serious lack of verisimilitude in American theatre, when eighty percent of the plays that are produced are written by and about men. The absence of gender parity is a crisis and has not progressed in the past century; so waiting for it to catch up to the times is not going to happen on its own. Not only are women’s perspectives and voices denied, but also the trickle down effect of this discriminatory practice is insidious and seeps into the pours of how we produce theatre. The dysfunction is reflected in the lack of protagonist and leading roles for actresses. It is reflected in the low percentage of female directors, stage crew and it most certainly impacts the number of stories about women or even stories from a woman’s perspective. When the majority of critics who review plays are male, it slants the reporting, the reviews and even the amount of media coverage and awards that women receive.
Perhaps we’ve been indoctrinated that if we get on our feminist soapboxes and demand equality, we are just being downright rude. Theatre is not just entertainment, it is an ageless reflection of our communities, our culture and our lives. If that reflection has historically lacked gender parity and truth, do we simply acquiesce to the status quo? Or do we find the courage to undertake the mission of creating equality in the art that we value so greatly? As Producers of theatre, we can not be willing to sacrifice verisimilitude or to deny our right to expect it.
“I’m forming a new ad hoc committee in Los Angeles to explore fresh ways to solve the gender parity issue in theatre. Join me on July 20, 1-4 p.m., at the next LA FPI Gathering at Samuel French Bookshop, to learn the details and become part of it.”
Dee Jae Cox is CoFounder and Artistic Director of The Los Angeles Women’s Theatre Project (www.lawomenstheatreproject.org).
Fringe is in the air. Artists of all ilk are excited to bare their souls on Hollywood stages. But fringin’ ain’t easy. With hundreds of shows vying for audience attention, artists on a limited budget are left with no choice but to don the hats of marketing specialist, fundraiser, and publicist. Oh and of course, back to artist. Right. Each aspect is a feat in its own right, but I’d like to focus on marketing in this post. As someone who had a marketing phobia (I still do to some extent), I understand how marketing may feel like trying to hit a piñata in the dark–with some cruel, invisible entity spinning you astray. The truth is, whenever I feel this way, it’s because I don’t have enough information. I finally owned up to my part in the matter and began digging. In my search for how to market theatre specifically, I stumbled upon Clay Mabbit’s blog: Sold Out Run. The blog alone has an incredible amount of information. When I found out that Clay also wrote a book: Reaching A New Audience, and that the book details strategies to draw audiences of a digital age to the theatre, it immediately piqued my interest.
So we made a deal.
I would read and apply the modules in Reaching A New Audience and write an honest review based on my experience (Clay offered this opportunity in a newsletter to subscribers). Clay provides a ton of ideas in twelve modules, which he describes as “tactical steps of promoting your show.” He adds, “you can tackle one module a day, one each week, or whatever pattern works for you. Most of the modules can be completed in 20 minutes or less.”
3. We also shot a trailer, one of the many ideas also echoed in Outreach Nerd, Cindy Marie Jenkins’s Social Media Marketing workshops.
Cindy’s insight has been an excellent complement to Clay’s module because it helps us really fine tune how to use social media to effectively disseminate the content in Clay’s modules. Hopefully the entire process will help quell those old, queasy marketing nightmares. Fingers crossed.
Reaching A New Audience currently retails at $147 and Clay has given me permission to read it for free. $147 is a hefty price to pay for a book. Is it worth it? Stay tuned for results in my follow-up post.
My play—originally called The Rules of Affection—started with a vague idea of a relationship involving an addict. I did a lot of research about addiction, including talking to any kind of addict willing to speak to me. I eventually finished a draft but didn’t feel it was complete enough to do anything with it. So off it went to the back burner as other projects took priority.
A year or two later I went to graduate school at CalArts for playwriting. I was writing even more new projects, exploring different forms of story-telling and meeting new artists, including dozens of wonderful actors. In my final year of school I connected with two actors—we decided we wanted to work on something together. I pulled out my addiction script.
I had been through a major break-up, dated (mostly unsuccessfully) for a couple years, and tackled a few personal dilemmas. I had more perspective and more life under my belt. I also had a new, more appropriate, title for my play about addiction: FleshEatingTiger. I wasn’t just a different human being, I was now a better writer.
The actors and I met regularly. We read at the table, worked on our feet, tried some staging with bare bones props. I re-wrote and re-arranged scenes. I wrote new scenes. We eventually shared the work as a workshop performance for our fellow students. People talked to us about the play. More re-writes, more rehearsals and we took a revised version of the show to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Then another revision which we performed at the Hollywood Fringe in 2012. Professional reviews, audiences, more feedback from fellow artists.
Early this year we were invited to perform the most recent (and final version) of FleshEatingTiger at Highways Performance Space in Santa Monica. The script has had even more re-writes, including a new scene or two. We have a terrific new director and an outstanding team of designers. Each member of the team brings more insight and growth to our final script.
It’s been about two and a half years since the very first table read of the first draft. In so many ways, it’s still the same exact story. But it has also changed so much. What we will present June 21st and 22nd is the culmination of months of work combined with time away to process and germinate ideas. We are all very proud of the show and I am happy with where the script has ended up.
It takes collaboration. It takes revision. It takes time.
In addition to teaching, working my day job, and directing/co-producing a new play fest, I am currently dramaturging a new musical.
It’s a musical that I’ve also been asked to direct.
It’s a musical which needed quite a hefty revision, but was wrapped in such an intensely messy process that even the title “Dramaturg” was unfamiliar to those drafting the darn thing.
I’d like to talk about what a wonder this little play is for surviving such a rapid conception and wild birth.
The play began as a book. It was a sweet children’s book about animals clashing up against reckless humans. The book has the most darling chapter titles, interesting characters, an earnest quality that compels readers to turn the page – and it’s message is simple but important: We’re all part of this great big world, so we’d better take better care of it together.
The book’s author was a first-time published author who had never written a play, yet he was asked to turn his book into one with the promise of a production if he did so. He was paired up with a playwright to mentor him a little, and he set to work.
Meanwhile, the producer determined that the play should be a musical and invited a local composer to draft the music.
As the play moved along, the producer hired a director who then brought in and hired two local musicians (who had never worked on a musical before) to draft music for the play – which created some obvious discord with the original composer.
At this point, there were a handful of passionate people up to their elbows in New Play Craziness, without a dramaturg on board or even the guidance of anyone who had created a new musical before.
And the calendar was looming heavy in the not-so-distance.
This band of determined creatives made it to production – they made it through actors jumping ship, the director adding her own rewrites to the script, and the never-before-playwright stepping into a pair of producer’s shoes even though he’d never done theatre before.
And yet, the play went up! Audiences applauded – and everyone involved sat back after the final curtain and wiped their brows with relief – awash in the miraculous nature of the theatre. For no matter the project, no matter the crunch, theatre (most of the time) happens.
Fast forward to this summer, where I’ve been tapped to remount the show and help fine-tune the play that no one had time to fine-tune last summer.
The artists are nervous – shell-shock from last summer’s Wham-Bam-Thank-You-Ma’am process, and the playwright is tired of getting feedback he doesn’t understand how to implement.
So I asked him for the original book. I read the book. And I found the play that he was trying to write was right there on its pages.
I’m working with him now to put more of his own book into the play. I’m also working to correct the misconceptions he had been working under:
The playwright had been told that family theatre couldn’t be longer than an hour, because children can’t sit still longer than 60 minutes. This is a fallacy – children can become engrossed in a compelling story and sit for hours. I’ve seen children in audiences enraptured by the show on stage – shows that ran 90 minutes and longer. The key is quality. Kids don’t want to be talked down to or cheated – they’ll call you on the moments that aren’t gripping or genuinely funny/interesting, that don’t serve the play, or that are too wordy/not active enough. They’re honest thus the ultimate audience challenge, but if you write from a “What’s going to grab their attention?’ perspective, you don’t have to obsess about whether it’s 60 pages or 100. And you certainly shouldn’t be excising parts of your successful book to meet page length “requirements” instead of editing due to dramatic relevance.
The playwright was not in communication with the composers on the music, so he had no idea what the songs were going be like, nor how much time they would add to the play. The musicians never got a copy of the book, so they were writing music based on the play’s skeleton – a skeleton intentionally lacking the meat of the book because of the above well-meaning, but inaccurate, advice on page length. The playwright and musicians should have been working together. And in an ideal situation, the playwright himself would have been the one to select his composer – not have them handed to him to know only from a distance. Thankfully, everyone seems to have gotten along and to feel good about the partnership – but the holes in communication led to these first-time composers attempting to write music to a first-time playwright’s script without anyone on hand to help clarify the process/structure of writing a musical and to guide them all towards a solid and compelling script/score.
The Director does NOT get to rewrite your script. Ever. Unfortunately, the time constraints on the promised/scheduled performance last year led to a general surrender of the script to “the director’s vision”. When I stepped on board this summer, I was dismayed to find out that the playwright felt a lack of ownership of his own material. I understand that last summer’s director was trying to make the play work – a play that wasn’t ready for production but “had” to go on regardless – but it breaks my playwright heart to know he thought that last summer’s experience was the norm and that he did not want to put his playwright hat back on because of it. I’m currently doing my best to give him the specific notes he asked for (this playwright admittedly doesn’t use the same playwright language I use, and has told me to be as specific as possible) with complete frankness that HE is the final say on any suggested script changes. I’ve also made it very clear that the changes I’m suggesting are 90% straight out of his book – so that I’m mostly just asking him to bring over the delightful characterizations and dialogue present in the book. My hope is that the nature of this summer’s revision process will leave him happier about the script and happier about being a playwright.
The composers were not given any lessons in musical theater or how to structure their songs. They’ve created some lovely music for the play in spite of this, and it’s been wonderful to work with them on adding in some musical staples such as an “I want” song for our main character, a more thematically impactful closing number, and presenting the problems/world of our play in an opening number that gets our audience excited to be there. I’ve ultimately asked them to draft 3 new numbers and to look at pairing down/tweaking some of the others, and they’re well on their way to making them all awesome.
Last summer’s show did not have a musical director. The composers who were also the musicians were also the musical directors. Yikes! Talk about spread thin. Actors need a dedicated musical director to help them understand the music and sing it to the best of their ability. Musicians need a musical director to bridge the musician/actor divide. The Musical Director is there to support the singers and the musicians – and having one on board now is making every musical step a little easier. As I am dramaturging the play and music, our musical director is helping to do the same with the score and structure of that score. It’s awesome.
I know that this may not be the most gripping of blog posts, but it’s a big part of what’s been on my creative plate lately and I’m sure it’s not the only project undergoing bumps due to a lack of dramaturgical support. There is a lot of room for collaborative creationism in the larger circles of theatrical professionals, but in the smaller outer rings a few too many inexperienced chefs in the kitchen can lead to much heartburn and grief.
The people involved in this particular small-town-project really want to have a great show (and I’m confident they will)! But it’s been frustrating to see how frustrating the process was for them last year, and the relevance of their experiences might impact someone else out there who is determinedly working on a new play sans dramaturgical support – in which case, I say this: Do yourself a favor and get the support! Writing is one thing, but writing in a pressure cooker of impending production and too many cooks is entirely another. Don’t let just anyone lead you along the road to production – passion and dedication are 50% of the equation, but know-how, skill, and time make up the rest. If you’ve got the location and you’ve got the money, don’t short change yourself on the material or the people helping you to birth it.
And don’t lose sight of your role and rights as playwright, composer, or lyrcisist. If you have questions about what those rights are, visit the Dramatists Guild website.
I can’t help but feel a tad harried these days. I’m directing/producing a new play festival this week (www.TheatricsTheatre.org), prepping to teach a teen summer workshop that begins next week, dramaturging & directing a new play that goes into rehearsals in two weeks with performances at the end of July, and gearing up to move to Texas one day after that show closes.
Woof.
No wonder “I’m late, I’m late, for a very important… EVERYTHING” keeps running through my head.
Which has me thinking about my tendency towards overload – I am overloaded. A lot. – and what needs to be done about it.
I think it comes down to the delicate and sometimes vicious dance I have to do in order to pay the bills/feed my soul/maintain some semblance of ‘I’m making progress’ in my internal mantra. I’ve got three practically-full-time jobs, yet only one of them actually pays the bills. The other two feed my soul and sometimes buy me dinner or printer paper. Yet I can’t stop any one of them without suffering some kind of potential (worst case scenario) outcome: becoming homeless, losing my mind, or killing my soul off one administrative gig at a time.
So I try to do it all. And with each new tree-ring I acquire, I wonder more and more at how long I can honestly continue to “BE ALL THINGS!” (which we all know isn’t really possible to begin with)
I have a friend who is getting ready to start up her own theater company in a thus-far company-less town in AZ. She is a talented director, actress, and playwright – and I’ve no doubt she will rock this new theatre company like a boss. But as I was listening to her layout her plans to pay her artists, I felt a cold creeping nagging feeling come over me – “How are you going to pay artists and stay afloat? How can a company in its infancy expect to make enough money to make money for its artists?” and “What does it say about me that my first reaction is balls-out skepticism?”
I think it’s time for me to move out of the Land of the Creative-But-Financially Stumped, and I’m not ashamed to say that I will probably need some help vacating the shanty I’ve got held together with fly paper. I’ve never taken a business class, I don’t know the first thing about getting an LLC, but I think I’m going to have to do both in order to carve out a more comfortable artistic niche for myself – something that doesn’t include money-panic on a daily basis or absolute calendar overload – something that is actually IN the field I love and have studied/practiced at so tirelessly these past years.
Which is all to say that I’m looking forward to the impending move. I’ve had a number of creative successes in Prescott – and I’m so honored to have been a part of the artistic scene here. But I’m damned excited to start fresh somewhere else. And no, I’m not returning to LA (thanks for hoping) – and yes, I know how we all feel about Texas – but a fresh start is like a blank page: chock full of possibilities!
I had intended to finish this week with a blog about Ann Jellicoe, the English playwright, but she’s written so much, I’m still reading. Next time.
However, I couldn’t sign off without saying, “Congrats” and “Break legs,” to everybody participating in the Hollywood Fringe Festival. May it be a blast!
Elizabeth Murphy and Francine Volker sing Heaven Will Protect The Working Girl
A long time ago I wrote a play for Redlight Theatre in Toronto, Canada with some terrifically talented actors. The cast members and I were to share royalities. The play was published and we thought the money would come trickling in. Sigh. Not even a trickle.
So, I was bowled over this week to hear that a company in Pickering, Ontario had just produced it! I got a royalty check! But I had a problem. “Where,” I said to myself, “has everybody gone?”
I started looking. And remembering.
The play was originally called What Glorious Times They Had and was changed to Nellie! How The Women Won TheVote. I’m sorry that the title was changed. I think that What Glorious Times tells the story better.
Set in 1914-1916 in Manitoba, Canada, at the headquarters of the Political Equality League, it’s about a group of women dedicated to winning the vote for women, led by a Canadian heroine, Nellie McClung.
She was more than able to lead. A teacher who once taught all eight grades in a rural school, she wrote sixteen novels, was a popular speaker and in twenty years, spoke at over four hundred public meetings, sometimes speaking three times a day. She was the only woman delegate to the League of Nations in 1938. And she had five children.
I researched her work and the suffragist movement for a long time, making notes on 3 by 5 cards and putting them on a corkboard. (This was a while ago, wasn’t it?) When I found a quote from the Elections Act of Canada, “No woman, idiot, lunatic or woman shall vote,” we knew where we were going and were off and running.
Building a play from research and improv is so exciting. It’s frustrating and difficult, too, but when you find a solution to the seemingly insolvable, it makes your day or week or month.
We put things in, threw things out, and had a long, productive rehearsal period. We six actors, four women and two men, amused, played off of and with each other and became a close cohesive group. We created a cast of thousands, (well, dozens) with the help of very talented violinist, who tied all the scenes together. (I still can’t hear Meditation from Thais without thinking of the time.)
Creating the illusion of a factory with three women, some chairs and a violin was tough but it worked and turned out to be one of the best scenes in the show. We also came up with a train, a Pierce Arrow touring car, the Houses of Parliament and more, all connected by an ingenious lighting plot by our great woman techie.
The suffragists were all involved with the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, so necessary in a time when the liquor industry was unregulated and domestic violence wasn’t recognized. My aunt, Edna Fay Grant, who was the Canadian National Secretary of the WCTU, gave me its songbook to use. It had lovely, lively songs, some taken from hymns, easy to harmonize with, and perfect for carrying the theme of the play.
I had a video of one of the earlier versions which Costco turned into a flickering DVD and what came through was the music we made out of the temperance songs, comic songs of the times, a barbershop quartet and a moving rendition of Whispering Hope.
We could play on a proscenium, a thrust or in the round, and when touring, did all of that. We toured Canada twice with the play, (with slightly different casts) first traveling East to Newfoundland, flying in to St. John’s at the height of winter. (I noticed when we prepared for landing, all the flight attendants were holding their breaths.) We set up in schools and auditoriums and wherever people wanted us to. And we had fun.
I’ve made contact with three of the players and they are now helping me to track down the other two so I can put the checks in the mail. I’m looking forward to that. It’s a way of saying, “Thanks for the memories.”
