All posts by Robin Byrd

Take the Small/99-Seat Theatre Survey

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Brenda Varda has asked LA FPI to participate in her Small/99-Seat Theatre Survey and to help get the word out about it.

Ms. Varda is doing a trial version of this survey to look at arts participation in the intimate theatre scene in Los Angeles.  She is writing some academic analysis on the cultural and personal functions of the Scene and getting more participants (women) would lend some more credibility to the exploration. If you are attached to any companies, tangentially or integrally, that would help the cause.  You can take the survey at one of the following links:

the Secrets of Poetry…

Poetry, , ,

One of the things I deal with in my writing are secrets; those kept by family, others, and those kept by me.  Poetry is a way I file them away for later days.  My brother used to read my diary and thus, knew my secrets so I started using codes, the best of which is the language of poetry.  Now, after all these years of writing, I no longer use it to always conceal but also to reveal.  Poetry:  snippets of moments or events captured in verse…

  

My Brother’s Eyes

my brother’s eyes pierce

shallow graves

to view the bones

set in awakenings and armor

dress right dress

till the cover is sure

secrets double time between memories

lay out half naked on the asphalt

soaking up the tar

hair black black now

skin black blue now

scrapped and pus-ing over

my brother’s eyes pierce but i cannot tell

the price i paid for his life…

 

the Blues of It…

LAFPI, Playwright, Poetry, , , , ,

it’s a rhythm

slow, low and bluesy

seeping like vapors into a waking day

me in the middle of it

always caught by surprise

always caught

off guard/off kilter

by the soothing riffs

slur/sliding down the notes

trilling backward in time

to then

when…

even after checking the archival catalogues

i can never find any foreshadowing

it’s always the same interrupt/

same perpetual stop-loss/

same…

decades passing

has not changed the cadence

henderson born, kentucky rooted syncopation

dating way back to the 1800s

way back to when

my shawnee mothers hid out

near robards station

waiting through

the trip to containment

waiting through

the loss

it’s the blues of it

that keeps the song going

pizzicato

shimmer/slur

pluck

me in the middle

me on edge

traveling back to then

in the middle of a waking day

stop-loss now/ me caught

in the blues of it

 

My grandmother used to tell me stories…before she began to forget.  I stored them somewhere in my subconscious.  I remember them at the oddest of times, in the middle of dreams, while writing other things.  When I was 26, I joined the army.  The days before I left, I would bury my head in her breasts – like I did when I was a baby – to soak her up.  I knew that was the last time I would see her alive and I needed to keep a piece…  She’s in a lot of my plays in some way and when I am really tired, I slip into her southern way of speaking.  Nora Lee Phillips Morris…could sing a whole church happy…right in the middle of the blues…

Being a storyteller means remembering and sharing even when you got the blues…

 

End Results…

Audience, LAFPI, playwriting, , , , ,

Sometimes, things fall through the cracks.  Sometimes the hard journey through the cracks is the best one that can be taken as an artist. Enduring the pull and stretch can be just what is needed to help create a fresh perspective or an authentic moment that can take art to the next level.

 …the race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong, neither is bread to the wise nor riches to men of intelligence and understanding nor favor to men of skill; but time and chance happen to them all. [Ecclesiastes 9:11]

Time and chance happens to us all — an equalizer of sorts.   Knowing that, it is a little easier to decide that no matter what we go after, we have the right to expect the end result to take us some place intriguing – some place that will allow us to grow.   We must remember that how we view our world has a lot to do with how we manage in our world.  One can be so wrapped up in the circumstances that the result can be overshadowed.  But end results are like mistakes, everyone makes them; it is not if you will make a mistake but when you make a mistake, it’s how you recover that matters most.

So, the best results can come after the worst experiences as lack luster ones can come after the greatest fanfare.  However they come, one must be aware and celebrate them.  Or, you’ll miss the fact that after days on edge trying to cast your play for a reading, you have the best talkback of your life.  Does the struggle overshadow the win?  It shouldn’t.  Does the win overshadow the struggle?  It should.

I just had a  reading at a festival that was a challenge getting everything in place.  However, the last minute casting got me actors and non actors that really felt my play and discussed it up to an hour after the reading.  And they went deep — both actors and audience members.

I came away feeling that I had conquered the world…  The end result made it all worth it.  I think had there not been a challenge, in this instance, my end result would have been less spectacular…and less exactly what I needed to for my piece.

If We Believe…

LAFPI, Playwright, , , , , ,

As a storyteller, when I create the worlds for my stories, I must believe them to be real worlds.  If I believe it, the audience will believe it. If I believe it, my characters will know I believe it and they will talk; they will tell me their secrets and show me their hearts. We can sit a spell and work it out on the page.  We can see what the end will be…  We can find a way of telling the truth about things considered intangible/ethereal/surreal/too terrible to speak of/so hush-hush, the revealing can blow the mind. As a storyteller, I have to be open to conversations with the truth – whatever that truth is…  I have to be brave enough to share it… and let the chips fall where they may…

The singer, Brandy.  I watched an interview with Brandy “Behind the Music” where she mentioned one of her albums that didn’t do too well.  She said she was supposed to be “sexy” then she revealed, “I didn’t believe it. And, if I didn’t believe it why would you?”  I remember that album of which she spoke and I remember thinking, “What is she doing?  Why doesn’t she just be herself and sing?”  I did not buy that album – her voice was different – her sound was off.  And, I love me some Brandy; I think that her gift is phenomenal.  I love the deep colors in her voice – how one can feel the graininess of the “Shekinah Glory” in the tone, and hear the octaves rising and falling like a breeze on a warm day, telling stories in flats and sharps like nobody’s business. I’ve been missing that sound until recently when Brandy teamed with Monica on a song “It All Belongs To Me”.  Hearing the first notes, it’s easy to see, “She’s back!” You can best be sure she is not trying to be sexy, she just is and that voice…she is definitely telling a story that she believes and that makes me want to hear it…

As artists/storytellers/writers/painters/sculptors/singers/dancers, we must stay true to our authentic selves striving always to the perfecting of the gift as we translate it through our vessels.  We must strive to stay on course and learn to get back on course should we ever lose our way.  I am convinced that sometimes the best part of the story is how it is filtered through the artist.  If we don’t believe in ourselves and what we have to say and how we say it, is it fair to expect anyone else to believe in us?  We are different for a reason, unalike to serve a purpose, not-the-same because being the same was never the point.  It’s the collective sound of harmony in the many voices of a choir that makes it a choir, the collective sound of the woodwind, brass, string and percussion instruments that make up an orchestra and that collectiveness facilitates a symphony; and it’s the collective sound of a people that make its culture.  If we are listening, we know that all the parts are needed to give a true reflection of the sound of our times.  We must continue to believe and act accordingly.

Believing involves more than the worlds we are trying to create, it also involves the world we are in – the here and now – and the pieces that inevitably we leave behind.

Picture Exercises…

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

From time to time, I have taken acting classes. While studying at the Beverly Hills Playhouse, I learned a technique called the “Picture Exercise” where the actor finds a picture of a person/character and recreates the picture by recreating the exact pose and costume.  This exercise helps the actor find specific character traits to incorporate into life-like behavior for the character.  Once the actor is dressed and posed like the picture, the actor must answer one question, “What does the person in the picture say at that moment in time?”  In order to answer that question, the actor must get a sense of the inner and outer voice of the character/person in the picture.  The actor has to create backstory and has to create the moment before.  The actor has to know what frame of mind the person in the picture is in, where they are physically, how they move, if they move, and why they move.  Then what do they sound like when they talk, do they have an accent, a lisp, are they loud or quiet…

I did my exercise from a picture of Sethe from Toni Morrison’s Beloved who is patterned after Margaret Garner, the slave who killed her young daughter rather than let her return to slavery. I used a photograph by Ken Regan (found in the book Journey to Beloved by Oprah Winfrey) on page 48.  The actress who played young Sethe, Lisa Gay Hamilton has a video of that scene “get in the shed”  and while I did not recreate her scene, I did recreate her look and the look of the babies for my exercise.  The picture I used was of Sethe holding her two infant daughters in her arms – in complete controlled hysterics.  I made my costume, bought two dolls – a small brown one and a larger white one, as there are seldom brown dolls to be found in stores.  I bought paint and mixed it to get the perfect hue and painted the white one brown, after the paint dried, I glued hair onto the head in little braids all over. I made dresses for the babies.  Grabbed a knife – one that could slice skin and created and reenacted what I considered fitting backstory that would make a mother slit her baby’s throat.

What did she say?  “Dey be dead or dey be free.”

I always liked the picture exercise but hadn’t thought of using it for a writing exercise until I participated in a playwright’s workshop at Native Voices the Autry with Bernardo Solano.  The seminar was right around the time that I lost my niece and I needed to do something to get my mind off my grief.  I needed to write and I was craving the company of other writers…  It was hard to focus; however, when we were asked to select a picture and write whatever it inspired us to write, I found the selection process somewhat soothing.  I selected a picture of a man and an infant lying dead on stone steps.  The picture began to speak almost immediately – “the bombs came in the night…”  The resulting piece is a 10-minute play titled MILK DUST.

I don’t usually do writing exercises because I believe to get better at writing, you have to write…  Writing is like doing pushups, the only way to get better at pushups is to do more pushups.  I do like this exercise though; I like the way it can be used from the acting and the writing perspective. It’s close to what I do in my head when I visualize the characters that I am writing about, when I am listening to what they say.  This exercise is a perfect way to find an unexpected way into an unexpected play…

Jenische (Gypsies)…

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

They were camped less than a mile outside Cooke Barracks in the empty field on the way to town for months.  The young children would wave at me as I passed by.  I would walk because, 1. I was in tip top physical shape and, 2. I did not have a license to drive in Germany.  Everyone on Base noticed them – the gypsies – camped like something out of a movie. Dark haired, dark complexioned – a beautiful and intriguing people… One weekend, the children waved as usual but the teen-aged girls called me over to have me show them how to put on makeup.  I showed them how to apply eyeliner, mascara, blush, lipstick… losing my stash of course to their giddy “May I haves.”  I asked them if they were gypsies, “No, we are German” they answered.  Adamantly, Wir sind Deutsch.  We are German.”  The next time I walked to town, they were gone…

I think about them sometimes – German, not Armenian, not gypsies – and the freedom I felt standing there in their camp.  I think about their claim to a land, a heritage not expected by outsiders or even by insiders with standardized tests.  They did not look the part but the field settled softly beneath their trailers disguised as carts disguised as trailers.  And the trees hung over them shielding their skin from the penetrating sun as if ordained as covering since the beginning of time.  And when they were gone, the trees sagged and could be heard moaning for the children.

Gypsies; part of the world but not confined by the world, always ready and willing to move anywhere to find home – never losing the authenticity of self.  Owning their space and place in time, they drew you into their story…made you look…made you want to know…

Sometimes, I feel like a gypsy (submitting work authentic to me and clearly not on the same-dar as what is being selected).  Sometimes I consider “what if I changed”…but never do because it’s the me way down on the inside that’s got so much to say and there is somebody somewhere who needs exactly what I write, how I write it, because the feeling of freedom when I write is worth the waiting period needed for that gypsy spark to ignite.  It must be the softness of the ground beneath my feet begging for seed during the planting season promising fruit during the harvest that keeps me pushing on head first into the wind and rain…into the fray…because I belong…because I am a storyteller…

When contemplating words and worlds, sometimes I go to the movies to see what other stories are being told.  It inspires/fuels/rouses me to create another day…  On my last such outing, I went to see THE GREY by Joe Carnahan and Ian Mackenzie Jeffers (based on the short story by Jeffers titled GHOST WALKER).  It is a wonderful movie, wonderfully told.  There is a poem in it that made me think of my life as a writer… in this time just before…

Once more into the fray

Into the last fight I’ll ever know

Live and die on this day

Live and die on this day.

— from THE GREY

And all the artists said, “Amen.”

The Promise…

LAFPI, Playwright, , , , ,

I have a dream that one day I will get to the promised land…  I will be sitting before a window, looking out into the day/night/day; I will be writing…and the sun sets and rises will not deter me from my place before my computer.  There will be no alarm clock going off in the middle of my thoughts to alert me to the time.  I will not have to shower, dress and make my way down the 405 to work; I will sit contemplating the next words.  And, I will be happy…

But right now, at this precise moment, I have to pull out my ‘pick me up poem’ and carry on till then…

I Will Go In The Strength Of The Lord

i will go in the strength of the Lord / i will make mention of Him to the people and praise Him always for His tenderness toward me / for the kindness with which He shows me / because there are times… /when within myself i cannot find the strength / …to take the journey / i am overwhelmed by even the thought of it… / and stand paralyzed /behind a wall of “i can’ts” / shifting my weight from foot to foot / pretending “i’m gonna try” / but…it is too much for me…at times / and i cannot wade the waters…they are too deep / and i have to seek rest in Him / so i can scatter my apprehensions to the four winds / it is then / in times like these… / that i find solace in the hollow of His hand / and lay myself down to rest awhile / then we take the journey together / and windsurf above the clouds / up where eagles dare / up where the sun lives / and mountaintops look like small hills and stormy weather is beneath us / and we glide…glide…glide / into the promised promised land…

“I Will Go in the Strength of the Lord” by Robin Byrd

Grace…

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Every year, I plan my summers for last touches on new plays so they will be available for the September 15 deadlines.  Spring is spent going through rejection letters and reassessing where to send plays for the next go-around and getting a start or finish on any piece I think I can have ready for that next go-around.  This year was the first time I was contemplating poetry manuscripts into the mix.  This year, like every year, I asked for grace to make it through the madness.  Things were going well until I was rear-ended twice between April and July, the injuries have made it hard to sleep (muscle spasms in the middle of the night suck) and the time it has taken to go to the doctors is very disruptive – I have never been to the doctor this much in my life.  The lack of sleep has been cutting into my writing time but up until August, I still felt I could dig down and make my deadline goals.  Then the unthinkable happened, I lost my 35 year old niece on August 16. 

My niece, Tracie, had a kidney transplant in early summer; the kidney was working when she passed away from other complications.  She left behind a daughter, TéAnna, who turned 9 yesterday, October 4.  Working through the pain of lower body and upper body spasms,  has made it challenging to sit long enough to hit a flow in my writing.  Losing Tracie has forced me to have to consciously talk myself into putting together all my packets because I really did not feel like doing the drill.  Not now.  But if I didn’t, it would be a year till the next window and Tracie was always so excited about my writing…

What do you do when your world collapses on you and you have a deadline or two to meet?

Focusing on tasks can be a great distraction and writing is always in itself, a peace-giver, a life-saver, a place of solace.

My niece was in pain every day, yet she took care of her daughter and was a very good mother.  While cleaning out her apartment, we found that Tracie wrote down her prayers.  What we learned was that Tracie was always thankful for each day…she always had a Praise for God in her heart.  She loved music and all her baby sister’s missing CDs were in her possession.  She was beautiful and we miss her…  I am so glad that I end my calls with “I love you”…

Have you ever written down your prayers?

I write my dreams and visions down but my prayers, I say them and go on.  They’re something I speak into the atmosphere. 

In September, I went back home for a wedding.  It was bittersweet.  Death has a way of pulling things together or tearing them apart.  There is no neutrality.  We, my family and I, choose to pull together.

I know that I will write about Tracie in some way.  I can feel the story forming.  I’ve had a few bad days but mostly, I haven’t really grieved yet.  I am hoping to do it in the writing…

Do you find you use your writing to work through issues? 

Everyone grieves differently; there is no set way to take that journey…  I find that writing is the best way for me to find, maintain, and be my self in the middle of a raging storm…  It’s also my saving grace…  It’s times like these where I am reassured that writing is something I must do – I survive and thrive by writing…it is the greatest gift of grace….

The National Kidney Foundation / Mayo Clinic

Timing…

LAFPI, Playwright, playwriting, , , ,

Sometimes I feel as if my timing is off.  I miss my freeways exits.  Miss my lunch.  Miss events.  Miss the post office.  Miss calling family in other time zones.  Then I sit down to write and all the goofy day-to-day stuff doesn’t matter anymore.  I fall right in sync with the world I am creating.  I find my rhythm and start my dance.  When I am done and must return back to the world where I’m a step off and slightly out of place, I’m a little less weary of the drill even though timing where my writing is concerned can be a decade off.  The hard part as a writer is coming to grips with the fact that what you wrote/write may be too early, too late, or worse, too different and it locks you out of the proverbial box.  And, you – as artist, as representative for your work – don’t fit in a box yourself so you can’t just sneak into the “box” without being noticed.  And, though you shy away from boxes, the box is where all the children must play per se…for now…

 

Box – part of playing area.  SPORTS in sports such as baseball and soccer, a marked-off part of the playing area used for a special purpose, or subject to special rules.

Sport – competitive physical activity.  An individual or group competitive activity involving physical exertion or skill, governed by rules, and sometimes engaged in professionally (often used in the plural).

Play – activity.  The free-ranging and varied activity of something, e.g. the imagination.  perform dramatic work by somebody.  To perform the work of a particular dramatist.

Free-range – not caged.  Free to move about and feed at will, and not confined in a battery or pen.

Pen – writing.  The written word considered as a means of expression.  confine somebody or something.  To keep somebody or something in a pen or other enclosed area.  female swan.  A female  swan.

Swan – SWAN (Support Women Artists Now) Day.  A new international holiday that celebrates women artists. It is an annual event taking place on the last Saturday of March (Women’s History Month) and the surrounding weeks.

Artist – creator of art.  Somebody who creates art…  skilled person. Somebody who does something skillfully and creatively.

 

What if – the box were bigger and included more sand so there would be room for more children to play? 

What if – the box was an archaeological site and all the children were allowed to pretend the sand was a cave and put their gifts just beneath the surface to be discovered and valued like scrolls found near the Dead Sea?   

What if – there were “perimeter free” cards that could be used to override “un-box-able’ children so they could play from the perimeters of the box even though they weren’t actually in the box? 

What if more swans were allowed to play?  Would the sand turn to water and would the water be a better channel for sharing?

What if – there was no box?  Would timing matter then…? Or, would all art being created equal be allowed…to be…?

 Just thinking…