I found an inspiring talk by Amy Cuddy on “body language”.  And it resonated with me in all the ways that words become scripts become characters become bodies.

As an actor I’ve worked with some stage directors who were all about the floorplan, “Move left three steps, raise your arm, turn away, walk to the wall.” There were times when I was asked to do some physical bit of business, that was not organic to my process, that made me feel like a puppet on a string. Other times, I would find becoming the body of the character in the challenge of doing something that wasn’t my idea.  And sometimes it was all about finding the shoes that my character would wear, as the footprint of the body would tell me how I would walk in that play.

But what I related to most in this talk, was the idea that “I don’t belong here.”  I’ve done a lot of shape shifting in my life, in my travels and shows, and that concept of “belonging” has been a large part of my hunger and identity. Being able to be part of the LA PI blog gives me a place to belong

The clip is 21 minutes long.

Amy Cuddy’s TED Talk

I’m watching a social gaff on Facebook unfold into an example of what happens in real time in social media.

One of the writing groups I belong to found this Facebook posting for a community college production of “The Three Musketeer”:

“Boobs and Swords! Send me an haiku about swashbuckling and win two comps!

(limit 10 pair per performance. Ten pair of what? Comps. Pervert.)

Solano College’s ‘The 3 Musketeers,’ a swashbuckling success”

The director, who was surprised to receive negative feedback for this posting, then created a kind of apology on his (public) Facebook page:

“I really offended a group of total strangers on Facebook of late. I apologize for the offense, it was unintended. I just love my show so much, and my cast is so amazing; some of us have taken to shouting the phrase, “Boobs and Swords!” throughout the rehearsal process, because — well — the show is The Three Musketeers and as it happens, there were an awful lot of boobs and swords in everyday culture back then.”

As a feminist I really object to this guy’s use of language to sell his beloved show. But then I thought, you know, I’ve said some really unfortunate things in my lifetime, onstage and offstage, and I’m really glad that no one seems to record or remember those comments.

But then I read more of the apology:

“What is, for some of us, a happy watch-cry is, for others, extremely offensive. In my enthusiasm for the production, I neglected to consider the feelings of other people. So, for everyone who was offended by my use of the phrase, “Boobs and Swords!”, I apologize. For those of you who don’t know, a warning: The Three Musketeers is set in 1625. There’s an awful lot of … um … ladyjiggles … and even more swordplay going on throughout the show. Now that I’m on the subject, I suppose I should warn everyone that several of the men wear pants that are very tight. If you are not imaginative but also easily-offended, this could be a problem. If you come see the show, whatever you do: do not look at any of the actors’ … manflappies. In fact, it would probably be best if everybody who comes to the show studiously look away whenever ladyjiggles or manflappies can be seen OR imagined in, through or near clothing. Honestly, our budget is not very large. So this presented a problem when costuming the show. As a result, we could only afford one Puritan. Everyone else is a libertine and, sadly, dresses the part. If this will make you uncomfortable in any way, I urge you to stay away.”

So, actually, I think that the director of this show is a complete knucklehead.

Facebook post from the director

And now comments and concerns about this apology are now fluttering all around tweets and Facebook groups and blogs. Like this one.

This was an interesting interview with Carey Perloff at the ACT Theater in San Francisco in Howlround.  Here is her bio:

“Carey Perloff, a vigorous proponent of unusual classical literature and a passionate advocate of new work and new theatrical forms, is celebrating her twentieth year as artistic director of A.C.T. Perloff has directed dozens of award‐winning productions for A.C.T., including the American premieres of works by Tom Stoppard, Harold Pinter, and Timberlake Wertenbaker, world premieres by Philip Kan Gotanda, Constance Congdon, and Mac Wellman, and new interpretations of Schiller, Webster, Euripides, Gorky, Gogol, and Molière.”

Great bio. How many women playwrights did you count in that round up?  One.  Constance Congdon. But then Carey Perloff is also a playwright. So make that two.

I think it’s great that she’s a champion of child care in the workplace. And she has some great things to say about what has prevented other women from getting to leadership positions.

“There are many, many threads to tease out of this. One has to do with women playwrights and women’s stories and why those are so underrepresented.”

But then I read this in her interview:

“One reason this gender conversation has been incredibly valuable is that I’ve never done things like bean counting. I never actually sat down and made a list of the twenty women directors I wanted to hire. When all this conversation came up, I thought  “I should do this, because who is out there that I don’t know? Tons!” I looked at the Goodman season, and half the plays were being directed by women I didn’t know. I thought, “All right, so one of the things is to keep the running list in front of me, so it’s right there. I should get to know the next generation. I should keep the former generation alive too. Are we forgetting who is out there? Sometimes having the list is good. I really don’t like bean counting because I don’t think it’s the solution to diversity.  On the other hand, it makes you think.”

We all work in different ways, but how well informed are you as the artistic director at ACT if you don’t know who half the new women directors were at the Goodman season?  Is her aversion to”bean counting” really an aversion to being held accountable to the very statistics that she cites as a “bottleneck” or a “pulling the ladder up behind her”?

Read the entire interview at the link:

Carey Perloff’s Interview in HowlRound

I seem to remember a game of dodgeball where you would line up against a schoolyard wall, and some psychopathic child would try and smack you with a hard rubber ball.  There would be screams and laughter  and bruises, and if you wore hideous cats eye glasses like I did, invariably you would get smacked in the face and your glasses would get broken.

Writing my newest script reminds me of  that game. Trying to get out of the way of the ball, running into walls and people, and chaos and pushing and yelling.  All this because an unwelcome character showed up in the script this past month. I knew I was writing towards him, but he isn’t what I expected, and there he is.  I’m going to refocus on another script while I think about this dodgeball character.

What has really helped cope with this change in direction is sharing the script/writings with another playwright I really respect.  The comments and feedback have been a kind of tough love/insight I couldn’t give myself.  (Thank you MD~!)

From the ICWP (International Centre for Women Playwrights) Nina Gooch posted an article that really lifted my spirits. Ursula Le Guin is working with the Portland Playhouse & Hand2Mouth Theater on a new stage version of her  The Left Hand of Darkness. What she she wrote about the rehearsal process brought me back to that circle of magic that I was once a part of.

“Sitting in on a rehearsal is a strange experience for the author of the book the play is based on. Words you heard in your mind’s ear forty years ago in a small attic room in the silence of the night are suddenly said aloud by living voices in a bright-lit, chaotic studio. People you thought you’d made up, invented, imagined are there, not imaginary at all — solid, living, breathing. And they speak to each other. Not to you. Not any more.”

Ursula Le Guin – In rehearsal in Portland

I’ve always preferred the spelling of theatre to theater.  I don’t really remember why, I think it’s because I saw English theatre spelled that way, and that meant it was more genuine than the American spelling.

I came across a fascinating article about the history of these two spellings and wanted to share it with you.

“Consider the Astor Place Riot of 1849. This was the deadliest public disturbance in the United States up to that time. The riot pitted immigrants and other working-class people against powerful upper-class New Yorkers who deployed the city’s police and state militia to enforce order. It was the first time government authorities had ever fired live ammunition into a crowd of citizens in this country. As a direct consequence of this incident, the New York City police force, only four years old at the time and armed with wooden clubs, would become the first police force in the nation to be armed with deadly weapons.

The riot grew from a rivalry between actor Edwin Forrest, the first true star of the stage to be born in this country, and Macready (Cushman’s English mentor). The press enjoyed comparing the two, and Forrest encouraged this by touring to cities where Macready was appearing in order to perform in the same Shakespearean roles.

Fans of Macready and Forrest were largely divided along class lines, with the wealthy preferring the refined and aristocratic English actor and working people enthusiastic for the powerful and emotionally explosive American. Macready openly looked down on Americans, viewing them as vulgar, uncultured, and ignorant. Forrest was frustrated by English domination of the American theater…..

The Astor Place Riot is a watershed moment in the history of American culture. The emotion that escalated into that conflict is still discernable in strong opinions about the spelling of the word “theater.” This was an event that furthered a process of class alienation and segregation. Symptomatic of this was a division of American entertainment into categories of “respectable” and “disreputable” that is parallel to attitudes toward the use of “theatre” and “theater” still today.

The militant preference for the British spelling among some theater practitioners in this country actually originates with this elitist impulse. “Disreputable” was code for immigrant or working class. Professional actors gravitated to “respectable,” “legitimate” “theatres.” This is the same impulse that made the impresarios of vaudeville feel justified in imposing racial segregation at their theaters. This is the same elitist impulse that inspired the community leaders of past eras to establish clubs that were “exclusive.”

While the design and very location of the Astor Place Opera House were intentionally chosen to draw a strict dividing line between social classes, now the owners of theaters and other public accommodations found new ways to make specific classes of people understand that they were not welcome. The decision to use the un-phonetic British spelling of “theater” is a subtle example, intended to send a message that connotes cultural superiority, refinement, and exclusivity.”

You can read the entire article here:

You Write “Theatre,” I Write “Theater” by Anthony Chase in ARTVOICE

When I was in high school, a nuclear slur was calling a girl a “feminist”.  That meant you were probably butch, mean, unattractive, frigid, angry, and humorless.

I was called a feminist on many occaisions – and called myself a feminist. I still consider myself a feminist, (I dont’ get asked if I’m a feminist anymore) but it seems to have become a historical hanger rather than a contemporary identity.

I worked with some wonderful women directors and artistic directors when I was an actor, and felt a kind of kindred spirit with them during those times. 

This article in the New York Times brought back some of the feelings from that long time ago era – when being a feminist was a stigma. 

New York Times article on: Theater Female Directors in New York

I’ve kept this article in my “saved” emails for a few months. I’ve read it several times. And it’s a bracing tonic when the fires of discontent start in.

I’m recovering from a recent bout with pnuemonia, and that changed my idea of “success” for a few days.  A successful day was when I could make it down the hall to fix a cup of tea and go back to bed.  A successful night was when I could stop coughing for a few hours to get some sleep. And the most successful was when the cat stopped trying to smother my face with a pillow to stop my coughing sounds.

Lindsay Price article on success

I’ve spent the last few Friday nights writing until after midnight – tying to cram in one night all the pent up writing from the week.  There are times when I think I’m going to burst in the car driving home from work (“I hope I can remember that idea/feeling/concept sentence”) so I can smash into the few hours left in the week.  I feel like a pile of fuzzy ducks flopping around together.

This makes for tangled, incoherent, nervous writing.  But at least it makes for re-writing.

I always find it interesting that when you have an image in  your mind that belongs somewhere in you writing, somehow that image seems to pop up everywhere. (An hourglass?  A skull with painted teeth?  A bad looking carnival?) They all seem to find their way to me in the hours before I write, beeping at me as I try to remember – where did I see that?

Now for the rest of my re-writing weekend!

I saved this to share with you:

By MARK HELPRIN in THE NEW YORK TIME

Published: October 3, 2012

I had a regular habit of telling lies as a child.

And so I spent a part of my childhood confessing to the lies I told.

It was a strange world to inhabit – telling lies and not realizing that all of them were lies.  I saw some of them as negotiations so I wouldn’t get in trouble.  Some of  them were fantasies I wanted to believe in – and some of them were – embroideries.  Just little – twists – on what might have been true.  Some of them were whoppers I wanted to get some kind of seismic reaction.

When I performed as an actor onstage – I never considered the scripts as lies, but as the truth being revealed to those listening.  (Audience memeber: “How could you remember all those lines?” Me:  “Simple – they were all lies.”) (Okay, that’s a lie I never said that but I could have.)

Now I’m writing a script where there are lies – or half-lies – half truths in abundance.  It’s interesting to re-visit that land again where the lies are hard to define.

Here’s a Ted Talk where Pamela Meyer talks about “Spotting a Lie”.  I’m not sure I agree with all of her evidence – but I found it fascinating:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_6vDLq64gE&feature=relmfu