All posts by TiffanyAntone

Part 5 (or) Some and Summation

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I think, then, as I wrap this monster up, that the thing to remember is that we are all of us aspiring towards the extraordinary.

This is not an easy, or necessarily “friendly”, field.  Neither is the theater industry is a snake-pit either.  (Hello Hollywood!)  But the journey of the creative spirit continues to ask of us an incredible balance:  making art for art’s sake is one thing, commercializing it quite another.

If a theater company is interested in diverse theater, or if a theatre company generally produces plays about/by men, and if I am a white female playwright, do I keep writing the way I have, or do I write more characters of color/or/male?  How do we maintain our integrity in our strides to get ahead, be we author, producer, or artistic director, while we also strive to maintain cultural “fairness”?

Or is thinking about it too much a danger of another sort?

As a literary manager, I must remember to value balance – I would not want to see a whole season of plays written by “privileged white men” anymore than I would like to see a whole season of just about anything else.  The key is to create a balance within the designated aesthetic of any given theater company… And the theatre company itself has every right to decide what that aesthetic is.

My job as playwright then is to try to find theater companies who’s aesthetic matches my own… or even (perhaps) those theatre companies who look to be open for a feminine revolution.

The struggle then continues to be both global and internal; to engage in the community we so want to conquer, but to do so as best we, the individual theatre artist, can.  We will continue to juggle our own perspectives of what makes a play “good” and what makes it “necessary” and we will continue to fight for those that stir our convictions.

Meanwhile, there will continue to be conversations among those at the top and between those on the bottom, about how in the world to manage things better…

I guess, what I’m saying is, I can’t wait to be one of those people at the “top” – where the discussion is less about surviving as it is about setting the trends.

Part 4 (or) In Which we Juggle…

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I’ve always been a big advocate of “Competition of Self” – what I mean by this is that as I navigate the playwright’s landscape, I may see many people winning accolades that I myself covet, but I truly believe that the only course of action from such observations is to learn from these talented writers as I myself strive to top my last work with the new.  I may feel a flash of jealousy or of heartache, but I never think to myself “They won!  They beat me!”  Instead, I think to myself “DAMNIT!  (sigh) Alright… well, what can I learn from this writer so that I can do better next time?”

It’s one of the things that keep me sane.

But, in exploring this week’s train of thought, I have to ask myself who my scripts are in competition with…  It’s certainly not the brain-child of Sarah Ruhl or Martin McDonough!  While I like to think I write on par with them (don’t we all) and while I have been influenced by both, no theater in their right mind is currently weighing my playscript and one of, oh, say David Lindsay-Abaire’s, in their hands wondering “Gee, I wonder which we should go with.”   Because I’m simply not a big enough fish yet to be part of that kind of decision.  Instead, my scripts are sitting in piles with other “emerging” playwrights – those that have a few awards under their belts, but no BIG productions… yet.  We are engaged in silent battle for desk space and shelf space… We go head-to-head for literary manager’s time and interest…

Every.

Single.

Day.

We playwrights just aren’t present to witness the literary carnage.

And so, we send out scripts to various competitions, hoping that we’ll win a reading or a ribbon, or, if we’re lucky, some kind of travel or monetary prize… OR, if we’re really lucky, an airline ticket stuffed with cash all wrapped in ribbons and trade magazine announcements exclaiming our brain-child a total GENIUS…

Yeah, that happens.

But the point is, we hope we will win accolades so that we can use the 5-seconds of fame to edge out the other scripts in that “emerging” pile to the left of the Lit Manager’s elbow.  (The pile that sits depressingly close to the lip of the desk and the gaping mouth of the trashcan…)

So what happens when a theatre company run by someone like that first artistic director endeavors to fill slots according to a cross-cultural quota?    Does such thinking narrow the question from “Who’s the best playwright?” to “Who’s the best Latino playwright?  Who’s the best Woman playwright?” or “Who’s the best transgender-African -American-who-walks-with-a-limp playwright?”

And is it helpful?

I don’t know the answer… I wear enough hats to recognize that it’s overly complicated.  There have been times when, in reading a winning script, I’ve scratched my head and thought to myself “Jesus, I wish I had thought of this!”  And there have been times when I’ve looked over lists of contest winners that read like a United Nations meeting, but included plays that I had actually turned away for (what I perceived to be) poor writing.  I’ve been on both sides of the selecting and entering… and I still don’t have an answer.

Because I want to believe that the best man or woman will reach the stage.  I want to believe that if I keep growing as an artist, if I keep writing and dreaming and running this race, that my work will be recognized, produced, and applauded regardless of my gender or (lack of) ethnicity.  I want to believe that I will get there on merit…

But as a woman playwright who is all-to-aware of the numbers before her, I will also take any advantage I can get.

I will enter contests designed to honor female playwrights, and I will challenge any contest or theatre company that seems to eschew balance in (perceived) favor to male playwrights over female.  I will also look at a list like that one from the “UN” and sigh with frustration – What were the parameters of their evaluation if not totally and irritatingly PC?

Because I want it both ways.

And it all speaks to the one achingly human truth – no matter the rules or the designations, we are all of us reaching and scraping for the finish line.  It’s a business, it’s a dream, it’s a damned difficult trail.  We try to find the best shoes to get us there… sometimes they’re ugly, but if they get us there…

Well, more often than not (and no matter their “how”) we will defend those shoe’s merits to the death.

Because that goal, that gold, that rising above the tides to be seen, heard, my GOD, produced?  Doesn’t it seem built on a lot of hard spilt blood and tears all the same?  Isn’t it the mountain we look down on, and not our feet, even as we focus our eyes on the next looming peak?

(Tomorrow: Part 5 (or) Some and Summation )

Part 3, or The Angry White Woman…

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Fast forward 6 years to yet another literary job, wherein I’m actually the person in charge this time – Yes, I reported to an artistic director, but this time I was running the literary department, which consisted of… oh…  wait a minute, it was just me again.

Hmmm, maybe “being in charge” was really just a nice way of dressing up an otherwise low paying pile of responsibility 🙂

In any case, I was a woman on a mission!

This theatre company was also dedicated to Los Angeles writers, but specifically plays by, for, and about culturally diverse peoples.  This time it was written into the mission statement, I had a very clear understanding of what they wanted and I loved the energy and the people responsible for this theatre.

I read a ton of beautiful plays (and not-so beautiful, of course) in my time there; all written by playwrights with something to say and with dreams of being heard.  I learned a great deal about the art of the submission, I also learned a little bit more about those who submit…  Particularly in the case of my first nasty email; a vociferous letter written to me by a white female playwright who had read over our submission guidelines and found them lacking.

Among it’s many blistering accusations, the following stood out as the writer’s main beef with me and the theater: “How nice of you to support female playwrights of color… what a shame the rest of us are left out in the cold.”

I sat in shock for a good 10 minutes after I read the thing, wondering how in the world I would respond…   Wasn’t it the theatre company’s prerogative to decide what its mission would be? And had they really denied “white women” a slot in its mission anyway?  In their drive to represent diversity in LA, surely women as a whole were included as an under-represented people… or were we?

I wrote back to this woman in the kindest words possible “Thank you for your interest in our company, and for sharing your heartfelt opinions.  While I, a female playwright as well, hear your frustrations, I encourage you to seek out more opportunities for women playwrights on the web, as there are quite a few…”

What else could I say?  I certainly wasn’t going to ask her for her script- she had been ridiculously spiteful.  She had also signed her email anonymously as “an angry female playwright” or something like that, perhaps forgetting in the heat of the moment that her name would be clear as day in the “from” field of the email. (Note to all:  if you’re going to send an anonymous email, make sure it is, indeed, anonymous.)

In any case, it was an awkward exchange, but one I remembered well… And one that begged the question – Is polarity healthy?  Are the limited support resources that exist fractured and specific for greater purpose?  In creating our own sort of theatrical “Affirmative Action”, are we creating better theater?  And is this system breeding resentment among the very playwrights it is designed to help?

(Tomorrow – Part 4, or, In Which we Juggle…)

Part 2… (or)… Rewind!

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When I was an undergrad, I worked as a literary intern for a Los Angeles theater company.  The company’s mission was to produce work by Los Angeles writers.  I was put in charge of selecting plays for a fall festival of new work.  “Oh goodie!” I thought, “I can’t wait to meet these writers!”  And I proceeded to select a handful of plays that I thought exhibited the most talent and promise.  They were on varied subjects, three were written by men, two by women, one of the women was Latina, one of the men Japanese; all the rest were white.

When I sent an email to the artistic director with the playwright’s names and play synopsis, I received back an email exclaiming that my selection wasn’t diverse enough – why were there so many white men in the line up? – Along with a list of “diverse” playwrights to contact about putting in the festival; playwrights who I had previously heard of, but none of whom had submitted work to me.

I wrote back questioningly, “It looks like you have a quota in mind – are you asking me to fill these slots according to ethnicity?” Which elicited another bristling response “Los Angeles is a diverse community.  It has always been our intent to reflect that on our stages.  We have only once done an all white-cast play, and one of those characters was handicapped”

Wow.

Needless to say, only one of the plays I had selected was for an all-white cast.

So I suggested that the artistic director’s intent be reflected in the company’s mission; maybe more diverse people would submit work and we would have a more colorful (and well written) pool of scripts to pull from in the future.

To say that the whole discussion was “awkward” would be an understatement.

Now… several things must be addressed if I am to be as objective as possible :

  • I am white. It is possible that as such, on a subconscious level, my predilection is for scripts by/for/about similarly pale-skinned persons.  I don’t think this is the case, as some of my favorite authors hail from different parts of the rainbow, but, nonetheless, it could very well be a factor for me in determining which plays I find exciting.
  • I am a woman. As such, my tastes may very well be different than a man’s, or, as recent studies have shown, I might be more critical of  women’s work than men’s… I certainly hope this isn’t the case, but it must be mentioned. Especially since, as I acknowledge in the following bullet point…
  • I am a playwright. What does this have to do with anything?  Perhaps nothing… or perhaps as a playwright, I have developed a certain style/taste and hold material to similar standards of my own work… perhaps I like best the work that I would like best to have written…   I couldn’t tell you.  Certainly I revel most in work that I look at with admiration – but is this admiration based on an internal, completely subjective scale?   Am I secretly lusting after white-centric plays because those seem to be what I write?

I bring these things to the forefront of my discussion because I think it is important  (if I am going to ask what I am about to ask) that I acknowledge what may be my own limitations as a script-reader.  It is important to acknowledge that while I am a heterosexual, white, female playwright, the artistic director was a homosexual, *non-white (I don’t want you all guessing who I’m talking about now), male director, who had a completely different perspective than I .

So who was I to argue for these “White man” plays?  Who was I to be reading for this company in the first place if our aesthetic was so off?  And, as a woman, should I have been pushing them on out the door with the same verve as my AD?

But, more importantly; who were wither one of us to host a new play festival of work we had to go out and ask for, when we had a mountain of engaging submissions from Los Angeles writers before us…  just because those submissions were from predominantly white playwrights.  And was I supposed to include (what I considered to be) weaker material, simply because it was written by someone more “representational” of LA?

Was it my job to go out and ask for new material from established writers of color simply to make our festival better reflect (in the artistic director’s eyes) the Los Angeles community?

Right, wrong, or in-between, what wound up happening is what usually happens when an artistic director makes a request – we shuffled and asked, and put together a line-up much more in line with his vision and much further from the material I’d been reading the past 6 months…  Meanwhile, I had to send “TBNT” letters to a handful of very qualified and talented writers, for no other reason than that they were too pale for us to produce.

Isn’t that a strange and odd turn of events?

~Tiffany

(Tomorrow:  Part 3, or, The Angry White Woman…)

Asking the Tough Questions…

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I’m going to dedicate this week’s blog to a sensitive subject – and I do so in the interest of stirring a discussion.  I don’t propose to have developed a hard and callused opinion on the matter, but I do, as a writer and literary manager, find myself asking these questions on occasion.

I think we all must.

A few weeks ago a submission announcement went around the web, which included a call to female playwrights and my personal email address.

Woof!

While I worked to furiously track down the source of this submission call and staunch the flow of scripts steadily flooding my inbox, I also fielded submission after submission.  Most of my responses were a polite “Sorry for the confusion, but here’s our official submission language and the correct email address to submit to”, but a few I could tell right off the bat weren’t for us.  One in particular was written in Spanish, and I wrote a very polite letter telling the playwright that we didn’t do foreign language plays, but also included a list of theatre companies who might.  She responded with a terse “So much for your mission of working with LA female playwrights, then, huh?”

Whoa.  Hold your horses, lady!

What had just happened?

She went on to say that to claim our theatre company was interested in LA was a joke, that LA wasn’t just “White.”

Now, if she had done any research at all, she would know that our company is comprised of many different shades of people, and that yes, while we do have a large Caucasian population, we certainly don’t only do plays by/for/or about them.

But facts are rarely an issue to those who have been hit by a nerve… This woman was angry not just at me, but at all the other literary managers or contest readers, or agents, who had (for one reason or another) not responded favorably to her material.

She was frustrated that her work further marginalized her from “Female Playwright” to “Female Foreign Language Playwright”

It threw me back into a familiar and sensitive loop…

~Tiffany

(Tomorrow: Part 2, or, Rewind!)

Work, Work, and Surprise!

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Well, what a crazy week this has been!  My first 40-hour workweek in… oh… I don’t even know.  I mean, sure, when I was in grad school juggling two part time jobs, class, and teaching, I pulled in some gnarly hours – but they were varied, they were all over the place – they were almost unquantifiable.

Heading into an office 5 days in a row is new; staying there for 8 hours at a time even stranger.

So imagine my glee at the weekends arrival!  “Ahhh, time to sleep in, time to read, time to (gasp) WRITE!”  because although I spent a fair bit of time this week responding to the insane comments my blog stirred up, I hadn’t really gotten any work done on the script I’m currently revising (and we all know submission season is banging on the door!)

But then I got asked to come in today as well; Orientation is Monday and there are still things to do, and I didn’t even hesitate to jump on board.

This is how I know that I really like my new job.

I guard my writing time like a tiger guards its cubs; I don’t want anyone messing with or infringing upon it.  I get grumpy when I don’t have enough of it, and I get angry at those who try to take it from me… I know, real pretty picture, huh?

Which is why my willingness to head in on my day off surprised the hell out of me…

Although I really aspire to (double gasp) make a living writing and teaching,  and although I hope, Hope, HOPE that this next year brings that dream to fruition in a big way… I am seriously enjoying working at this burgeoning college, running their learning center, and planning student activities.  It’s fun!  It makes me happy.

It’s kind of amazing.

That initial panic that I was wrestling with has kind of faded into an exhilarating kind of high… I won’t be rolling in money, but I will be doing something useful, helpful to students, and enjoyable to me and my little sparkling muse.

So while I don’t think I could pull 40 hour + work weeks every week (woof!) I don’t mind doing it for now… Very soon I’ll be down to the promised part-time schedule, with plenty of days off to devote to my computer; only now, perhaps, with a bit more bounce in my step, and a bit more fuel in my emotional tanks, for although I’m tired at the end of the day, I’ve noticed I’m attacking my tasks with a lot more enthusiasm than weary old, worn out, dejected and unemployed Tiffany was doing.

It seems that feeling useful goes a very long way in feeding the muse.

What a thing to figure out this far into the game 🙂

~Tiffany

Open mouth, Insert Pitchfork…

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A while ago I returned home to the mountains of Arizona for a respite from my own little economic crisis: I was totally, and completely broke, having depleted all my resources in a last ditch effort to stay in LA (after being laid off the year before.)  I was sad, I was tired, and I was totally heartbroken.

So I moved home and stuffed my face with mom’s cooking, did a lot of writing (it’s amazing what can happen when you’re not spending every waking second worrying about scraping together rent money, food money, cell-phone-bill money…) and basically embarked on the road to recovery.

And while a lot has changed in my little home-town, apparently the thing that has changed the most, is me.  You see, last weekend I went to see a production at our local (newly remodled) theater.  It was (I thought) a horrifying production – horrifying in that it hadn’t yet been developed, hadn’t the benefit of a practiced playwright or director at it’s helm, and as such I left quite angry that I had been asked to fork over $17 to sit through something so wildly unprepared for the venue or admission fee it had adopted.

I talked about it with the people I saw it with; we were all disappointed – what a mess!  I thought about it that evening – How frustrating that this great venue had been used for this level of work!  I even ruminated on the value of ruminating on it further, as the thing had already come and gone and I wasn’t going to have anything further to do with it…

But then I blogged about it.

I decided that the observations I’d had were worth further exploration, and that my opinions about the responsibility of a producer/writer/director might be an interesting read.  I put a lot of thought into my critique, and I knew it was stern, but I maintained my opinion that art made purchasable and presented for fee, is art of an elevated responsibility , inviting critique and measurement by those paying to see it.  For it is one thing to present a play (for entertainment or development purposes) free of charge, it is entirely another to present it as a “finished” production for a fee.

In any case, my blog currently has about 14 dedicated readers, and so I thought they might (as many are writers or purveyors of entertainment) raise a discussion point or two, we would enjoy that discussion, but that nothing else would come of my observations.

Then Google found me, directed some locals my way, and all hell is breaking loose on the thing.

Because what I apparently don’t know about my hometown is that it is NOT okay to voice an opinion – that the mantra “If you can’t say something nice…” extends to all facets of expression here, and that, if I’m not careful, apparently I will “never make it in this world” as surely there is no place for a person like myself who spits on the little people and touts myself as so super-important… Yes (apparently) I am, as one comment reads “WORSE THAN MAGGOT POOP.”

So, why am I sharing this here?  I think it is because I’m absolutely, incontrovertibly, fascinated!  And in spite of the vitriol of these comments, I can’t imagine taking the post down.  I’ve never before been the recipient of this kind of outrage; it’s stunning… it is also helping me understand the danger in playing the role of a… (booming voice)… CRITIC.

A while ago I had a show up that sold great houses, but in the end failed to bring in the kind of critical praise I so hoped for.  Big deal, happens to everyone.  But one critic in particular laid some hefty critique my way, calling my script (paraphrasing) an underdeveloped hunk of junk.  I remember at the time feeling a bit stung, and then feeling angry that people were going to read his review and possibly decide against attending the show.  But I didn’t read it as a personal attack – I knew that this guy possibly hadn’t understood the play, that it was, stylistically and subject-wise, not everyone’s cup of tea, and that this man (as much as I might dislike him at the time) had a right to his opinion.

But I have the ability to process his review with this kind of level-headedness, because this is my profession, and because I’ve cultivated the kind of skin to take it. I don’t have to like it, but I can handle it without loosing my mind, my cool, or my manners.

The one thing I did not consider as I wrote my own sort of “underdeveloped hunk ‘o junk” review, was that this town, and more importantly, these people, might not share my perspective on the roles of an artist, his/her responsibilties to their audience, and (more importantly) they might not have any idea what to do with that kind of criticism.

So I have to say that this experience has taught me what it feels like to be on the receiving end of “Critical loathing” – it has taught me that I might want to think twice before voicing any local opinions, and it has reinforced my opinion that grace and calm in the storm of any criticism is a much more powerful tool than “MAGGOT POOP.”

Nurture vs. A Good Slap in the Face

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Sometimes I sit on my sofa watching X-Files reruns with a fist-full of chocolate just because I feel like it…  Lately, I’ve felt like it a lot more.

So much so in fact that I’m thinking I might just  need a good a slap in the face to get my day-dreaming butt back to the keys, because although that Fox Mulder makes me go “mmm,” indulging the inner kicker and screamer can only lead to wider hips and a few cavities.

(sigh)

I don’t know if it’s all the “working” that’s got me so lazy lately, or what, but I get home from my 9-5er and all I want to do is vegitate.  I don’t want to look at my computer, I don’t want to think, I just want to be whisked away by alien-chasing men in well tailored pants… or sit in the back yard with a glass of red wine and look for my own alien adventures in the sky above.

I think that this is why I treasured my unemployment, even as it was landing me on my parents couch; I knew the time was precious.  I knew it wouldn’t always be so easy to spend days, Weeks, MONTHS, writing…

I’ve spoken to several friends lately who find themselves at the mercy of jobless woes, but it’s the artists who seem the least fazed; as though having long ago made peace with the fact lthat they were dedicating themselves to a dance with uncertainty by pursuing their passions.  Eating bologna and corn flakes for a week stinks, but if you’ve done it before the economic crisis/disaster/total and complete meltdown, it’s not like you’re slamming your head against your law degree in abject and stunned anxiety, wondering “How in the world did this happen to me?!”

Oh no, the artist knows unemployment and financial uncertainty are always just outside her door.

I knew it was a risk the moment I signed on to work with a burgeoning Theater Company… and I knew I wasn’t doing myself the most favors by pursuing a string of part-time, temporary positions after that…

But I will always choose art over practicality.  (sigh) It’s just how this cricket jumps.

And it’s why she’s so damned tired now that she has a “real” job to tend to.

In any case, it’s interesting to see how this will inform my writing.  I just wrapped up a play about an unemeployed, heartsick woman ravaged by too much news and the oil spill, and I threw in a census worker (temporary time job # 129), so who knows what will come of this present experience…

If I can just manage to turn off that handsome David Duchovny…

Equality Now and the Monday Artist Blues

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I was more than happy to be a fill-in blogger this week, my imagination already percolating with a crock-pot of thought… Then I went and started a new job… the capitalist inside of me (and lets face it, the survivalist as well) is veeeeery happy to be (finally!  Hallelujah) earning a paycheck at last.  The artist inside is a bit nervous about the next two weeks of “project necessary full-time-ness.”

Even though I know it’s only two weeks of this 40-hour business, my little muse is shaking in her boots at all the writing she may not get done… and it’s not necessarily that she was projecting a wordsmithing windfall, it’s just that now, if she does want to bury herself in verbage, she’s going to have to do so late into the night…

(sigh)

And so it goes… the starving artist taking what she can, cobbling together a patchwork type of life made of imagination, tender typing, and hard-earned bread.

In any case, I’m going to amuse you today with this little gem a dear friend forwarded to me (see below for link) – it’s an acceptance speech by Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Serenity, Firefly) as he receives an award from Equality Now, an organization his mother founded to support women.  He is being honored for creating so many strong women characters, and I think the things he says about his choice in creating these wonderful roles are very moving and inspiring!  Just the type of fodder for a good Monday start.

~Tiffany

Joss Whedon’s Equality Now speech

Discipline as Art (or) Where I panic for a bit

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I’ve been trying to decide if I want to go back to grad school.

There are several factors involved: I haven’t been able to land a job (other than the part time, odd and ends, type jobs – Census, PA work, etc.) I recently interviewed for an English Faculty position but was told that my lack of coursework in the English field (countless playwriting classes & MFA not-withstanding) was under-impressive, and, well, let’s face it – School is Cool and I’d like to spend some more time in that soft scholarly nest.

But then the inevitable question arises: What would I study?

It seems that the degrees I am most drawn to are the ones with the least stability: Film studies, directing, screenwriting, photography.  In these fields I have great diligence and passion.  Pursuing an English degree, even just a Masters, seems like… welll, a lot of work.

But don’t I work hard already?  Aren’t I used to “difficult”?  Don’t I eat, sleep, and breathe “challenge” by the very nature of my chosen path; playwriting?

I will spend countless hours at my desk, for days on end, tapping out a play or outline or treatment, I can work tirelessly on my photography/art without giving bathroom breaks and tea-time a second though.  But the moment I start to think “maybe I should go get a practical degree with all this free time currently on my hands”, my hearts starts to skip a beat and I get sweaty all over.

Am I that stubborn and artistically crazed that I truly can only bear to do that which I love?  Or is it the fear that all this time spent in pursuit of my dreams will be jeopardized or minimized by “realistic” time-lines?  If I were to get an MA in English, would I really then go crazy trying to get a teaching position in that field, or would I just graduate with the paperwork, another loan in the hole, and get back to my playwriting – get back to chasing after theater faculty positions?

(sigh)

It’s enough to make a girl go a little, well, crazy.

But you know where a girl can really lose her mind and not worry too much about it?  Film school…

Hmmm… perhaps this bird just knows her feathers.

~Tiffany