Category Archives: Play

East West Players in Good Hands: Meet Lily Tung Crystal

Director, Female Artists, LAFPI, Performance, Play, Playwright, playwriting, Production, Theaters, Theatre, Women, , , , , , ,

By Alison Minami

Lily Tung Crystal, artistic director of East West Players in Little Tokyo of Los Angeles, has made a full circle back to Southern California. While the path may have been unconventional and circuitous, every place she’s had the pleasure of making home along her artistic journey has contributed to her role as a thoughtful and influential leader in the Asian American theatre community.

Lily’s first stage was the raised fireplace of her childhood home in Rancho Palos Verdes. She’d use the handle of the fireplace screen pulley as her microphone and sing the showstoppers she’d learned from outings with her mother to the Pantages or the Ahmanson. Having once been a competitive dancer and carrying a natural ear for music, Lily’s mother held a deep appreciation for the arts and passed this on to her daughter. At the age of seven, Lily began taking singing and piano, which ultimately led her to musical theater—roles in Oliver, The Sound of Music, The Wizard of Oz to name a few. Despite being one of the better singers, Lily never got the lead, possibly because the directors couldn’t square Lily’s Asian face with the traditional white casting of these shows. At the time, representation was barely a conversation, and it never dawned on Lily that she could ever see her onstage talents as anything more than a hobby.

After graduating Cornell University, Lily moved to China to work as both an educator and a journalist. All the while she kept her hand in the theatre—but mostly as an avocation, something to keep her creative spirit nurtured. Eventually Lily made her way back to her home state of California, but this time to San Francisco, where she found herself joining community theatre and acting classes. Even as she was immersing herself in the Bay Area theatre scene, she never considered herself a professional actress despite joining the union and landing significant onstage roles. Claiming the identity was a slow process, and Lily recalls herself thinking, “Maybe I can say I’m an actor now. Can I really say that?”  Asking for permission is an all too familiar refrain for artists in the shadows, especially those of color—I certainly have had my fair share of imposter syndrome around my creative life—but once Lily gave it to herself and said YES, there was no holding her back.

In 2009 Lily received a Theatre Bay Area Titan Award, which led her to start the Bay Area Asian American Actors Collective, where she found kinship with fellow actor Leon Goertzen. A year later the two co-founded Ferocious Lotus, an Asian American theatre company in the San Francisco Bay Area. As it turns out, in one year, Lily birthed a theatre company and a baby! She remembers sitting in rehearsals for their first show—a night of one-acts co-sponsored by the Asian American Theatre Company—with her infant strapped in a baby carrier. I am particularly delighted by this image in my mind’s eye—a scrappy and determined young Lily with a script in one hand and a bottle in another, baby nuzzled up against her body—as it demonstrates the grit and passion that Lily has always brought to her work. With Lily at the helm as founding co-artistic director and later, artistic director, Ferocious Lotus went on to produce and support many emerging Asian American playwrights and artists and became a vibrant and influential theatre space with national recognition and reach.

In 2019, Lily moved on from Ferocious Lotus to become artistic director at Theater Mu, the premiere Asian American theatre of the Midwest based in Minneapolis. There Lily continued to grow the landscape of Asian American theatre and stretch the boundaries of definition and opportunity, always striving for diversity and equity in development, education, production, and outreach. Five years later in 2024, Lily found herself back in Southern California, the stomping ground of her youth, taking on the role of Artistic Director at East West Players (EWP).

EWP is the longest standing Asian American theatre and theatre of color in the nation, and Lily is ushering in its 60th anniversary. Honored by the task, she was particularly mindful of the curation of such a milestone season, aiming to create balance between the OGs of Asian American theatre–the elders like Philip Kan Gotanda and David Henry Hwang, who laid the foundation when there was no Asian American representation to speak—and the next generation of playwrights, like Lauren Yee, Prince Gomolvilas, and Jaclyn Backhaus, who have created works that have become Asian American classics in their own right.

In what she coins a “widening circles” vision for EWP, Lily focuses on several values that undergird her goals. Think of the concentric circles in the frequency of sound waves. In the first circle, Lily wants to encompass as much of the Asian American diaspora as possible. While Asian American representation in the theatre has historically limited itself to East Asian cultures, Lily recognizes the need for wider visibility for all Asians American voices including those from South, Southwest, and Southeast Asian American communities. Her second circle aims to acknowledge all the creativity and labor of the people backstage. What of the set and sound designers, costumers, and stagehands? Lily is doing just this by inaugurating a fellowship for backstage artists, where recipients will get paid on-the-job training to learn firsthand the behind-the-scenes work of production. The third circle aims to address intersectionality with other marginalized communities— LGBTQ, disability, or specific racialized communities to name a few examples. The fourth circle—and there’s some overlap here, but that’s the point—considers the question of how we make theater accessible to all people. EWP has made moves to make the theatre more affordable with $20 tickets or pay-what-you-can performances as well as affinity evenings for specific audiences. For example, for Cambodian Rock Band by Lauren Yee, EWP worked with Khmer leaders in Los Angeles to ensure that the show could be accessible to Khmer audiences; it stands to reason that a play about a people should be viewed and experienced by them, or else, whom and what is it really for? The final circle aims to innovate alongside and in collaboration with the film and television industry. A great example is in this season’s revival production of Philip Kan Gotanda’s Yankee Dawg You Die, which utilized high level film projections to capture the old-timey feel of Hollywood circa 1930s.

Notwithstanding all the managerial and administrative duties that come with leading a theatre of EWP’s size and stature, Lily has found space to nurture her own creative projects. This springtime, she will direct a revival of David Henry Hwang’s Flower Drum Song for this season’s last show. This is especially exciting for Lily who has known Hwang for years as a mentor and friend—and whose name is on the EWP theatre—but has never collaborated with him artistically. Hwang is also updating the musical after first rewriting it in 2002 to be more relevant to the times—Oh the times! Combine that with Lily’s musical theatre sensibility, and the show promises to be a tour de force.

The show runs from October 19 through November 16 at the Los Angeles Theatre Center.

Secondly, as I write this, Lily is completing her first tech week as director for नेहा & Neel (pronounced Neha and Neel) written by playwright Ankita Raturi and produced by Artists at Play. नेहा & Neel is about an Indian immigrant mother who goes on a road trip with her teenage son, in a last-ditch attempt to teach him his culture before he is off to college. Raturi’s play resists preachy polemics and instead engages with serious issues—racism, colonialism, identity in America—through humor. In another serendipitous collaboration, Lily found herself crossing paths again with Raturi, an artist she’d supported during her tenure at Theater Mu, but whose new work Fifty Boxes of Earth, which Lily programmed for Mu’s 2024-2025 season, she did not get to see to its fruition because of her departure last year. So, it was an honor to be asked by AAP and Raturi to direct this piece and to celebrate, as Lily describes, a play that centers on “Asian joy.”

Given the current political climate and the blatant assaults from this administration on people of color and the arts—EWP lost all its NEA funding—Lily does not take lightly the mandate of EWP.  She says, “It is more important than ever to continue to tell our stories and to lift up BIPOC stories. When people don’t know our stories, it’s so easy for them to perceive us as other.” She goes on to emphasize how important it is that “people see us for the true Americans that we are.” Everywhere we turn, this administration is pushing us to the margins, rendering us invisible as people of color, and telling us in so many words that “we are not patriotic or don’t belong here.” Lily is adamant that we counter the bigotry with our own narratives of community. She is committed to making EWP a “safe and joyful space to create art together” and it is with this spirit that Lily carries the torch for many generations of Asian American theatre artists—past, present, and future.

Finally, when I ask Lily, how she likes being back in Southern California outside of work, she quips, “the traffic sucks, the food’s great!” And to that I say, “Welcome home!”

Entering the Twilight Zone

Female Artists, Performing Arts, Play, Playwright, playwriting, Reading,

by Chelsea Sutton

This summer felt a little Twilight Zone-y. I got the opportunity to travel to Valdez, Alaska for the annual conference there and to Ivins, Utah for the Kayenta New Play Lab — both for readings of my play The Abundance.

The play, as I’ve come around to understanding, is a horror play, though, like most things I write, I didn’t know it was horror until I shared it with a wider group of people. In one feedback session after a reading in Utah, an audience member said that the play was a like an extended Twilight Zone episode written at the height of Rod Serling’s abilities. And I truly can’t think of a better compliment I have ever (or will ever) receive.

Why am I sharing this? For bragging rights? Maybe. Partly because the way new play development goes these days, this may be the last time this play is ever performed in front of an audience. It may disappear as swiftly and suddenly as Lt. Harrington in Season 1 Episode 11 of The Twilight Zone. So I have to try to hold on to the moments that mean something to me. That make me feel like I succeeded in getting something across and clear, at least to one person.

The author Lincoln Michel wrote an article recently about the fleeting and fickle nature of literary (and in our case theatrical) fame and memory. Who decides what lasts, what is remembered, what continues to be seen, produced, read years from now. You won’t recognize the books on the best sellers list from 1924, nor probably the plays produced on stages then. Why should we assume anything we create will have meaning in 2124? And there’s an unsettling feeling in that realization. And a freeness.

Many of the episodes of The Twilight Zone that I love are about the desire for more time, about figuring out how to let go or being plucked from existence or entering a new plane of reality altogether or being forced to experience something over and over again. They are about the smallness of the horror of our existence — the beauty and terror of things that matter so much to our little lives and how they are swallowed up by the outside world.

I guess I’m ruminating on this because I don’t get invited to conferences and new play labs very often, and until its proven otherwise this may be the last summer it ever happens. It was a strange summer — to feel like I was in community with people who cared about the work, and to also feel like I don’t know where theatre is going, that it has more often than not been a fickle partner in this life, and I can’t count on it. Theatre still thinks she is quite important even in the yawning maw of everything else happening in the world. And I want to believe her when she says so, but I suppose I’m trying to stake less and less of my identity in that notion.

All I can do is enjoy the red mountains of Southern Utah, and the endless waterfalls of Alaska, and the little bit of laughter and applause that echo across them, and try to ignore that maybe I’m living in an extended Twilight Zone episode, and the moment I say out loud that there’s time enough at last…time will have run out. In case we get to the end of the episode and find out theatre was only a rumor or an illusion by Fate or an alien experiment. Or the last pitch we make to Death himself before we take his hand.

What is an “Important” Play?

Female Artists, Performance, Play, Playwright, playwriting, Reading, Writing

by Chelsea Sutton

This question – what defines an “important play” and what doesn’t? And do we, as playwrights, need to worry about this? It’s been…on my mind.

Yesterday I got to hear a reading of a play of mine that I hadn’t looked at in years. On a whim, I submitted The Sudden Urge to Jump for a new work series with Full Circle Players, a Riverside theatre company that is doing the good work in Riverside County to bring classic and new theatre to an area of SoCal that needs more theatre. (I grew up in the Inland Empire so I’m allowed to say this lol. Check them out in the area and support!)

The play takes place in a video store (that used to be a church) as two siblings try to pick up the pieces of their lives after their sister’s funeral. The sister may fall for the brother’s best friend in an vaguely enemies-to-lovers kind of way. The dead sister might monologue and try to control the story that is continuing after her death. There are a lot of movie references. A lot. It is ultimately about how we try to fit our lives so neatly into genres and categories and shape how things go…but that’s just not how this shit works.

I don’t know what made me specifically choose this play to submit to their call. Maybe I thought it was one of the most digestible, accessible plays I have, and knowing the Inland Empire like I do, I wanted to offer something that was…not alienating? I mean it’s about suicide, but it’s also a love story and there’s jokes so – wee! Maybe I knew that I’d never look at it again unless I had a real reason…and I hoped they’d give me a reason?

What came up for me really, as I was thinking about this play and doing a rewrite of it for the reading, was why I had kinda put it aside. I wrote the first draft of it in the first year I was in the Skylight Theatre PlayLab. It had a reading. And I remember feeling, in that group, that because it was a love story, that was at least vaguely a comedy, and was looking at things like human connection and depression…and maybe, possibly, because it was written by a (young at the time) woman, it didn’t feel…important? Despite it having a prominent storyline about suicide, it felt like fluff in the sea of other work being created in that group. And honestly, it felt like it set the tone for me for reactions in that group for the next few years as I wrote two other plays. Reactions from others, and self doubts and judgements within myself. Fluffy. Women problems. Working class problems. Not important.

So the play had another reading in Houston a year or two later. Both the original reading and the one in Houston had lovely responses. It was a crowd pleaser in general, the actors always had fun and felt connected. But still, I put it in a drawer. I decided that it was not worth investing time into, because it wasn’t about anything important.

When I look toward the “big” theatres, the ones we all aspire to be at, the gatekeeping contests and conferences, the dwindling new works development opportunities, it always seems like folks are looking for the next “important” play. The one, it seems, that is going to change the landscape of theater and American culture, that is going to solve climate change or racism or homophobia or misogyny, or, hell, cure cancer I guess. As if it is one voice that will be the hero, the savior, and not, instead, a diversity of voices in a rich ecosystem of society that will ultimately make a difference.

I write grants to pay bills, and this comes up a lot too. Every art project has to be solving some big problem and we need to show how we’re going to do that with the $500 grant. Solve the world’s problems with no money and no support. And then give us a 30 page report about it. So my mind is here all the time – trying to convince people why art is “important.” Why what I do is “important.” This happens all the time too in the theatre company I help run. Every show we ask these questions — why is this play important? Why are we doing this now?

I’m not saying it shouldn’t be part of our practice to ask these questions. We should know why we’re driven to do the things we spend so many years on! Having a purpose, a direction for our work is central to keeping ourselves focused and engaged and connected to the world. But twisting ourselves into knots to fit a box is not the way to good art. And convincing ourselves of our own importance is also NOT the way to good art or relationships or longevity.

But also…The Play That Goes Wrong is done everywhere and like…is that an important play? Please, I’d love to see an essay on that.

Do we only have room for fluffy slap stick and trauma porn? Is there nothing in between? Can we do some genre-mixing please?

I wrote a play last year that I thought had the real potential of an “important” play. It was ABOUT something real, a real problem, financial burdens, broken communities, the targeting of vulnerable women. I sent it out in earnest to the annual cycle of awards and conferences, which feel like the cost of being a playwright in this system. And usually I do this with very little expectation. Rejection, to me, is a Season. But this time…I had hope. I had an important play! If only someone would give me the space to develop it, I could change the world!

As one would expect, it got a few nods, a few pats on the head, and I’ll be traveling to Alaska in June for a reading at a conference. Cool! I’m grateful! And also…it’s not an important play, obviously.

Because I don’t know what an important play is. Nor can I, the playwright, be the judge of what that is, for my work. And I’m mad at myself for spending too much time worrying about whether that play, or any play of mine, fits into a box that is always shifting.

When it comes down to it, both of these plays are wildly not important. But they are important to me. They both were written not toward some person’s agenda, but toward my own obsession and curiosity about something. And ultimately a play will never be “important” if it is not important first to you. And frankly, we don’t get to decide what the play does in the world, or how people react to it. That’s not our fucking business. And I guess I’m a little tired of putting too much of my self worth on the validation of forces beyond my control.

So is the life of a writer.

When I sat in the reading of The Sudden Urge to Jump last night, I was reminded why I wrote it. I was delighted at my (slightly) younger self for writing it, for the little quirks of love and attraction I’m drawn to writing about, about the depression and frustrations I felt at the time, and how I still feel all these things. And that the only thing that made the play unimportant was my piss-poor attitude toward it.

Will the play ever get a production? I hope so. Will it ever win awards? Nah. Will it change the world if it does? Absolutely not. But the audience laughed at jokes, giggled nervously at the awkward romantic moments, and cackled or groaned or nodded at the endless movie references (I had chats about the pop culture nods with folks after). In the talk back, the playwright of the other play presented that night and I laughed at the way our plays were paired up, the parallel themes, the dead siblings in the plays, death and religion in general. the pop references, the way they did or did not speak to each other. In the words of one audience member, his play made them weep, and mine was charming. And I’m good with that.

I’m good with that also because I saw my dad laughing. And my mother, who often asks me to write something that is not so dark or pessimistic, who I partially wrote the play for (because love story!) she turned to me after the reading with a big smile on her face. And she said “That was so great!” She delighted in a happy ending, some hope, people taking a chance on each other. And you know what? That’s enough to make it an important play to me.

Go write your weird little love story. People need that too.

Waiting for Permission

Female Artists, Play, Playwright, playwriting, Women, Writing

by Chelsea Sutton

I can remember almost every moment when someone has made me feel small and stupid for writing what I want to write.

These moments live rent free in my head, every time I sit down to the blank page.

At a writing workshop, a faculty person told me I was “putting on” a “quirky” sensibility, play-acting a quirky writer who writes quirky things, and that I would never succeed with this act.

Men have told me that things my female characters want don’t matter or the “stakes aren’t high enough” because the characters are unmarried and/or without children.

I’ve been told that a black comedy about criminals was good but that I was just play-acting at being a wannabe Martin McDonagh (this play was a finalist for the O’Neill).

Men have told me that my female characters are not “likable” particularly when they are not performing femininity in the way they expect it to look.

Men have asked me to think about what my plays are “about” without even trying to identify themes that are very obviously there (usually plays with all female casts).

I won’t even go into how many times people have looked down on genre (non realism) work.

I’ve heard the words “too weird” or “too experimental” or “too much (fill in the blank)” so often that every time I write I stop and doubt myself — checking myself in case I’m trying to be weird even when I don’t think the things I make are that weird. I would never call anything I do “experimental.” All I try to do is write what I’m interested in.

Everyone reading this has had an experience similar to these, or far far worse.

I’ve been thinking about these things because I recently finished a new play and had a reading at The Road as part of the Under Construction SlamFest. The play was about villains, female villains specifically, and not the Disney villains, but the ones who rip your life apart day-in-day-out. I’ve always wanted to go as far as McDonagh or Shepard or any other celebrated male writer who writes brutality and violence and ugliness mixed with humor. But there’s something inside me (possibly probably influenced by any version of the experiences above) that has stopped me from going as harsh or brutal as I could.

I’ve written violence before. My plays are dark as shit usually. But something about this play made me nervous. Every voice that has ever told me I’m just play-acting, every voice that told me women don’t act like this or don’t write like this, that women have to be likable, every voice that said they don’t like “experimental” work (does anyone even understand what that means?) — those voices surrounded this play in an intense and specific way. I could only really get pages out when I was under an extreme deadline (pages for writers group, pages for rehearsal, etc.) A deadline was the only thing that could silence the voices long enough so I could actually just WRITE IT. Because when I could write it, I could finally see it, without all the judgement.

And at the first rehearsal for the play, after we’d read it and were having a lovely chat about it, I asked the actors and director (a room full of women) if I could go further. Could I make it darker? More violent? Could I make the body count clear and HIGH by the end?

And everyone in the room said a resounding YES in unison.

And so I did.

Is the play perfect? Is it going far enough yet? Is it really truly itself yet? No. But that rewrite I did pushed it closer to its boundary. Because they said yes.

I will never forget the feeling of a room full of women giving me permission. I’m trying to reframe the negative voices as funny stories — silly interludes on the way to seeing the permission that was already mine. And yours, too.

Crash Landing on Plot

LAFPI, Performing Arts, Play, Playwright, playwriting, , , ,

by Kitty Felde

I’ve been thinking a lot about plot.

A writer friend recently had a zoom performance of her play, a lovely piece about the power of grief and recovery. The last scene is a reprise of the top of the play, flashed back in time, full of the ugly and raw emotion of loss. Several “critics” urged her to expunge the scene. “It isn’t needed,” said one. “Anticlimactic,” said another. What they were saying was that the script didn’t follow the classic Greek model of rising action, climax, and denouement. Or, the penis model, as I like to call it.

Instead, the writer used a circular structure for the play. Which, some argue, is a more organic way of writing for the female storyteller. Yes, you start at point A and return there, but the protagonist hasn’t necessarily “learned something” or “changed,” which are requirements for the official “circular” plot. The writer just finished the story. Period.

The writer rejected the criticism, by the way.

Sticking to the Aristotelian structure has become even more formulaic in recent decades, something I call the “Save the Cat” effect. The popular book by Blake Snyder has become a template for most movies and far too many plays. It’s gotten to a point that I can pretty much predict exactly what will happen next – something I do, by the way, that drives my husband crazy.

Until I watched Crash Landing on You.

Crash Landing on You



It’s a South Korean episodic drama about a poor little rich girl out paragliding and gets blown across the DMZ to North Korea. It’s wonderful – funny, not too scary, full of social and political commentary, but mostly a love story. It’s also incredibly well written by veteran screenwriter Park Ji-Eun.

The show is a worldwide hit. Viewers in India are reportedly learning Korean. A fan in the Phillipines has written a song about the show. Even Chicago Cubs Manager David Ross is a fan.

And here’s the thing: I could never predict what happens next. I was continuously surprised and delighted. As a writer, I kept asking myself, “how did she do that?”

It’s not just me. A playwriting pal had exactly the same reaction. Neither of us can figure out the structure of the story, yet we couldn’t stop watching. What magic is Park Ji-Eun using? And more importantly: can we steal it?

My playwright pal and I have decided to make a formal study of the series, each of us taking one episode and dissecting it, then comparing notes. We’ll likely be applying whatever structure secrets Ji-Eun uses in our next plays.

And here’s the good news: there’s rumors of a second season!

Are you a circular writer? Have you rejected Aristotle’s triangle of plot structure? Have you gotten pushback? Is there a better way to tell a story?

And can you figure out the structure in “Crash Landing on You” on Netflix?

Kitty Felde is a playwright, podcaster, and children’s mystery writer. Her second book in The Fina Mendoza Mysteries series State of the Union comes out this summer.


Spotlight on Three Fabulous Women of Breakthrough Reading Series

Audience, Female Artists, Film, LGBTQ, Performing Arts, Play, playwriting, Production, race, Women
Teresa Huang, Karen Herr & Melissa Bickerton

As I said, I would take a special post to highlight the three co-producers of Breakthrough Reading Series because I believe they deserve so much recognition for what they done started, y’all!

Teresa Huang

Is she looking at you like that because you’re
inspiring another story idea?

I first met Teresa Huang through a mutual friend and prolific, talented artist and illustrator Nidhi Chanani on her visit to LA. Add to the mix another mutual friend and creatress, the marvelous workhorse Cecil Castelluci, and you know I’m sitting up to pay attention about how I could possibly hang in this magnificent mix.

Over the next few years, I’d see and hear about many of Teresa’s ventures, and what stood out was how she would generously inform her communities about networking opportunities, fellowship and scholarship deadlines, casting notices, and more writing gigs. She doesn’t keep anything to herself. She has literally cultivated her community by giving away what keeps coming back to her. This trait has blown me away and kept me watching and learning from her.

A quick glance at her social media reveals how many have been touched by her generous spirit

Teresa just wrapped on her second show as a staff writer. In 2020, she’ll be fielding new writing opportunities and finishing up the first draft of her sci-fi romance novel. And of course, she churns out great work in volume making BRS her own gym and playground where all are invited to partake.

I’m playing the essence of a 13 year old Chinese-American girl and Aimee McCrary is playing the essence of a traditional Chinese grandfather. Clearly this is a game of heart and soul.

When Teresa Huang announces that she is taking what’s in her brain and teaching POC how to write a pilot, you sign up. Or apply for the scholarship. Or attend the showcase. Or get one of the students drunk, make them talk and take notes. I had strong motivation to do all of the above, and in the end, was invited to act in the class’s student showcase at East West Players just this past November.

Laying the groundwork for more diverse stories on TV

Teresa is no stranger to the lonely grind of LA and says that what’s kept her going is focusing her energy on what’s important outside of her career aspirations. She also draws upon classic wisdom from some modern-day creators:

“I live by two words – gratitude and tenacity. Tenacity gets me where I want to go and gratitude doesn’t allow me to be angry along the way.” ~ Henry Winkler
“Stop complaining and just be undeniable.” ~ Sarah Silverman
“Be so good they can’t ignore you.” ~ Steve Martin

Lucky for us Karen and Teresa love working together

Karen Herr

In an alternate universe, Karen is a hair care commercial model

This woman. This voice. This cosmic cheerleader for artists. Where do we begin? I met Karen at BRS obviously, and we quickly gravitated to each other because that is one positive energy swirl!

Karen is responsible for penning the first piece I ever saw, a rom-com called IN LIKE FLYNN, when BRS was being held at Tom Bergen’s bar in a packed back room in the summer of 2017. What I witnessed was astonishing: A dashing Asian-American actor playing lead to a gorgeous woman and nobody was batting an eye. It was the most natural thing to this room.

Happy faces that frequently show up in my gram ~ Karen, Aimee, actress Megan Barker

Karen likes and marches towards challenges, and she not only casts with actors of color in mind, she actually writes stories about POC. When she spoke to me about a few scripts she’s got in development, she came off so humble and open. For her process, she will make a point to surround herself with people of different backgrounds so that she can display historical/factual accuracy, pepper in cultural insider gems, and approach with sensitivity. Don’t we want more writers like HERR?

Karen also has a collaborative spirit. Not only was she willing to make some time to give me screenwriting notes on a script I will eventually showcase, she came onboard the crew of “What’s In Front Of You?” – seven beautiful one-acts written and directed by Joe Walsh, also a BRS alum, to bring it to the Broadwater stages, and brought me along with her! Because when Karen Herr has you in mind for something, you say YES!

Cast & Crew of What’s In Front of You? Can you spot the photoshopped people?

Melissa Bickerton

It’s the eyes. No wait, the smile. No wait…

Melissa is the casting powerhouse of BRS. When you come to our room, introduce yourself to her, and let her work you in to the myriad of roles to fill. One of the biggest highlights for me was when she saw me, her face lit up upon recognition from the previous month and she made her way over to hold my hand and eagerly introduce me to a writer.

Melissa spearheads the casting of 60+ roles
each month at BRS

She knows this part well because she is a brilliant actress herself. She got her start as a young dancer and singer in Australia, booking the starring role in a major musical against all odds. It’s always a treat for the BRS crowd when she takes a role for herself in a piece or two for the evening.

I mean would you pass up the chance to play in a project by Chriselle Almeida called SHAKESPEARE’S HEROINES AT THE GYNECOLOGIST? Me thinketh not.

With such a full roster of TV/Film appearances under her belt, Melissa shared some of her triumphs in this business and told me this very inspiring story:

“I was offered The League which is a completely improvised show – no script at all. When I got the offer I said, ‘Who booked me? I don’t know anyone in that casting office!’ Well it turns out I had auditioned for another office and the associate girl BEHIND THE CAMERA whom I barely remembered MOVED to this new office and literally PUT ME UP FOR THIS based on THAT comedy audition.  And it turned out to be a beautiful four scenes … and I got to have the last comedic beat of the episode … So it was a foundation for a new found confidence with comedy from which I went on to book Arrested Development, Shameless and Love (Netflix).”

Getting in on quality shows is a career dream fulfilled

Most recently, Melissa is starring in and producing a short film called Post Sentence produced by Teresa Huang. It was showcased at BRS and it got a fantastic response. She also recently shot an episode of ABC’s Fresh Off The Boat.

Inspired? Of course you are! If you ever have the chance to hang out with, attend an event with, learn from or jump onboard to offer your services to any of these wonderful women, do it. You will grow personally, professionally, and skip away with a sparkling pep in your step.

The next Breakthrough Reading Series will be held February 5, 2020 at the Broadwater (Main Stage). Tickets are being sold now. See Writer Submission details at the same link.

Rasika Mathur is a comedy actress, writer, and yoga instructor. She has tv/film and stage credits but is most proud of being able to have drinks with all these people while holding a Sprite.

Finding writer’s block

Audience, Play, Playwright, playwriting

I think it has finally happened. I think I have writer’s block.

Deep breath and keep writing!

When I started writing, I was taking classes to learn how to write, the different genres and structures.  I was also reading books and articles about writing and from the beginning I read how there was no such thing as writer’s block. I always thought about writer’s block in terms of not being able to continue to write.  You know, you’re half way through your story and you don’t know what happens next.

But since I finished my last play, I have written bits and pieces of ideas and thoughts, but I never thought of what I was going to write next.  It usually just came to me and I sat down and wrote about it.  I would write and re-write the same thing, different ways, working the story out.  But right now, I’m at a loss.  I finished the story, had my characters yell and scream the things people don’t dare to say out loud.  I had found the perfect setting for this to happen and made the cast small enough to include all the backstory I had dreamt up.  And now.  Nothing.  I can’t even see the next thing.  Instead of writing a play, I sit trying to finish a collection of essays about the same subject, and am rehashing the same stories in different settings, trying to get a different audience to understand.

Right now I can’t imagine another play, another story I want to write.  When I was writing, I was reading different blogs and books about the subject.  Different viewpoints, trying to understand the story from all sides. Listening to podcasts and interviews, talking ad-nauseum with friends about their thoughts on the subject.  But nothing.  I can’t imagine that I am done with the subject. It still keeps me up at night, or wakes me early in the morning, usually at 3 am.  But why can’t I write anything more about it? Why can’t I see it anymore and better yet, is this writer’s block?

In the articles I had read about, they said there was no such thing. It’s a figment of your imagination, you’re just not working hard enough.   Even trying to write this on this blog this week has been a pain staking task.  Racking my brain.  What do I say? How do I say it? Who will read it? Does it matter?

But wait. A glimmer of hope.  I started this post on Monday. It’s now Sunday night, my last day to post and there is a story brewing.  While getting lost in distraction and procrastination this week, I found a new book to read and a different angle on my story. Actually a whole new play.  Now starts the ruminating.

I would love to hear your thoughts on writer’s block, because I’m sure it is not done with me.

Happy writing!  Jennifer

 

5 Years Later… She Writes A Play!

Female Artists, Play, Playwright, playwriting, Theaters, Theatre, Women

by Andie Bottrell

Movie Still from Synecdoche New York

I’m writing a gosh-dang play again for the first time in years and finally feel like I am almost legitimate enough to be blogging for the LAFPI! I’ve spent the last two years working on my webseries SEEK HELP, and making a life-changing decision. After completing the webseries, I was contemplating my next big creative project and I landed on this play I started working on back in 2011 or so before abandoning it for other projects.

I’ve had a one-act play performed on stage, and had readings of my full length plays both in public and private workshops, but never had a full length play of mine produced or published and I would love to go on that journey, if that journey will have me. The salivating, desirable thing about a play (done right), as opposed to a film or tv show or book, is:

  • The Immediacy: You get immediate feedback from the audience.
  • The Hostage Component: The audience is trapped, hidden away from the outside world and digital world’s distractions. They are forced to confront the situation presented in front of them and to enter into an imagined circumstance that demands their engagement.
  • The Visceral Exchange: The audience inevitably affects the performance and the performance affects the audience. This exchange of energy can offer a magical high.
  • The Unpredictable Originality: No matter how rehearsed a play, great performers are always still just reacting to what they are given in the moment and great performers are always still searching for new moments and deeper truths throughout the run. So, no matter how rehearsed, every night is a slightly different show. This is an art form that evolves.

In other words, a play is a living, breathing, growing entity. If you want to explore big ideas, ethical dilemmas, flaws in humanity or culture, expand a communities view on something, I can think of no better way than to build a play. As Chelsea wrote about in the post below, nearly all plays have messages, and the best ones, the ones that actually have the ability to open minds or change perspectives or prejudices, do so in a way that is so entertaining that you don’t even notice the medicine the playwright is slipping down your throat as you watch.

The hard and frustrating work of playwriting is trying to turn those big ideas into genuinely good and captivating entertainment…usually while sitting alone in your apartment late at night. The fun and exciting part of playwriting is getting a group of people together to work on the play, to communally birth a piece of art in a collaborative form. The latter being the part that is currently motivating me through the former. I see pieces of the play in my head; I want to see it outside my head. I want to discuss this topic in depth with others. And there, really, I think is the root of why I write. I want to bring people together. I love structured hangs but hate unstructured parties. I want to have deep conversations, not small talk. I want to feel, think, be challenged and examine myself and others and the world. I want to know I am not alone, and I want to understand that which is different from me in a visceral way. I don’t think I am unique in that–I think many writers write because we want to bring people close to us, to invite them over, not just for a cocktail, but to go all the damn way down…down to the colon! I wanna see your shit–the stuff you’re proud of, the stuff you are ashamed of, I wanna see how you navigate big decisions and deal with life’s pain, I wanna feel your laughter, your joy, see how you love, understand a new slice of life better–I wanna experience it all and I want everyone else to experience it to, because I think that’s the most efficient way to build empathy and understanding, and thereby mend differences and cultivate a peaceful respect for each other.

I love theatre. Deeply. I respect it for the power it has and am captivated by it’s magic. I am excited for a more diverse theatre landscape. There are so many stories we haven’t told, haven’t experienced. We think we’ve seen it all sometimes, but there are so many points of view that have not yet been given the opportunity of a stage and an audience. I am excited for more plays by and about women, people of various ethnic backgrounds, from different countries and cultures, of different ages, of all different gender and sexual identities, of various experiences, to create new works set in and about our time. I think now more than ever we could collectively benefit from unplugging and coming together in a dark room to pass the baton and tell each other who we are and what it means.

Wish me luck (ie. motivation, stamina, intelligence, clarity, artistry, articulation, and courage) as I continue on my journey to prove I belong on the LAFPI roster–I mean, to finish this play and work to get it on it’s feet.

 

Where is the end?

Play, Playwright, playwriting
I like to call myself an accidental writer.  I didn’t start out wanting to write plays, blog postsr essays, but I always wrote.  I don’t know if I’ve  told you this before, but I, up until recently, had a 3-inch binder full of hand written things on different sizes paper with different incarnations of my handwriting.  It wasn’t like a scrapbook, more of a reminder of what I used to do for fun.  A collection of angsty teen poems that now make me laugh and smile as the memories of those people come flooding back.  This collection is now housed on my hard as I scanned it all to make moving easier and lighter and instead of a binder I now have a collection of tiny notebooks that I bought on sale at Vromans.  I couldn’t pass up the crying tiger.
These notebooks are littered with with half started ideas, and notes from books and websites I have read all in the hopes of finishing something.  I bought four of them in the hopes they would fill quickly with new musings as my hopes to write daily.  Years later I’m finally on my 4th notebook.  It has taken me a long time to get here.  I went through book one the other day and wondered who this author was?  I must have copied “that” from somewhere, I think as I read it.  Who is this person?  Then as I read on, I find the sarcastic humour and inside jokes that I tell and I am reminded that yes, Jennifer you have some moments and why aren’t you sharing this with the world.  What is stopping you?  I also realize that I have to quit thinking of things as accidents.  Writing has obviously always been a part of me, as witnessed in the binder and notebook collection.  I hesitate to call myself a writer because nothing has ever felt finished.  It’s a wonder I finish blog posts. Or maybe I don’t even finish those, come to think of it…Because there is always more to the story that I start writing about and then get caught up in my thoughts and hems and haws and never quite feel complete.  I am getting better.  I think.  Instead of one hapless page of notes, I now try and complete a thought before I stop writing. Maybe I am subconsciously wanting to engage the reader?  Wanting to talk about the world around us in a non-threatening way, and in this digital age it is so much easier to hide behind the anonymity of the internet.  To hide behind an avatar or a picture of you from 5 years ago.  To feel warm and safe when the trolls come out to play.  Maybe that’s why I don’t finish anything?  Because my fear of the discussions I want to have are outweighed by the fear of someone actually reading my stuff…
Yet here I am getting ready to hit “post” on this mishmosh of thoughts.

Until next time,

Jennifer

Adieu to DC’s Theatre Scene

Director, Female Artists, Fringe Festival, Play, Playwright, playwriting, Theaters, Theatre,

I’ve escaped to the bedroom while a quartet of hardworking young men pack my lamps and my pictures and drag more than a dozen bins of fabric out into the hallway of my high rise. It’s moving day here in Washington. After nearly a decade, living within walking distance of the U.S. Capitol, my husband and I are finally returning to Los Angeles.

It seemed like a good time to look back at my D.C. years as a playwright.

No, Arena Stage did not invite me to participate in their Playwrights Arena playwriting group or commission me for one of their Power Plays. No, Studio Theatre didn’t fall in love with my work. Nor did Olney or Signature or Synetic. In many ways, I felt like I’d arrived in DC about ten years too late. Like the rest of D.C., the theatre scene is very much a relationship game. And those relationships had been formed long before I got here.

But I did find other opportunities. And so could you.

Several D.C. theatres give a nod to local playwrights by selecting new ten minute plays that thematically relate to their mainstage production. My short L.A. riots play got an airing at the Jewish themed Theater J. A development group The Inkwell offers rehearsal space at Wooley Mammoth, actors, a dramaturg, and a director to work on 20 minutes of a full length play. I met my favorite D.C. director Linda Lombardi through this experience. (She was directing one of the other plays.) Another group Theater Alliance hosts what it calls the Hothouse New Play Development Series. It offers a commission, a week of rehearsal, and terrific actors for a one-night staged reading of new full-length work. My full-length L.A. Riots play WESTERN & 96th got an airing there.

That same theatre teamed up with California’s National Center for New Plays at Stanford and Planet Earth Arts to commission playwrights for an evening of ten minute work about the Anacostia River watershed. The plays got a second performance on the Millennium Stage at the Kennedy Center. My new ten minute play KENILWORTH – the story of a woman who fought the government to preserve her water lily farm – was read at that festival. And then the story grew and grew into a full length.

Unlike Los Angeles, where big corporations moved out years ago and took their arts money with them, the D.C. government sets aside a huge amount per capita for arts grants. A grant from the D.C. Arts & Humanities Commission and Planet Earth Arts made it possible to produce a staged reading of what is now called QUEEN OF THE WATER LILIES on Earth Day this spring. The cool part is that it was done in a National Park on the footprint of the house where the heroine lived most of her life, surrounded by the water lily ponds she loved.

The D.C. Arts & Humanities Commission also has an annual award for playwriting. I’ve come in second two times for D.C.’s Larry Neal Award. (First place comes with a nice check. Second place comes with a glass of wine and some cheese at the reception.)

Another commission came my way courtesy of the artistic director of one of the very fine children’s theatres here in D.C. The commission wasn’t for Adventure Theatre.  It was to create a one-person show for an organization called Pickle Pea Walks to be performed every weekend on the grounds around the White House for all those tourists who didn’t get their security clearance. My play QUENTIN is about the youngest son of Theodore Roosevelt on the night before he reports for duty in World War I. He’s hoping to reunite with his pals from the years when he lived in the White House. They don’t show up, so instead he takes tourists down memory lane to help him say goodbye to D.C. This year marks the 100th anniversary of Quentin Roosevelt’s death (his plane shot down by German fliers in World War I) and rangers from Sagamore Hill (the Roosevelt home) are coming to D.C. to see the production this July.

D.C. is also home to the fabulous summer Capital Fringe Festival. As an audience member, I’ve seen an opera based on the War of 1812, a 45 minute version of “Moby Dick,” and more political plays than even Washington could imagine. My own entry was a production of ALICE: an evening with the tart-tongued daughter of Theodore Roosevelt. Alice was famous for her bon mots (“If you haven’t got anything good to say about anyone, come and sit by me.”) and lived most of her life here in Washington. The show played to sold-out houses and was named critic’s pick by The Washington Post.

There are also odd opportunities for playwrights in this town. I was once asked to write a play in 40 minutes based on an audience suggestion. The wonderful artistic director at MetroStage – the first person in D.C. to fall in love with anything I’ve written – invited me to take over her theatre on a Monday night for a public reading of my controversial play with a character in blackface THE LUCKIEST GIRL. I was challenged to write a one minute play for a festival at Roundhouse Theatre – one of dozens being performed for one night only. I knew I wanted mine to stand out, so I wrote a naked play METAL DETECTOR. It was great fun to see the sign warning of “brief nudity” in the box office window.

I also served four years as a judge for Washington’s version of the Tony’s – the Helen Hayes Awards. This meant free tickets to some of the best – and some of the worst – evenings of theatre in America. (I’ve learned to ask: “will blood be spilled on the audience?”)

Finding community has been the most difficult part of living in D.C. Everyone is busy, busy, busy. I was lucky enough to find a writing group – Playwrights Gymnasium – and a terrific crew of writers. Unfortunately, the group has been on haitus the past several years. We’re all too busy. And frankly, all that business has left me lonesome here in D.C.

So I’m coming home.

I’m nervous about rejoining the L.A. theatre community. It’s likely that many of the literary managers reading scripts today were still in high school when I was last living in Los Angeles. Most of the artistic directors I know have retired. Or died. It will be like starting all over again. Just like it was ten years ago when I moved to Washington. But Southern California is home for me. I’m looking forward to re-introducing myself.