I have many started drafts and a variety of folders organized with research of links on sites I need to visit, but it wasn’t until I started working on someone else’s project that it started making sense to me.
My title is Cultural Dramaturg. What does that even mean? During the Pandemic, I took the opportunity to increase my education. In my further attempts to understand how to write a play, I participated in a dramaturgy class. A month of examining how a play comes together and questions to ask understand a play. Homework and discussions.
Not knowing where to begin, I started looking at examples I had received from other dramaturgs on other projects. I looked to these packets of what information was included and how it related to the play. Hmm. I still had too much information.
Hiawatha
Since I was also supposed to be sharing cultural information, that made it easier. In Act 1 of the play, which at this point was 124 pages, culture was only ⅓ of it. I looked to the location of where the people came from to ground the main character and to understand the bits of language that was being included. I searched through tribal histories to see what part of the nation she came from. I narrowed down the language to where she was born since there were no records of her. Next up, structure of the story being told. Who was telling the story and why? The best question that the director asked to help cut pages was: Whose story was this? it’s all fine and good to want to include all the brilliant information, but if it wasn’t about our protagonist, it had to go.
I am still looking for my method to creating a play. These simple questions were also helping me sort through the mounds of research I continued to find. I’m also figuring out how much information is too much and when do you stop.
The playwright in this instance had found an abbreviated story and was using that as an outline, but after talking about the play and explaining their thought processes, more options kept popping up.
I’m not sure what this all means. We finished a week of reading and listening and answering to questions about the play. We have a debrief to go through, and I’m thinking about my next steps. But me, I’m still researching.
This past March, I celebrated my 33rd birthday. After losing my mother in early January I thought a lot about mortality. How we live our lives and who we live them with became more urgent and precious to me. I wanted to do something I love with the people I love.
When I meet other Black people within my general age range I’m always asked what I studied in school and when I tell them I got my degree in playwriting, the conversion almost always goes as follow –
Them: Ohhh so you be doing plays like Tyler Perry?
Me: Yeah, just like Tyler Perry minus the budget. Do you like going to see plays?
Them: Not really. I mean I haven’t really seen any plays like that. I know this don’t count but, one time I was in a play at my church. But that don’t count. It was just at church thing that’s not really theater.
Me: That DO count!!! It IS theater!
Rather it’s a church, school or if they randomly saw a flash mob, I get all excited talking to someone about their live theater history. But I also get really annoyed right after. The association with theater being reserved and defined by Broadway musicals is deeply concerning. I spend a lot of time talking with homies and helping reshape/redefine what theater is by thinking broadly about who it’s for, where it’s located and how it’s presented. I’m grateful for Tyler Perry Madea plays because it serves as a solid foundation to build on. More often than not, we participate in a shared lived experience centering his theatrical work where they remember watching the bootleg Madea DVD’s at they cousin’s house just like I did with my cousins back then. And sitting with the whole family laughing, crying and saying who in the room be acting like each character in the play, just like we did. And then reciting it to each other the next day at school during lunch period. I explain to them that that’s the exact kind of impact theater has on people when it’s written with intention, centering marginalized people groups as the core audience.
Theater defined by what’s on Broadway limits the possibilities of art and culture. Because who really has access to that? It’s not cheap and it’s often not advertised in cities with larger populations of Black and brown folks. But Madea never made it to Broadway nor is the franchise ever considered theater in performing art spaces (during my 8 years studying theater in accademia, only once was his name ever brought up. It was in grad school. I brought it up) but his contribution to theater serves as a gateway to Black culture is prize winning in my opinion. But this isn’t about him. It’s about creating access to theater for everyone and what’s gained from the experience that is offered by the art form.
After getting a postcard in the mail to Shotgun Theater’s 2022/23 season, I just about fainted when I saw one of my favorite musicals would be featured, Passing Strange by Stew. The original live recording film was directed by Spike Lee and starred the playwright as the narrator (which is the one I saw that made me fall in love with the play). At first I thought I’d just invite two of my friends who really liked musicals. But that low key felt like gatekeeping. I don’t know if my friends would like a musical or not but the only way to find out was to extend an invitation. For most of my close friends their most current live theater experience has been one of my productions. And they come as a supportive friend and I love that. But my work also can’t single handedly define theater either. It’s a shared love. So my Aries ass jotted down the names of 22 people who I wanted to spend time with. I personally invited them to celebrate turning 33 with a live musical production. I wasn’t even scared or sad if everyone said no because I would have enjoyed it even if I went alone (something I do often). But people came out. It was lit.
And it does not have to be a big group. Inda Craig-Galván’s play A Hit Dog Will Holler had a run at Playwrights Arena. I purchased two tickets for the Black out night, not knowing at all who I’d invite. But I knew I wouldn’t be going alone. I reached out to my homegirl Sydney and she was so excited to go. She hadn’t been to any in person show since the pandemic erupted and that was hard for her as a performer. She also works diligently in policy change for LGBTQ people. This play is about an activist who has a chronic fear of leaving her home. Syd was the perfect person to see this show with, for she can fully understand the strain political work can have on a person’s mental health, especially when you are of the demographic you are advocating human rights for.
We had hella fun too. After the show was over we grabbed dinner and sat and talked in length about how relatable the play was and what we loved most about it. The conversation seamlessly transitioned into one about us and our own mental health. I’m always grateful to Inda’s work. It tends to have that effect on Black womxn. Her work and the work of others that write in a way where it clearly concerns Black people offers visibility to the full self and revelation. That’s the good theater is made of and everyone is entitled to that feeling. Not just those who have participated in Broadway.
I hope that you can all consider how to fold in (dare I say convert) people in your lives who may not know there’s a theater space for them to enjoy and be centered.
I first met Judy Soo Hoo in our graduate MFA program. She was one of the first students to share in our writers’ workshop, and even then, I thought her work was energetic, lively, and original. We were fiction writers together, so it was a funny coincidence when I moved to Los Angeles, decided to be an actress, and landed an understudy role in a play that she was commissioned to write for East West Players through their Theatre for Youth Program.
Little did I know, prior to our time in grad school, Judy had been writing plays for years. She started in a playwriting class in the David Henry Hwang Writers Institute (DHHWI) and went on to produce shows with the Asian American Theatre Lodestone, Watts Theatre Project, and Company of Angels. She eventually went on to teach playwriting with the DHHWI. This past year, Judy has been a part of Center Theatre Group’s Writers’ Workshop, an all-female group (at least this season) run by playwright Luis Alfaro, an Associate Artistic Director at CTG and a professor of Dramatic Arts at USC. Judy values Alfaro’s emphasis on the creative process and his insistence that the roots of a play begin in our subconscious. Alfaro encourages the writers to “write from the body.” As Judy puts it “writing from the body allows the writer to tap into the emotion that is swimming in the play.”
Starting last summer, the group met bi-weekly to talk shop and share pages. This past Spring, they had a retreat at the Mark Taper to have their work read aloud by professional actors and to receive feedback to support the development process. This week, their plays will have professionally staged readings at the Kirk Douglas, as the culmination of their year-long playwriting communion.
Judy’s play “What Lies Behind” is about a Chinese American woman attempting to solve the disappearance of her sister by signing-up her dementia-afflicted father, who was the last person to have seen her, in a gene-editing study that may recall his memory. Judy very much wanted to explore the mystery genre “as a way to explore family relationships”. The play was inspired, in part, by Judy’s own mother’s experience with dementia in her final year. Judy acted as her mother’s primary caretaker and recalls a time when her mother did not recognize her at all, instead calling her by someone else’s name. This, of course, would be jarring for any adult child and prompted Judy to delve into the questions around what and “how we remember” our lost loved ones.
Another theme of the play—what is rising from Judy’s subconscious—is the wave of anti-Asian violence in America. Libby, the play’s protagonist, is also the host of “Yellow Peril”, a podcast that discusses anti-Asian violence. Libby’s growing concern with the spate of racially motivated violent crime promises to converge with the unravelling mystery of the missing sister.
The reading of “What Lies Behind”, directed by Jeff Liu, is this Friday, September 9 at 8pm. For tickets, please visit ticketing for this event at Center Theater Group.
The Company of Angels Theater (CoA) is gearing up for its New Works Festival, which will be held in-person at their Boyle Heights theater space from October 29 – November 13. The festival will include five full length plays and an evening of shorter pieces that were all developed through their playwrights’ group.
The CoA playwrights’ group, of which I have been a member for two seasons, has been running for nearly fifteen years. Artistic Director, Armando Molina, explains that the group was born out of a need to support Los Angeles based playwrights from underrepresented communities. He says “During a time when other large theater [institutions] were dissolving diversity initiatives, CoA picked up the slack to support a forum for diverse voices to experiment and develop” their work.
While playwrights are not mandated to set their plays in Los Angeles, Molina describes the spirit of CoA as committed to creating work that “reflects and responds to LA” whether it be literal or embodied in the notion of LA as a “phenomenon” or a “state of mind.” In the past, the group served as an incubator for CoA’s annual LA Short Play Festival (formerly LA Views), which was a fully produced evening of theater cast with company members.
The group meets bi-weekly to share new pages that are read aloud, and playwrights receive feedback from those who’ve lived with the work from the ground up and know its overall aims. Additionally, CoA offers further support by bringing in a professional dramaturg to work with writers and offer feedback on their pieces to ready them for the rehearsal process, and ultimately, a staged reading. Sonia Desai, Literary Associate at the Old Globe Theatre, served as this season’s dramaturg, and my conversations with her were so insightful and cracked open the possibilities for my play.
Tamadhur Al-Aqeel and John Dubiel have served as co-leaders of the playwrights’ group for over a decade. They are both facilitators and participating playwrights who know the value of a supportive and intimate space to develop work. Al-Aqeel describes the group as having been “a wonderful place to land” after taking a long break from writing to raise her young children. After seeing her first CoA show, she was inspired to get back to writing, and the group reaffirmed that she could “still write.” This is a huge epiphany for writers who are burdened by the insecurity that often comes with having shut off their creative faucet for years; I can relate.
For myself, CoA has supported a writing practice and helped me to stay connected to a creative community. At the height of the pandemic, I knew that the isolation was either going to take me down or not. I chose the latter. The past few years have been the most creatively productive time for me as a writer. Formerly, I was primarily a fiction writer, an even more lonely endeavor than playwriting. For years, I would beat myself up and think “If you want to write, just write” or “If you’re not writing, you obviously don’t want it bad enough”—all the unproductive, self-flagellating words that block an artist’s creative mind. CoA helped to resuscitate my creative voice, and I learned that it wasn’t that I couldn’t write, I just needed better structure and support. Dubiel echoes this sense of community, saying that CoA provides “a lot of opportunity for creative people to come together.”
Coming together will finally happen in-person after two long years of virtual zooms and shows. CoA is reuniting with their New Works Festival, and I for one am looking forward to meeting the people who’ve supported my creative life in real life. Maybe I can give them a big hug too! This season’s playwrights include: Tamadhur Al-Aqeel, John Dubiel, Leah Zhang, MJ Kang, Emily Brauer Rogers, Matt Callahan, Danny Munoz and Alison Minami. For a full schedule of performance dates and times please visit the Company of Angels.
I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole of research. Dangerous, I know, because researching is a great excuse for not writing. But often you find unexpected treasures that can sometimes become an essential part of your play.
I’ve been using the vast newspaper records available online at the Library of Congress. Chronicling America, a partnership between the Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities, is a free, searchable database of American newspapers from 1777 to 1963. If you’re writing about an era before or after that, the LOC has a secondary collection of newspapers from 1690 to today.
There’s a map where you can discover ethnic newspapers across the country. Who knew there was a German newspaper in San Diego and a Finnish one in Washington state? There were dozens of African-American newspapers from Butte, Montana to Miami, Florida.
I fumbled around at first, but found absolute gold in the digital pages of Chronicling America.
Currently, I’m working on a murder mystery set in the White House era of Theodore Roosevelt. The plot takes us all over the Washington, D.C. of 1902. I had so many questions.
How did police get around town. Did they ride horses? Drive motor cars? Bicycles? Who were they? A profile of “Well Known Men of the Metropolitan Police Force” in the Washington Times helped me create my policemen characters – including one who was active in the temperance movement.
What happened at an inquest of the era? The Evening Star had a full report of one particular proceeding. Though I admit I was distracted by the ad for furniture on the same page that featured a $22 “Polished Mahogany-Finished Toilet Table.” A what?
I needed a place for a body to be discovered. The Washington Times reported on a years-long battle to either fill in or fence the James Creek Canal. Little more than a sewer, neighbors labeled it a “death trap” where five bodies a month were pulled from the mud.
For one scene, I needed the name of a stationary store where my amateur detective could find a blank book to record her clues. I searched “stationary supplies” and found an advertisement at the top of the page in the Evening Star.
My favorite gem didn’t happen in Washington at all. The Washington Times, like papers and TV news today, reprint sensational or odd stories from around the world. This one involved a pair of guinea pigs at a temperance meeting in Paris, as written up in a newspaper in Liverpool. The experiment was designed to demonstrate the destructive power of alcohol. Guess which one got sick. One animal was given water, the other alcohol.
There were challenges. I was overwhelmed. I wanted to read everything. (Anything to avoid staring at a blank screen and actually have to write. But my lousy eyesight made it difficult to see an entire page on a 13” laptop. I wasn’t sure how to find what I needed. And when I found a juicy tidbit, what was the best way to keep track of it? Was saving links the best way to capture the information?
I am no research genius, but let me save you the learning curve and share my tips:
SEARCHING
o Narrow down your search parameters. If your play is set in 1939, look for newspapers from that year. If it’s set in Pittsburgh, narrow your search to just papers from Pennsylvania. o Try various search terms. If you get too many hits with “police,” try “detective.” o You’ll soon discover which newspapers go with the sensational, which have the most advertisements. Ads are great to help you describe clothing of the era or which stores or restaurants were frequented by your characters.)
READING
o If you’re using Microsoft Word, use the snipping tool. You can isolate the articles you want to keep, and save images for future reference or inspiration. And for those of us who are visually challenged, you can save it IN A LARGER SIZE. o Images are also helpful while you’re writing. I often drop an image into the manuscript if there’s a quote I want to use or a detail that’s perfect for the scene. (And then I delete the image.)
ORGANIZATION
o DO keep track of your links. It will save going back and searching all over again. Note the source and date of the article, just in case you do have to go back and search. o I’m sure your graduate school training will have given you a better way to organize your research. Me? I keep a simple Word or Google doc where I list topics I’ve researched. Sometimes I drop in a line or two, sometimes an image, but always a link. (At first, I kept a numbered “footnote” file at the bottom of the document, but since I’m not including my research in my notes, I gave up on that.)
PERMISSIONS
o If you’re considering including images in your book, take note of the copyright and who owns it. You might want to start asking for permission now to use the material later, long before you’re done with the book. If the answer is “no,” that gives you time to find an alternate image.
Good luck! And happy reading.
Kitty Felde is an award-winning playwright currently working on her third book. Her Fina Mendoza Mysteries series of books are also available as a podcast. She is also Executive Producer of the Book Club for Kids podcast.
Because Djuna Barnes’ “Nightwood” has been a safe haven for free thoughts. Because these days I function better with s’mores ice cream. Because I’m occupying a new and unknown space. Because I write physical plays. Because I could survive with a simple dress, vintage heels, and a collection of weathered hats. Because after nine years Theatre Roscius is a non-profit. Because finding financial support to create new work has been an enormous gift. Because I’m proud of the struggle. Because I’ve had to fight for every opportunity. Because without the graciousness of strangers I wouldn’t be where I am today….closer. Because this Sunday came with tight cuddles, moments of silence, uncontrollable tears, and deep laughter. Because there are no words to express imminent joy. Because actions matter. Because I continue to find truth in solitude. Because the past no longer casts a dark shadow. Because this has been one hell of a year. Because Theatre Roscius created five new works. Because community and tribe have two different meanings. Because I know love always heals. Because I know this all to be the truth.
Stonehenge (seen in an aerial view taken in the late 1990s) may have been protected by a green barrier, archaeologists say. PHOTOGRAPH BY JASON HAWKES, CORBIS
One week ago I returned home from a six-week short fiction writing workshop in San Diego. For six whole weeks out of my life, I was basically a full time writer. Except for one or two day job things that trickled in, I mostly cut myself off from the real world, friends and family. While I’ve gone to one- or two-week workshops before, and even had a one-month residency once, I have never experienced what it is like to actually and truly have writing be the priority of my day, every day. That in fact it was expected of me to show up to the page, and it affected those around me if I didn’t.
I was in workshop for 20 hours a week, was close-reading up to 100,000 words a week of my peers’ writing, and writing a new short story a week – which would be read and talked about for a full hour not only by the 17 other writers but by the successful and highly acclaimed faculty (which changed from week to week). If I wasn’t doing any of those things, I was in craft lectures, business lectures, public readings, or one-on-ones with faculty. A friend and I also tried to find a few hours to work on our novels together.
Now, this model is not sustainable, of course, and I’m not even sure if there’s an equivalent that would work for playwriting. I realize this is a playwriting blog and not a short fiction blog…but one writer’s problems are all writer’s problems.
Because I’ve been home a week and have not written a word. My brain has be sputtering trying to understand why I need to be in meetings about fundraisers and marketing and grants and not writing a new ghost story. I’m back in a world in which no one cares if I write today or tomorrow or this week or this month. A world where I have to actively make rent. Half of me is back on my routine bullshit, the other half is asking – but…what about the writing?
What does prioritizing your writing even look like?
I wanted this blog to be a “here is a list of things I learned at my writers workshop” kind of thing but…I’ve only been home a week. And I just don’t know if I can articulate it exactly yet. Some of the lessons won’t sink in for a little while.
But I’ll tell you this.
In week two, I was basically told I was too weird in every sense of the word to really have a career. All of my arrogance and confidence was beaten out of me, and I was a bloody mess on the floor, feeling like I had wasted my life. I used that energy to write one of the stronger stories of mine at the workshop in a kind of fever dream for week 3 – refusing to stop writing for fear that I wouldn’t be able to pick it up again, that I had to see it through otherwise I’d talk myself out of even trying. I lived in that terror for the next three weeks. Worried that the things I was interested in exploring, experimenting and fucking around with were stupid and embarrassing.
If I was torn completely down in week two, then in week six I was built back up again. I wrote quite possibly the most vulnerable story I’ve ever written in a fit of rage (with myself, with the world, with how I’m perceived as a person, a woman, a woman-writer) and it was also a fusion of my fiction and playwriting life and voice. It was completely me.
And I walked away from week six not feeling like that weirdness is a weakness and an air I was putting on, but if focused well and layered with truth, it is my superpower.
So, if I had to offer a few loose words of wisdom, or just nuggets of a jumbled mind that may or may not be useful to you, this is what I’d write down:
If you’re scared to write something, that means you should. Sometimes that means you have to write in a fever dream, straight through to the end, to burst through the dam you’ve built between what you think your writing should be and what it wants to be.
Prioritizing writing looks different for everyone. But it deserves it. You deserve it.
Find your superpower. This is stolen wisdom from our week six teachers Gwenda Bond and Christopher Rowe but…if you’re good at language and interesting characters and structure, it’s okay for your plots to be more basic and straightforward. If plot is your thing, it’s okay for the other stuff to be straightforward. Everyone has a superpower.
Everything will always seem more important than the writing. Everything else is shouting for your attention, everything feels like an emergency. But be careful not to hitch yourself to other people’s emergencies. If you’re not discerning, if you default into a state of reaction, then everything else will feel like the most important thing in the world, and your writing, sorry, will never scream as loud as that email from your day job. Do I mean you should drop obligations or showing up as a sibling/parent/friend/worker/etc? Of course not. But if you’re only reacting to others, then you are helping them build what is important to them and what is important to you can get lost, can become background.
What I’m saying is…internalize your commitment.
Procrastination happens when we want to avoid negative emotions. So time management is often more about emotion management.
We will never be satisfied. That’s part of the job.
Anyway, that’s more words than I’ve written in a week. I’m exhausted.
This blog was originally posted on the blog site of Fightmaster Yoga (www.fightmasteryoga.com)
Sometimes the things we love to do or are passionate about can be our prison also. I’m talking about my love of reading and writing, playing guitar, and also practicing yoga. It’s so strange to me, until recently, how I can hit a wall with these activities. I will be religious about doing these things then I find my passion and interest waning, as though these things become a chore rather than a source of joy.
I get into a rut and it’s a lot of work to dig myself out of it with a new perspective, and sometimes it’s not the one I expected or wanted. To give an example, I’ll talk about my yoga practice. I was doing the 90-day Shine Program (available to people who join an app called MyYogaPal, which I came upon from following YouTuber, Lesley Fightmaster. She influenced my personal practice because her teaching philosophy and practice was “You don’t have to be perfect, because it’s not about the pose.”). Around the 70 to 80 day mark of the program I started to get stuck, because I repeated the classes 2 or 3 times, maybe even 4 or 5 times. I did so, because I felt I didn’t do it justice. What I mean by that is my focus wasn’t there, and my best intentions weren’t present.
I almost wonder if we should give ourselves some kind of a graduation ceremony for accomplishing a feat of doing 90 days of yoga as a recognition of completion and getting ready for the next step. What could that be after 90 days of the Shine program?
So what perspective did I gain after I had to re-boot myself from the rut? No pain, no gain. I am being a bit facetious in thinking and writing those words, but I’m not editing them out. The reason is there is truth to the cliche (as cliche as it may be). Here’s my real life experience about this. I have two stories to share.
I’ll start with my recent project that I started about 2 months ago. I decided that I want to be able to do at least one pull up before the end of this year. So, after teaching my twice a week yoga classes at a private club, I go to the weight room and work on my pull ups. One of my yoga students is dedicated about his weight training. He started to notice me be a regular in the weight room. He offered me advice on how to reach my goal. First, he asked what my goal was and analyzed my workout. Then he said that I needed to also do some weights to strengthen my pectoral muscles. I followed his advice.
Two weeks ago, one of my other yoga students joined me in the weight room as we continued a conversation after class. ‘What are you doing here?’, he asked, so I told him. ‘Well, have you tried doing one without the machines?’ I said no. ‘Try,’ he said, ‘You might surprise yourself.’ I was doubtful, but I did it anyway and guess what – I almost got to one… I was able to lift my weight higher than I ever expected. He said, ‘you’re almost there?!’ ‘Really?’ I beamed. ‘Yeah.’ My coach was there too, working on his usual routine. He said, “To be successful you have to be ready to endure pain.” I haven’t forgotten those words since.
The other story is I have been healing an injured rotator cuff or a very tight knot around my right neck and shoulder area. It’s been rather painful, that I can barely do a chaturanga dandasana (four-limbed staff pose). While I heal, I do a modified chaturanga dandasana. Here I am, a yoga teacher, and I’ve suffered an injury. I hope I’m not teaching anyone the wrong way. I’ve always always been mindful of making sure my shoulders are aligned with my arms, wrists and hands. It could be a combination of repetitive motion injury and arthritis plus my new pull-ups program.
But I recognized there’s something deeper going on here, so I stopped looking externally as to why I’ve suffered this set back. I decided to investigate inwardly. What is it in my life that’s really bothering me and that I’m avoiding or running away from? I decided to revisit writing on a daily basis again to help draw out this invisible elephant in the room. I went back to my roots of spending more time alone which I need on regular basis, because it’s always been my nature. Also, I have had to start being honest with myself and recognize to put myself first.
I was very spoiled when I lived next to a national park that bordered my home in Vancouver, Canada. I would spend hours in the trails of the forest with my dog running, hiking, jumping and being alone but not lonely in nature. I was one with the sounds of the forest – the rushing waters of the creek, the call of the birds, the soft wind through the needles of pine trees and leaves of deciduous trees.
That was my meditation.
Now, it’s 20 minutes if I can steal it from the heavy schedule of a regular job, and the pets (chickens and dogs), cleaning, cooking, shopping and teaching yoga. I got lost in all that and lost a vital part of me – just spending time with myself doing the things I enjoy without the pressure of the walls of time closing in. Isn’t it funny how we perceive time. It could be infinite or finite, depending on our state of mind.
I really meandered on this blog.
But it all ties in with the words of intention, time and tapas. To get to the next level of where I imagine my life to be then I have to be in tune with myself – aligned. I need to continually evaluate when I’m not tracking to my intention and put in the sweat, effort and time to re-align and stay in-tuned to my inner voice – that calling that cannot be silenced until there is no more.
It’s easy to get thrown off my path and I have to guard my time wisely because I haven’t got a lot of it measured in human years. I want to be generous with others, but I also need to be mindful to be more generous to myself. This is my authentic self when I’m taking care of myself.
WHERE: The Broadwater (Black Box) 6322 Santa Monica Blvd.
WHY: This story, beautifully crafted and performed by Almanya Narula, brings to light the story of an extraordinary woman. Meet Noor Inyat Khan, an Indian princess, Sufi royalty – and a spy who played an important (and until now) unrecognized role in the defeat of Nazi Germany. The show paints an incredibly vivid picture of a piece of history never told. The story is captivating and it offers such a powerful point of view of the Nazi occupation through a lunique lens that just makes you want to know more not only about Noor, but also, about the world from which she came.
WHY: Because you’ll see a young artist use her voice and body to heal a pain you can’t name at first. Because when Charlotte morphs into her mother, in voice and posture, the familiarity nearly broke my heart. Because I understood the anger, the grief and the empathy involved in accepting a once-healthy mother’s new physical reality. Because Charlotte reminded us that the loss of a loved one will touch us all and how we respond to that loss matters – community matters. Because when Charlotte begins to sing, a light shines from her whole being and we see her, we hear her, we are her.
In a time where all seems woeful, it felt good to bear witness to another human’s story of resilience – right here in your own neighborhood there is someone always finding ways to live a full life. May director Debra De Liso’s Theatre of Compassion continue to bring forth original projects from the voices of those who are not always heard.
