by Leelee Jackson

Before mandated self quarantine, I was already a homebody, which can be alarming to most people because I come off very charismatic and social. I ask questions in panel discussions and volunteer for my work to be read first in workshops. I dance hard at nightclubs and sing loud at musicals. I take my food back when it’s not what I ordered and ask to speak to a manager when I’m not being treated well. After all, I am an Aries ram. A wall is nothing but a challenge, an obstacle I will run though headfirst (often with very little consideration). Energy is in me. And yet, that does not make me an extravert. I’m a hard core introvert. As I’ve gotten older, I realized that I prefer to preserve my energy alone. I went from throwing big gatherings (for no reason at all) to inviting two or three friends over to watch The Office and talk about books we’re reading. During undergrad and grad school, I’d be fully engaged in the lecture, only to rush home immediately after class to watch The Office. After wedding ceremonies, I leave right after the cake is cut, pretending as if I had some big project to complete but really, I’m just rushing home to watch The Office. I need time with great tv and solitude.

However, that is all I have been doing for the past five weeks. I want to see a play. I want to produce a play. I want to go on a hike and meditate on a rock bigger than my apartment with my good friend Alicia. I want to go dancing with my housemates and go out eating with my friends. Go on a date to a museum or the movies. But I can’t do those things no more. No one can. It wasn’t until week 4 that felt it – the longing for social inclusion. At first, I didn’t understand what I was feeling to be honest. I thought I missed someone or a sweetness I haven’t tasted in a while. But even the taste of nectar couldn’t satisfy this lull. I wanted all the things I could not have and did not cherish when I had them. Was the last time I had them even memorable? I don’t know.

In yin yoga, Alica (aforementioned friend and yoga instructor) has us do this thing sometimes where we work our bodies for a while. No big movements but subtle moves in our cobra or cat/cows that we hold a few minutes longer than the other poses, long enough for our bodies to feel it and sometimes even work up a lil sweat. However the sweat is not the goal but what happens after. When I work my body to the point where she feels as if she cannot move any further, when there is no other option for her but to fall, give up, it is then when Alicia says my favorite release, “Now you can go ahead and settle into savasana.” This is the part when we lie on our yoga mats for deep restoration. “Allow your body to take up space.” And I do. I spread my arms and legs off the mat as if my limbs were actually wings. I lie there on the hardwood floor, grounded with the earth who offers solace and refuge.

I decided I’d go for a walk the other day. I didn’t feel like it, but I didn’t want to do anything and that feeling made me nervous. I didn’t want to lie in bed or watch tv or write or dance in my room. So I decided I’d do the thing I wanted to do the least, which that day was walking. I put on my face mask only enough to cover my mouth, so the moment I stepped out of my apartment and was slapped in the face with a smell so sweet, I could have gotten a sugar rush had it lingered even a second longer. But it sped by me so fast as if the sweet smell was also excited to be out of the house, too. It was familiar but I couldn’t even remember what kind of sweet it was. Vanilla? Citrus? Cinnamon? What was that smell and where the hell was it going? I continued, wondering what else I’d get to experience. This is a technique my therapist has been getting me to do lately. Acknowledging my senses and surroundings in order to stay grounded in the present. I walked south which is the path that is less than desirable. Hills to and fro. Unlike walking north, which is flat. Or east which is only a hill walking there, but walking home, I have to stop my body from being pushed by gravity to run home. My favorite path is walking west. It’s challenging enough with the hills and merciful with flat pavement at the exact right moments. But my senses led me south, where I spotted the prettiest white lily hiding in a bush. I took in her smell and was greeted with a kiss right on my nose. Prior to the introduction we had only seen each other in passing, not acquaintances or even strangers, yet now we’re friends. The sun was going down and I wanted to go home before cops started looking for trouble. But water called me. It was such a tease considering the fence that separates us but still, I gave the little creek my attention until the sun left us both.

What did it feel like now? Looking down on that pond and feeling the sun disappear, setting west down my skin? To now have to lean on the universe more than ever before, beckoning for energy I couldn’t muster on my own? The sun, the water, the smells and bugs I once swatted away, all still there with total integrity and the best of intentions all met me with grace and released me with energy when I needed it most: savasana.

by Analyn Revilla

There are three principles in the practice of yoga that can apply to a writing practice.  These principles originate from the second chapter of the “bible” for yogis, called “The Yoga Sutras” by Patanjali.  It is an ancient collection of “sutras” (known as “threads” in Sanskrit) compiled into a book by the guru Patanjali around 200 C.E.

“Union in Action” is daily life lived in a clear and conscious way. – The Yoga Sutras.

As a sporadic writer, still aspiring to do something more ambitious than what I’ve been doing with my writing, I recognize that perhaps how I conduct my yoga practice could be useful to my writing life.  Having spent a lot of time reading books on creativity and writing; immersing in artistic milieus:  writing classes, acting classes, participating in LAFPI, attending plays… I continue to experiment and looks for ways to turn it around.

In my last blog,“Why Write?”, the fire within was ignited.  Do not quit.  I actually had stopped writing for about a two year plus period, because it was too painful, and too much heavy lifting to move my hands across the page, and draw sludge out of my veins, and what came forth was painful and ugly, and maybe even toxic.  Perhaps I shouldn’t have stopped, because all those things I deemed “ugly” and “untouchable” were all parts of me I was denying. 

In the past, yoga has been a practice that has sustained me through times of hardships. When my husband died so suddenly, some people gave me journals and encouraged me to write.  I did for awhile, and I even started the entries as Day 14, Day 15 and so on.  There were days when I couldn’t write, but I kept track of the days… Day 218.  So I would say that writing has also been a companion that helped me through troubled times.

So, why not combine the two?  The elements of the the triage can elevate my writing life and sustain it so that I can be more consistent and revive the spirit of joy in my writing.  The triangle is known as the strongest structure in engineering and architectural structures.  So the same goes for the triage of the three elements listed below.  All three are required to have “Union in Action” for writing:

1. Willful Practice or Refinement – Tapas
2. Self-Study or Reflection – Svandhyaya
3. Release and Surrender – Ishvara-Panidhara

(The italicized words are Sanskrit.)

Tapas translate to heat, and burning the impurities of the body and the mind and it leads to the refinement of the body, the mind and the spirit.  I show up at the mat on a regular basis in both my own practice and when I teach.  As a writer it’s required to show up in the writing space with the intent to write without false distractions (hunger, internet browsing, making and receiving phone calls, texting, walking the dog). 

Tapas in a practice generates heat in the body as the muscles, tendons, joints and bone move into a pose (asana) with mindful awareness.  From initiating the movement to holding the pose, the yogi expands his consciousness inward and outward.  Self-study of the micro-movements of the body and the micro-movements of the mind and the breath.  Svandhyaya in writing is conscious awareness of the process.  If hunger arises then examine if the is the hunger real or an excuse to step away from the writing.  In expression of the truth, are the thoughts expressed with the right intention? Is the truth being circumnavigated? Maybe the writer is not yet ready to juice the truth?  

Listen to your body in both practices.  On the mat, to be safe and to transform to higher states, the yogi listens to the body.  Is it tired? Is the yogi ready to scale up to more difficult asanas or to hold the pose longer with more edge?  As in writing, listen to the body. Is it fatigued? Is it tensed when writing something that releases trauma in the tissue.  In yoga therapy the belief is “your biography is your biology”, so it the same in writing.  It is a cathartic process that moves energy of a stored memory in the tissue to the outer sheaths beyond the muscles and skin.  

Finally, with Ishvara-Panidhara, there is release and surrender. Upon initiating the movement into an asana using proper breathing of knowing when to inhale and exhale, while conscious of the spine alignment, the yogi listens to the feedback from all parts of herself.  Where is the resistance?  Where is the flow?  How to adjust?  Is this the edge?  Allow and accept the edges (physical, emotional and mental) to be.  Do not allow the ego to dictate the practice.  Release expectations that push beyond unhealthy edges.  So it is the same in writing.  When forcing a release, sometimes there are means to help take off the edge.  It takes courage to look at a blank page and then dive off the cliff.  A little something can help give courage, but that some thing (be it alcohol, drugs, or eating sweets) can become addictive and unhealthy.  As I described earlier I stopped writing for awhile.  I just needed to be still.  

How can any writing happen in being still?  There are incubation periods and healing periods.  When an athlete or a dancer is hurt part of the recommended physical therapy is rest to allow the injury to heal.  So it is in writing, allow the heart to heal.  To prescribe “stop writing” is not for everyone, but for me it was better to stop for a little while.

I once asked a writing mentor if a writing life means writing all the time.  He had just finished describing a scenario that while waiting at an intersection for the light to turn green, he observed the driver of the car in front of him and it triggered an idea for a piece to write.  So he said that he is always writing though not physically putting words on a page.  The writing life is a way of being.  I recognize the surrender to a writing life of accepting where I am at – at an intersection of my writing life where the light is green and there are road signs saying “Caution”, “Road Under Construction”.  Surrender to what is in the now.  Trust that I am at the right place at the right time.  Let go of the results.  I cannot force a blossom to bloom beautifully when the mini-me gets in the way.  

by Analyn Revilla

I am stretching for a story to share with you to relieve my stress over writing.  Here are a few things I’ve read in the past weeks related to writing.

“Writing is easy.  You just sit and stare at the blank page until the drops of blood form on your brow.”  – This is a sign on the desk of the wife of another writer Philip Zaleski (“The Best American Spiritual Writing” – 2007). His analogy was writing is like praying, a kind of spiritual discipline.  “A spiritual discipline is something you engage in on a regular basis, whether you feel like or not.”

Like others, I’ve struggled with the question “Why write?”.  It’s not something that haunts me.  Although, when I look at the heaps of journals in boxes that I’ve hauled around with me from place to place during the past 40 years, then there’s gotta be something there that draws me to write.  So I look to other writers who write successfully (whatever that means) and those that do it for practice (spiritual or otherwise).

Among the first names that come to mind is Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.  The process of creating “The Gulag Archipelago”, moved me to ask what was his compulsion to write the manuscript.  

He wrote the three volumes of non-fiction about the forced labor camp system in secrecy, while under the surveillance of the KGB.  Then, following that, if the Soviet government caught anyone with the possession of the manuscript then it would mean imprisonment for ‘anti-Soviet’ activities.  The process of getting the work published was an enormous feat, and unfortunately resulted in the death of Elizaveta Voronyanskaya, an assistant to the writer.  She was captured and tortured by the KGB to reveal the whereabouts of a copy of the typed manuscript.  Shortly after her release, she was reported to have hung herself in her apartment. 

“It is the artist who realizes that there is a supreme force above him and works gladly away as a small apprentice under God’s heaven.” – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

Not sure if the “gladly” was in his mind during the creative process of “Gulag Archipelago”, but there is a joy in fulfilling one’s purpose and he was clearly aware of his purpose.

Margaret Mitchell said in an interview after writing the novel “Gone With the Wind”: “If the novel has a theme, it is that of survival.  What makes some people able to come through catastrophes and others apparently just as able, strong, and brave go under?  It happens in every upheaval.  Some people survive; others don’t.  What qualities are those who fight their way through?  I only know that the survivors used to call that quality ‘gumption.’”

This quote inspired me, because of Nebiy Mekonnen (Ethiopian poet, journalist, playwright and translator).  His story was among the collection of writings in the book “The Best American Spiritual Writing”.  Nebiy was the subject of the essay “Tomorrow is Another Day” authored by Carol Huang.  It describes Nebiy’s experience as a prisoner during the Derg Regime’s Red Terror.  During his eight year term, Nebiy translated the novel “Gone With the Wind” from English to Amharic.  The novel was the sole book available in the prison.  Nebiy and his cellmates shared the book by circulating the book whereby one cell mate had the book for an hour each day before passing it on to the next person in the rotation.  

By Nebiy’s fourth rotation of the book, he started translating it from English to Amharic using the lining torn from empty packs of cigarettes (and he wasn’t even a smoker).  His goal of translating the novel to the native language of his people garnered support from the other prisoners.  Some sacrificed their hour of reading for Nebiy, so that his work could progress faster.  Meanwhile the smokers passed their emptied cigarette packs to his cell so that he could scribble the translations on salvaged paper including “puzzling over phrases such as ‘fiddle-dee-dee’.”  Beyond this laborious process the translated pieces of paper had to be smuggled out of jail.  The bits of paper were folded and repacked into empty packs of cigarettes that were resealed.  The packets were casually transported out of the jail building in the shirt pockets of men released from jail.

“Whether you have black history or a white history, history is history,” he said.  “You have to look for the outcome, which was the America that emerged.  The present wouldn’t have been had the Civil War not been.  That was the basic thing.  I really prayed that the country (Ethiopia) would reach that level.  And really, if you were in prison and read that book and saw the end of it, where of destruction reconstruction come, where out of war comes peace – that is the utmost you can dream of.” – Nebiy Mekonnen from the essay “Tomorrow is Another Day”

“Why write?”, indeed in the face of the enormity of what these three writers have accomplished.  It is humbling to imagine what they’ve done, but at the same time, they humbled themselves to the creative force working through them.  

Staring at a blank page feels like moving a mountain.  I think about it, and see that the mountain is really my ego.  It’s the ego that whispers and sometimes shouts, mouthing the words “You’re not good enough”.  But, there are days when something inside me, the bigger “I” surmounts the little “i”, and then… and then some beads of blood form over my brow.

Writing contains a common thread that binds us together. It is one word strung together to another word and so on and so on, and then a thought is formulated and that thought triggers an emotion. The emotion moves something within, and that something is inside all of us. And that’s what makes us human; and being conscious of this is what makes it sublimely divine. We are divinity, and we’re always aspiring to our higher selves. So this is why I write.

by Analyn Revilla

Coming back from a brief and fast walk with my dog, my cheeks are burning from the nip of the cold rain.  I love the contrasts of sensations.  Each step, I recount the moments of stepping on slippery rocks and roots along the trail by Lynn Creek in North Vancouver. My dog, sniffing the carpet of dripping moss under a Cypress tree lingers, and lingers.  And now my mind lingers too.  My heart is heavy, my steps are light.  I accept, finally, that I can never go back home.

The home I had was a memory that lived in my heart.  And I recognize that if I continue to yearn and ache for the past then I will continue to bear the weight of loss and longing.  So how do I cure myself of this malaise?

Many of us are self-isolating in our homes waiting for this tide of pandemic to pass.  It is April 7th, 2020, and in a few days Easter will be celebrated quite differently from previous times; and also the beginning of Passover will be a new experience.  These religious milestones are periods of deep reflection and reverence for events that uplifted the mentality and the hearts of people living the Christian and Jewish traditions.  The rituals of these “Holy Days” conflate the past, present and the future.  The past is the remembrance, the present is the practice, and the future is the hope.

And there seems to be an answer to what I just thought and put down on this page.  The past is the remembrance, the present is the practice, and the future is the hope.  

The practice can be anything.  It could be walking, writing, or anything done with mindfulness.  Today, I am remembering to be present to what’s happening now.  It can seem so overwhelming to consider the “what if’s” of the future not yet here.  There are so many permutations that can come out of this present moment.  And the wisdom I’ve read and sometimes remember to do is to be aware of my intention of the moment.  My intention(s) will produce the outcome just like a simple or compound math equation that has two parts on either side of the equal sign. 

So I practice awareness of the feelings and the thoughts that come in flurry, like the raindrops slashing across my eyes, cheeks, nose and lips.  My warm breath condensing to the temperature drop beyond, and I pause to weep for a moment only, then walk on, calm, assured that hope is just beyond the next step, the next breath.

Easier said than practiced, but this is what practice is all about. It is showing up to the page, to the mat, to my feet on the ground, to the listening with an open heart. An open heart that accepts all foibles and doubts without judgment. Once in awhile, I can easily open up the trinket box of memories and wish for things to be what they once were. The scent of a perfume or the colors of a bloom, a snippet of a conversation, a dream – all these can pull me back, but I mustn’t linger lest I lose track of the moment now.

The way of life as I knew it before the lockdowns, a domino effect in towns and cities across the world, will never be the same. Neither you nor I can go back to that way anymore. It’s odd to “feel dirty” after grocery shopping, as I dispose of masks and gloves and anything that might be contaminated into the garbage and the washing machine. Grocery shopping of the past was a treat, filling the basket with favorite things and believing these things will always be there.

So savor the moments, the flavors, the scents, the observations, because it’ll be over soon enough.

Home is where my heart is, to be present and to be aware of the gift of this time.

by Constance Strickland

“Theatre has a role, a noble role, in energizing and mobilizing humanity to lift itself from its descent into the abyss. It can uplift the stage, the performance space, into something sacred. In South Asia, the artist’s touch with reverence the floor of the stage before stepping onto it, an ancient tradition when the spiritual and the cultural were intertwined. It is time to regain that symbiotic relationship between the artist and the audience, the past and the future.”

~Shahid Nadeem in honor of Madeeha Gauhar

After weeks inside the house, the days started to blend together and I found myself replaying how I got to the work. Why do I do the work? What is the weight of the work while the world is on pause?  Although presenting to an audience is usually the goal, the work is still very much alive even with no clear date of when theatres and performance venues can reopen. I feel is the very reason the theatre lives even more now with a newfound worth. 

I imagine a new American Theatre with a wide vision that embraces new ways of merging the talent that lives within a city. How do we present work to an audience and who gets to be in the positions that uplift new voices? It seems there is no better time than now to answer these questions of how we can collectively merge the independent theatre artist, freelance theatre artists, and union and nonunion theatre artists. What barriers need to be pushed aside so that we can all come together to give voice to the times in which we exist? 

Michael, an old friend from High School times, asked me the other day how I was doing during this time of quarantine. The first real question, where I knew my answer mattered to the person, and so I took my time in thought before I responded to him, now it has become my mantra:

“I’m adjusting. I’m luckier than most and that feels bad inside – I cried a bit for so many communities and I just hope this was the best way.

The rest I feel is relief in a way – that residency feeling, that opportunity that many of us never get as artists to focus on the work, where one can do the work wholeheartedly, absorb stillness and manifest old and new ideas. Yet I know that comes from a place of privilege and that hurts and frees me.

Yet, I feel much will grow from this – nature and humans and so I’m positive + excited and a wee bit scared for what’s to come but I know doing the work has always been the guiding light.”

Shadid Nadeem’s World Theatre Day speech filled me energy for I knew what he said to be true. For I, too, honor the space in which I will perform, channeling those who walked the space before, my ancestors and to give thanks to all who enter it. Theatre is sacred. Theatre is a ritual. Theatre is healing. It is why we must continue to fight for an eclectic variety of voices leading the way to the Great White Way, for they exist in the smallest of theatre houses, community theatre houses or that hole in the wall theatre space that is constantly doing great work but has no large audiences; these theatres exist in cities all throughout the U.S. There is no better time than now to see how to widen the scope, expand the reach and not lose a generation of artists to a lack of support and opportunities. The future of American Theatre depends upon a new way of seeing.  As we know, not everyone will be taken into the future. There will be some artists who will be a part of the history of theatre and many others will be forgotten. What can we do in the present to ensure as many voices as possible are heard and remembered?

COVID-19 Relief Grants:

Foundation for Contemporary Arts

https://www.foundationforcontemporaryarts.org/grants/emergency-grants

Department of Cultural Affairs 

https://jotform.com/200828047780154

by Laura Annawyn Shamas

Staying in and need something to read? Want to keep pushing gender parity in theater while theaters are closed? Please participate in #52playsbywomen. It was started on Twitter in 2016, inspired by Women in Film’s #52filmsbywomen.  Since then, over 2,000 plays by women (defined as woman, womxn, woman+) playwrights have been discussed at the hashtag on Twitter. (Note: this is for Twitter only – not on FB or IG.)

Last year, 524 women playwrights were mentioned, and 668 female-authored plays were listed at the hashtag. In 2020, the initiative is facilitated by Vivian Brown (@ve_brown) through June; Dr. Jennifer Goff (@ProfGoff) will take over from July through December. We’re trying to highlight even MORE plays by women this year. And there are two new facilitators already signed on for 2021.

The rules for #52playsbywomen initiative are easy! Basically, it’s just see/hear/read a play (of any length) written by a woman once a week, and post a tweet with a title and playwright’s name. Repeat for a year. But, in truth, you can post as frequently or infrequently as you’d like; if you have a slow week for posting, you can catch back up the week after, etc. You can start at any time, any date. Some participants use their tweets to display a photo of a playbill or book cover; others use the space to write a mini-blogpost. The idea is that if you go to #52playsbywomen, you can learn about lots of plays. This contributes to social media buzz about plays by women.

So where can we find plays online to read during this time of social distancing? There are some good sources for classical plays by women in the public domain. For contemporary plays, there’s always the New Play Exchange! The Los Angeles Public Library has an accessible e-collection. Here are some suggestions to get started:

1) History Matters/Back to the Future Play Library

2) Visit The Gutenberg Project to find numerous historical plays by Aphra Behn, Susanna Centlivre, Mercy Otis Warren, Lady Augusta Gregory, Fanny Burney, and many more.

3) Miss Lulu Bett by Zona Gale (the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama)

4) Trifles by Susan Glaspell

5)  A Sunday Morning in the South by Georgia Douglas Johnson

6) Blackout by Lawenda Jones

7) Rutherford and Son by Githa Sowerby

8) Recent plays by women may be found on Audible, too.

And of course, if you see any online readings or performances that are female-authored, those count for the #52playsbywomen initiative!

See you at the hashtag! Find us on Twitter @52playsbywomen.