Do a search on the internet with the words “yoga and creativity writing” and a plethora of websites for “writing & yoga retreats” will cascade down the page. I’ve written in a past blog of how yoga has helped me through chaotic times in my life. I teach yoga to young children (ages 2 to 5), seniors and at a Pilates studio or anybody else who’ll listen to me expound the benefits of the practice. Now, I want to teach it to fellow writers because of the parallel universes of writing and yoga.
Yoga is an exploration to our inner territory using our mind, our breath, our awareness and our body as it moves together into a pose (or ‘asana’ in Sanskrit). It’s the same journey with writing. My first writing teacher in Vancouver warned her students to be careful with their bodies as they write, because the energy of the thoughts and words is cathartic and moves along the tissues of our bodies and breathes out through the pores of the skin. Writing moves the molecules of our breath, whether its held and waiting for release or the replenishing cycle of intake, then over and over again, till we say it is done. In another writing workshop here in LA, I shared with my group that I always felt lethargic when trying to get some tracks down on the paper. Some writers understood what I was experiencing. The teacher said that the process is natural, because we were working through some sludge, and it’s not unusual to sleep a lot working through the heavy lifting of writing about it. It does take courage to write some things; and beyond that it takes endurance to get through it. I’m still working on both.
Courage and endurance is part of regular yoga practice. It’s not always easy to show up on the mat (or be in that quiet space) where you decide to work it out. Some days you try out a new pose that looks gorgeous, but when you imagine and assemble the different parts of your body to fit the pose, it’s a wobbly faulty towers. It’s the same with writing too. There are some things I want to say but the assembled words are not expressing the essence, so I let it go. Perhaps try again another time. Or I may decide after further attempts that I’m not yet ready. It’s the same with yoga. Sometimes I have to let go and admit that an asana is not for me, not yet anyway. “Adho Mukha Vrksasana” (translates to Downward-Facing Tree Pose or Handstand) is a mouthful for me, and I’m not ready to try it, because, because… fear. I’m afraid that I don’t have that upper body strength, I don’t have the technique, or that it’s not worth the effort today. Maybe someday I’ll get around to it. Yoga is not about the body fitting into the asana, rather it’s the asana fitting the body. Yoga and writing is about expression and the honesty of the expression.
I like how the yoga teacher, Sarah, tells her story about the Handstand: “that this is the scariest pose for me”, and that “for many years I just avoided it”, and that “now a days I just try a little bit every day”, and that “to be okay with where I’m at”, and finally, “to learn compassion for yourself”.
Were I to introduce yoga to writers I would start with chest opening and hip opening asanas. If you’ve heard of the expression ‘issues in your tissues’ or ‘biography is your biology’ then I’d start with these parts of our anatomy because we carry our grief, joy and stresses in these areas. I am inviting you to join me in a yoga and writing practice. Are you interested to try this? I’m game if you are.
It was a visit from the SPCA that prompted the owner to remove Stuart from the junkyard. The officer had asked the man living next to the place if he knew the owner. “Soul” (aka Michael) told the officer he didn’t have the guy’s information, but he did know that the dog is neglected. It was only through the constant care of neighbors that kept the dog fed and watered. Those who were aware of the situation couldn’t fathom why the dog was “guarding” a junkyard littered with old dump trucks, pickups, and broken concrete and 2 by 4s with exposed rusty nails. The dog, Stuart, slept under the belly of a dump truck.
When I first noticed Stuart it was he who made eye contact with me. His expressive brown eyes looked into mine when I walked by casually with my two dogs, Goliath and Molly (a mix breed of Rottweiler & German Shepherd and a purebred Cocker Spaniel). Stuart didn’t pounce and bark at us. He sat on a mound under the trees, about 10 yards from the chain wire fence that would eventually become the only means we could touch one another. A few more times after that first meeting, I came around to observe what the deal was. I talked to Soul and the old man who owned the house next to the junkyard. The owner comes once in a while to feed the dog, and only slips the food under the solid metal fence. He never takes the dog out for a walk. The first time I approached the owner I broached the idea of adopting Stuart. “He’s lonely” I told him. “Yeah, but I need him,” he countered. It was beyond arguing with a man who needed a dog to guard scrap metal. There’s a mental illness that can’t be reasoned with when someone has a need to sacrifice the life of a living creature to protect material objects that are no longer in use.
After I overcame the initial fear of slipping my hands under the metal gate to check on the food and water, I was horrified and disgusted to find the water bowl filled with slimy water and dotted with furry blackish mold. I took it home, scrubbed it clean with bleach and brought it back to the yard refreshed with clean water. When Stuart recognized I was a friend he let me touch him through the eyelets of the fence. I became a habitual visitor bringing food, water and giving him cheese at night as a ritual of putting him to bed. I came so often (2 – 3X during the day on my way to and from work and once again at night) that people living nearby started to ask if I was the owner. On other occasions people would stop in their car and said “you’re doing a good thing.” They were aware and grieved by Stuart’s solitary confinement. In the mornings he would sit by the fence and watch the traffic go by. At sundown he would do the same thing as though appreciating the beauty of the changing lights. At nights I would rouse him from sleep to give him cheese like the chocolate placed on the pillow in the nice hotels when they turn down the bed. I waited for him to crawl out from under the dump truck, worried that if there was an earthquake he would be crushed. He accepted the cheese then wandered back to being sandwiched between the cold earth and the belly of the dump truck.
One day, Soul came to ask me, “Do you want the dog?”. I said yes. He would do it for a fee. I said I’ve already offered $500 to the owner to take the dog from his hands, but he won’t have it. So Soul said he would steal the dog for me if I gave him $600. I didn’t want anyone to break the law. The dog is a personal property. As much as I wanted to free Stuart from his miserable incarceration I couldn’t face up to the consequences of something like that. I emailed Peta (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) about the situation complete with pictures. They replied that the South LA Animal Services is a “tricky” jurisdiction. I surmised that when the Stuart’s owner told me he knew some folks at the Animal Services that they condone the situation. So my next step was to contact the German Shepherd Rescue Society. They were more helpful than Peta. They advised me to report the situation to Animal Services while they also came around to check out the situation. Upon seeing Stuart’s living condition they filed their own complaint to Animal Services.
I was so absorbed by this situation that I talked to anyone and everyone about Stuart. My dental hygienist also called Animal Services and she had the right intuition to call SPCA (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals). Eventually, Animal Services and the SPCA did their own separate investigations and reached out to the owner to fix the problem. They posted letters on the metal fence and buggered the people living next door to the yard to get the owner’s contact information. I started to feel good about the possibility that Stuart would be relieved from having to endure the jail yard. I continued to nurture him with food, water and affection. I was really loving this dog, because he was such a beautiful spirit.
One Saturday morning I had to get up at 4 o’clock to drive my husband to work. On my way back home I had stopped by the yard to say hi to Stuart. It must’ve been around 5 in the summer. The sun was already rising and Stuart was up and sitting by the fence. He looked regal and guru-like as though a Bodhisattva communing with the gods in meditation. When I came to the fence he walked up and rolled on his side, belly exposed. I stroked him and we sat together in silence, comforted by the companionship and friendship. I said I’d be back later. I went home to sleep. I dreamt about Stuart. He and I were frolicking down a hillside of a meadow in a starburst sun. I woke up happy and looked forward to giving him his food and water. I had been experimenting with the law of attraction, and divined that if I imagined it hard enough then I can manifest what I want. I wanted Stuart to be part of my family and to be free. When I returned to the yard, he didn’t come around to eat. He was gone. I worried that he might be hurt somewhere in the yard, and I couldn’t see him or get to him. I searched around and asked people if they knew what happened to Stuart.
It’s been almost 3 months since Stuart disappeared from the junkyard in late August. I called Animal Services and SPCA and was baffled by their response. Both groups said once the dog has been removed from the place then they do not follow up on his condition. I felt I knew what it must be like for a parent to have a missing child, not knowing their offsprings whereabouts or condition. The child has gone missing. Missing is a deep longing for reuniting. I’ve since tried to reconcile myself with living without knowing what happened. I still call Animal Services to find out what’s happened, but they’ve turned a deaf ear to my inquiries because they’re too busy with other cases. I wonder how many missing cases they’ve accumulated. The SPCA officer has also closed the case. Call back, I’m told, if I see the dog turn up at the junkyard again.
At dinner last night, my husband said, ‘how lucky we are to have so much food.’ I asked where his comment came from, because we were talking about something different. ‘It’s all related,’ he said. He observed that I had refilled my wineglass; we were talking about the probability that this might be the last Thanksgiving for two of our friends, because of cancer; we remembered that it was at our home where another friend had celebrated their last Thanksgiving before dying from a heart attack. ‘Don’t tell anyone that,’ he teased ‘or nobody will come.’ All joking aside he recognized that we were blessed with the company of friends, family and we can gather and celebrate with plentiful of good food and spirits. He said, ‘just be aware.’
‘Awareness’ seems to be popping up in books I’ve been reading, conversations I’ve engaged in and in practicing something religiously like yoga and meditation. In metaphysical writings by Eckhart Tolle, Deepak Chopra and BKS Iyengar they describe awareness as the true self. It’s always there, but it is overshadowed by the eye of the ego, the one we identify with as “I am” this or that.
When I’m writing I’ve started to sift through the impulse of the words. Is it my ego expressing itself, or is it my consciousness (awareness) that’s speaking? I’ve been struggling with my identity since I quit my long-time career in a corporation. I wonder if I’m reconnecting to my truth or if I’m reassembling what I am. I’ve experimented with burning my ‘stream of consciousness’ writing based on the advice of John Rogers (of “Spiritual Warrior”). His idea is that ‘free-form writing (with a pen and paper) is a kinesthetic activity: The neural impulses from the fingers are sent back to the brain so that writing actually releases and records the patterns of the unconscious… called ‘beach balls’, those things we have suppressed for a long long time and have expended energy to keep under the surface.” Following the free-form writing then “do not read it over. Rip up what you have written and burn it”. He recommends not to read over and look for the beautiful writing bits, because the energy and negativity released onto the paper can return to you if you reread it.
I tried this exercise of free-form writing and burning it up, and it wasn’t easy to do the second part. I’ve been journaling since I was a teenager, and I’ve hauled my collection of notepads and diaries in different shapes and sizes wherever I’ve camped. I thought about Anais Nin’s diaries and wondered if she had ever considered or experimented with burning her writing. When I’m doing stream of consciousness writing it’s a lot of crap that comes out. Often, I’ve come to accept, that I write to normalize my mind, body and spirit. It’s all these parts of me that are competing for self-expression without fear of judgement. Writing is an exploration and not necessarily the truth of what is. It’s a process of seeking out the truth.
I remember two occasions when someone invaded my privacy by reading my journals on two separate occasions. The first was when I was breaking up with my first husband. He tore the red hard-covered journal from my hands and looked for ‘evidence’. The evidence being my thoughts. The other occasion of invasion of my privacy was when I asked a friend to clean up the hard drive of my Sony Vaio and he came upon some stream of consciousness writing. When I came back from Japan my ‘friend’ was cool and distant towards me. It was much later in the relationship he divulged reading my writing. I tried to explain to him that it was just stream of consciousness stuff – things I’m working out.
Anyways, I’m still on the bench as to the validity of ‘truth’ in free-form (‘stream of consciousness’) writing. It’s a dance between my ego and my awareness. It’s all of me that is coming together to confer what is the truth. This truth can shift based on the parameters at hand. It’s very much aligned to the principles of the physics of quantum mechanics and relativity. There is truth in both sides of the argument. The shift of which is truer than the other is the degree of awareness. I can be convinced that your argument against mine is allowable based on how illumined my mind is to your perspective. And this can happen on your side of the camp where your awareness shifts and you can say ‘you’ve got a point’.
I’ll tie this all up with a link to a Youtube video of a song written by Burt Bacharach & Hal David. By the way, I was so lucky to have the opportunity to watch Burt Bacharach perform his music live at UCLA last summer. The guy is a legend whose music spans 6 decades and he’s still writing cool tunes. The song “Be Aware” was written to be sung by Barbara Streisand, but I like Dionne Warwick’s version better. Here it is: “Be Aware” written by Burt Bacharach & Hal David; sung by Dionne Warwick
“Be Aware”
When the sun is warm where you are
And it’s comfortable and safe where you are
Well it’s not exactly that way
All over
And
Somewhere in the world
Someone is cold, be aware.
And while you’re feeling young
Someone is old, be aware.
And while your stomach is full
Somewhere in this world
Someone is hungry
when there is so much
should anyone be hungry?
When there’s laughter all around me
and my family embraces surround me
If I seem to be forgetful
Remind me
That
Somewhere in the world
People are weak, be aware.
And while you speak your mind
Others can’t speak, be aware.
And while your children sleep
Somewhere in this world
The child is homeless
When we have so much
Should any child be homeless?
Homeless?
The best temperature to heat milk to is 140 degrees Fahrenheit. It’s the optimal temperature for ‘milking’ the flavor out of the moo juice, because it’s when the sugar (lactose) has been broken down to the simple sugars of sucrose & glucose. To go higher in temperature breaks down the sugar further to its less than sweetest point. Milk also has fat and protein. The temperature rising breaks down the chains of protein molecules which can either blend with the melted fat or go out into the air to escape the water. Have you noticed the rim of bubbles as the milk goes up in temperature – and if you happened to turn away during the critical moment – the whole thing inflates like a hyperbole’d soufflé.
So it was at 2 this morning when I decided to make hot chocolate after the dog woke me up with its pacing to let me know it needs to go out. I’ve been an addict of hot cocoa lately. It’s just a phase (I think) with the weather being cold and the season getting festive. I was contemplating adding a splash of Cointreau into my cocoa. Then my mind wandered about the transformative property of heat as I waited for the magic. I whipped the milk with the chocolate, played with the temperature knob impatient to have my cocoa.
My writing can be impatient too. I want magic without the work of blood and guts. In writing the journey is about the transformation. I write because I’m curious about something. In my exploration I can transform my perspective. In story telling the journey is a transformative experience for both the writer and the audience with the vehicle of change being the plot, the characters and the process. In cooking it’s also the cast of the ingredients and the process of applying the heat that transforms everything into a magical melange.
Heat isn’t just a physical property. There’s heat when there’s interaction between the two sexes. There’s heat when there’s a debate between opposing camps. Heat transforms life. Without the light and warmth of the sun there wouldn’t be life on the third rock from the sun. Another concept of heat is used in yoga. “Tapas” (not the delightful Spanish word for appetizer or snack) is a Sanskrit word meaning “to burn”, originating from “tap”. There are yogic breathing exercises that uses bodily locks (akin to lifting the pelvic floor like Kegel exercises) to burn impurities in the body. Tapas is a philosophy dictated in the yoga bible, Patanjali’s “Yoga Sutras”. It is through tapas – the fiery discipline, passion and courage – that impurities can be burned off physically, mentally and emotionally to regenerate life like nature’s wisdom of forest fires to recycle and give new life to the earth.
“A worthy aim makes life illumined, pure and divine. Without such an aim, action and prayer have no value. Life without tapas is like a heart without love.” – BKS Iyengar
Here’s another example of heat… Check out this solo from Monte Montgomery with his song “All On Men”. He’s cooking something soulful on his Alvarez guitar https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KiUnGVOY1A ; at around the 5 minute mark of this video he turns up the heat. Watching an artist unleash that passion in his instrument is transformative. It makes me aspire to that height; it makes me want to be in the presence of the guitar god like him. I believe this is one of the attractions of going to live performances because its transformative to be part of the magic making. It’s the reason we also gather for rituals of the holidays because it renders the ordinary to extraordinary; a meal isn’t just something to get through. It’s the preparation and the celebration of life which renders it holy and sacred.
A gathering of bodies generates heat. Friction generates heat. Zeal and passion is heat. In what seams like the bleak and lifeless cold of winter there’s heat in the DNA of the trees that knows to “turn on” when the conditions are just right. So how do I turn on the heat in my writing? The question contains the answer – Patanjali’s sage advice is to tap, tap, tap on the keyboard through discipline, passion and courage. This practice of discipline, passion and courage is love. The secret to good cooking is love; and the love of doing what we do is what transforms something good into something soulful that aspires our spirit to align to our highest self.
But first, another sip of hot cocoa with a dash of Cointreau.
Possession has been on my mind for the last year. Possession of the spirit, of the body, and possession of one’s own art. How to possess a thing, and how to let it go.
Since last fall, I’ve been working with fellow playwright Lisa Dring to write an immersive, site-specific show with Rogue Artists Ensemble—Kaidan Project: Walls Grow Thin, an adaptation of ancient Japanese ghost stories set in an old warehouse.
This was not our intention. The project came to us sideways, yet naturally. Like we were meant to work on it together.
From Kaidan Project: Walls Grow Thin. Photo by Rebecca Bonebrake.
Kaidan is a project that has long been brewing in the bowels of Rogue Artists Ensemble and East West Players—the idea itself was never ours, though the words, the shape, the adaptation of the stories themselves certainly were born of our brains. You can blame a lot of it on us.
But true possession of the work, so to speak, was already in question from the beginning. We were asked to take this on. The ownership of the stories were transferred to us, were lent to us, but it has never been ours alone, which has its own kind of freedom.
All stories are borrowed, lent, and passed along, in one way or another.
As the project progressed, we began to focus our main story on a single woman, Kana Mori—a woman who is very much possessed literally by a spirit and emotionally by a dark past. Kana’s journey—in which she loses control, fights for possession of her own will, struggles to center herself in an ever-changing landscape—began to mirror our own experience as writers. Not only were we in deep collaboration with a creative group of designers and actors with their own points of view about what the show should be, but we were coming to terms with the role of the audience in the piece. This is, first and foremost, an immersive theatre experience—meaning the audience is part of the story. They are active in what is going on, which makes Kaidan the audience’s play as well. Our possession over the play was schizophrenic on its best days.
From Kaidan Project: Walls Grow Thin. Photo by Rebecca Bonebrake.
We labored over every word, every beat (just ask our lead actresses, who may have memorized nothing short of 20 versions of their monologues), every transfer of information. We threaded the connective tissue lightly, then sharply, then hit the audience over the head with it, then lightly again. We argued for days about two or three words in the ending scene.
And yet. And yet. And yet.
In the end, we had to let it go. All shows always end up belonging to the actors after opening night, and to the audience. But here, with Kaidan Project: Walls Grow Thin, this is even more pronounced. The actors and audiences are actively engaging with it every night. No one person has the same experience. Some retain the words we sculpted, others are focused on the mask design, others are wondering how long they are going to sit in the dark and if a ghost is sneaking up behind them. Others will remember the moment they had candy with a monk, and nothing else.
From Kaidan Project: Walls Grow Thin. Photo by Rebecca Bonebrake.
I stand outside the warehouse at the box office. I welcome guests, fret about tickets and audience numbers (we can only fit 12 people per performance). I can’t even hear what is going on inside. But that’s okay. It is no longer mine.
In the end, with all art, we cannot fully possess what we create if we are going to share it with others. It doesn’t mean we don’t have a voice, or something to fight for, or are free from blame when something isn’t perfect.
But sometimes it is better to swallow the idea of full possession. Lisa and I wrote something that is a piece of us—but now it belongs to you. We’re just ghosts in the warehouse.
LAFPI is pleased to be partnering with our friends at Broads’ Word Ensemble for LA Broads, a reading festival of short plays by (go figure!) LA female playwrights, directed by women. We love Broads’ Word – a group of femmes who truly walk the walk – and are looking forward to hearing stories of “perseverance, recovery, and unconventional podcasts.” We also (of course!) wanted to find out more about the writers. So we handed it over to the Broads’ Word ladies to come up with questions, and put them to the six ladies with works in the festival: Nayna Agrawa (Slut), Tiffany Cascio (Popcast & About Your Mother), Allie Costa (How I Knew Her), Aja Houston (Remembrance), Uma Incrocci (Roadside Alice) and Starina Johnson (Border Towns & All Kinds).
Broads Word Ensemble: What’s your experience been like, being an playwright (who happens to be a woman) in Los Angeles?
Nayna Agrawal
Nayna Agrawal: Humbling! Particularly as a chubby Asian gal with a mustache.
Tiffany Cascio: I have found the theatre scene in Los Angeles to be very welcoming. I moved here four years ago and was lucky to meet the wonderful and supportive playwrights and actors of LAFPI & PlayGround LA right away. This year I participated in Hollywood Fringe which opened my world up to even more fabulous theatre makers, including the Broads’ Word Ensemble team, so I definitely feel like I’m part of a community now. I’m incredibly inspired by them and feel very encouraged to keep writing!
Allie Costa: I’ve been a performer and a storyteller since day one. As a kid, if I wasn’t acting, singing, or dancing, I was writing, reading, or directing. The same can be said today. There’s nothing I love more than being on set or on stage. I moved to Los Angeles to pursue my career because there are multiple opportunities here for multi-hyphenates. I am grateful for those who have paved the way, and I try to pay it forward and hire other women every chance I get.
Aja Houston: I am blessed to be a part of a great cohort of talented, supportive grad students at USC. I love having the safe space to create fearlessly. Since being in Los Angeles, for a year now, I have had a play commissioned for a rehearsed reading at Playwright’s Arena and a short play, Floating on Credit, published by The Dionysian Literary Magazine. I am still very aware that as a Black female playwright there is a lot of work to do and I am more than up to the task!
Uma Incrocci
Uma Incrocci: Although I’m an LA native, I’m new to playwriting in LA as my writing has only been produced in New York so far. I’m excited to be kicking off my Los Angeles experience with this reading!
Starina Johnson: I’ve somehow managed to surround myself with very thoughtful, supportive, and positive people in the world of Los Angeles playwrights. I think I’ve been very lucky in that regard.
Broads’ Word: In 6 words or less, what are your plays about?
Nayna: Post-abortion, practicing English to Wheel of Fortune
Tiffany: Love, loss and podcasting. And family secrets spilled.
Allie Costa
Allie: Strangers cross paths in a graveyard.
Aja: A couple’s rituals of grief.
Uma: First woman to drive across America
Starina: For Border Towns – Living. And for All Kinds – Being true to yourself.
Broads’ Word: How did this topic come up for you and evolve into this play?
Nayna: Personal experience (sigh).
Tiffany: Popcast was my response to people labeling the dumped “crazy,” just because they can’t get over their exes. And family secrets and “choosing” your family is something I write about quite a bit; About Your Mother was me having fun with that.
Allie: The idea for this script came to me while I was watching the television show Rectify. There was a scene in which the main character visited a graveyard, and I thought, What if someone had been at the grave when he arrived? And the rest is history.
Aja Houston
Aja: I wrote this play four years ago because I needed healing from the trauma of the killings of so many black boys like Trayvon Martin. I wanted to assert their humanity, their souls, their right to love, their right to live, and to be more than a body to be discarded like refuse.
Uma: At the Smithsonian, I noticed this small plaque about Alice Huyler Ramsey – the first woman to drive across the USA. There was this amazing photo of her and the other women who made the trip in 1909, in an open car on a dusty road in their dresses and flowered hats. I quickly became fascinated with her and her story.
Starina: Border Towns was a concept I’d had for awhile, but couldn’t quite figure out how to make it work. It was a short play notice that made me realize the best way to put the idea on the page.
Starina Johnson
The story the doctor tells at the end is 100% true; I actually said that to one of the resident doctor’s when my mother was dying and made him cry. I still feel really bad about that. I don’t think anyone likes making people cry, but I like to think that conversation with me gave him a different perspective on the concept of treating patients.
All Kinds actually started out as a short film that I thought would have more impact as a play. I like to think of terrible situations then try to figure out what could possibly make that situation worse. For me this is the worst case scenario for these characters.
Broads’ Word: Do you have any upcoming productions or news to share? And if LA theatermakers want to reach out about your plays, where would they find more information about you?
Nayna: I just had a reading (on October 8th) at the Bootleg Theater of Catcall, a full length play. For more, visit Naynaagrawal.com.
Tiffany Cascio
Tiffany: No new productions yet, but hopefully soon. And please do reach out! I’m @tiffanycascio on Twitter and my website is tiffanycascio.com.
Allie: My plays Unfinished Business and Safe Distance were both selected for The Fear Festival, running October 20th through October 22nd at Roebuck Theater in New York City. For more info, visit www.alliecosta.com, connect @allieacts or find my plays here: newplayexchange.org/users/995/allie-costa
Aja: I have adevelopmental production at The Inkwell Theatre of my play Journey to Alice, in February 2018. My website is www.ajahouston.net.
Uma: I organize a monthly reading series of new plays and screenplays at For Actors By Actors, an acting school in Hollywood. We are always looking for new scripts to read and would love to hear from LA writers. My screenplay Kris & Noelle (a holiday movie about how Santa and Mrs. Claus first met) will be performed on December 10th. Visit umaincrocci.com.
Starina: My short play, Static, is featured in NEO Ensemble Theatre’s production Tales from the Scrypt, running October 6th-22nd at The Underground Theatre. Tickets and more information are available here: www.neoensembletheatre.org And for more information about me, go to www.StarinaJohnson.com or www.ChickPeaProductions.com
Broads’ Word Ensemble’s Executive Director Tara Donovan produces LA Broads; the plays are directed by Elkin Antoniou, Lesley Asistio, June Carryl, Gloria Iseli, Rachel Manheimer & Rasika Mathur. Performances are Saturday, October 14th at 8:00 pm and Sunday, October 15th at 2:00 pm at the Flight Theater at The Complex Stages in Hollywood. For tix and info visit www.BroadsWordEnsemble.com.
Know a female or FPI-friendly theater, company or artist? Contact us at [email protected] & check out The FPI Files for more stories.
Los Angeles Female Playwrights Initiative is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non‐profit arts service organization. Contributions for the charitable purposes of LA FPI must be made payable to “Fractured Atlas” only and are tax‐deductible to the extent permitted by law.
Damn them! Just when we’re looking the other way, yet another woman playwright is getting a premiere at The Echo Theater Company, now in residence at Atwater Village Theatre. Over the past three seasons, over 50% of The Echo’s productions have been written by women. And this time out, it’s five women at once.
Nevertheless, She Persisted is an evening of short plays by female writers that explore the treatment of women in today’s political climate. Well. With a kick-ass title and logline like that, we thought it was about time we reach out to The Echo’s Artistic Artistic Director, Chris Fields, and playwright Mary Laws (whose Blueberry Toast premiered with the company last year, and has a piece in the evening) to see just what trouble this femme-friendly company is getting up to, now.
LA FPI: So… Which came first: the title or the plays?
Chris Fields: The title. All the plays were commissioned expressly for this evening. The writers were simply told the title of the night. These are playwrights who we’ve worked with before in different ways and/or wanted to work with. Basically, “on our radar.” We were also aware of how different they are which we welcomed.
LA FPI: Five playwrights–Mary Laws, Charlotte Miller, Calamity West, Jacqueline Wright and Sharon Yablon. How did they each interpret the title?
Chris: We gave the playwrights the title of the evening and, of course, it was very provocative. We said that we weren’t asking for overtly political plays but to please let that phrase percolate. Subsequently, the plays are very diverse in subject, tone, and world, but do consistently reflect some aspect of today’s feminine experience. (You’ll see!)
LA FPI: Which direction did you go in writing your play, Mary?
Playwright Mary Laws
Mary Laws: I am a thirty-one year old woman, and this is the first time in my life that I have seen our country so divided. I think if we can agree on one thing, we can agree that a lot of people are afraid: of the current administration, of the safety and security of our country, and of the dissolution of our basic human rights. As a woman, the latter is particularly troubling. When organizations like Planned Parenthood are attacked, our reproductive rights are threatened, and The President of the United States makes openly sexist and degrading comments about our female bodies, it’s hard not to ask yourself: who is looking out for me? It’s a scary time, and I wrote my play, yajū, as a response to these fears.
LA FPI: Not only are the plays written by women, but four of the five have female directors. Mary and Sharon are directing their own plays, but how were the other directors chosen?
Echo Theater Company Artistic Director Chris Fields
Chris: I engaged the directors from the company I thought would best serve the plays, basically. [Associate Artistic Director] Tara Karsian directs Charlotte’s play and Ahmed Best, Calamity’s. Teagan Rose had expressed a desire to direct and I thought this program, the play, etc. was the ideal opportunity for her to get started, and Jacquie is wonderful to work with.
Mary: I’ve long wanted to direct my own plays, but in the past when I’ve asked for this opportunity at other theaters or events, I’ve been given a simple and easy no. The reasons have always varied, but none of them ever seemed valid to me. When I told Chris of this desire, he was quick to invite me to direct my own play, once again demonstrating that The Echo is the kind of theater that takes risks on new artists and affords equal opportunity to those who seek it.
LA FPI: How has it been–a room full of women, working together?
Mary: I love working with women. I want to work with women until I die. Women are wickedly smart and unapologetically brave and infinitely strong. Women can do anything.
Chris: Sharon and Jacquie are old colleagues and collaborators, artists I see as very special to the Los Angeles theater community. Mary became part of our “family” last year–Sarah Ruhl sent her to us. Calamity lives in Chicago and is an old friend of Jesse Cannady, our new Producing Director, and we’ve been reading her stuff this year. Charlotte came to us a number of years ago through our connections at the Labyrinth in New York and we’ve been waiting to work with her. And she just moved out to LA.
LA FPI: We love that The Echo seems to have quite the open door policy when it comes to women playwrights! How are you fitting in, Mary?
Mary: The Echo has kept me in the business of writing new plays (which is no small feat in the land of film and television). Not only are they excited to tell my dark and twisted stories, but they’ve done much to support the work of other incredible female writers: Sheila Callaghan, Bekah Brunstetter, Ruby Spiegel, Jessica Goldberg, and Sarah Ruhl, to name just a few. Even more, the majority of the theater’s leadership is comprised of women, from the mainstage directors and producers to the literary manager, Alana Dietze, to the inimitable Jen Chambers who runs the Playwright’s Lab. The Echo is not only “female friendly” but female driven… which is smart, because if you ask me, today’s most thoughtful and provocative theatermakers are women.
LA FPI: Okay, Chris. Are you afraid of getting a rep for staging, god forbid, “women’s plays?”
Chris: Any institution or person who ghetto-izes plays by women is dumb. I revere and cherish talent, no matter who or how it comes.
Nevertheless, She Persisted —An evening of five world-premiere short plays by female writers that explore the treatment of women in today’s political climate, plays from August 24 – September 4.
• yajū, written and directed by Mary Laws
• Sherry and Vince, written by Charlotte Miller, directed by Tara Karsian
• At Dawn, written by Calamity West, directed by Ahmed Best
• Violet, written by Jacqueline Wright, directed by Teagan Rose
• Do You See, written and directed by Sharon Yablon
Los Angeles Female Playwrights Initiative is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non‐profit arts service organization. Contributions for the charitable purposes of LA FPI must be made payable to “Fractured Atlas” only and are tax‐deductible to the extent permitted by law.
Is it just us, or has Ensemble Studio Theatre/Los Angeles been getting their femme on, lately? Including last year’s hit production of member playwright Karen Rizzo’s “Mutual Philanthropy,” Ann Talman’s “Woody’s Order!” earlier this year, and works presented through the company’s development programs, we’ve heard a lot of female voices coming from EST/LA’s space at Atwater Village. Now the 2017 One Act Festival is currently playing, with 50% of the works written by women. Time to chat with one of EST/LA’s Co-Artistic Directors, actor/producer Liz Ross, and Carole Real, playwright and former Co-Artistic Director.
Liz Ross
LA FPI: Needless to say, we’re big fans of gender parity. How did the plays for this Fest come to you?
Liz Ross: All the submissions came from playwrights associated with our company either through the Playwrights Unit, NeWest Playwrights (which is our writers group for playwrights under the age of 30), and writer company members.
Our membership and writing groups are all pretty equally male and female voices. I think we are around 50/50, to be honest. And we’re particularly proud this year that each play has been developed here through our programs such as Sunday Best, our monthly reading series; Winterfest, our annual members project series; LAFest, our Los Angeles voices festival; Launchpad, a staged reading series; and True Story, our monthly storytelling evening.
LA FPI: Do you see differences in the stories women playwrights are telling, vs. male playwrights? Or differences in how they’re telling them?
Carole Real
Carole Real: I have all kinds of theories, but they are just theories and it’s never wise to paint with a broad brush. For instance, in my observation, the play with the twist ending tends to be written by a male playwright. But I bet our readers could come up more than one example of a twist ending play that was written by a female playwright.
One thing I think is objectively true is that women playwrights tend to have more female characters and more female protagonists in their plays than male playwrights. In addition, the female characters women write tend to have their own goals and aren’t just in the play to “help” other (male) characters or serve as plot points. And I think women playwrights tend to write female-female interactions that women audience members experience as truthful and moving.
Liz: I’m finding that things seem to be shifting. I think in the past women wrote more of the relationship stories, but now there seems to be a shift in this generationally. Many of the younger playwrights are crossing those gender norms and exploring more plays about identity issues from both male and female voices.
And then there’s a play like “The Guard Will Escort You to Ruff-Ruff” by Carole Real [included in Program B of the Festival]. This play explores how our global economy can unknowingly make us complicit in the abuse of factory workers over even a small purchase, like toys with our favorite cartoon characters on them.
LA FPI: So let’s talk about the Festival selections, starting with your play, Carole. Why are you telling this story?
Stella Kim and Sharon Freedman in Carole Real’s “The Guard Will Escort You to Ruff-Ruff,” directed by Chuma Gault. Photo by Youthana Yuos.
Carole: I became aware that foreign factories routinely break labor laws and violate safety codes of the countries where they are located — their own country’s laws — during the recession when I worked in a temp job for a large entertainment conglomerate. The job entailed reading foreign factory audits eight hours a day, five days a week. It was profoundly depressing and I became convinced that if people understood how these factories operate, they would feel differently about the global economy and understand that by turning a blind eye, we are complicit in the exploitation of vulnerable workers. It later dawned on me that I could dramatize the subject by creating a theatrical world where a factory auditor in China could “talk” to the temp worker in the US.
I absolutely love that the play has mostly women characters and that they attempt to work together to protect the most vulnerable of them! I know that in China, many factories are staffed mostly with teenaged girls, because they are hardworking and obedient, so factory safety and fair labor laws there is really and truly a women’s issue, and this is probably true in many other countries as well.
And I would be remiss not to give director Chuma Gault huge credit for the artistic success of this production. Chuma really saw the play as being about how women are penalized by being strong and smart in the office environment. This wasn’t something I was focussed on — that just seemed like “how it is” — but he picked up on that and made sure it was part of the story. Thank you, Chuma!
Liz: All three plays in Program B explore questions of conscience — from “Provenance” by Ian Patrick Williams to “Writing to Mrs. Otts” by Tom Stringer to Carole’s play, each play in this program asks us to consider what we’re willing to speak up about or against.
Program A had 5 plays that all explored relationships. They ranged from Karen Rizzo’s “Darkest Place” which explored loss and crisis to Deborah Pearl’s short piece “Can You Hear Me Now” about miscommunication in the cell phone era. Mary Portser’s “So Lovely Here on Earth” was a sweet piece about a woman trying to volunteer for a Mars Mission when her interviewer realizes that she’s just trying to escape her own misery here on Earth by “committing suicide by space.” Each of these plays, while being very different from each other and taking entirely different approaches, had a similar thread exploring our desperate need to be understood. I do think that women writers tend to invest in the search for understanding each other. Women write characters who watch and observe each other.
Program C has 4 wonderful pieces starting with “Things That Matter” a musical by Elin Hampton and Gerald Sternbach, “How Do I Get Get to Carnegie Hall” by Nick Ullett and directed by his wife Jenny O’Hara. Then “My Jesus Year” a heartfelt piece by Tony Foster, and finishing with Katherine Cortez’ “Between Friends” which is about a many years old friendship between two older women who discover that they still harbor secrets from each other after all these years. Katherine is just coming off of a successful Fringe production of her play, “In The Valley of the Shadow” with Rogue Machine. It’s a powerful piece that she developed with the Playwrights Unit and we had a reading in Winterfest.
LA FPI: So it’s not just us! Seems like there are a lot of powerful women artists working as part of EST/LA?
Carole: Yes! And I’d like to thank Liz Ross for the work she’s currently doing as one of the three Artistic Directors, and the work she has done in the past for EST/LA as an actress, producer and creative director. I’d also like to give a shout out to the other strong women who have made our company run, including Jenny O’Hara, Board President, Gates McFadden, Laura Salvato, Risa Bramon Garcia and Deb Stricklin (all former Artistic Directors), Heather Robinson who currently heads the Members Committee and all the other women who make EST/LA go. Without them, we’re nothing!
Liz: We have increased the diversity of voices within our membership and playwrights groups and this past year and actually have a very long history of producing women playwrights. Right now, we have so many projects in development that we can’t possibly produce them all so our focus is to serve their process; we’ve become a major incubator of plays, so to speak. We’re very conscious of including women’s voices equally to men’s and we do have a wonderfully strong and vocal community of women within our organization so I expect we will continue that way for a long time to come.
EST/LA’s 2017 One Act Festival continues through July 16 at the Atwater Village Theatre complex. For more information visit www.estlosangeles.org or call (818) 839-1197. Reserve tickets at brownpapertickets.com.
Know a female or FPI-friendly theater, company or artist? Contact us at [email protected] & check out The FPI Files for more stories.
Los Angeles Female Playwrights Initiative is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non‐profit arts service organization. Contributions for the charitable purposes of LA FPI must be made payable to “Fractured Atlas” only and are tax‐deductible to the extent permitted by law.
WHY: In “Confessions of an Arab Woman”, Joumana Haddad’s radical feminist book is brought to life as the Arab female identity breaks free from the shackles of a sexist, patriarchal culture. The result is a sort of choreopoem enacted by a cast embodying Jourmana’s thoughts and memories. Joumana is a no holds-barred fearless and liberated warrior and if the thought of such a woman being Arab is confusing to you, get yourself to the Complex quick. Y’alla!
WHY: One of ten Fringe Scholarship winners (awarded to shows that expand and diversify the Fringe community) “Blamed” combines text with original music, dance, poetry, and puppetry to examine the role of women throughout history, mythology, and literature who are blamed for the ills of society. “Blamed” cleverly uses many different theatrical conventions to tell its stories and the result is a multi-cultural tapestry of short tales. “Blamed” was also awarded Best Drama at the 2015 San Diego Fringe.
Upon entering the small studio/stage space, the performers (13 women and a live folk music band) are already on stage. It reminded me of the Broadway show “Once” which also starts with the performers (who are also the musicians) already on stage, giving the audience a little pre-show entertainment. I liked how “Blamed” makes use of every possible inch of the small space. Choreographer Annie Lavin expertly blocks the performers movements because any errors in this fast-paced, movement-focused show could have caused quite an onstage traffic jam, but everything flows beautifully.
The show begins as the women tear pages out of a book, referencing the stories that are about to be told. Laughing at what they are reading, they know the truth about these “blamed” women and know what’s written in books is fiction. Seven stories are dramatized, including the story of Eve, Joan of Arc, Marie Antoinette, and Little Red Riding Hood. One performer reads or tells the origin story of a well-known woman/girl who was wrongfully accused, victimized, stigmatized, or BLAMED by society as other ensemble members act, dance, sing, or use shadow puppets to illustrate the story. Slowly the audience understands how women have been marginalized throughout history and into present day. As the tag line states: “These aren’t your mother’s fairy tales.”
Some stories are told through folk/fairy tales, shadow puppetry (my favorite part), songs and, especially, dance. There is quite a bit of dancing and unfortunately there is really not enough room to truly dance, but the company does the best it can with the limited space and all the various theatrical elements merge into a cohesive work.
Most members of the ensemble get their chance to shine including playwright Callie Prendiville who is also a member of the ensemble. In an interview she states that she “fell in love with theater after discovering it was the synthesis of things” she cared about. What she cares about in “Blamed” is debunking the myth that dominant women should be feared. “I want people to question the deeper message of our storytelling, to reconsider their assumptions.” I certainly did.
“Blamed” is one of only eleven entries in the “Dance and Physical Theater” division in this year’s Fringe. I don’t usually see these kinds of shows but was glad “Blamed” made it onto my “dance card.” Hope it makes it onto yours.
Nevertheless, She Persisted is an 
