I’ve run out of excuses to write something for this week’s blog. I’ve made too many trips to the kitchen from my writing chair. I’ve cleaned out my laundry basket and folded everything. I’ve done all the necessary correspondences and then some. Animals have been taken care of. What else? What else? Oh. I’ve got to practice guitar. High E string breaks, so now I have to change the strings. While I’m at it, I’ll clean the guitar – oiling the neck, brushing the spaces between the frets, wiping the pegs clean. All set, but now I have to practice yoga. I have a class to teach. I need coffee. Walk the dog first. I’m practicing everything else except writing.
I started agonizing about writing since that alert email flashed in my inbox last Friday. Subject line: Start of Blog Week. I’m paralyzed with performance anxiety that strikes at my heart. It’s ironic to me, because being a yoga teacher, I guide class participants to let go, use awareness and breath to get through the asanas. I’ve already held my breath in my chest during the past 186 words.
I’ve “figured it out”. My mind is controlling the outcome even before I’ve started. Does any of this resonate with anyone out there? Echo – echo – echo…
Hey it works! I did use my awareness and breath and the breath is flowing again, and I know it’s going to be ok. I can write. One of the metaphors I use in my yoga classes is Goldilocks. It has to be just right: Not too hard, not too soft. Not too hot, not too cold. Not too big, not too small. Ok cool. This gives me permission to just be myself: Just right. Just write.
Like other art forms, writing is a practice. For me, it is the hardest effort compared to meditation, yoga and guitar. There are other practices not always labeled as “artistic”, such as medical and legal practices (though to me any practice is an art form). A practice means showing up and being present.
During the first week of acting classes, the coach asked, what is difference between an amateur and a professional? From the American Heritage Dictionary:
Thirty years ago I lived in Salem, Oregon, working as an Information Technology professional. I left the bubble of Vancouver, BC and dove deep into a new environment in every sense of the word. The consulting company provided for a 30 day use of a car and free accommodation. Coming close to the end of this grace period, I found two cars to choose from, one was a practical Toyota Tercel and a medium luxury Saab (both second hand). The owner of the Tercel had a dog. The car was flea ridden to match the roller painted teal blue. The SAAB was a convertible. Imagine. I asked a friend which car I should choose, though I already knew in my heart of hearts which one I would buy. My friend’s response was “There’s not even a choice. You’re a professional now.”
Those words still ring in my ears now and then when coming to choices of “fun” versus “serious”. Should I get a fun car or a serious car? Sure, a convertible is fun, but fun to me was having cash in my pocket to explore and I didn’t need a convertible to do that. There were not any regrets with the Toyota. I drove it everywhere, even trips to Vancouver, BC and back to Salem with the gas pedal to the metal, especially during the uphill stretches through the Cascade mountains. There was the regularly planned stop at Olympia, Washington to cool down the engine. One morning, close to the end of my gig, I woke up and found the car crumpled, a victim of a hit and run. The insurance company paid me $100 less than what I paid for the car.
The Bhagavad Gita, noted as the primary source of yogic philosophy by B.K.S. Iyengar, compares the body to a chariot, the sense to the horses and the mind to the reins. “The intellect is the charioteer and the soul is the master of the chariot.”
Going back to the 90’s when I lived in Salem, I also discovered “Alice In Chains” (AIC). The album, “Jar of Flies” was my constant companion. I’ve been listening to AIC again, and unearthed my beginner’s mind approach to daily living. I’m listing to the album “Dirt”, an “intense” record as described by Jerry Cantrell (lead guitar, composer and vocals for AIC).
“Dirt” – Wikipedia – Retrospectively, the album has continued to receive acclaim, with Rolling Stone placing the album at No. 26 on its list of the “100 Greatest Metal Albums of All Time”.[11]Dirt was included in the 2005 book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.
There’s a freshness and enthusiasm to see how the day will unfold with my daily practice of yoga, meditation, guitar, reading and writing. I definitely could strengthen my writing practice, which I said earlier is the hardest of them all. Writing just demands all of me (flesh, blood, and bones and all the icky gooey stuff when you cut yourself open). Plus it’s slow and gives me time to second guess my second guesses. There’s always the opportunity to nullify the output (backspace, delete).
Writing is another form of self-expression. The other practices (a.k.a “distractions”) of yoga, guitar and house chores that take time away from writing is energy spent noodling in my head and heart, while keeping my hands busy. These expressions also inform my writing. I am able to give myself permission to relax in recognizing that this is my process to get me to the blank page to start pouring it all out: my doubts, vulnerabilities, found strength in my weaknesses, and allowing and accepting it all. Everyday is an opportunity for beginner’s mind which is the joy of being an amateur who practices their art for the joy of it. The seriousness of maintaining a household for survival needs requires a healthy balance of joy through creation in music, writing and yoga & meditation. Also, I’ve accepted that self-expression is not selfish. How can art be born without soulful expression in form?
I know what I should be working on. The deadline is Thursday next. But the new dining room carpet was just delivered and I need to see if the shade of sea glass green matches the wallpaper or figure out how to ship it back. And I need to find a sub for me at church next week if I want to invite people over for the Memorial Day Concert. I’m cold and should put on a sweater.
Stop. Focus. Write.
I think about all the stories I want to write. Worry about how long it will take to write them. Worry that my brain or body will give out before I get to them all. And if I’m that worried, why am I avoiding sitting down right now to create them?
The dishwasher needs to be unloaded. I need to get a stamp for that renewal envelope for the husband’s subscription of Track and Field news. The cat wants breakfast. Now. There are leaves on the patio that should be picked up before somebody steps on them and drags pieces into the house. Is the mini vacuum plugged in? I should cook the salmon today. I’ll have to walk over to the community garden to steal some parsley. Does anyone still have lemons on their tree? I need a nap. Or more tea. I’m cold. I should get up and zap the tea in the microwave. I have another zoom at one. I should be writing.
Did Sara agree to a phone call this afternoon? Why were the cherries at the farmer’s market $12 a pound? Will those tiny green tomatoes really ripen on the windowsill? Why did I forget the artichokes on the stove and burn them?
I’m cold. In May. Why am I cold?
That little amaryllis flower looks so happy. I guess I should go spray the roses. Again. Oh, yeah. I need orchid food. And some new hand towels. Maybe I’ll walk up to Target. Wish I’d changed the sheets before the husband made the bed.
What was it I was supposed to be doing?
Oh, yeah. Writing.
Kitty Felde writes the Fina Mendoza Mysteries series of middle grade novels. The Spanish version “Estado de la Unión” will be released August 1st.
This question – what defines an “important play” and what doesn’t? And do we, as playwrights, need to worry about this? It’s been…on my mind.
Yesterday I got to hear a reading of a play of mine that I hadn’t looked at in years. On a whim, I submitted The Sudden Urge to Jump for a new work series with Full Circle Players, a Riverside theatre company that is doing the good work in Riverside County to bring classic and new theatre to an area of SoCal that needs more theatre. (I grew up in the Inland Empire so I’m allowed to say this lol. Check them out in the area and support!)
The play takes place in a video store (that used to be a church) as two siblings try to pick up the pieces of their lives after their sister’s funeral. The sister may fall for the brother’s best friend in an vaguely enemies-to-lovers kind of way. The dead sister might monologue and try to control the story that is continuing after her death. There are a lot of movie references. A lot. It is ultimately about how we try to fit our lives so neatly into genres and categories and shape how things go…but that’s just not how this shit works.
I don’t know what made me specifically choose this play to submit to their call. Maybe I thought it was one of the most digestible, accessible plays I have, and knowing the Inland Empire like I do, I wanted to offer something that was…not alienating? I mean it’s about suicide, but it’s also a love story and there’s jokes so – wee! Maybe I knew that I’d never look at it again unless I had a real reason…and I hoped they’d give me a reason?
What came up for me really, as I was thinking about this play and doing a rewrite of it for the reading, was why I had kinda put it aside. I wrote the first draft of it in the first year I was in the Skylight Theatre PlayLab. It had a reading. And I remember feeling, in that group, that because it was a love story, that was at least vaguely a comedy, and was looking at things like human connection and depression…and maybe, possibly, because it was written by a (young at the time) woman, it didn’t feel…important? Despite it having a prominent storyline about suicide, it felt like fluff in the sea of other work being created in that group. And honestly, it felt like it set the tone for me for reactions in that group for the next few years as I wrote two other plays. Reactions from others, and self doubts and judgements within myself. Fluffy. Women problems. Working class problems. Not important.
So the play had another reading in Houston a year or two later. Both the original reading and the one in Houston had lovely responses. It was a crowd pleaser in general, the actors always had fun and felt connected. But still, I put it in a drawer. I decided that it was not worth investing time into, because it wasn’t about anything important.
When I look toward the “big” theatres, the ones we all aspire to be at, the gatekeeping contests and conferences, the dwindling new works development opportunities, it always seems like folks are looking for the next “important” play. The one, it seems, that is going to change the landscape of theater and American culture, that is going to solve climate change or racism or homophobia or misogyny, or, hell, cure cancer I guess. As if it is one voice that will be the hero, the savior, and not, instead, a diversity of voices in a rich ecosystem of society that will ultimately make a difference.
I write grants to pay bills, and this comes up a lot too. Every art project has to be solving some big problem and we need to show how we’re going to do that with the $500 grant. Solve the world’s problems with no money and no support. And then give us a 30 page report about it. So my mind is here all the time – trying to convince people why art is “important.” Why what I do is “important.” This happens all the time too in the theatre company I help run. Every show we ask these questions — why is this play important? Why are we doing this now?
I’m not saying it shouldn’t be part of our practice to ask these questions. We should know why we’re driven to do the things we spend so many years on! Having a purpose, a direction for our work is central to keeping ourselves focused and engaged and connected to the world. But twisting ourselves into knots to fit a box is not the way to good art. And convincing ourselves of our own importance is also NOT the way to good art or relationships or longevity.
But also…The Play That Goes Wrong is done everywhere and like…is that an important play? Please, I’d love to see an essay on that.
Do we only have room for fluffy slap stick and trauma porn? Is there nothing in between? Can we do some genre-mixing please?
I wrote a play last year that I thought had the real potential of an “important” play. It was ABOUT something real, a real problem, financial burdens, broken communities, the targeting of vulnerable women. I sent it out in earnest to the annual cycle of awards and conferences, which feel like the cost of being a playwright in this system. And usually I do this with very little expectation. Rejection, to me, is a Season. But this time…I had hope. I had an important play! If only someone would give me the space to develop it, I could change the world!
As one would expect, it got a few nods, a few pats on the head, and I’ll be traveling to Alaska in June for a reading at a conference. Cool! I’m grateful! And also…it’s not an important play, obviously.
Because I don’t know what an important play is. Nor can I, the playwright, be the judge of what that is, for my work. And I’m mad at myself for spending too much time worrying about whether that play, or any play of mine, fits into a box that is always shifting.
When it comes down to it, both of these plays are wildly not important. But they are important to me. They both were written not toward some person’s agenda, but toward my own obsession and curiosity about something. And ultimately a play will never be “important” if it is not important first to you. And frankly, we don’t get to decide what the play does in the world, or how people react to it. That’s not our fucking business. And I guess I’m a little tired of putting too much of my self worth on the validation of forces beyond my control.
So is the life of a writer.
When I sat in the reading of The Sudden Urge to Jump last night, I was reminded why I wrote it. I was delighted at my (slightly) younger self for writing it, for the little quirks of love and attraction I’m drawn to writing about, about the depression and frustrations I felt at the time, and how I still feel all these things. And that the only thing that made the play unimportant was my piss-poor attitude toward it.
Will the play ever get a production? I hope so. Will it ever win awards? Nah. Will it change the world if it does? Absolutely not. But the audience laughed at jokes, giggled nervously at the awkward romantic moments, and cackled or groaned or nodded at the endless movie references (I had chats about the pop culture nods with folks after). In the talk back, the playwright of the other play presented that night and I laughed at the way our plays were paired up, the parallel themes, the dead siblings in the plays, death and religion in general. the pop references, the way they did or did not speak to each other. In the words of one audience member, his play made them weep, and mine was charming. And I’m good with that.
I’m good with that also because I saw my dad laughing. And my mother, who often asks me to write something that is not so dark or pessimistic, who I partially wrote the play for (because love story!) she turned to me after the reading with a big smile on her face. And she said “That was so great!” She delighted in a happy ending, some hope, people taking a chance on each other. And you know what? That’s enough to make it an important play to me.
Go write your weird little love story. People need that too.
Welcome to the literary landscape of The Body’s Midnight by Tira Palmquist. This world premiere, a co-production of IAMA and Boston Court and directed by Jessica Kubzansky, is a delicately interwoven script with surprising, beautiful and challenging moments.
I read the script before the play opened, talked with Tira and Jessica, and visited a rehearsal — all to discover how Tira’s playwriting and collaboration process influenced the production. As we know, creative generation is primarily an individual undertaking, but with this complex project, I wanted to hear and understand more about Tira’s sourcing of material and development.
The Body’s Midnight text presents dilemmas of family, aging, relationships, and health diagnosis fragility — all embedded in the geographic and cultural complexity of a cross-country exploration. Anne and David, a long-term couple and the core duo of the story, are on a trip from California to Minnesota to witness the birth of their first grandchild. There is an immediate indication of an underlying, yet unspoken, tension: even though their dialogue has all the markers of the fun tug-and-pull of a loving relationship, there are little pieces of concern and abnormality that let us know that is not their usual cross-country excursion.
And as the play moves through — no spoilers here! — there is a linking of grand geological sites, park rangers, family phone calls, and mythic characters, all addressing the themes of aging, choice, health and change. Exquisitely interwoven.
Tira and I have known each other for a ‘few’ years, and I have seen and read other produced Palmquist plays, including Two Degrees, Age of Bees & And Then They Fell. I immediately noted key similarities in this work — a balance of the personal, imaginary, poetic and factual in a way that keeps the mind moving while still hitting emotional truth.
After talking to Tira about this particular play, I was struck by how she allowed real events to establish the foundation and then layered other ‘realities’ and fiction to amplify the themes. Writers are often told, “Write what you know,” but even with that dictate, the unique aspects of a script often come from research, discoveries and creativity. This is a great example!
Playwright Tira Palmquist
So, my first question? What was the impetus for the play? There are a couple of answers…
Tira told me that she had a doctor’s visit and a diagnosis that started her thinking: not the same issue as Anne’s, but enough to shake the norm. That, coupled with the challenging notion of ‘aging,’ brought the possible character and plot into place.
“In 2018, as the play first came to me, I thought about this woman getting a diagnosis, and then making this journey and having a bucket list for this adventure: trying to memorialize things and hoping against hope to make them permanent,” she said.
A family component also provided context: a few years before the writing, Tira’s mother had a mysterious and complex health downturn.
“In her 70s, my mother started to exhibit symptoms of what was initially misdiagnosed as a more common dementia, but an MRI confirmed, later, that she had had several strokes (probably what are known as ‘silent strokes’) that caused significant damage to important structures of her brain. I’ve had some significant migraines in my life that have mimicked transient ischemic attacks (sometimes seen as precursors to major strokes). The idea that something like this could happen to me, could rob me of my ability to use and appreciate language, was, frankly, terrifying,” Tira continued.
So, yes, Anne does echo Tira’s life experience — and the play deals with these fears and trials — but along the way… well, Tira expands relationships and environments that further reveal Anne’s journey.
Sonal Shah and Keliher Walsh Photo by Brian Hashimoto
Using her own experience of driving across the country, Tira fosters two particular aspects of travel to let Anne change. First, travel’s physical and mental impacts: “I am inspired by the way that travel (and longer drives) encourages a kind of patience and meditative attention to the world around you. Being willing to be surprised by the world rather than rushing through it,” she said.
With the travel disruptions, she allows her characters to veer off the planned path and dive into unusual locations that are surprising and allow for new realizations. There are deliberate jumps to locations that are not perfectly on the same highway; and there are jumps to memory locations that echo the past. This dance keeps the reader/audience in a mindset that discovers the roots of the relationships and story.
Her other use of travel is the specific locations: metaphorical representations that amplify Anne’s concerns and represent ideas about the planet’s fragility. Locations include the Grand Canyon, Glacier National Park, rest stops, and, of course, the Pando.
I admit, I did not know what the Pando was.
The Pando is a network of ash trees in Utah that are genetically the same tree, and what seems like individual trees are actually family branches sprouting from the giant lateral root of the parent. This is similar to the concept of character repetition and modification in the play.
“The inspiration for using the Pando in the play was actually a happy accident,” said Tira. “I started researching ‘disappearing places’ and mapping where these places would be along the route Anne and David would travel, and I just happened to stumble on information about this amazing place.”
Accidental finding. Well, maybe not “accidental.” As Tira described, it’s more the subconscious finding its way into a deep engagement with the core themes.
Another key to Anne’s core journey is her husband David’s embrace and care. I was curious about the sense of familiarity, and I gathered that there might be similarities in Tira’s own relationship.
“Well, the characters of Anne and David are drawn heavily from my husband and me — the kinds of conversations we have, the love language we’ve developed, the way I am his ‘monster’ and he is my ‘robot.’” (These are the quirky terms of endearment that they have for each other in the play.) “And while the catalyst for writing the play was a health scare I had, there’s not much else that is my particular story. The more that Anne, David and the other characters took shape, the more this play found its shape and purpose.”
Keliher Walsh andJonathan Nichols-Navarro Photo by Brian Hashimotoo
And the play does have a shape and purpose. For me, it felt like a challenge to understand, forgive, and maintain in the chaos of existence — but in a positive way.
Director Jessica Kubzansky described the journey as an “existential climb up a mountaintop,” which I agree with. It was lovely to see Jessica working during my brief visit to a rehearsal: the actors were just at the almost-memorized place, finding the details. Jessica was shaping the patterns and exceptions on the stage in ways to reinforce the “vast beauty” and the “crisis of connection” in the different environments. The actors — Keliher Walsh as Anne, Jonathan Nichols-Navarro as David, Sonal Shah as the daughter Katie and various other roles, and Ryan Garcia as son-in-law Wolf and also multiple roles — all were creating exceptional moments for the dance of dialogue, bringing all the voices together to remind the audience of the journey.
Director Jessica Kubzansky
Since this is a playwrights’ blog, there are a few points to highlight about getting the play written, read, developed and produced that might be illuminating. Tira is great at generating, then submitting, and then developing relationships that build ground for her work. She is also persistent: she keeps on track through the many steps and processes that may be needed to get to the desired end state.
As mentioned, she got the impetus for the play in 2018 and then began the initial draft in 2019, working through pages and ideas. The second inspiration or deep dive was at the Tao House in northern California (one of Eugene O’Neill’s homes). At that writing residency, she found additional inspiration from O’Neill’s plays and “found ways to thread those in as homage to him and that beautiful place.”
Next, as in many writer’s journeys, there was an opportunity for a deeper development at the Seven Devils Playwrights Conference in June of 2021. Tira was the Guest Playwright, and she felt this was “a huge step forward in the play — figuring out more about how reality and surreality could work in the play, to find the ‘rules’ of the world, and discover how to make some of the wilder poetry of the play feel authentic and earned, and not merely decorative.”
Also, the Boston Court was part of the process with their 2022 Playwright Group. That group gives an artist a year-long development process that provides the time to foster and deepen the world and characters of the play. This led to a public reading in April of 2023 at Boston Court’s New Play Festival – the first reading in front of a live audience! Jessica Kubzansky did a week of table work and rehearsal. Tira was especially grateful for her support, particularly Jessica’s fierce defense of how the play “plays with time and reality” and for providing support for expanding the poetry and magic of the play. As always, Jessica asked important questions about how The Body’s Midnight world operates and how that world operates on the characters. When I spoke with Jessica, she mentioned the rich challenges embedded in Anne and David’s relationship and how their realities intersect and collide, leading to emotional fruition.
And the reading? Tira said: “I really had no idea how the play would be received by an audience. I mean, Up until that point, I’d only experienced the play via Zoom readings and workshops… The reaction and responses really blew me away, and showed me, for the first time, that his was a play. A play that was important to other people, not just to me.”
Ryan Garcia, Sonal Shah Photo by Brian Hashimoto
It is now a year after the reading and it looks to be a full and beautiful production. The set design, bringing to mind the various natural locations, was just evolving when I saw the rehearsal. Now, I need to experience the full depth of The Body’s Midnight. Hope you do, too.
One more quote from Tira (and I’m sure writers can relate…):
“My writing process is, at best, chaotic. I have learned a couple things about myself: I can no longer just start writing with a kind of whim. I have to have the play sort of… gestate in my brain and in my body for a long time. I do a fair amount of very unorganized organizing work — as I said before, figuring out the beginning, middle, end, having a kind of shape or structure in mind — and then, when there’s a kind of critical mass of the play, I start to write. Usually, this first draft is pretty quick. I don’t honestly recall how long the first draft of The Body’s Midnight took, but I think it was a couple of months. Then there are moments of time and distance — returning to the play with new eyes, or with a new inspiration or realization. That recursive part of the process can take a few years.”
“The Body’s Midnight,” a co-production of IAMA Theatre Company and Boston Court Pasadena, opens April 27 and runs through May 26, 2024 at Boston Court. For tickets and information visit www.iamatheatre.com.
Know a female or FPI-friendly theater, company or artist? Contact us at [email protected] & check out The FPI Files for more stories.
A raw image (photograph) that I use for some of my digital artwork. I’ve taken cast away silverplate tea pots and added some twinkle, then I photograph the work, and use this image for a base in my photoshop images.
I’ve been following some of the stories of what AI (Artificial Intelligence) has become in the world of “creators”. Artwork, writing, architecture, design: AI is becoming a sought after tool to “enhance” creativity. And I’m also reminded of this issue as part of the actors strike – the AI generation of actors’ images to create new content without the actual participation of the actors themselves.
And some of the issues are profound, infuriating and bizarre.
There are schools and blogs and videos online on the use of AI to “enhance” story telling for screenwriters.
But the most apparent visual representation of AI mechanisms I’ve seen is in the visual world ~ as a “digital artist”, I’ve seen the highjacking of my own artwork. My digital art images, which are available on a website, have been lifted and used in a myriad of unexpected ways. I’ve found my images for sale on other sites – and I’m powerless to control or stop the theft of these images. It’s changed the way I shared my artwork.
But I also belong to an online group that discusses AI Generate Images: mostly artists, some art directors, curators and the assorted grumpy scholar. Here is an insider comment, about the use and caliber of hiring “AI Prompters”: staff who attempt to create images by pulling images from social media through prompts to use existing found images.
Posting this on behalf of a member who would like to remain anonymous:
I’m an art director and supervisor for a large studio. The studio heads had the bright idea before I started to hire prompters. Several bros were brought onto the film project. I absolutely hated myself for not quitting on the spot but stuck with it because it’s mercenary out there. Have a family to feed etc. I decided to use this time wisely. Treat them as I would any artist I had hired. First round of pictures of a sweeping Ariel forest landscape comes through and it’s not bad. They submit a ton of work and one or two of the 40 are ok. Nearly on brief. So first round feedback goes through and I tell them about the perspective mistakes, colour changes I want, layers that any matte painting would be split into. Within a day I get 5 variants. Not changes to the ones I wanted but variations. Again. Benefit of the doubt I give them another round of feedback making it clear. Next day it’s worse. I sit there and patiently paint over, even explaining the steps I would take as a painter. They don’t do it, anomalies start appearing when I say I want to keep the exact image but with changes. They can’t. They simply don’t have the eye to see the basic mistakes so the Ai starts to over compensate. We get people starting to appear in the images. These are obviously holiday snaps.
“Remove the people”
“What would you like them changed to?”
“… grass. I just don’t want them there”
They can’t do it. The one that can actually use photoshop hasn’t developed the eye to see his mistakes, ends up getting angry at me for not understanding he can’t make specific changes. The girl whose background was a little photography has given me 40 progressively worse images with wilder mistakes every time. This is 4 days into the project.
I’m both pissed about the waste, but elated seeing ai fall at the first hurdle. It’s not even that the images are unusable, the people making them have no eye for what’s wrong, no thicker skin for constructive criticism and feedback, no basic artistic training in perspective and functionality in what they’re making.
Yes the hype is going to pump more money into this. They won’t go anywhere for a while. But this has been such a glowing perfect moment of watching the fundamental part fail in the face of the most simple tasks. All were fired and the company no longer accepts Ai prompters as applicants. Your training as an artist will always be the most important part of this process and it is invaluable. I hope this post gives you a boost in a dark time.
Anonymous Author on generating AI
An image that accompanied this online article:
The article and the image provoked me to think about the value and cost of the artist to create – the emotional, psychological, spiritual, cultural cost. What we bring to the table. What we leave behind.
As a writer, and digital artist, who uses complicated software, and social media, and resources that are linked to the access of ideas and images and conversations (like this one), I’m very invested in the identity and core value of what an artist is. I’ll be watching the world’s imagery to see if AI is the immoral monster, or a seemingly magical assist to our creative life.
A finished image, using raw images, brewed around in Photoshop and Illustrator: Tiger Tea, by Cynthia Wands, 2022.
Outdoors where I live there is an overgrown orange tree. The tree has likely not been pruned in many years, judging by the amount of growth on the branches, the offshoots like spiderwebs, crisscrossed limbs holding an overabundance of oranges that fall to the earth too soon or too late, the fruit collected never ready.
Once I volunteered to prune trees in a garden. An arborist led us through determining what to remove, finding the nodes, and the angle to cut away anything no longer serving the tree. We removed competing branches and sliced back anything beyond the most promising nodes. Whenever we’d ask if the tree had been trimmed back enough, the arborist would tell us to cut even more, to keep going, that it was good for the tree.
I could compare editing to pruning. I suppose that’s the most logical connection. But when I think of pruning it is not the words themselves, it is the very essence of what makes you write.
On a tree, nodes are the quiet and often hidden places where so much life begins. Offshoots form, leaves grow, flowers bloom. Nodes contain wisdom to help the tree heal and maintain its structure.
Our relationship to writing grows and evolves differently with each season in life. Perhaps we write for relief, then for understanding, then for exploring, or sentiment, or at times the reason is just a giant question mark. Sometimes others tell us why we write. It gets so muddled after a while, the tangled branches becoming so thick we can no longer reach our own nodes.
When the path forward is too overgrown to see, walk back along your own branches, back towards the first nodes of promise that made you do this to begin with: the story you wanted to tell, the thing you’ll probably never stop writing about, when a stranger told you something kind about your work and they meant it. Prune yourself until it feels simple again.
The Shit Show: An american Allegory or The House Across the Street
Yo Mama’s a Crackhead
Critical Race Theory
What’s Love Got To Do With It
Losing It
Ex-Factor
Honorable Mention
I’ve written some good ass plays. Still, I get real anxious sometimes if I’m honest. Wondering if I’m not writing good enough. Fast enough. Interesting enough for mass appeal. If I need to do more to get produced more. Write something else to be more marketable for Broadway. Then maybe I won’t get rejected so much.*
*cue The Play Game from Tick Tick BOOM
As always, I go to my literary gods for facts and truth to ground me.
Lorraine Hansberry is my literary mother. In her short career she wrote a lot. She wasn’t just a playwright, but a true writer. She wrote everything. And gained a lot of success and notoriety in her writing endeavors simply because she was great. She was the first Black woman to be produced on Broadway. She was a critic. Essayist for a lesbian magazine. I mean, a world builder! Prolific. Prophet. Visionary. Artist.
Lorraine Hansberry plays on Broadway:
Raisin In The Sun
The Sign In Sidney Brustien’s Window
Les Blancs*
*Les Blancs received a limited run with 30 preview shows and 40 performances.
Lorraine Hansberry on opening night of “The Raisin in the Sun” – photo by Gordon Parks
Suzan-Lori Parks, the living goddess herself has written and published at least 400 plays if not more. Short plays. Long ones. Musicals etc. She has written every kinda play I can think of and then some. And that’s just what’s published. Who knows what’s in those journals. She’s the first Black woman to earn a Pulitzer prize for drama and she is the most imaginative playwright to ever exist. She writes about American History as if it was a jungle gym or an amusement park. Titillating. Captivating. Perfect insight to her beautiful brain. When Solange sings “I saw things I imagined” I always think of SLP.
SLP plays on Broadway:
Topdog Underdog
The Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess*
*adaptation of a musical already written
That’s it. She is the most prolific living playwright and her only Broadway hit received a Pulitzer! The first run stared Jeffery Wright and Mos Def! I’d offer all my college degrees to go back in time and see that play. Not even TheAmerica Play has been on Broadway!!!!!!!
Tarell Alvin McCraney won an Oscar for the hit film Moonlight which is an adaptation to his play In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue, a play that has never been on Broadway. His play collection Brother/Sister Plays Trilogy is the most poetic book of plays I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading. He literally writes his stage directions as poems. He is the most creative living playwright whose work center queer Blackness (to me, he’s the most creative queer playwright of any race and any time).
Tarell Alvin McCraney plays on Broadway:
Choir Boy
Robert O’Hara wrote Bootycandy, Barbecue and Insurrection: Holding History, three of the most hilarious race plays I’ve ever read. He doesn’t make the audience feel bad or stupid for laughing at America. Bootycandy specifically is a series of vignettes about being Black and gay and funny. This man has not one play on broadway.
Adrienne Kennedy, 91 years old, the innovative artists who wrote Funnyhouse of a Negro… pause. Have yall read Funnyhouse? This is the weirdest play in the world. It’s basically an episode of Black Mirror. It’s giving french film noir. Fuckin thrilling and chilling. Go read it right now! Jermery O’Harris has dedicated a chunk of energy using his platform to highlight and uplift her work. Her collection of plays is scary and interesting. She’s basically a horror writer.
Adrienne Kennedy Plays on Broadway:
Ohio State Murders*
*Ohio State Murders received a limited run with only 44 performances and 29 previews.
Alice Childress should have and would have been the first Black woman on Broadway. A few short years before Loarraine Hansberry’s Raisin in the Sun hit the stage, Childress was originally set to premier her dope ass play Trouble in Mind. However it was a short lived dream when she was asked to change her perfect ending to be more digestible by a white audience and refused.
This was over 60 years ago.
Alice Childress Plays on Broadway:
Trouble in Mind*
*Her play received a debut in 2022 receiving 20 previews and 58 performances.
Alice Childress – photo by New Perspectives Theatre
Lastly, my brotha Amiri Baraka, aka Leroi Jones. A well rounded artists (as all poets are) who literally forced his way into success through political arts activism and saying what the fuck he wanted (sometimes about other Black playwrights that I love). He literally is one of August Wilson’s biggest inspirations as a poet and playwright. He started an art school for youth and adults and is responsible for helping artists establish meaningful communities with like minded Black radicals with Black Arts Movement (which inspired a nonprofit I started with my friends called Black Light Arts Collective). I have spent so much money finding and collecting his plays, poems and essays. His play Dutchman is egregiously powerful! And weird and gives me permission to wonder and question race relations. He changed history. Amiri Baraka has no plays on Broadway.
I could go on but the point is clear. I don’t know why good playwrights aren’t produced more outside of racism. And that disadvantage is hella frustrating. I’m not gonna lie about it. But the silver lining to being overlooked and underbooked is this: being a playwright means to write the play. I’m learning how important it is for me to focus on that and trusting the rest to fall into place.
Don’t get discouraged. Fall deeper into the story. So deep that it’s real.
As a mother to a young child, I often think of the lessons that I want to teach my daughter. I think about how I can instill in her the spirit of creative risk-taking. I want her to be willing to fail, to fall flat on her face and still get up. I was always inspired by the story that Sara Blakely, founder of Spanx shapewear, shares from childhood when her father would require her and her brother to report back their failures at the end of every week. He wanted to instill in them a willingness to try new things despite the fear of failure. He was not interested in their easy or comfortable achievements. I know these kind of stories are aspirational and also reflect all kinds of privilege that don’t account for the very real social and economic struggles of both children and adults, but I still like it. I’m always thinking about what my version of this parenting will look like, mostly because it is a skill that I feel I did not learn as a young child, and then, as an artist.
I have been paralyzed with fear when asking for help or advocacy in my creative life. I’ve hovered my finger over the send button when trying to reach out to a person that I deemed to have some sort of authoritative role or in a position to negatively critique me or outright reject me. I have stood awkwardly at the drink table at many a networking event, wanting to disappear into the walls. I have sat in darkened rooms, my face burning hot from a rejection letter. Honestly, it’s embarrassing. It’s much better now…I think age has made me more resilient, but I also feel like I wasted a lot energy in worry or self-consciousness. Nobody cares, I must remind myself.
So then, I ask myself, how to build resilience for my daughter, so that she doesn’t become too precious or perfectionist, but that she sustains passion and joy in her artistry. So you can imagine my delight when she sat at the piano yesterday–she started lessons–and sang me an original song that she wrote. It was only one line, but it had heart and it was lyrical as songs should be. “If somebody hurts, hurts you, I won’t be fine.” Maybe I’m just being one of those parents who delights in everything their kid says or does, but I thought it was pretty good. When she explained the songwriting process to me she said, “You know how I make my songs? I make a lot of mistakes. It’s okay if I make mistakes because I learn from them.” This was such a proud parent moment for me, and now my daughter can give back the lesson to me.
I’m struggling with a new play. There’s a whole lot of non-work happening with a whole lot of loose thinking about different avenues and directions. Starting at the blank page is always a challenge. I just need to adopt the spirit of making mistakes.
I received a message last week from a friend who resides between Chicago and New York. She is a playwright, poet, performer, a brilliant witty woman who tells layered stories. You can imagine how it broke my heart to read her words:
“I’m tired. The limit does in fact exist and I feel like I’m at mine. It just feels too hard and like it’s impossible to change anything. There’s just no money and I don’t know how to sustain any of this.”
It has been over three years since the pandemic, We See You White American Theater and the righteous fight for justice in the Arts. Yet, the sentiment among Independent Black Artists remains loud and clear: justice has not been served.
Many Black theatre artists are still battling for spaces to manifest our work, we are chasing for a place in the theatre where our voices can be heard authentically, and we are still without funding to complete or create new theatre works. We battle, we cling to a hope that often remains unseen—a quiet spark deep within our souls. We are seeking work beyond a classroom. We do not want an opportunity to be hired in leadership roles at white-led institutions. We are not seeking power. We are not tokens. And we do not want to be one or two of the only Black bodies in the room curated by white institutions. Nor do we want to be invited into spaces where Black curators, who are hired by white institutions, must choose between their Black contemporaries like an open auction. We want ateliers, and our own studio spaces, where we can dream, manifest, and build our collective and individual legacies.
Now, more than ever, there’s a pressing need to advocate for funding for Black artists across various fields and mediums of theatre. Too often, initiatives for diversity, equity, and inclusion in white-founded institutions merely result in superficial changes, with a handful of Black individuals elevated to prominent positions without any systemic transformation. The occurrence where very few and often the same Black people are placed within the hierarchy of these institutions and nothing radical ever changes.
It’s no secret that the major funding and monies still lie with these white-led institutions, therefore causing a low amount of resources to a wide variety of Black artists, creating a small pool where we all have to apply to the same resources, where the same advisors, grant readers, and voting teams come from a small group of the same theatre or academic institutions, networks, with a lack of imagination on how to support multi-faceted Black Artists who are creating new works.
In Los Angeles, Ebony Repertory Theatre is the only African-American professional Actor’s Equity (AEA) theatre company… joined by only a handful of smaller companies. To me, this is a grave tragedy and reveals the great amount of work there still is to do for Black theatre in Los Angeles, most certainly for Black women in theatre. As Black women continue to grapple with the financial fallout of the pandemic and confront escalating rates of racism, the urgency of our mission grows. I have been physically sitting with how Theatre Roscius, my small independent non-profit theatre company, can begin to morph further from developing my physical plays into further uplifting local Black female artists over the next two years and that gives me hope, fuel, and fear. Although I have received numerous grants over the past couple of years (that took over eight years of grant writing) the reality is more funding is required. A further reach of serving is needed. I think of Jackie Taylor, founder of Black Ensemble Theater, Barbara Ann Teer, founder of the National Black Theatre, and Ellen Stewart, founder of LaMama Experimental Theatre Club, who against all odds found ways to survive and thrive.
I ask myself:
How can Theatre Roscius be further of use to women in my community whose stories I tell using my body as the catalyst? How can I uplift Black female artists with resources; financially and artistically? How do I create room for a new canon of experimental/avant-garde Black Theatre that does not have to go through a particular mainstream or commercial route?
I ask you:
How can we continue to reshape the American theatre? How do we expand the canon of voices that exist in American theatre? Can we delve deeper? What stories of our community are we not telling? I look forward to asking more questions, and to not being satisfied, while doing the work required to discover and implement these found answers.
As time moves and the world continues to find ways to breathe together, what Theatre Roscius has always offered and will elevate is a new way. To give female artists time to imagine, investigate, explore, sit with their ideas, and then execute those found connections in real-time.
My wish is that Black Artists not be afraid of having no money. That we band together even when colonialism tries to separate us. That we refuse to engage in hierarchies and archetypes. Can we disrupt and reconstruct not for personal clout but for the collective and those coming up after and with us?
May we remember why we do the work, why we have always done the work and it was never to uplift the business of theatre. I hope that we continue to honor our artistic lineages and remember that we have always been the blueprint.
Some say the greatest joy of writing is that feeling of being in the flow, creating that first draft. Words fly across the page, almost by magic. Characters come to life, dialogue sparkles, telling details come instantly to mind.
And then you’re left with a mess.
I’ve been wrestling with the third book in my Fina Mendoza Mysteries series called “Snake in the Grass.” It’s about partisanship on Capitol Hill, as seen through the eyes of the 10-year-old daughter of a congressman. I pounded out 207 pages, printed it out, and stared at a catastrophe. There was no structure, entire plot lines were missing, I had no ending. Catastrophe.
After a few weeks of hanging my head, I was brave enough to face the other half of writing: editing. It’s the chance to fix what once went wrong.
But how?
Writers have lots of techniques.
Some use color-coded index cards that they can shuffle around.
One memoir scribbler is a big believer in post-it notes. She covers an entire wall in her office with post-its in pink and white and blue and every other color under the sun. She creates a notebook with smaller post-its that’s a duplicate of her plot wall. And then she moves things around.
I’ve tried index cards. They’re just not my thing. Post-it notes? No, thank you. Number one, I don’t have a large enough blank wall. Number two, I’d live in fear that a gust of wind would turn my carefully crafted plot into an even more jumbled mess than it is now.
Some writers edit in Scrivner. But those little pretend index cards are too small for my bad eyes to read.
Some playwrights read the manuscript aloud, or invite a roomful of actors to informally read the play. It’s a great way to catch sentences that don’t sing or missing words or clunky dialogue. I find that it doesn’t work as well with prose – work with less dialogue and more description.
Some brave souls edit directly onto the manuscript, uploaded into the G drive. This panics me for a different reason: what if I accidentally delete a scene? Or change my mind about an edit I made yesterday. What if I fail to label it properly and end up re-editing an earlier version? Or, as was the case yesterday, can’t find it at all?
I’m a paper person. With apologies to the trees, I think better when there’s a printed copy of my manuscript in front of me. I love using a red pen. (Or, in the case of a second pass through, a blue pen.) Somehow, seeing those scribbled pages is tangible proof to myself that I have indeed been working on my book. And like hearing it aloud, you perceive your work differently than when it’s on a computer screen.
But that’s just my first step. A stack of scribbled up printed pages doesn’t solve my plot problems.
I’ve settled on using a legal pad, making a list of the scenes in the order I have now. I can move them around with just my pen, drawing a long, curved arrow to indicate that scene five now should reside after scene seven. I can draw a line through scene 21, which has always been a problem child.
Next, it’s back to the original document to make the changes, print it out, and start all over again.
That’s where I am today with this project, round two. I suppose I’m paying the price for all of that creative joy I felt at the beginning of the project.
I bribe myself to go on and finish the darned thing by dangling a very nice carrot out in front of my nose: as soon as I’m done, I can start a new project and return to that magic time when words fly across the page and characters have some very definite things to say.
How do you edit?
Kitty Felde is an award-winning playwright and author of the Fina Mendoza Mysteries series of books and podcasts, designed to introduce civics education to kids.
