What conversations do you want to have? Send your suggestions for compelling female playwrights or theater artists working on LA stages to Alyson Mead at [email protected], then listen to “What She Said.”
What conversations do you want to have? Send your suggestions for compelling female playwrights or theater artists working on LA stages to Alyson Mead at [email protected], then listen to “What She Said.”
Last week a lot of us watched in horror as Donald Trump, a misogynistic, xenophobic, and wildly ignorant human (we think…) man, was elected to be President of these United States.
I’ve been spending a lot of time since then working through all my feelings on the subject, and I’ve managed to boil all my rage, disappointment, and shock into two major thinking points: “We have to do better!” and “Fuck that guy!”
(Obviously the former is a more actionable frame of mind to be in, but I’d be lying if I said the latter thought didn’t help fuel my desire to follow through on the first)
So I’ve been doing a lot of writing… and not in the “Wow, I’m making some great art from this!” kind of writing (yet). More like, “Umm, I think I’m writing a mission statement” kind of writing, and it’s based on the following:
We need to heal our divided nation and We need to make our objections to Trump’s dangerous policies heard.
I’m working on strategies for the first, but Little Black Dress INK already had a jump start on the second – and we’d like you to you to join us!
Little Black Dress INK invites you to take action by participating in the We’re Not Playing initiative. This initiative began as a way for us to support female voices who were speaking out on important issues through their work as playwrights – and now it’s time for these voices be heard!
Theatres and theatre practitioners across the nation are invited to hold readings of these plays, royalty free, Friday, January 20, 2017 – Inauguration Day. The only caveat is that we ask any/all monies raised be donated to the ACLU, Planned Parenthood, and/or NRDC – organizations we believe will be integral to fighting the dangerous policies which the incoming administration intends to implement.
Little Black Dress INK will continue to post socially-conscious/politically-inspired plays between now and January for interested theaters to select from – or you can challenge your own circles of fabulous playwrights to write plays that inspire action. Let’s just do something to help process the rising tides of panic gripping the nation.
Let us make our objections loud and clear, and let us put our humanity center stage on January 20th, 2017.
We can be better. Let’s be better. Let’s invite our audiences to be better with us.
Want to get involved? Sign our pledge at www.LittleBlackDressINK.org Then start reading and selecting plays from those we’ve published, or invite other awesome female playwrights in your area to contribute work!
And if you’re a female playwright who wants to contribute short plays or monologues to the initiative, please send them, along with a photo and brief paragraph explaining what inspired you to write the piece to [email protected] – make sure your subject line reads: WE’RE NOT PLAYING SUBMISSION.
#WereNotPlaying #WritingForChange #TheaterCanHeal
by Jennie Webb
SO! Any way you look at it, the 2016 Hollywood Fringe Festival, it was (again) a ridiculous and fabulous success. But from my (and LA FPI’s) very particular perspective, it reached a whole new level of amazing. For the first time, just over 50% of the scripted shows were by written women!
Many thanks to Chris Farah for making this announcement for us at the Awards on closing night of Fringe before handing out FPI’s Most Wanted Awards. This year, they went to a record number of venues/producers who staged at least 50% of shows written by women: Actors Company, Fountain Theatre, Lounge Theatre, Macha Theatre/Film, Rogue Machine @ MET Theatre, Sacred Fools Theater, Stephanie Fuery Studio Theatre, The Hotel Cafe: Second Stage, The New Collective, Theatre Asylum & Underground Theatre.
And while we’re talking awards, I’m also proud to note that female artists were VERY strongly represented in the list of “winners.” Hooray that on the writing front, The Inkwell Theater‘s Playwright’s Promise Award went to Vanessa Espino for Odilia (4 out of 5 nominees were women!); beyond props to Broads’ Word Ensemble for instituting a Beyond Bechdel-Wallace Award, given to Disrupted by Mary Anna King; and I can’t help but give love back to sweet, sweet new LA FPI Instigators Theresa Stroll & Bobby McGlynn, whose My Big Fat Blonde Musical took home 3 big nods including “Best of Fringe.”
As we all know, it’s impossible to catch everything on the must-see list, so it was great to get the #FringeFemmes Check-Ins (thanks ladies!). And super to learn that over 50% of the scripted shows receiving Producers’ Encore Awards are by women playwrights… which means they’ll be back for performances throughout July. Whee! Click Here for Info.
Yes, in my book, the Fringe Femmes action is pretty spectacular every June: the work by women artists, the support of colleagues, the generosity and energy and connections that continue throughout the year. You’re all part of what keeps growing and getting better & better – huge congrats and thanks to everyone at the Fringe, onstage and off, in the audience and behind the bar. (Especially that last.)
For those who don’t know, I am not only a playwright, but the Artistic Director (slash/Mad Woman) behind Little Black Dress INK – a female playwright producing org that produces an annual peer-reviewed short play fest. Over the years we’ve grown our fest from a small group of playwrights produced in Prescott, AZ, to a now nation-wide new play reading series with productions slated in both Prescott AND Lafayette, LA in 2016. I couldn’t be more proud of all the efforts our supporters, artist, and producers have put into this fest—and I am ecstatic that we continue to grow.
This year, we’re adding an online component to the festival—one that will allow us to produce online versions of full-length plays. It’s called the ONSTAGE: ON-AIR podcast, and our very first one is now live!
Since it’s our inaugural podcast, we chose to focus on interviews with some of our VIP artists, and included excerpts from past ONSTAGE plays. You should definitely check it out – the women we work with are all kinds of amazing! And the great thing about podcasts is that you can listen while you’re working out, driving, cooking, and pretty much anything else-ing!
Listen to the first ONSTAGE: ON-AIR podcast HERE
~Tiffany Antone
As an LAFPI blog reader, you are probably already familiar with The Kilroys, the gang of 13 Los Angeles-based playwrights and producers who, in their own words, “are done talking about gender parity and are taking action.” They make news every year when they publish The Kilroy’s List, an aggregation of the most recommended unproduced or underproduced plays by women and trans playwrights. In a way, they do this to call out any theatre that’s lagging in gender parity – simply by saying, hey, look, we did the work for you. Are you saying you can’t find great plays by women or trans writers? Produce one of these plays, to start with.
But the cool thing about The Kilroys is that they also show appreciation where it’s due. Hence the 2015 Kilroy Cake Drop for Gender Parity.
Earlier this week Joy Meads emailed and asked if I could do The Kilroys a favor – could I deliver a chocolate cake to the Los Angeles Theatre Center on Thursday? It would be part of a nationwide celebration – thirteen theaters around the country would get delicious cake delivered to them by an ambassador playwright, to celebrate their leadership and commitment to gender parity.
As it happens, I have a special connection with the LATC myself since they co-produced my play In Love and Warcraft this season, in association with Artists at Play. I was thrilled to do it.
So along with twelve other playwrights across the country, I picked up a specially baked cake and delivered it to a theatre that means a lot to me. The lovely people at LATC, under the leadership of Jose Luis Valenzuela and Evelina Fernandez, are doing excellent work for under-represented communities, and they deserve cake every day! (Or whatever treat they please, this cake was DELICIOUS but I might not be able to have it every day.)
Check out all the photos from the various cake drops today by following the hashtag #parityraid and #cakedrop on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
In closing I’d like to echo the request that The Kilroys have made today.
Don’t see your favorite parity-achieving theater on the list? We hope you’ll show them some love. Send a social media shout-out (or a cake!) and buy a ticket to celebrate their commitment to producing work by women and trans* writers.
Let’s get to it then. The work continues!
It’s TODAY — SWAN Day Action Fest!
Come on out and celebrate with us!
Bring some pages and sign up for the micro-reads.
Calling all LA female playwrights
(and screenwriters): Let’s read your work!
Bring 1 page for our Micro-Reads.
View Action Fest Line Up Here.
By Kitty Felde
Years ago, my mother and I shared season subscriptions to the Mark Taper Forum. Few plays stick in my memory – “Children of a Lesser God” and “The Robber Bridegroom” come to mind.
But it wasn’t the plays that my mother loved.
As a mom of seven who lived in the suburbs that straddled LA and Orange County, my mother relished the trips to “the city” where she would put on her bohemian clothes and devote as much attention to the audience as she would to the plays. “I’ve never seen such ugly people in all my life!” she’d say.
My mom’s been gone for more than 20 years. And as I sit through too many mediocre productions, I think back on what it was that she loved about going to the theatre: the drama, the spectacle, the unpredictability of real people. She wanted to be surprised, delighted, amused, amazed. How often do we get that onstage? Is this why theatre is in danger of dying?
This year, I saw one truly amazing production. It was an import from England, the Kneehigh Theater, on tour in DC. The company took an arthouse classic, “Brief Encounter,” David Lean’s film about an affair at a train station and made magic onstage. The movie was based on a one-act Noel Coward play from the 1930’s called “Still Life,” but I can’t imagine the original was anything like the Kneehigh production.
The story was simple: ordinary people stuck in middle-aged ennui who hit it off in a train station tea room. But out of that simplicity, the company invented four different ways to put trains onstage – including smoke and sound, and a marvelous toy train that circled the stage. The most dramatic was a film of a racing train, projected onto a scrim that was half the height of the stage, stretched out from wing to wing by a cast member running past, with another cast member closing down the scrim as the train chugged by.
There was levitation in the play – characters being lowered from the upper levels of the set by fellow cast members. There was music and dancing. There were puppets playing the heroine’s children.
It was the most magical theatrical experience I can remember.
It perfectly fit everything my mother loved about going to the theatre: drama, spectacle, unpredictability.
That’s what I want to create: a reason for people to come to the theatre, to be surprised, delighted, amused, and amazed.
What was the most magical, memorable night in the theatre for you?
Hello Lady Playwrights!
What great timing to be called to the LAFPI blog just as I’ve released the Little Black Dress INK submission guidelines for our 2015 ONSTAGE Project.
Some of you may remember a lot of cross-promotion between LBDI and the LAFPI as we worked together on that very awesome SWAN Day fest last March. At the same time I was helping wrangle plays for SWAN day, I was also hot and heavy into coordinating LBDI’s semi-finalist readings, which were going up in multiple locations across the country.
Well, I’m pleased to say that the 2014 festival readings went really well, and now we are in rehearsals for the production going up in Prescott, AZ on January 2nd and 3rd.
I’m super excited and cannot wait to see these 11 plays brought to life!
Yay!
And while we’re gearing up for production, I’m already laying the groundwork for our 2015 festival, which will feature 3 additional reading locations – I’m so excited!
So without further ado, let me share the 2015 ONSTAGE Project guidelines with you, and remember – Little Black Dress INK utilizes peer review to select plays, so sharing your work with us doesn’t just end when you hit “send”; instead, you get to play a crucial part in the festival’s development and final outcome. I hope you’ll consider participating, and I look forward to reading your work!
by Kitty Felde
I should be writing about THE LIST. The Kilroys’ list of plays by female writers that have so far gone unloved. There have been multiple rants on Twitter and Facebook and I suppose I should add my voice to the wailing and gnashing of teeth. But it won’t help my plays to get added to the list.
Instead, I was distracted for most of the week by my day job. The unexpected primary loss in Virginia of Republican Eric Cantor set off a backstage campaign for his job of Majority Leader worthy of any Shakespeare play.
And then it occurred to me: what could I learn about PROMOTING my plays from this 49 year old kid from Bakersfield’s amazing rise in power?
1) Research
Kevin McCarthy loves technology. And data. He finds out – and keeps notes on – the birthdays and anniversaries of his colleagues. He sends cards, even flowers. Back in the days when he was in the state legislature, one California lawmaker’s wife called her husband to gush about the bouquet that had been delivered. He had to sheepishly admit that he hadn’t sent them: McCarthy had.
I may not be calling Jacob Maarse for a floral delivery, but I can certainly do some theatrical homework.
How much research do I do before I pop a play into the mail? What shows from earlier seasons reflect my work’s sensibilities? What’s the background of the literary manager? Artistic director? How much intelligence do I have ahead of time? Do I perform a Google search before heading off to the theatre? Since the pre-curtain speech about unwrapping candy and signing up for season tickets seem to be delivered these days by the AD or some other bigwig at the theatre, it would be helpful to at least introduce myself to them before finding my seat in the theatre.
And when I open yet another rejection email, I don’t see it as a “no.” Instead, it’s an invitation to have a conversation with that literary manager, intern, dramaturg, etc. I add the name to my data list. I send invitations to readings and postcards with a note when there’s a production. My carefully kept notes in Excel allow me to add something personal.
2) Find Out What They Want
McCarthy is famous for taking his GOP colleagues on long bike rides through Rock Creek Park, chatting them up in the House gymnasium, hosting movie nights. He finds out what issues are important in their neck of the woods and has an almost encyclopedic knowledge of factoids about each member’s district. He finds out what they want and is often able to help out – in exchange for getting something he wants.
What does a theatre really want?
Certainly most regional theatres don’t want my nine actor war crimes drama. Too expensive and too depressing to sell to season subscribers. But it’s perfect for college campuses where “A Patch of Earth” has found a home. College drama teachers love it because the cast can grow or shrink according to available actors. There’s plenty of good, rich female parts. Most of the characters are the same age as college students. College kids feel they’re doing something important, telling a true story that few know about that happened in THEIR lifetime. The play has been performed from Pretoria to Sussex to Detroit and Costa Mesa. It’s what college theatre departments really want.
3) Play Nice
Kevin McCarthy’s current job is the #3 leadership position among the House GOP: Whip. It’s the same job Frank Underwood had in the first season of “House of Cards.” Kevin Spacey even tailed McCarthy on his rounds of the Capitol as research for the role.
McCarthy is just as good as Frank Underwood at working the deals behind the scenes. But he’s never going to push a reporter in front of a passing subway car to get what he wants. McCarthy’s a nice guy. People genuinely like him.
People usually like me, too. But like Frank Underwood, I have a dark side. I’m not going to get a literary manager drunk and lock him in the garage with the SUV’s motor running. But when I see lousy plays get full productions, I admit that I think about it.
But what does it get me?
I’m tired of being an angry playwright. I’ve figured out what I really want is some quite writing time in the morning and the opportunity at least once a year to be in a rehearsal room with actors and a director working on one of my plays.
I may not ever become the Majority Leader of produced plays in America. But you never know, do you?
