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Guest Post: Thoughts on Smart Phones and Live Performance

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Guest Blogger- Laura A. Shamas, LA FPI Co-Founder and National Outreach Agent

Last year in London, I saw a huge advertisement in the Underground: plain black type on a white background without any big graphics. I’ll paraphrase the content: “See this ad? Do you have any ideas about what should be written here? If so, we want to work with you. As more ads in public places become interactive with smart phones, we want to work with the idea innovators. Contact us at ——-.”

I have thought about that ad for over a year. I’m not a futurist or a tech whiz. But I am quite interested in how interactive ads in subways will affect the practice of theater.

Think there’s no connection?

Already, we have ongoing debates over the value of Tweet Seats in theatre: will they bring in more “young people”? Marketing departments certainly hope so. Some new theaters are building Tweet Seats into their venues.

Speaking for myself, in the past 5 years, I’ve been in many theaters (some at the Equity-waiver level, and some with very expensive ticket prices) only to have my viewing experience marred by the bright light of a cell phone in a row ahead of me. In a university theater in Texas, where one of my own shows was being produced, the tech crew told me that they heard every ping of texting in the theater on their headsets; it interfered with calling the cues. If you’ve seen War Horse, you know they inform you in the program that if you use your cell phone during the show, it will possibly cause harm to the performers. But when I saw it in New York at Lincoln Center, that didn’t stop someone in my row from using hers twice. Last weekend, I watched someone use his while on the front row of an L.A. Equity-waiver house of 50 seats. The bright green glow of his phone could be seen throughout the small venue. But he couldn’t seem to put it down; the ribald action on the stage immediately in front of him could not compete with his own dialogue with someone via text on his smart phone.

And that’s my point. The ping of instant gratification that one receives from texting, tweeting, or interacting with an advertisement: is it something that can be controlled? Or has our collective response to our smart phones already become “Pavlovian?” Is it the world of WALL-E already, with everyone glued to a screen? From what I’ve observed, cell phone usage in theaters is, increasingly, standard behavior. (I have definitely noticed this in movie theaters, too.) Is electronic addiction here to stay?

What do lighting designers, whose work is interrupted by the radiant glow of cell phones, think of Tweet Seats? Two lighting designers shared their thoughts with me via e-mail: Martha Mountain and Andrew F. Griffin.

Martha Mountain writes: “My knee jerk response to Tweet Seats is: oh no, it’s bad enough that people can’t turn the damn things off to watch the play as it is, don’t encourage them! But I would be prepared to accept Tweet Seats if they were BEHIND everyone else. And they have black scrim around them. The light from the smart phones is just distracting – it pulls my attention away from the stage and annoys me. I get Twitter (I think), I use it. But there is a time and a place – like the lobby and the bar afterwards.”

Andrew F. Griffin says: “I tend to agree with Martha on this. Before you get into the distraction factor of others in the audience there to watch the show, tweets capture a snapshot in time, but to capture that snapshot you need to stop paying attention to what’s happening in front of you. Tweet Seats encourage people not to pay attention to what’s happening in front of them on a level any deeper than what’s cool that I can write about in 140 characters or less every two minutes. As a result, the viewer’s experience is lessened and the impact of what is before them is diminished. Martha, of course, covered my feelings exactly when it comes to how we deal with the light and the distractions from the phones. I believe phones should be checked just like a jacket on the way into the theatre.”

As a playwright, I agree with Martha and Andrew. I want the audience to be caught up in a play completely– at every level, not involved with texting someone throughout or documenting the action of the play as it unfolds (an analytical function). We’re told by scientists that the human brain works in a hierarchical modality—meaning one function always takes precedence over another. You may think you can multi-task, but your brain is always putting one task in a primary position. That’s why you should never text and drive, for example. Don’t the theatre artists onstage, who create a show in front of you, deserve your full, undivided attention, too? To add a consumerist note to this: you are paying to see their work. Don’t you want your psyche to get the “full value” of the experience?

Yet, when I attended the TCG National Conference in 2011, I heard a prediction that in the not-so-far-away future, we’re all going to be hardwired and part of a collective brain. When I first heard that, I thought: Ha! Not me! But I’m guilty, too; and if you use a smart phone, so are you (even if you’re just checking your e-mail). If I want “encyclopedic” confirmation on a subject these days, I’ll look up a fact on my smart phone in the moment—which, in concept, is somewhat similar to being plugged into a centralized electronic brain. And yes, I’m on Twitter, too.

Is smart phone usage truly “participatory,” a way to engage during a show? Or is it more narcissistic, a way to privilege one’s own thoughts/feelings over those in/of the show? These types of questions about theater, and the new interactive chips in ads/posters (which allow us to buy products instantly via smart phones), leave me wondering about the future of live performance in the years ahead, and how changes will affect our art, our minds and our psyches.

Got an opinion or prediction on this topic? Please comment below.

on a pilgrimage and quest

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My transmedia series MYTHistories has its own pilgrimage, from the very first time the idea popped into my head to one of the segments I will finish during a writing date I have tonight with my friend Bree. Here are a few videos that helped shape my revisions while I work-shopped one piece to the MYTHistories puzzle at The Indy Convergence.

I ask people 2 questions:

1. What do you think of when you hear the word pilgrimage?
2. Do you feel like you are on a pilgrimage?

Please comment with your answers below, either typing it or a video response!
Puppeteer Leila Ghazvani responds and has a strange discovery towards the end:

 

Writer Sarah H Moon responds while we prepare for tech:

 

Dancer & Choreographer Sarah Weber Gallo responds while wearing one of her props:

Now it’s your turn:

What do you think of when you hear the word pilgrimage?

Do you feel like you are on any sort of pilgrimage?

 Comment below or send me a link to your own video interview.

Watch more Pilgrimage videos here

Mary Steelsmith Goes To Sweden

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When: August 15 – 20, 2012
Where: Riksteatern, Stockholm, Sweden
What: The 9th Women Playwrights International Conference
Why:  From the WPIC website: “The conference will be an opportunity to meet and to create genuine, lasting contacts between women playwrights and other theatre professionals. The conference’s aim is to have a supporting impact on collaboration and to build bridges between people from different parts of the world.”
Who: Women playwrights from around the world, including LA FPI’s own Mary Steelsmith.
Mary’s play Isaac, I am will be featured at WPIC 2012 on Saturday afternoon, August 18, 2012.

Award-winning dramatist Mary Steelsmith and her highly-lauded play Isaac, I am will be featured at the upcoming 2012 Women Playwrights International Conference in Stockholm, Sweden.  It’s a six-day conference with international focus, filled with lectures, workshops, and most of all, performances of works by women. This year’s theme is “The Democratic Stage.” The WPI Conference moves around the world: it’s held every three years in a different city. In 2015, it will be held in Cape Town, South Africa. For more on Women Playwrights International, and to join, visit their website.

107 plays from around the world will be featured at WPIC 2012, and Mary is thrilled: “What an honor it is to have Isaac, I am chosen to be presented at this conference! The opportunity to meet with and learn from so many female dramatists from other countries and cultures is a rare and wonderful one. While it will be an expensive journey, the experience of this conference in beautiful Stockholm will be priceless.” Only fourteen women playwrights from the U.S. were selected to attend. (To see the complete list of selected plays and playwrights, click here.)

Steelsmith’s Isaac, I am is a story of love, life, death and AOL. A winner of the Helford Prize (and she’s only female playwright to win it), Steelsmith also lists productions of Isaac, I am at the Racounteur Theatre in Columbus, Ohio, and most recently, here in Los Angeles at the Women’s Theatre Organization at the University of Southern California.

Steelsmith has won other playwriting awards, including the Eileen Heckart Drama for Seniors Competition and the Hewlett-Packard Action Theatre Prize (Singapore).

Would you like to help Mary Steelsmith get to Sweden? On Saturday, July 14, 2012, 2 p.m., there’s a benefit performance of 5 short plays by Steelsmith  at Vidiots Video, 302 Pico Blvd., Santa Monica, CA, 90402. She’s also selling copies of her work on Amazon.

For more info, go to marysteelsmith.com.

A Love Vaccine: Believers by Patricia Milton

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One of my favorite writing subjects is myth and fairy tale adaptation. Robin Byrd, whose new play The Grass Widow’s Son is part of the DC Black Theatre Festival on 6/28/12, kindly blogged here about a talk that I gave on the topic at the Dramatists Guild National Conference last year.

Award-winning Bay Area playwright Patricia Milton has a new comedy opening in August in San Francisco titled Believers. It’s a fairy tale adaptation, and sounds fascinating—about a love vaccine. I interviewed Patricia via e-mail to learn more about her new show and her fairy tale adaptation process.

Q: Please tell us about your new play Believers. What’s it about?

Milton: In a remote pharmaceutical lab, brain researcher Rockwell Wise works to develop a love vaccine so he will never again suffer the pain of heartbreak. His ex-lover Grace Wright shows up to lead his drug development team, bringing her own agenda — her plan to create a love activator. Their maneuvers to achieve their own aims result in unexpected side effects.

Q: A love vaccine. What sparked the idea? How’d you come up with it?

Milton: I read an article in the NY Times about the brain synapses involved in romantic love, and was intrigued by the article’s assertion that if a love vaccine were made, there is already a large market for it. I immediately wanted to write about this: I think it is funny and touching to follow a protagonist whose desperate, heartfelt goal is totally wrong for her or him. I wanted to adapt a fairy tale as a couple’s backstory. I also was eager to explore the notion of pharmaceutical side effects. Brain-altering drugs are a boon for many people, but when their side effects are ignored or concealed, there are tragic results. In a similar way, sometimes our own actions produce unintended consequences that hurt the ones we love.

Q: Sounds like so many people can relate to this play! When did you start it and what’s your development process been like?

Milton: I’ve been working on it for about two years. I developed it in several writers workshops, including at Playwrights Foundation and Central Works writing group. It has had three public readings: at Playwrights Center of San Francisco, Playwrights Revolution, Capital Stage Company, Sacramento, and Wily West Productions, San Francisco. From the last reading, Wily West decided to produce it. As a side note, the Playwrights Revolution reading was directly as a result of Twitter: Stephanie Gularte, artistic director of Capital Stage, read my tweet about the play and asked to read it.

Q: That’s great that social media helped you get a reading. Speaking of readings, what’s their value in terms of a play’s development?

Milton: I learned so much from each reading. Believers is a comedy, so sitting in the middle of the theatre, listening for the laughter, told me a lot about what was working in terms of what was funny. The play explores a complex mash-up of ideas, and has an intricate plot, so I asked a lot of questions in talk-backs to make sure audiences were following the action. There’s still some juicy ambiguity, but the action has become clearer with each rewrite.

Q: Believers is based on a fairy tale. Please tell us about your fairy tale adaptation process.

Milton: Fairy tales are fascinating to me: layered, deep, and speaking directly to the unconscious. Many of the fairy tales we know here in the U.S. have been “Disney-ized,” removing some of the darker elements.  In “The Frog King,” a princess promises to love the Frog King forever and ever if he will rescue her gold ball from a pond. When he delivers the ball, she refuses to keep her promise. Now, many of us know a version where the princess kisses the frog to change him into a prince. But in the fairy story I found, the princess changes him by throwing the frog against a wall!  To me, this version is not about physical violence. It depicts the power of love to completely, often fiercely and uncomfortably, shatter our psyche as it transforms us. I was challenged to figure out how Grace “throws Rocky against the wall” to bring him to his fully realized self. One other aspect of the play is that the frog is both a religious symbol (as in Egypt’s plague) and a fairy tale symbol. I was prompted to explore the apocalyptic side of the frog as well as its fairy tale side.

Q: Any thoughts on writing comedy you can share with us?

Milton: I want to put in a good word for romantic comedies. For centuries, all comedies were romantic comedies. Hollywood, with its frequent use of stale formulas and generic couples, has somewhat tarnished the rom-com. I’m doing my part to reclaim the genre for smart people. I’d like to also make a plug for Wily West: a fantastic production company, employing talented women artists like our director, Sara Staley, Lead Designer Quinn Whitaker, and Executive Producer Laylah Muran de Assereto, as well as many other talented actors and design professionals. Founded by Morgan Ludlow, Wily West Productions produces only local SF Bay Area playwrights.

Q) A female-driven production company? We certainly want to support that. Thanks, Patricia, for all the good information. Congratulations and we can’t wait to hear more about your show.

Wily West Productions presents the world premiere apocalyptic comedy, BELIEVERS, by Patricia Milton, directed by Sara Staley. August 2-25, 2012. Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays at 8 p.m. at StageWerx, 466 Valencia Street, between 15th and 16th Streets, San Francisco. For more information: www.wilywestproductions.com 

 

Taking Stock

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(Guest Blogger This Week – Laura A. Shamas, LA FPI Co-Founder and National Outreach Agent)

The Los Angeles Female Playwrights Initiative, as a grassroots movement dedicated to the cause of achieving gender parity for women playwrights (and all female theatre artists), has been around for awhile now. Inspired by the advocacy efforts by women playwrights in New York, Jennie Webb and I had our first conversation about it in September 2009 over lunch at the Marmalade Café on Ventura Blvd. In November 2009, we put up a temporary website, begged Ella Martin to head a study of L.A. female playwrights’ activities in the first decade of the 21st century, and tried to figure out how to organize a community-wide outreach to the hundreds of female dramatists here (and those who love them)—not an easy feat when you consider SoCal’s 500 square miles.  But we knew lots of people here cared about this issue and wanted to do something about it. We had our first official meeting in March 2010 at Theatricum Botanicum during a major storm; it seems like a metaphor, looking back. Still, many talented women and men trekked to Topanga Canyon during the torrential rain, and spoke from the heart about how and why this cause—and theatre as an art form—matters.

That initial wet chilly meeting seems like ancient history now; so much good work has happened in the past 2+ years. There’s a long list of artist-volunteers who have contributed to the LA FPI mission. Some highlights include: the creation of this website by Jennie Webb, sponsored by Katherine James; the award-winning staff of playwright-bloggers (Tiffany Antone, Erica Bennett, Nancy Beverly, Robin Byrd, Kitty Felde, Diane Grant, Jen Huszcza, Sara Israel, Cindy Marie Jenkins, Analyn Revilla, and Cynthia Wands) who are featured daily in this space, expertly managed by editor Robin Byrd; Ella Martin’s historic 2011 study results; Alyson Mead’s podcasts with inspiring women playwrights; the Women at Work Onstage page (still the only weekly list of female-authored shows in L.A.), created/maintained by Laurel Moje Wetzork; the bi-monthly e-mail blasts that include member news and submission opportunities, curated by Erica Bennett, then Helen Hill (we’re now looking for communication help!); the support from Larry Dean Harris, who wrote about us for The Dramatist—and gave us a spotlight, featuring Janice Kennedy, at a 2010 regional Dramatists Guild meeting (followed by a panel slot for us at 2011 National DG Conference); the new venture with Tactical Reads launching this week, connecting women playwrights to female directors, originated/helmed by Sabina Ptasznik; the spread of our badges on the Web and in person (a branding scheme with an important meme); an annual look at LORT seasons and stats in SoCal as related to gender parity and playwriting; the enthusiastic LA FPI support for female artists in the Hollywood Fringe Festival in 2011 & 2012 (lead by Cindy Marie Jenkins, Jennie Webb, Jan O’Connor, Alyson Mead, Kat Primeau, and Jessica Abrams); sharing scenes via social media in order to increase accessibility and visibility; approaching theaters to ask how we can build relationships, fostered by Debbie Bolsky and Tami Tirgrath; meet-ups to see plays by women, coordinated by Task Force leader Diane Grant; online discussions, such as the fascinating one just hosted by Cindy Marie Jenkins with guests Etta Devine and Carolyn Sharp, about applying the Bechdel Test to the stage—a streamed broadcast that may (fingers crossed!) evolve into an ongoing monthly LA FPI/TV theatre conversation; etc. We have more people following us on Twitter, domestically and worldwide, than ever before. Lots of folks “Like” us on Facebook. And it’s all been created and executed by volunteers of professional theatre artists, for free!

Whew!

But has anything really changed? “Has LA FPI made any difference at all?” It’s a question I’m frequently asked and asking. When we compiled the SoCal LORT stats in May/June this year, for a while it looked as if there might be small gains of +1.5% or even +3.5%, in terms of female-authored shows for the 2012-2013 professional seasons. But then, in the end, it was pretty much the same as it ever was: still around 22% (or slightly less). Discouraging! “Is consciousness-raising effective anymore?” we wonder. Why doesn’t the excellent LA FPI blog have more commenters, at the very least?

In these moments, I have to remind myself: Statistics don’t tell the whole story—only part of it. Things have changed in this way: we are not sitting around and ignoring “the problem” any more. We were cautioned in the early days of LA FPI not to confuse “Activity” with “Progress.” Maybe not, but when you have this much ongoing work towards a goal (see above), there’s a shift of some sort—of attitude, of creativity, of focus, of opportunity, of spirit. It may take many more years before we achieve true gender parity for female theatre artists in the English-speaking theatre (or for women in the world at large). But we’re pretty sure that more Angelenos are aware of the issue and are working towards the goal of parity now. Solved? No. Better? Definitely.

Female theatre artists in New York continue to advocate for gender parity; the 2012 Lilly Awards held on June 4, 2012, at Playwrights Horizons, and the upcoming “We Are Theatre” protest on September 24, 2012, at the Cherry Lane Theater (organized by the Guerrilla Girls On Tour!, 50/50 by 2020, Occupy Broadway, and the Women’s Initiative members of the Dramatists Guild) are two timely examples.

Recent reports from the U.K. and Australia also mirror our struggles. Lyn Gardner, writing from London in The Guardian in February 2012, wonders if a universal blind submission policy is a possible remedy. A new report, “Women in Theatre,” released April 2012 by the Australian Council for the Arts, details the status of Australian women playwrights and female theatre artists. Those who authored the report found “no progress over the decade since 2001 and there is evidence that the situation for women in creative leadership deteriorated over that time” (pps 4-5). It’s a thorough, well-crafted study, and on page 49, there’s a “cross-sectoral approach” that suggests three pathways towards improvement in the professional theatre arena:

1) Information
2) Accountability
3) Vigilance

These points really resonated with us because they align with so much of our LA FPI work thus far. And it’s reassuring to know that others in the arts, including the Australian Council, recognize that the problem of gender parity in theatre is a grave one and must be remedied.

Here’s our promise. We will continue to spread the word; we are taking stock. And of this you can be certain: we won’t give up.


What are your ideas about how to create equal opportunities for women playwrights and female theatre artists? Join us on Wednesday, June 27, 7 p.m., for our next LA FPI gathering to share ideas and network, followed by an 8 p.m. reading of Paula Cizmar’s new play Strawberry, directed by Sabina Ptasznik in the new Tactical Reads program. And please share your thoughts in the comments section below. 

 

THE WOMEN OF TU-NA HOUSE at The Hollywood Fringe

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Less than a week ago I was a Fringe virgin, tentatively taking my seat as I prepared to see a show about elementary school crushes and Hallmark Valentines stamped Return to Sender. Four shows later, I can almost call myself a savvy Fringer, flashing my badge and glibly leafing through my press packet as I wait for the curtain to go up.

How fitting, then, that my latest — and last — blog subject is a one-woman show about women who are highly skilled at the art of love — or rather, satisfying men.  Nancy Eng’s THE WOMEN OF TU-NA HOUSE is a moving and at times heart-crushing show about the workers at an Asian massage parlor that doubles (not-so-secretly) as a brothel.  From the madam whose constancy lands her a brownstone in New York to the worker who can’t stop crying after her cat dies (and whose tears earn her a generous tip), the stories are moving and gritty and real.

Too real for the not-so-savvy Fringers out there?  Not at all: interspersed with stories of desperation and truncated hopes is humor.  Lots of it.  As a matter of fact, Nancy Eng manages to weave so much wit into these women’s yarns that we almost see these characters as friendly aunts, dispensing age-old advice on men and sex and life.  Never mind how they arrived at it, their vista from the baser level of human existence earns them a certain wisdom that asks — demands — us to take note.

And we do.  How can we not?  In addition to being a deft storyteller, Eng is a skilled actress, a chameleon as she moves from one character to the next.  She has quite a few up her sleeve, but each one feels new.  Unlike her characters’ encounters, there’s no wham-bam repetition in these characters or their tales.

In the end, just like the Tu-Na House customers, everyone — sophisticated and naive Fringers alike — will leave feeling satisfied.

SO MUCH TO CELEBRATE!

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When I first saw the title of Jackie Loeb’s one-woman extravaganza at the Hollywood Fringe Festival, I had my reservations. What the frack does this woman have to celebrate? Aren’t one-woman shows supposed to be about angst and rejection and recovery from eating disorders?  I jest, but that’s kind of what mine’s about…  I was further confused by the cover photo on the Fringe listing: Jackie wearing a mix of coy surprise (little old me?) and elation, her hair blown back (it, too, is surprised and elated).  Who is this saucy Aussie and what the hell is she kvelling over?

Glad you asked.  Jackie Loeb doesn’t just have a one-woman show.  Jackie Loeb IS a one-woman show.  She sings — by that I mean, one minute you’re hearing Aretha being channeled through this blonde, bob-wearing gal from down under, the next, Maria Callas.  She plays guitar.  The piano, neglected for the first half of the show was put to awe-inspiring use once she sat down at it.  She tells jokes and funny stories.  The woman has so much talent it’s sick.

The celebration part?  Let’s just say much of it centers around her recent move to L.A.  As you can imagine, Jackie has a few things to say about… oh, let’s see… the freeways, the culture, the use of the word “adjacent” to denote a not-so-great neighborhood that happens to be in the same time zone as a nice one.  Jackie just seems to get this city in such a fresh way it reminded me of my own culture shock when I first moved here.  And when I say “fresh”, I mean both new and sassy.

Oh, and turning forty — that, too, is fodder, particularly her rendition of Billy Joel’s “She’s Always A Woman”.  Obviously the words have been changed to protect the innocent, but it’s such sheer genius you completely forget what Billy was singing about in the first place.

Yes, Jackie Loeb — there is a Santa Claus and yes,  you do have so much to celebrate (exclamation point).

SO MUCH TO CELEBRATE! plays June 23rd and 24th at the Asylum Theatre.

After This I’ll Shut up (And Dance)

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Walking up the steep set of stairs to get to one of the wonderfully informal gems tucked away off LA’s Theatre Row known as the Complex Theatres, I was reminded of my days as a dancer in New York, ascending to some ragtag rehearsal space on or near Forty-Second Street (pre-Disney whitewash).  The elevator was always broken, the stairs required more muscle power than the dancing itself, and God forbid you touched the railing for all the decades of germs that lurked. But once you got inside the studio, it was like entering a technicolor world where the sheer joy of dance managed to drown out the sirens, the horns and the urine smell down below (not to mention money and boyfriend woes).

That was a long-winded way of saying that upon entering Stella Valente’s world, I was transported in much the same way.  Valente, an actress, comedienne and dancer, tells of her lifelong game of hide-and-seek with herself in her one-woman show, SHUT UP AND DANCE. From the mob-fringed world of Queens, to spicy Miami, to Buenos Aires where she learned to tango and ultimately to L.A., Stella makes anyone whose trajectory has been a series of impulsive exits off the Interstate of life feel in very good company.

Especially if you also happen to be someone for whom those exits came in the form of a grand jete.  Stella loves to dance, and she does it beautifully.  She also masterfully combines the high-art of beautiful movement with a down-and-dirty expose on her life and loves.  Her characters are hilarious: I never wanted her mother to leave (full disclosure: I’m working on a one-woman show myself, with a character much like her mother.  Now I’m wondering if it can be a two-woman show with Stella playing that part?).  But the character that comes through the strongest is Stella herself and her love of dance.  Because no matter what happens, dance is always a part of her life.  It’s a metaphor for the different challenges she faces, a mirror gently reminding her of the aspects of her personality that could use just a tad bit of tweaking.

It made me miss those New York days, condemned buildings and all.

SHUT UP AND DANCE plays 6/17 and 6/24 at The Complex Theatre in Hollywood.

CRUSHED at The Hollywood Fringe Festival

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I have a confession to make: until last night I was a fringe festival virgin.

Year after year I’d drive past the tent, see the sign, hear about the shows.  In a way it felt like a big block party.  A block party filled with people on Ecstasy.  Even if it was right outside my door, it still felt weird to crash it, like I needed one of the more sober people to actually insist I come.  In the case of the Hollywood Fringe Festival, I got such an invitation when I was asked to be a guest blogger.  So last night I popped my Fringe cherry.

I use this analogy in part because Kiersten Lyons’ one-woman show CRUSHED deals with this very concept and more. Lyons originally told the story of the various men who rejected her, starting with Han Solo and moving on from there, as a pilot; but it’s hard to imagine the show without Lyons in the flesh recounting it.

Moving from a clothesline of paper hearts to a transparency projector to the various “places” she conjures up so well, Lyons makes the audience feel like she’s a long-lost girlfriend and we’re catching up on events that transpired since we parted ways at age six.  She’s funny and affable and self-aware; she also did the amazing thing of making me remember the look on Marc Tetelle’s face when, in eighth grade, I told him I liked him and how Neal Barry and I kissed after the Sadie Hawkins dance (my first!) which led to his ignoring me for the next two years.

My own romantic pitfalls aside, Kiersten Lyons’ lead her — and, ultimately us — to a place of hope and surprise and comfort.  Let me share this with you,  she implies.  Help me tell my story.  She even says this, in not so many words, to the audience directly.

I think that’s what makes the Fringe so special.  It’s a chance for audience and performers alike to collaborate in an intimate storytelling process.  A chance to experience the moment together.

A chance to feel like you really belong at the party.

CRUSHED plays at the Underground Theater June 15 and 16 and June 21 through June 23rd.

Fresh Ideas Over-Easy

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So, we were eating dinner last Saturday night and I was attempting to make my 82-year-old friend laugh. We were talking politics, free-associating and marveling about how we could still be surprised about the things people do.

I was reading the news aloud from my Smart phone and came upon a story about a nineteen-year-old, unmarried mother who’d been smoking dope in the park with her baby-daddy when they decided they needed more beer.

So, logically, they got into their vehicle and began to drive to the nearest liquor store. On the way, he was arrested on an aggravated DUI. Pissed off, the young mother drove to a friend’s house where she smoked more dope.

She left around midnight and drove off, leaving her five-week-old baby strapped in his car seat on the roof of her vehicle. She got home, realized she’d lost her baby, back-tracked, received a cell phone call from her friends who found him in the middle of a street, miraculously, still in his car seat and totally unharmed.

Of course, good Samaritans had found him first and called 911. So, yes, when the mother arrived at the scene, she was promptly arrested on, yes, wait for it, an aggravated DUI. Of course, this led me to think about Mitt’s Romney’s Irish Setter, Seamus’, family vacation experience, which led me to my idea.

I started writing around midnight. Got to page five and went to bed. Sunday, I wrote another five pages and was happy with my 10-minute play. Monday, I revised the first ten pages and added two. By the end of Tuesday, I had sixteen pages. And Wednesday, I had a nineteen-page one-act and an idea for extending it into a full-length play.

Apparently, it’s funny, although, according to one, not so much. However, after working for more than two years on a psychological drama, after not writing for four months due to work commitments, I am excited about writing again. Especially something that is total escapism.

So, as of last Friday, I had my summer writing schedule all planned out. I had tweaked my summer Google calendar endlessly over the week preceding. I had the research for my next play bookmarked and ready to read. Then, I had this idea. I am posting this today, because I’m writing this weekend. Funny how that happens 🙂