Gold Pants?

Posted on August 19, 2011 by admin

by Shanee Edwards

I’m officially excited about the big show!  On Saturday, I will fly from LA to Prescott on a nail-biting 19-seater jet and pray for zero turbulence (note to self, skip breakfast).  My travel companion will be another fancy playwright, Sara Israel.  This is going to be a blast!

Last night, because my unconscious just can’t let me have stress-free sleep, I dreamt about being in Prescott.  In the dream, it was a group of us girls getting ready to go to the big show.  Hair.  Makeup.  And of course, what to wear, what to wear?  I looked in my suitcase and saw that I brought a pair of gold pants.  With spandex.  I’ll back up.

When I was in my twenties, I used to rock a pair of vintage Fredrick’s of Hollywood gold spandex pants when I went clubbing to places like Club Fuck. (Yes, that was a real club)   Sounds like cheesy disco garb, but I had the bod back then and the pants were quite coveted.  I still own them.  Not as part of my wardrobe, but more as a memento of my former self.

So, in my dream I was trying to decide if I should wear those pants to my play. Am I too old?  Am I too fat?  Am I too hootchy?   Now that I’m awake, the answer is a resounding NO, DUH!  But in the dream, it wasn’t so obvious. Okay, Carl Jung – what the heck does this mean???

These are my pants, but sadly not my ass.

In my 20’s, I was an actress.  I was excited about the future.  I was hoping I’d have a great career.  Everything was a new experience.  Being a struggling artist was cool.  Independent film was thriving.  On television, the sitcom was king.  I was young.  President Clinton was balancing the budget.  The dot-com bubble was inflating.   I was optimistic about the future.

CUT TO:

Now.  Economy tanked.  Independent film dead.  Reality TV rules the tube.  Jobs (not just writing ones) are hard to come by.  Partisan bullsh*t ruining Washington, ruining our country. Bye-bye space shuttle.  Wild weather making me baffled at how many people think global warming is a hoax.    I am disillusioned.

So maybe this dream about the gold pants is symbolic of a happier time in my life, one where hope beat cynicism and only good things awaited. me (and the country).  Maybe somehow, writing this play, as insignificant as it is, has brought back a touch of that 20-something attitude?  Letting me know that optimistic girl is still alive inside of me?

To everyone who is contributing to Dirty Laundry, my unconscious mind thanks you from the bottom of my hippocampus.  Now, the big questions is:

DO I WEAR THE GOLD PANTS TO THE SHOW?

Let me know what you think!

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A Warning About Rinse

Posted on August 18, 2011 by admin

Dear Potential Audience Member,

I just wanted to warn you that there is a lot of water splashing around in my play, Rinse, so if you are sitting close to the stage, you could possibly get splashed with water.

Now, this isn’t the Shamu show at Sea World. We don’t have an 8,000 pound killer whale. There are no flying mammals in Rinse.

Still there is the potential for some water drizzle.

If you have an expensive electronic device, you might want to pass it to a trustworthy looking soul a few rows back. Or you can just give it to me for safe-keeping.

In the meantime, sit back, relax, and enjoy the show.

Best regards,

Jen H

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The Line Up…

Posted on August 15, 2011 by admin

by Tiffany Antone

Well, it’s finally here… We’re just a few sly days away from Dirty Laundry!

Do you have your tickets yet?

Oh so many (or five) months ago when I sent out the call for plays, I had no idea what I was going to wind up with.  I knew that the playwrights I was asking to participate would turn in some fantastic stuff, but would the pieces go together?  Would I have to weed them down?  I had, after all, invited 14 wild women to write – surely I would have a hell of a time trying to select just 8 plays from that number!

Then life took over and made some of those decisions for me.  Unfortunately 5 of the playwrights I had invited to participate had been unable to get anything new written, and of the 9 plays that were submitted, a few were quite under the 10 page limit… which meant I could fit all 9 into the lineup.

Also, each of the plays totally ROCKED!

And so I barely had to bat an eye to get directors on board, and then actors, and I’ve been happily watching the show take shape ever since.  So how about I tell you a little bit about each one:

COLOR SEPARATION, by Jennie Webb: A woman daunted by options, and a man excited by ownership, discuss family, facebook, and coffee makers, as they debate their decision to put a very important choice up for poll on the world wide web.  Directed by Kate Hawkes

THE FACE IN THE MIRROR, by Micki Shelton:  Sorting through their deceased mother’s belongings strands two sisters amongst their shared but conflicting family memories.  Directed by Gail Mangham

DIRTY LAUNDRY, by Katherine James:  Sara and Abe would be perfect for each other… if only she didn’t want to sue his parents for the grotesque injury she sustained at their house… and if only Abe wasn’t hiding his own dirty little secret…  Directed by Jean Lippincott

DIRTY LAUNDRY, by Kate Hawkes:  D doesn’t understand her daughter… especially when she insists on doing the laundry in a painted up old shack in the back yard, complete with mysterious stains and acting as though she’s hiding something...  Directed by Jon Meyer

MONA LISA, APPROXIMATELY, by Charlotte Winters: Cecily Walker-Banks and Mortimer D. Thrillington find themselves in a private viewing room with the Mona Lisa… and a felt tip pen.  Directed by Layla Tenney

-Intermission-

RINSE, by Jen Huszcza: Three men, an interrogation room, and… divine intervention?  A play about the struggle between faith and following orders. Directed by Cason Murphy

(touch.), by Sara Israel:  Five strangers find that language isn’t the only way to communicate in this play about discovering common (and humorous) ground in a doctor’s waiting room. Directed by Charissa Menefee

SOUR FRUIT, written and directed by Tiffany Antone:  What happens when the front runner for Presidential office discovers that she’s pregnant?  Political prowess hits the glass ceiling and brings gender roles into sharp focus.

RING AROUND THE COLLAR, By Shanee Edwards:  Krista met Ben online.  Then Ben took Krista to Olive Garden.  But Ben never called Krista back.  Now Krista wants answers, and she’s willing to keep Ben locked in his apartment until he gives them to her!  Directed by Karen Murphy

Buy tix at www.PFAA.net now!

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On the Little Black Dress Relay Team

Posted on August 10, 2011 by admin

by Kate Hawkes

Two weeks from today and the inaugural Prescott Little Black Dress Ink production will have opened and closed. (I say ‘inaugural’ because I hope and believe there will be more, right Tiffany?)

It’s hard to wrap my mind around that ‘two weeks and it is done’ bit. I guess that is the way with theatre though. It takes a month or more to plan and build the set, then it comes down in less than a night, all hands on deck, right after the last show.

From hearing about Little Black Dress, to writing a play, to hearing it was ‘in’ and then adding acting and directing, seems to have been both yesterday and a year. Am I getting older, that time both drags and flies? Or is it that I am better at being in the moment as well as keeping track of the journey?

A couple of weeks ago all of the Little Black Dressers (better short-hand than Inkers!) convened in the PFAA theatre for the first and only time before tech rehearsal, to share the gifts that we have in our care. I had not been in the space before except as a tourist, and to be there as a participant was, well, like coming home.

I think it is that way anytime I enter an active theatre space. I am immediately filled with the vibration of possibilities, redolent of hope and work, the blending energies of the imagined and the real, and the invitation to go forth, nestled in the surety of past creations.

There must have been more than 30 of us, perched in the steeply sloping auditorium, a pastiche of oldie opera-housey veneer within converted church. An empty stage, with a  5-chair barely curve, promised us the space to both offer and to receive.

Many people knew many others and some hardly any. It didn’t matter. We all recognized each other as being there for the one purpose. Like children at a birthday party where we were each both the guest and birthday girl/boy, we couldn’t wait to give and to open the presents.

The ring mistress alighted the stage, set a few rules, held out the lucky dip (to ascertain the order of gifts given) and the party began.

I love theatre people. No matter how scared they are, no matter how prepared or not, no matter that they are guessing what to do, know the audience or don’t, ultimately, they plunge in.

We’d make great English Channel swimmers. We brave the sharks and the cold, we take deep breaths, keep moving forward, paying attention to where we are right now, even as we have one eye in the horizon.

What was so wonderful about that informal ‘let’s share the stories’ get-together was the audience. We were all actually on the same team, working as a relay. Like a game of musical chairs, every ten minutes a sort of bell would go and the current guests on stage gave way to the next. They raced (or wandered) to the chairs and gave their gift to the array of birthday queens and kings in the audience.

Or, maybe it was when we were on stage we were on the birthday throne? I think so. That’s when we get to open the gift, play with the different elements, pushing the buttons, exploring its texture, trying it out with our friends.

That is how it felt to me. I was with friends, even though I’ll be hard put to name many of them on the 18th when we convene again. That work-party will be to add the next layer of texture (lights and sound), the next wave of musical chairs (getting on and of between gifts, this time not from the auditorium!) and I will be with friends.

The dissonance of feeling as if this journey began yesterday and a year ago, between the many hours to get it ready to give to public and the few minutes it will take to unwrap, makes perfect sense. It is the nature of the collaborative, ephemeral endeavor we call live theatre. And when it is created, shared and released within the safety of friends at a communal birthday party, then it is beautiful.

I am looking forward to being on the relay team that gives the gifts as well as the birthday girl who opens them. Yes, albeit again. Because each time I open the gift of the performance it is a brand new present.

That is the beauty of live theatre. As long as we brave the sharks, take the breaths and keep swimming it will keep unfolding. And each performance may be in the same body of water but it is a different series of waves and that redefines the gift. It cannot be repeated and cannot be reproduced. It is a new creation every time.

I hope that each of the playwrights who have so generously given their gift to us, mailed in as if from a far-away Aunt, will be happy with how we have treated their gift. I hope that when they see it, revealed on stage on the 20th, they will feel like both the birthday girl and the friend at the party.

I know that I will.

(note: this blog also appears on Kate’s Blog: www.wellnesswithkate.wordpress.com)

 

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Do they just not care?

Posted on August 7, 2011 by admin

By playwright, Jennie Webb

That’s what you say to yourselves when you’re doing the most important things in the world for the most important reasons and everyone you talk to seems to be too selfish or shallow or stupid to realize it.

Right.  But we’ve all been there.  And I can’t deny that this particular, particularly pathetic, phrase has been popping up in conversations regularly ever since my friend and colleague, playwright Laura Shamas, approached me at the end of 2009 and said, “No one’s producing plays by women and what the f*** are we gonna do about it?!”

Okay, to be honest those are my words. But it was Laura and her passion that lit the fire that started the Los Angeles Female Playwrights Initiative.  (She probably actually said something intelligent and civilized, like “The gender parity issue is finally coming to the forefront and after all the hard work of women in New York, it’s time for us to take action on the West Coast!”)

So Laura and I co-founded LA FPI (yes, it’s all about the branding – and being able to flash a badge: “I’m with the FPI”) to support women playwrights and to draw attention to the fact that too few female voices are represented on stages today. Too few women’s stories are being told.  Too few women artists are working.

Can you think of anything more important?  Of course not!

And how validating it was to find other women – and yes, men – who were as excited and enthused – and, yes, pissed off – as we were. We’re now 200+ LA FPI “instigators” who are part of this all-volunteer, grassroots, leaderless initiative that we hope will inspire positive action of the “Si, se puede!” over a few beers variety.

But of course, along with the “This is fantastic! What can I do?”s, we do get a lot of blank stares and “What’s in it for me?”s.  And on some days, after enough of these negative reactions or non-responses, we find ourselves saying, “Man!  Do they just not care?” (Well, Laura says “Man!”  I generally use another word.)

Luckily, even if we’ve started to cry or scream or channel Joan of Arc by this point, we’re also hit by the big picture ridiculousness of our situation. I’m talking the everything’s-relative-we-all-do-what-we-can-it-all-makes-a-difference-ness.

I remember that I have amazing friends who do things like run theater workshops in Columbia about the role of theatre in peacemaking while I sign online petitions.

I think about the work of organizations like Planned Parenthood, the HRC and NOW  to name a few, and it doesn’t take me long to cop to the fact that that I’m more of a dilettante than an activist, even with the badge.

I look at the theater companies across the country that have been devoting themselves to actually producing plays by women. And they’ve been doing it for a long time now.  (Funny how certain issues don’t go away.)

But does that mean my weenie efforts are worthless?

I hope not.  Because the fact is that I do care.

Like a lot of us, I’m over-committed and under-employed and always feel like I could be doing more.  But I have to think that what I actually do – whether it’s writing plays to shed my own kind of would-be light on issues like a women’s right to choose, violence against women, and women’s roles in family and modern society; or creating a space for playwrights to stretch and develop new plays as “Seedlings“; or corralling the fabulous Katherine James, Jen Huszcza, Sara Israel and Tiffany Antone into the FPI – does matter.

I mean, we can’t all produce women’s theater festivals to bring artists together and raise awareness and money for a good cause . . .  Or wait.  Maybe we can.

Ms. Antone?  Let’s talk over a cocktail or two, shall we?  (As long as we can swear.)

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Words I Like

Posted on July 29, 2011 by admin

by playwright Jen Huszcza

Earlier this month, I gave you some words I hate. Inspired by Tiffany’s recent blog post and because every yin has its yang, every rose has its thorn, and every cowgirl sings a sad sad song, I am now happy to present the Words I Like in no particular order.

Good – I’m not a big fan of superlatives. They lead to melodramatic thoughts. However, I do like good. It doesn’t have to be excellent. It just has to be good. It’s basic. It has a nice evenness to it. Good.

Faith –To me, Faith is not just about organized religion. All artists and creative people have faith—that belief in an unknown thing. Every work is a leap of faith. When I start a new piece, I don’t know everything, but I have faith and a little bit of crazy courage.

Physicality – Plays should not just be spoken. They are physical things with actors moving around. When does a character move? When does he/she/it not move? Movement is fundamental in every play. Bodies enter. Bodies leave.

Ritual – We all have our rituals. Plays are rituals. What happens when the rituals are broken?

Fuck – What a great word. It can be a noun, a verb, an adjective, an adverb. It can stand alone or be strung together with other words. And! It rhymes with duck.

Yes – So much better than no. It leads to more possibilities.

After typing this, I realized that I had come up with: Good Faith Physicality Ritual. Fuck yes! Yep, that’s an apt description for most of my plays.

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F*** that!

Posted on July 21, 2011 by admin

By Tiffany Antone

Language…

It’s such a powerful communication tool, and one that we, as playwrights, like to twist and turn as much as possible.

To find new ways to say things.

To find just the right way to say things.

To elicite emotional, vibrational “Ahhhh”s from our audiences (or to stun them into silence.)

Jen’s post on the words she “Hates” got me thinking about words audiences (and admins who decide what to feed their audiences) sometimes “Hate”; Those delicious but rough and tumble expletives that love to erupt out of some of my most favorite characters’ mouths.

My parents were, as parents sometimes do, giving me some advice on how to get my work done – the spark for this of course being their well-intentioned comment that the local theatre should produce one of my plays.  I remarked that I really only had one or two plays that I thought would even work here, being that my plays aren’t always linear, or topically relevant to what Prescottonians expect from the theatre.

They remarked that if I took out some of the swears, I wouldn’t have that problem.

Woof.

I wasn’t talking about language – I was talking about the overall scope of (the majority) of my scripts.

But they were ready to talk otherwise.

Because to their tastes, starting a play out with your heroine screaming ‘Motherfucker’ at a cricket was lazy writing.

“Isn’t there something else she could (would) say?  An, I don’t know, more creative way to show that she’s mad?”

Hmmm….  Well, sure – I suppose there are.  But this woman doesn’t say “Darnit” or shake her fists at the heavens whilst soliloquizing verbosely… She doesn’t use “Safe” words or even say “Please” when she should.

She swears.

A lot.

So…

Does that really mean I’m being lazy?

And when I tell young writers that there are often better ways to craft a character’s dialogue then to lace it with verbal extremeties… am I just delivering what I “ought” whilst walking my own (obscene) walk?

Or is there something to the idea that not all plays are written for all folk?

It’s an interesting talking point…

Especially when (presumably) none of us is writing “To be left in a drawer.”

And yet, a part of me wonders:  Is it the language as a whole that some  find offensive, or is it that my female characters can one up any of your trash-talking male characters, thankyouverymuch, that they find irksome?

I don’t know.  I don’t know if theatre companies are reading this foul-mouthed stage-baby and cringing at Aura’s mouth, or hooting at her audacity the way I intended… all I know is the play is piquing some interest and that interest is fluffing my potty-mouthed feathers quite a bit.

Almost enough to drown out the disproving looks of my parents across the table…  Parents who love me no matter what, and who support my work no matter what, but who obviously find it a bit distressful that their daughter observes such a pock-marked vocabulary as is evidenced by her risque writing…

So, what do you think?  Should we as writers try to make our works more accessible to the masses, or is it okay to write a play you know will probably only ever find a home in Chicago, LA, or NY  amidst the brazen and “edgy”?

 

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Words I Hate

Posted on July 6, 2011 by admin

By Jen Huszcza

In no particular order:

No: I prefer yes.

Should: There should be no should.

Can’t: I especially hate you can’t do that in a play.

The Esque Family: Beckett-esque, Pinter-esque, and their American cousins: Sondheim-esque, Mamet-esque and Shepard-esque. Dude, you are so not smart when you name drop that way.

Edgy: Recently, someone tried to compliment me by calling me edgy. I’m gonna turn this one over to actor, Colin Farrell, who said in an interview in 2006 in the Sunday Mirror: I come to Los Angeles and have two pints at lunch and all of a sudden I’m ‘edgy’. However, please note, I like Edge. That riff on Where the Streets Have No Name is awesome.

Off His Look: I recently saw this in a stage direction of a new play. I guess the playwright wanted to be clear that the character was reacting to look, not a line, not a gesture, not some subtext, a look. This led me to wonder if the look would be there anyway if the line was acted correctly?

Wordy: I was recently at a screening of Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet (70mm, gotta love it) and overheard an audience member complain that Shakespeare was too wordy. I chuckled at the time, but in hindsight, my response could also be: his wordiness is more than worthy, perhaps it is thine ear that is not.

Real: It’s theatre. It’s stories. It’s pretend. It’s not supposed to be real. It can be truthful. It can attempt to mirror real life even though it’s not real really. It can be used to enlighten people about events in the real world, but the audience is watching a performance. However, I like describing someone as the real deal. The rhyming just delights me.

Revival: It sounds like someone gave a dead play mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. It also means that neither myself nor any of my poor playwright friends are being produced.

Upset: I don’t get upset. I get mad.

West Coast Premiere: I guess we can’t do World Premieres out here on the West Coast. They have to start somewhere else in the United States. I like seeing US Premieres.

Blackout: Lazy, lazy, lazy. I had blackouts in my play that had a staged reading recently, and I got to watch the energy get sucked off the stage one blackout at a time. I learned the hard way: just because there are lights, doesn’t mean we should turn them off.

Emerging:  As in emerging playwright. Where is the emerging playwright emerging from?

 

 

 

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Hats, Hats, and MORE HATS…

Posted on June 22, 2011 by admin

By Tiffany Antone

I'm sure I'm getting SOMEWHERE ... (awesome artwork by Carol Brandt)

Wow- what a week it’s been!  We are officially all lined up – Playwright+Director= GO! –  for Dirty Laundry!  (and if you ever told me I’d be stepping into “Producer” shoes as often as I have since entering this carnival called “The Real World of Theatre”, I’d have thought you were crazy!)

But that brings me to what I think is an interesting point – as a theatre artist – how do we juggle the seemingly never-ending stack of hats that we find ourselves wearing in order to create/produce work and somehow survive doing it?

I read an interesting article the other day on HowlAround.com in which theatre artist Meiyin Wang waxed poetic on the Theatre of the Future… her vision?  That specialization will go the way of the dodo-bird and we’ll each of us be called by our more homgenous title: “Theater maker”

Hmmmm…

I could argue that there will always be specialization, since we as humans are prone to crave the spotlight and to defend our area of expertise with animal ferocity – but there is a kurnel of something else hinted at here that prevents me from doing so… and I think it’s the “Survivalist” in me.

I am a currently so multi-functional as an artist – playwright, director, instructor, producer, graphic designer, marketing manager, social media director (yes, my head is spinning!) – that, even though my “area” is Playwriting, I can’t really tout one title too loudly above the rest.

And I’m not alone.

Many, many, MANY artists today are becomign increasingly frustrated with the difficulties of getting their work seen via mainstream (ie: oft-cluttered and nearly impossible to navigate) avenues and are therefore stepping up to the challenge by donning as many hats as required to get their work in front of someone.

It’s why I started Little Black Dress.

It’s why a hundred other artists are teaming up to create their own producing organizations seemingly every day.

So what’s wrong with that title of “Theater Maker” if it’s born of necessity?

I think quite a lot.

What is it about theatre today that is lending itself to a “If you want something done right, you better do it yourself” attitude?   Have large, grandfathered theatres become trapped by the very “security” they fought to achieve?  Are playwriting “opportunities” like readings and workshops satisfying grant requirements whilst leaving the country’s stages depressingly bare of new work?   Studies like Theatre Development Fund’s Outrageous Fortune seem to indicate that this in indeed part of the dilemma – among a host of other issues confounding artistic directors and playwrights and every one in between.

So perhaps, although I disagree with how Ms. Wang arrives at her vision of the future (and although the title gives me a creepy shiver), I can’t say she’s far off… We are each of trying to carve out a piece of the global stage however we can, even if it means diluting our relevant titles into a string of less-powerful (in the collective sense) adjectives – “Playwright-Director-Producer-etc, etc -Ad Nauseam” …

Yes, when you start to look at it like that, Theater Maker starts to sound a whole lot better.

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Cowgirl Dreams and Pythagorean Plays

Posted on June 19, 2011 by Guest Blogger

By Guest Blogger, Shanee Edwards

I wrote my first play when I was 5 years old.  It was Halloween, and well, dressing up in costumes wasn’t enough for me.   I had to put on a show.  I remember having this powder blue typewriter and hunting and pecking the dialogue out, which went something like:

GHOST
“Whooooo-ooooo-ooooo!”

Okay, so I was no child prodigy.  Didn’t matter.  I wanted to be an actRESS.  Not an actOR.  The suffix “or” was for unruly boys.  An actress was lovely and loved.  And that would be me.

The next play I remember writing was in high school.  Geometry class.  Seriously.  I didn’t (and still don’t) get geometry with its useless proofs.  Math is great, but teach me something useful like how to use moving averages in stock market charts.  Anyhow, the play was called “Heavenly Angle” and involved Pythagoras getting thrown to the lions then having to solve a proof to get out of hell.

Again, not a prodigy.  But I did get an “A” in the class without ever solving a proof.

Eventually I fulfilled my dream of being an actRESS (funny how I never realized that my dream included daily rejection, living in constant competition with my girlfriends, always wondering if I was fat, and – oh – did I mention being totally broke?)  So what solves all these problems?  Writing!  Screenwriting, to be precise.

Okay, back up.  Writing had gotten me out of bind in the past.  Well, once.  But somehow I thought it would solve all my problems NOW.  (i.e.: No one cares what size you are, girlfriends can be trusted and supported, and – oh – did I mention the big paycheck?)

The only thing that I didn’t realize was HOW.  HARD.  WRITING.  IS.  It’s harder than acting and damn, acting is hard.  So, since I’m still waiting for the “big paycheck”, I enthusiastically said “Hell’s yes!” to Miss Tiffany when she asked me to write a 10 minute play.

Now I’m thrilled to see it performed.  In fact, I’ve never had a play I wrote as an adult produced.  But I’m also terrified.  All the other writers are real, actual PLAYWRIGHTS who’ve been produced all over the country.   And they are uber-talented.  So I suddenly have the feeling like I’m back in Geometry class, trying to solve a proof.  In over my head and only writing will get me out of it.

 

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