Hello hello! This was an exciting week for me. An essay I wrote was published on Ms. Magazine's blog, thanks to the generosity of friend Aviva Dove-Viebahn. You can read the post here:
Ms. Magazine Blog
Other friends have joined forces against the War on Women. They have started a movement online (Wear White for Women's Rights) that is picking up steam and fans all around the world (Neil Gaiman, among others.) You can read more about THAT here:
Wear All White for Women's Rights
I will be among the many wearing all white on April 2nd to protest the recent treatment of women by Congress and members of the media. Read up on the movement and please join us!
With all these great and exciting things happening, I almost forgot - I had a play to write this week! Don't worry, I wrote it. My week 12 play is titled Waiting for Falbo. It is a short take-off on Waiting for Godot, featuring some of my friends. You ever have those moments in conversation when you think "this should be in a play?" I have a lot of moments of Beckettian absurdity with these particular friends, so I thought it would be entertaining to put it on paper.
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Week 11 - American Spring
Well, hello out there. I've been working a lot of hours at my retail job (oh, the joys of being an underemployed artist in America). This week, it inspired my play.
Some of you may remember an incident back in 2010, when Jet Blue flight attendant Steven Slater, after dealing with an excessively nasty passenger (she reportedly hit him with her bag, then screamed an obscenity at him, although some reports indicate that wasn't the case) announced over the plane's PA system that he was quitting, and then slid down the evacuation slide and took off. The incident caused Washington Post writer Peggy Noonan to comment that "Once we were a great industrial nation. Now we are a service economy. Which means we are forced to interact with each other, every day, in person and by phone and email. And it's making us all a little mad." I think every person who has worked in a service industry has had that moment when they wished they had Mr. Slater's cojones and applauded him for having the last word with a difficult customer, in an industry where you are just supposed to smile and take it.
My new play is titled American Spring. Customers at an upscale store find themselves at the forefront of a revolution, where the weapons are pointed at them.
Some of you may remember an incident back in 2010, when Jet Blue flight attendant Steven Slater, after dealing with an excessively nasty passenger (she reportedly hit him with her bag, then screamed an obscenity at him, although some reports indicate that wasn't the case) announced over the plane's PA system that he was quitting, and then slid down the evacuation slide and took off. The incident caused Washington Post writer Peggy Noonan to comment that "Once we were a great industrial nation. Now we are a service economy. Which means we are forced to interact with each other, every day, in person and by phone and email. And it's making us all a little mad." I think every person who has worked in a service industry has had that moment when they wished they had Mr. Slater's cojones and applauded him for having the last word with a difficult customer, in an industry where you are just supposed to smile and take it.
My new play is titled American Spring. Customers at an upscale store find themselves at the forefront of a revolution, where the weapons are pointed at them.
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Week 10 - Good Girl Gone Bad
And...here we are, folks. Week Ten. I am now officially in the double digits for this project. Cue fireworks, cheering crowds, champagne popping, etc. :)
I am running into a sort of odd problem. I keep having trouble naming my characters. I try to avoid naming them after people I know simply because you always run the risk that they may or may not be flattered by their fictional counterpart, even if the fictional counterpart shares nothing with them but a name. Maybe I just don't know enough names. If any playwrights or writers have run into similar problems, write me back and let me know how you handle it. Maybe I should buy a book of baby names?
This week's play is titled Good Girl Gone Bad. It's tough to talk about it without giving too much away. It's about a mother and a daughter. The daughter shares a secret with the mother, and things (as they often do) don't turn out the way she hoped. The play's themes are controversial as it deals with the birth control/abortion/war on women rumpus. So, it might not be everyone's cup of tea for that reason. It might also be a bit soap opera-y. Ah well, onward and upward. Only 42 more weeks to go...
I am running into a sort of odd problem. I keep having trouble naming my characters. I try to avoid naming them after people I know simply because you always run the risk that they may or may not be flattered by their fictional counterpart, even if the fictional counterpart shares nothing with them but a name. Maybe I just don't know enough names. If any playwrights or writers have run into similar problems, write me back and let me know how you handle it. Maybe I should buy a book of baby names?
This week's play is titled Good Girl Gone Bad. It's tough to talk about it without giving too much away. It's about a mother and a daughter. The daughter shares a secret with the mother, and things (as they often do) don't turn out the way she hoped. The play's themes are controversial as it deals with the birth control/abortion/war on women rumpus. So, it might not be everyone's cup of tea for that reason. It might also be a bit soap opera-y. Ah well, onward and upward. Only 42 more weeks to go...
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Week Nine - Cat Talk
Well, hello from Week Nine. Next week will be a big milestone because I will finally be in the double digits, Week Ten for this project. I'm really proud that I've been able to keep this going for two months and a week. As a champion procrastinator, this is an accomplishment for me. I look forward to continuing.
Originally, I was going to respond to the whole War on Women political/cultural mess that seems to be happening now. I will probably write a response to it at some point in the weeks to come. This week, as I sat down to write, I decided not to immediately go to my angry place as my creative default. Anger can be a useful firestarter, but I feel it shouldn't be your only creative fuel. So, instead, this week I wrote a play about my pets. It's called Cat Talk and it centers around two cats of differing temperaments and...a dog. As I've imagined the play, the actors are not costumed as animals, further showing the domestic animals we all love as recognizably human.
Originally, I was going to respond to the whole War on Women political/cultural mess that seems to be happening now. I will probably write a response to it at some point in the weeks to come. This week, as I sat down to write, I decided not to immediately go to my angry place as my creative default. Anger can be a useful firestarter, but I feel it shouldn't be your only creative fuel. So, instead, this week I wrote a play about my pets. It's called Cat Talk and it centers around two cats of differing temperaments and...a dog. As I've imagined the play, the actors are not costumed as animals, further showing the domestic animals we all love as recognizably human.
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