Accepting My Voice

by Thais Harris

Really good incentive. That’s what I need when I start thinking that my voice is not clear enough, clever enough, brilliant enough. Good incentive, attention, and inspiration – that is what I got from Bill Cain’s class at the Playwrights Foundation. These things are bound to get me off my butt (well, actually, on my butt) writing. That someone outside of my head might just get a glimpse of what’s going on in there, and say “that’s great, I get it, now make it more accessible, and immediate.” That someone so much further along than me can hold my hands and say “one, two, three” and lift me up from the ground, keeping me suspended for just a minute while I realize I can step down on my own two feet. This is keeping me writing. This is bubbling in the middle of my heart, reminding me that I am a worthy messenger.

Four days were not enough, but they were enough to have a big impact. Eleven writers came together to learn from Bill Cain how to fulfill the sacred duty of finding their own voices. Our own voices. Bill is one of the most talented writers I know, as well as a Jesuit Priest, a 6th and 7th grade teacher, and a self-proclaimed anger instigator (though with his sweet demeanor this is hard to fathom). He listened patiently, thought about work outside of the class, held the space for us to share it, researched companion pieces, and offered honest criticism and insight.

There were those of us who already had a clear picture of their next play in mind, or were already pretty confident in their style. And there were also those of us, yours truly included, who had a notion of a theme, but felt a long way away from developing it into a truthful, gripping, piece of theatre. There’s certainly much more work to be done, but in the course of four days - by visiting the Bible, Shakespeare, Cinderella, and sharing our work out loud - we were able to walk out with a tangible dramatic question, a clear outline, and a chart of our beautiful, imperfect, unique sound.

We practiced performance and collaboration by singing;
We explored the world of theatre by reading, discussing, and comparing our favorite plays;
We looked beyond the 10 commandments and found the small print that says we have a responsibility to find our voice,
We accepted we don’t have to ask permission, and that it is up to us to realize that what we are doing is great;
And we trusted – each other with our stories, and ourselves with the ability to tell them.

The dedication with which Bill guided us was moving, and the huge steps people took in their work were inspiring. When he posed the questions “Do you think that what you have to say is worth saying; can you say it; and can it be received?” We couldn’t help but bring our most honest voice forward. And now I can’t help but write.
Aug. 1, 2011

Thais Harris
Graphic & Web Design
thais@thaisharris.com <mailto:thais@thaisharris.com>
www.thaisharris.com <http://www.thaisharris.com> <http://www.thaisharris.com>

The Retreat

by Chinaka Hodge

It was sort of like the greatest summer camp, ever.

Here are the facts: Last week, in Danville CA, seven playwrights, seven dramaturgs, seven directors and a handful of Playwrights Foundation representatives went on a retreat. The retreat was in preparation for the 34th Annual Bay Area Playwrights Festival (BAPF). My newest work 700th & Int'l is going up in this festival. As a participating playwright I was required to attend the retreat. I rolled my eyes a little and mentally prepared myself.

If you're anything like me, when you hear the word "retreat" you think of time wasting team building exercises, mediocre food and a whole lot of feigning interest in half-baked motivational speeches. But the BAPF retreat couldn't have been further from that. I sort of think that next time they do this getaway they should just call it "awesome, much needed, distraction free, writing time for television addicted playwrights like yourself, Chinaka". Or "an outstanding gathering of some of the nations brightest and most inspiring theater makers that will certainly make you cry with their brilliant plays, Chinaka".

Okay, fine. Those names don't really roll off the tongue or fly from the fingertips, but those names are more accurate, I believe. Begrudgingly, however, and in the spirit of brevity, I'll concede the name. We went on a "RETREAT".

The core of this time away was having the opportunity to hear every playwright in the festival read their works aloud. In my decade or so making work for the stage, never have I undertaken such a feat. To read every word of my short script meant roughly an hour of speaking aloud. I have to admit that I was daunted by the idea of sharing my (then) unfinished script with a room full of people I'd never met. I decided to grow a pair relatively quickly, though. Once Clarence Coo, the first playwright to share, rocked every notion I had about the way language could and should work on stage, I was hooked. I was hooked on the language alone. Lauren Gunderson's command of the norms and linguistic brilliance of the southern twang in Rock Creek: Southern Gothic; Amelia Roper's refined simplicity with Hong Kong Dinosaur's dialogue; and the phonological specificity of Dan Dietz's Home Below Zero was enough to make me wish the retreat and festival were both twice as long. As the days went on, I wanted more and more to stay. To stay, and to write. And to think and to cry. And to listen. To have my soul gently swayed by the words of others. To pull the pencil from behind my ear and to jot another note on how to become a better writer, as demonstrated by my peers. I talked to my boyfriend on the second night away. He asked me how it was and I replied that it was the greatest summer camp, ever.

(In the interest of total disclosure, I had the East Bay's best cookie in the cafeteria of the retreat site, and the promise of consuming more was probably enough to keep me there for a week or so. There were also Red Vines, and if you know me, you know I have a weakness for the lanyard-like confection).

But like all fantastic summer camp experiences, we packed up our pillows and knapsacks and headed down the hill. Down the hill and back towards the sparkling city across The Bay. We're gearing up for the two-week festival. If you've read this blog post this far, I bet you're a fan of theater and words and probably of run-on sentences. If you like any of that, you should come to see these shows. Check out my little diddy 700th & Int'l at BASH! if you have time. MAKE TIME to see the works of all of the other playwrights. I promise that the 34th Annual Bay Area Playwrights Festival is the best yet, and I wouldn't want you to miss out. I look forward to seeing you jaw dropped and inspired, as I was.

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For more info on Chinaka's play 700th & Int'l and the BASH section of this year's Annual Bay Area Playwrights Festival visit playwrightsfoundation.org

Interview with Kate E. Ryan

Kate E. Ryan’s Science is Close [click here] is one of the two plays featured in BASH! (Bay Area SHorts) for this year’s Bay Area Playwrights Festival. Kate is a Bay Area transplant from New York and has worked on numerous plays including an adaptation of Sophocles' Women of Trachis. Science is Close represents the second in a trilogy of plays Kate has written about the character Dot. We at the offices of Playwrights Foundation had a chance to catch up with Kate during the hustle and bustle of the Festival.

Could you briefly explain the genesis of your play Science is Close?

I began Science is Close in the fall of 2009, when I was living in Brooklyn. I was Co-Chair of Soho Rep’s Writer-Director Lab for several years and that job included the opportunity to write a new play in the Lab each year. For the ’09-’10 cycle I realized I wanted to continue the story of this elderly woman named Dot who is the main character in my play Dot – a work I had been developing for several years prior.

I also wanted to try to break out of some habits in my writing that I wasn’t happy with. I wanted to try to limit the amount of characters I could put into a play, and also stretch myself in terms of tone, humor and honesty. In Dot some of the characters are a little bit outsized and I wanted to work with characters that the audience could empathize with in a closer way.

Content-wise, my husband had been reading some material by Ray Kurzweil about “the future” and we had a conversation about life expansion -- the potential of healthcare technology to advance to the point that we could live to be, say, 150. I felt daunted by the idea of having to re-shape a vision of my lifespan. Then I heard an episode of This American Life called “Mistakes Were Made” about the early years of cryonics, and I started reading more about cryonics. I thought it would be interesting to have Dot as an elderly person who has lived a very eventful life grappling with the notion that she could have more life – if she wants it. It’s basically a play about whether she wants it – or not – and whether it’s okay for her to want it – or not.

How has this experience with the festival and Playwrights Foundation been? Honestly.

This experience has been wonderful so far. I’m excited to see all the readings in the next couple of weeks. I’m excited to have a work presented in the Bay Area for the first time. I’m excited to be one of the local writers in the Festival. As much as I miss my community of theatre makers in New York (I just moved to San Francisco last fall), I was really ready to break out of the NYC theatre world and move to a new place. This move has been freeing in terms of imagining what my writing could be and who my audiences could be. The Playwrights Foundation is an amazing organization that has been supportive of me right from the start – and for that I feel extremely lucky.

I’m also loving the Bay Area in general. I think there’s a calmness here, a baseline of contentedness in the population that does not exist in New York (the stereotype of the harried, wheels-churning New Yorker holds some truth). Now that I don’t have that rush of city life I’m able to focus more on the tasks at hand. In my writing life, I don’t feel as distracted.

The great August Wilson said many times before he died that the theatre must belong to the playwright to survive. Do you think this is true? 

It depends on what kind of theatre you’re talking about. I’m a playwright who often incorporates music and movement into my plays. Theatre can be linear narratives about characters who are specific, with whom audiences can empathize, in which we watch a protagonist change in some way… or it can be Elevator Repair Service’s adaptation of a modernist novel, or it can be Young Jean Lee’s bold work (that she directs) that doesn’t tell any kind of traditional story. The kind of theatre that audience members expect to see when they pay $40-$140 per ticket might need to belong to the playwright in order to align with a common sense of what theatre is, but I think the most exciting performances – the ones that express a new way of seeing -- come from visionaries whose work may or may not be focused on an original text that they’ve created. They are often working against something in the theatre that they feel is causing the theatre to die.

 Audiences are smart. They experience fractured narratives daily just by going online and they watch television shows that play daringly with form. In order for theatre to survive it has to be in the hands of theatre artists of any discipline who are keyed into what will rattle audience members’ brains now.

 And lastly, what do you hope to do next in your life in the theatre?

 I want to keep discovering forms for the kinds of stories I want to tell.

 The artists who are actively engaged in the world -- in pop culture, technology, literature, current events – tend to make response-worthy work. So in my next life in the theatre I hope to continue to be engaged in life outside the theatre.

 I look forward to getting to know more about the Bay Area theatre world. I look forward to shedding some of my New Yorkiness (I lived there for 14 years) that is negative and holding on to that which is positive. I look forward to staying close with my NYC theatre community while building a network here. I want to continue to be involved with new play development for other writers.

The Playlist

by Jackie Sibblies Drury

Jackie Sibblies Drury is one of the seven playwrights in this year's 34th Annual Bay Area Playwrights Festival with her play We Are Proud to Present a Presentation About the Herero of Namibia, Formerly Known as South-West Africa, From the German Sudwestafrika, Between the Years 1884-1915 (click here)

Right now I’m obsessed with dance parties.

And dance party playlists.

I’ve spent the last several weeks at the MacDowell colony (www.macdowellcolony.org) in Peterborough, NH, a beautiful natural environment where artist of different disciplines work in the woods, in solitude, pondering, indulging creative whims, steeped in transcendentalism.  From time to time they also have kick-ass dance parties.  Why?

·         You are alone-ish in the woods;

·         On good days you want to celebrate;

·         On bad days you want to punch the air, rhythmically, in frustration;

·         People who like to make art tend to be young of heart; and

·         People who are young of heart tend to like to dance.

As I’ve danced through various playlists in various spaces garnished by various iphone/pod/pads, I keep finding myself drawn to the moments between the songs. 

And I’ve been thinking about theater and performance and plays. 

In thinking about the moments between the songs, and thinking about what I could possibly write for this blog, I went through one of my playlists[1] and snipped up the beginnings and ends of any songs that iTunes let me,[2] deleting the middles, creating a stream of beginnings and endings, a series of transitions, a series of introductions, a series of goodbyes.  I let the songs end as they do on the tracks, as they do during dance parties without DJs. 

The result is above.

I am of a generation that takes play lists really, really seriously. 

The mixtape was the love letter of its time, but now the playlist has taken over, even though it doesn’t really serve the same purpose.  You don’t give your friend a playlist and hope she’ll become your girlfriend.  You invite your friend and all of her friends to a house party and you play your playlist that starts with fast songs and moves toward slow songs during which, you hope, your friend will make out with you.

Dance party playlists are different.  The point isn’t to make out, or chill out, or provide the right kind of innocuous background to support dinner conversation, or to comfort you when your boyfriend moves to Japan, or to commemorate that one spring when it rained a lot and you made a lot of eggplant. 

The point of a dance party playlist is to inspire a group of individuals to be drawn into something larger, and to feel so moved by this that they actually move, repeatedly.

Of course, this is theater. 

Please know that this is all a very, very, very smart and complex metaphor that works on many, many, many levels.

The songs have beginnings and ends in and of themselves, but in the group those meld and create interstices, varied edges that blend in unforeseen ways.  Did James Brown end his recording of “Sex Machine, Part 1” anticipating my desire to make a playlist where it fades into Michael Jackson’s “Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough?” 

Perhaps so. 

But probably not. 

And do those songs go together?  Do they overlap too much?  Are they too similar?  Not similar enough?  Also, both of those songs are kind of long – will people get tired of listening to them?  Dancing to them?  Will people get tired of dancing in general?  Will they get tired of life?  Will this combination of songs make my fellow dancers contemplate their own mortality?  And would it help if I got some glow sticks?[3]

There is nothing, NOTHING worse that clearing a dance floor.

There is NOTHING worse than listening to the next song fade in, watching all of those beautiful people who had been movin’ and shaking, let their arms grow limp and let their eyes cloud as they shrug and go off to get some air or a beer or, THE WORST, their bag as they head out the door.

The moments between the songs are tense.

Remember that this is a metaphor for theater.

I tried to figure out the difference between the repetition that eases you into a song – the repetition that allows for recognition – versus the repetition that dwindles to silence.

I thought about how it is different recognizing an intro than it is listening to it. 

I thought about how a fading repetition can sometimes let you savor a really great bout of dancing, but how it can also create awkwardness as everyone stops dancing and regains awareness of how stupid they look or how sweaty they are as they wait for the next track.

I thought about how similar or dissimilar the beginning of a song can be from its end. 

I thought about the ends of songs – how even the most conventional pop songs[4] end in completely different ways. How every song seems to have a different amount of space left at the end of a track – or, should I say, a different amount of time. 

I listened to the difference between the songs that end with a careless cut-off and the songs that end with a purposefully abrupt scratch.

I thought about the different silences.[5]

I thought about how long a silence had to be before it felt dead rather than alive, and if that was a factor of time at all. 

And of course I thought about theater.

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[1] Titled “Can’t Fight the Funk” – a misnomer, since there is no funk is available to be fought on this playlist.

[2] Hey iTunes, what’s up with all of the not-authorized songs?  I’m not a criminal.

[3] Note: glow sticks are always a good idea.  Seriously.  They are awesome, they’ve always been awesome, and we will use them as currency after the Rapture because they are awesome.

[4] That is to say, the best pop songs

[5] Like a Pinter Pause vs. a Beckett Pause I told you this was about theater.

On Being Fabulous: Theatre and Gay People

by Clarence Coo

A fiction writer asked me recently, “What is it with theatre and gay people?” She had noticed a correlation and was curious.  She had meant no malice, as one were casually asking, “What is it with summertime and lightning bugs?” or “What is it with growing old and getting chronic back pain?” Of course there are gay people who read and write novels, and gay people who watch and produce film. But the writer posing the question wanted to know… just what is it exactly with gay people being into theatre?

Alas, despite being a gay person in the theatre myself, I didn’t have an answer.

A few days later, a bill legalizing same-sex marriage was passed in New York and I attended the celebratory Pride march in Manhattan that weekend. We cheered for legislators who had voted for the bill. We cheered for couples who had waited decades for this moment. We cheered for costumes and floats of extraordinary engineering. Then above the noise of the crowd, I heard a fellow bystander exclaim a word of approval that, for reasons now lost to the history of etymology, is commonly used among gay people. The word was “fabulous.”

And there amid the joyous theatricality of the parade, I began to think about the word "fabulous" and wondered if that is what connects gay people to theatre. “Fabulous” in its normal usage indicates a high level of praise. But it is a praise of a complex flavor, as  it is related to the verb “fabulate” (from the Latin fabula or fable). To "fabulate" is to concoct a lie so believable that it seduces like a good story. To be "fabulous" is to have the power of myth.

That is theatre: actors speaking words that are not true that become true only because the audience has chosen to believe. For gay people who've had to lie or censor themselves through their childhood, the theatre can be a protective retreat and a powerful release. It is a space in which a stunted reality can fully bloom.

With the fabulous in mind, I went home and began rereading plays that commented on and were shaped by gayness. These were also the plays that formed my very understanding of what theatre could do. The first one I chose off my bookshelf was Tony Kushner’s Angels in America: Millennium Approaches, a play first produced in 1991 in the Bay Area. Its subtitle A Gay Fantasia on National Themes is explicit about the homosexual flights of fancy contained within.

And there, among the very first scenes of the play, the word “fabulous” is spoken by one of the characters, followed by a reference to theatre: “Fabulous. Best thing on Broadway.” It’s Roy Cohn expressing his opinion of the musical Cats. And towards the end of the play, adopting the same word that had praised dancing Jellicle felines, an incantation is intoned summoning the unimaginable future, one that incorporates gay people into the national consciousness: "the Messenger comes, trailing orbs of light, fabulous, incipient."

When an Angel finally crashes through the ceiling, whether lowered by visible wires, or wheeled in on a ladder by stagehands, or simply directed to walk across a high platform, the audience is already believing in the power of the fabulous.

The second play I reread was also set in 1980s New York, in a city unprepared for and ravaged by the AIDS epidemic. But Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart is a different kind of play, not a fantasia at all. The adjective in the title, “normal,” insists on the dignity of the everyday and the universal. While Kushner's play revels in fantasy as an escape, Kramer's naturalism grounds itself in the harsh facts, statistics and evidence of a society’s failures. The word “fabulous” isn't uttered at all in the play.

However, I was struck in my rereading by how Kramer closes his play with an act in a hospital room that was, at the time of the play’s premiere in 1985, preposterous. It was an act equally fantastic as an angel crashing through the ceiling. And though the first time I read the play was a decade past its initial production, I remember how my chest almost burst from yearning as my adolescent imagination lacked the capacity to conceive that such an act could ever be ordinary. The Normal Heart ends with a gay wedding.

So I think to my own play and ask myself the question that all writers must wrestle with: is my work fabulous?

Beautiful Province (Belle Province) is about two characters unable to deal with the messiness of sexuality who retreat, through language, into a world of their own creation. They convince themselves they are speaking French to each other, though the words coming out of their mouths are in English. They travel by car across highways but pretend they are journeying backwards into time, back to when North America was still a New World and bare as a blank stage. The play is their shared hallucination.

Of course, all theatre is a shared hallucination. In it all things are possible and that is why it's fabulous.

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Beautiful Province (Belle Province) by Clarence Coo is part of the 34th Annual Bay Area Playwrights Festival. For more on this play and others in the festival visit http://www.playwrightsfoundation.org/index.php?p=238#province