DIY

Production Manager Missy Bradstreet showing off her Wonder Woman Style at the Opening of “The Toughest Girl Alive”. Missy is full of moxie, an amazing mama and the kind of friend you’d want in your corner.

I used to work for a theatre company that had the mission to “tell good stories well”. There is nothing I adore more than a really good story, told in a beautiful, honest, emotionally connected, raw way. Granted, that’s not exactly what this company does, though back in the day that I was working for them, they did it more often then I feel they do now (now-a-days, you’re not going to see much “raw” on that stage, for instance). Their work now tends to lean a bit more commercial than I prefer, though is still some “good” stories told “well”, so they have not shied away from their mission.

When I worked with the now (mostly) defunct Sledgehammer Theatre, back when the stunningly talented Kirtsen Brandt was the Artistic Director, “raw” was all over that stage. The work we did there made me feel proud to put my name in the program and vital to the continuation of an artistic process. We missed big, sometimes, but the intentions lay more in producing art than in selling tickets; which I found immensely satisfying as a closet artist who has worked exclusively as an administrator for the length of my career.  We would gather on dark weekends to share ideas, train, push through to the emotion under the surface of a piece, fight and once, to have a shaman clean the ghosts out of the theatre (no lie). This, up until now, was the high point in my career as Sledge allowed me to pull all my values into a single place and work tirelessly towards an end I was deeply proud to present. Of course, it didn’t pay. And then I got pregnant and the “tireless” ran out. So I quit and made babies for a couple years (of which I am deeply proud).

Now I work for one of the largest theatres in town and while I can feel a great deal of pride about the product the company produces, there isn’t a lot of room to be connected to the process when you run the pub. That and the work they produce is a little too commercial for my blood, though immensely entertaining. Working there, I often tell people, feeds my family, but not my soul.

That’s where MOXIE comes into play.

At MOXIE, I feel like we get to tell amazing stories in surprising ways. Often, people assume this is a company with a deeply respectable budget. They assume, based on what they see on the stage, that our funding is well cared for. If I shared with you the actual budget, you’d be right to insist that nobody could produce this level of product with that little money. Nobody, that is, except someone with moxie, and that’s what this company has in spades. The commitment to the mission, “to create more diverse and honest images of women for our culture using the art of theatre” has never been so beautifully displayed, despite funding limitations. And being part of a feminist theatre has fed my soul in a way I didn’t even know it was lacking. As the mother of two daughters, I can show them what strong, powerful women can do, no matter what gets in the way or what we are told we cannot do. It’s heartbreakingly awesome and opens them to a world of options even I didn’t know they had.

Imagine what we could do with “real” money?

Seriously, I want you to imagine it. In the comments, tell me what you think MOXIE could achieve with a budget that allowed us to pay our staff for full time work. If enough of us get the vision flowing, we just might find a way to make it happen. Dream big, people; we’ve already shown that we are capable of more than anyone would suspect.

Playing the Part: Part I

 I’ve long been yearning to try and capture some of the magic that is the “process” of theatre, especially as it exists at MOXIE.  Today I begin documenting the creation of a character I’m playing in MOXIE’s next production The Butcher of Baraboo. 

The First Rehearsal -

A  few days before our first rehearsal I had a nightmare.  In my dream I was cast to play Sevenly (the character I am playing in MOXIE’s production of The Butcher of Baraboo) but at a different theatre.  This “other” theatre was going o be producing the play before MOXIE did.  I had to travel to wherever this theatre was and when I got there and started the first rehearsal we began working on some very modern and wordless  movement piece, which apparently was how the play began and I had overlooked it in the first few pages.  All the other actors seemed aware and prepared for this part of the play, except me.  They all knew how to move and had great ideas. I was unprepared but too ashamed to admit it and so I was making stuff up on the fly and the director wasn’t impressed. I think my nightmare was my way of processing those jitters an actor has before they have  taken that risk that you do at a first rehearsal, when you reveal you have already begun to make choices and you hope the director isn’t second guessing having cast you.

Here is Sevenly in the production at Second Stage in NYC. Ali Marsh. Yeah it’s that woman from that 70′s show playing Valerie the butcher… Debra Jo Rupp, and Michael Countryman.

Our first rehearsal was this past Saturday.  As usual I walked to the theatre and thought about the play on the way there.  I thought about the amazing cast (Linda Libby, Deanna Driscoll, Wendy Waddell and Don Evans) and was honest with myself that I felt a little intimidated I am to be playing with some of the women who are considered to be the funniest actresses on stage in San Diego.  I feel excited to be working with Chelsea Whitmore for the first time, and with Delicia Turner Sonnenberg again (they’re co-directing).  We started our first rehearsal by sharing a secret of our own since this play revolves around secrets.  I wish I could share some of those secrets with you..everyone had a juicy one…but I can’t tell.  Then we looked at a presentation of the set design which Amy Chini and Esther Emery are co-designing.  Jennifer Brawn Gittings spoke about costumes and our Technical Director Dustin Long assured us he would make sure we were all safe on the set…then we read and oh how we read. The play is funny. Sometimes we had to just stop and get the laughs out in order to continue.  We were half in character and half ourselves just enjoying the writing.  This is my favorite way to explore a new play!

My Character:  I play Sevenly a 30 year old Mormon woman from Provo, Utah who moves to Baraboo Wisconsin. Sevenly is the mother of 6 children. She is married to a man 20 years her senior, who she loves. Sevenly is very kind and likable.  She is a perfect party guest…well that depends on the party I guess. Sevenly has a secret that she fears may land her straight in hell.  In my research to learn more about my character I discovered the following about her hometown:

Population: 117,592
Third Largest City in Utah
The MOST conservative city in the United States with over 100,000 people!
88% Mormon
88% White
Home to the largest LDS Missionary Training Center
Home to Brigham Young University
Home to the entire Osmond Family

We finished off the day asking questions about things that we weren’t sure about in the story.  We made decisions about timelines and back story and then we called it a day. I stood outside afterward and picked the directors brains for a few more minutes which was productive.  I was assured that my character isn’t stupid and that through the course of the play we see her get stronger. We discussed how heavily her secret ways on her.  I walked home feeling electrified.

Kodachrome

I’ve been sitting on a power line lately. Remember the lines of energy that the voodoo nurse talked about in Mary Fengar Gail’s play Devil Dog Six? I mean that kind of power line. I’ve had some special access, or perspective, that makes it possible to see connections where I didn’t see them before. Maybe it’s the pregnancy.  Maybe it’s the fact that I’m on a genuine spiritual search. Or maybe I just took the time to let my head clear.

What I do know is that once you open yourself to hearing the truth (and experience the hard knock that probably comes with that), then the truth is exactly what becomes available to you.

At first it felt like luck. A challenging book that I have wanted to read for a long time literally fell off the shelf at the thrift store in Spring Valley, marked $1.95 in red crayon.  I finally read it.

As one non-profit delayed and eventually rejected my offer of volunteerism, another made an invitation. And that second organization turns out to be exactly what I didn’t know that I was looking for.

Synchronicity, right? I’m getting used to it. But this next one still blew my mind.

This evening I showed up fifteen minutes late to a $35 Intro to SLR photography class that I’m taking at Santana Adult School. I thought they were going to show me how to use the buttons on the fancy camera that my husband bought me for Christmas. Instead, I got a powerful wake up call as to the nature of art and the function of the artist.

“The only way we grow as a society,” says the teacher, “is to get more artists.”

Woah. That’s a statement I agree with. But I’m in a trailer at Santana High School. Did I come out here to hear that?

Maybe I did.

“The automatic setting is designed to give you average,” he says.  ”Average is nothing to aspire to.”

Dude. It’s hot in here, and my baby is due in three weeks, and I just want to take cute pictures of my kids.

He explains to us that the automatic settings reflect what the eye sees, with the intention of reproducing the photographer’s physical limitations. “Beauty,” he says, ” lies outside of our range of vision.”  It’s a three hour class, and he doesn’t let up. Have a point of view. Know your message. Practice your craft. Be the artist you are. And don’t bother making excuses.

I’ve been schooled.

As Amy and I do our color work on the final scenic design for The Butcher of Baraboo tomorrow, I may be a little less likely to lift the details directly off of a “Wisconsin kitchen” Flickr search, and a little more likely to own the art.

Have any of you had a teacher or a lesson pop up on you like that? Or been taught something you could have sworn you already knew?

Flying with(out) an infant

I just spent the weekend in Boston with my brother. And for the first time since August of 2007, I flew by myself.  No stroller. No liquid Tylenol. No origami frogs. No kid. I fully expected to read on the plane,  but there were a few things that took me by surprise.

1) Waiting in line is boring. 

2) Cinnabon is just…Cinnabon. It’s not a potential time bomb requiring that you whip out the graphing calculator and plot blood sugar level over time in relationship to boarding, taxi and take off.

3) I didn’t miss my baby. At all. 

Not only did I read on the plane, I wrote on the plane. I had ideas on the plane. I daydreamed on the plane.

Here’s my question for all of you, parents or no. Is solitude a crucial part of your creative process? When you haven’t had time to yourself for, oh, say…about 19 months…does that affect your ability to generate ideas?

Baraboo, WI, Population Normal People

You know we just closed The Sugar Syndrome. You know we have a reading of Labyrinth of Desire this month. Next up? … The Butcher of Baraboo, written by Marisa Wegrzyn.

Having just spoken of “blog culture, MOXIE’s tangential relationship to,” in a post ironically completely without linkage, I’m relieved to be able to recommend without reservation Marisa’s personal blog, Chainsaw Calligraphy. Please go. Waste a perfectly good hour of your day.  I find it funny (like the play), unpredictable (like the play), delightfully self-absorbed, and sort of unmistakably midwestern. San Diego natives may or may not agree. Please advise. 

We are currently in pre-production for The Butcher of Baraboo, and had a team of four in our scenery meeting on Sunday. That’s two directors and two scenic designers. Mmm hmm. Two of each. That’s how we roll. And, just to keep everybody guessing, I’m not one of the directors. I have the great privilege of co-designing scenery with our resident queen of futuristic junk piles (The Listener) and skate-park platforming (The Sugar Syndrome), Amy Chini.

This is an unequal relationship in a number of ways. Namely, Amy is unbelievably crafty. She has a capacity for visual detail that rocks several planets, and fingers to match. I can’t really make anything out of anything except paperclips, and even those are sculptures only a mother could love. 

But I do have something to offer.

In that early meeting we addressed the exotic setting of Baraboo, WI, which is an honest-to-god real town of 10,000+ in the semi-rural frozen North. Here are the disjointed notes I scribbled in my notebook as Delicia (co-directing with Chelsea Whitmore) started giving us the scoop:  ”home feeling of the kitchen in Wisconsin…frost/winter…see some of the outside world…door, butcher block, window…Wisconsin as it really is vs. Wisconsin as we might imagine it…

And that’s when I laughed a little.  Although I greatly appreciate the theatrical tension between romanticizing a far away place and presenting its documentary reality, Wisconsin is a whole lot more normal to me than San Diego will ever be. I have a brother who lives there. Palm trees are not actually good for you; my brother and I share that knowledge. And my true heritage is near enough the frozen North that sitting in a San Diego apartment in February, wearing flip flops, and talking about how Baraboo is “exotic” makes me giggle. 

Here’s a house for sale in Baraboo.

And here’s one in San Diego.

Where do you think the normal people live?

Actually, I Owe MOXIE a Play Two Weeks From Yesterday, or Mighty Mouse vs the Ten Excuses

The following are intended to rebut the ten creativity-smothering excuses I posted yesterday. If you haven’t read them, do that first.

1) Pregnancy equals fertility equals creativity. And my left brain is too tired to muster significant resistance. It’s a great time to write a play.

2) My last play wasn’t nearly as bad as it might have been. In fact, I really liked the part where the one girl said “Hi,” and then the other girl said, “Hi,” too. … Right? … No? … Maybe you had to be there.

3) I don’t need my neck for writing. This is actually one of the great advantages to writing as an occupation. At least, I can’t think of very many others.

4) Just what do I think I’m going to do over my morning coffee, restructure AIG? Rewrite the budget bill? Give Hillary Clinton some useful tips regarding political discourse?

5) I am selfish. Trying to get other people to make me feel less selfish is really selfish. To be human is to be selfish. It’s hard to be human, don’t you think? We should make some art about that.

6) Two words for the phone call excuse. Time. Management. Am I pretending that I’m not a stage manager?

7) Am I pretending that I have something to say to you?

8 ) I have Jen Thorn to thank for finding out that picky Penny doesn’t prefer her veggies home-cooked. One fewer reason to feel bad about yourselves, fellow parental units.

9) It’s true. A Midsummer Night’s Dream has already been written. But it doesn’t have a dragon in it. Or two girls that just say, “Hi.” Or the internet.

10) On fear, and why we do it anyway.

I Owe MOXIE a Play Today, or Ten Excuses

I enthusiastically helped arrange an in-process table read for Jen Thorn’s play more than a month ago. I check in with Amy Chini about the status of her play(s) almost every time I see her. Meanwhile, my own project, Annabelle and the Dragon, is half-drowned in excuses.

Top these, dear ones.

1) I’m pregnant.

2) My last play wasn’t as good as I think it should have been.

3) My neck hurts.

4) Every time I open my computer I am reminded of twelve dozen things that are more important than me, like AIG, and rape as a weapon of war, and the expanding federal deficit, and the fact that another one of my friends just got laid off, and Kathleen Sebelius, and whether or not Hillary can do even a little bit of good in the Middle East.

5) Writing makes me feel selfish.

6) I really need to call Jacob. And Janet. And Emily. And…

7) You need me to call you.  Don’t you?

8 ) My toddler should eat more vegetables.

9) Someone has already written a play that’s better than the one I’m currently not writing.

10) It takes a long time to write a play. What if this one is like a really annoying acquaintance and I get sick of it after a couple of weeks but it keeps inviting me to come over and watch reruns of, like, Bugs Bunny, and I feel that I can’t say no because I made a commitment even though one of the things I fear most in the world is that I’m going to be zoned out in front of somebody’s TV, with my mouth hanging open, just a little, while a king crab nonchalantly walks into the Pacific Ocean with my life?

Meditation on the Wacky Ass Art of Directing

When people who don’t spend every waking minute in the theatre world see a show, it’s hard to see the director’s work.  Sometimes they give the director too much credit assuming all the artistic elements were created by them.  Often times they don’t give them enough credit and assume that any success in the production is only to be credited to performances or the script.  The truth is it’s very hard to know from the outside what the director did or didn’t do.  Today I am thinking about the simple definition of our job title.  We are the deciders of the direction.  Every moment of creating a production is a moment at a cross roads.  There are one, two, sometimes several paths to choose from and the director decides which path to follow.  If we’ve started our job off on the right foot we have assembled a team of people who individually know more about the separate aspects of the production than we do and then we proceed to be very clear about the vision or the end goal of the production while allowing these individuals to do their jobs in finding solutions or answers to the questions the play asks.  Sometimes these decisions feel terrifying because you can’t be sure if they’re right but the danger of not making a decision is far greater than the danger of making the wrong one.  So the director says “yes, that is correct” or “no, that doesn’t work” or “I don’t know the answer to that questions so can we spend sometime trying different options and I’ll tell you when we find one that works”. 

Today I feel thankful that I was trusted to be the director of MOXIE’s production of The Sugar Syndrome which started previews on Saturday. I feel grateful for:

-The team of designers and technicians who are so commited to the show that they have continued to shift a light here, change a sound cue there, reconstruct an entire set piece, bake a pizza from scratch in order to achieve perfect greese stains on the inside of a prop pizza box.

- The actors who work tirelessly to reach a deeper level of understanding of their characters while technically striving to render each line and movement the same without loosing the feeling of “doing it for the first time”

- My partners in MOXIE who sit in rehearsals and lend an ear and advice when I feel lost on how to achieve something.

-Our audiences whose laughter and applause and kind words assure me that this play is hitting the mark we all are aiming at.

-And lastly I feel so lucky that MOXIE is a company which takes family into consideration as part of our work.  Our tech schedule included a rotating babysitting schedule which allowed time for us all to work without worrying where our children were and on the day of our first preview when my phone rang at 9am and I saw it was our techinical director and assumed he was calling about that set peice he was going to have to rebuild…I felt grateful that it was actually him calling to see if he could reserve a picnic table at the park for my daughter’s first birthday party that morning. 

Here are some of the newest MOXIE’s celebrating Penny’s first birthday before heading back to work.

Chelsea Whitmore, Jennifer Brawn Gittings, Dustin Long and Amy Chini

Missy’s Orders

Must. Update. Blog. 

Remember how we blogged last summer about MOXIE staff member Amy Chini (aka The Chini Dog) and her masterful handling of the scenic design for The Listener?  We told you about the junk gathering, laserdisc shattering, and the final product. Oh, and here’s her interview in Street, because apparently the UT also thinks she’s cool.

Well, she got a sweet little Patté Award in “Outstanding Scenic Design” recognizing her for her work on “The Listener.” We’re proud of you, Amy! 

That’s not the only recognition MOXIE got this awards season. Our co-pro with Diversionary Theatre, Bluebonnet Court, walked away with an “Outstanding Ensemble.” 

And in case that wasn’t enough excitement for one month, the San Diego Critics Circle recognized Delicia’s direction for “Fences” at Cygnet Theatre, Jennifer Brawn Gittings’ costume design for “Scrooge in Rouge” at Diversionary Theatre, and Jo Anne’s performance in “The Receptionist” at Cygnet. Did I forget anything? Of course, I don’t need awards to tell me just how cool is the MOXIE pool. I’m privileged to have that information first hand. But I’m glad the know that the rest of the world is paying attention!

Speaking of awards, last year’s MOXIE event including a staged reading of HOW I LEARNED TO DRIVE and a panel discussion of child sexual abuse has also got the world paying attention. Here’s Jen:

Last night I learned that on March 11^th in Florida my father and I will accept an award from the world’s largest leadership organization YPO-WPO for Best Global Event of 2008.  There are only 8 people in the world to receive this award per year…and 12,000 events were considered. We were judged along side events where Bill Clinton spoke, events that cost a $100,000 to put on.  Apparently, the people who were at our event felt that what we did that night was life changing in a way that super star status and tons of money couldn’t touch.

I’m so glad I got to help!

We load in Sugar Syndrome next week.  Here is a preview of Amy’s scenic design for this one, inspired by skate park architecture.

And here you can see director Jen Thorn and technical director Dustin Long hearing from Amy at the first production meeting. 

I can’t wait to see how this one comes out.

Happy Thanksgiving! (ten things)

This season I am thankful for:

My husband.

The rain.

James Joyce, Charles Dickens and Dr. Seuss.

The way my son eats noodles and points at trees. 

My babysitters.

The lesson of humility.

The passage of time.

Barack Obama.

That my family has enough to eat.

and…

The Moxie’s.

You?