every jenny has a story

blog moved.

Sun, 09 Dec 2012 23:00:28 -0500

to here: http://jennyjanuary.wordpress.com/

well, i should say, BACK to there.

http://jennyjanuary.tumblr.com/ still also exists. internet scrapbook.

This is how it works:

Thu, 27 Sep 2012 13:30:33 -0400

The thing you have been dreading for two years happens and then you don’t die, the world does not end, you breathe in and out and think, “Ok, then. It happened. What’s next?”

You wake sweating in the night, thinking, “I shall never be a published/produced writer; I shall gain no recognition for my work; I shall die in obscurity.” But then you ask yourself, “Does that mean I want to quit writing?” And the answer is always ‘No’, so you get up and go back to work.

You download an album and get stuck on one song, which you play over and over, but still declare the album in it’s entirety a revelation. Which it probably is — you will probably discover several months from now that you were right all along.

You spend the day collecting things you want to tell him, but he’s out of reach. He IMs you at 1AM Eastern Standard Time to tell you he pooped in the Middle East for the first time in his life, and you laugh. You forget everything you wanted to tell him. You resolve to write it down and send it in the care package you’re putting together, but by morning it’s gone. You stick a notebook between the box spring and the bedframe so you never miss an idea.

And by “you” I, of course, mean “me”.

How to Receive Good News

Thu, 19 Jul 2012 14:37:00 -0400

About a month ago I heard that I would receive the Alec Baldwin Fellowship at Singers Forum, and the official release is out today. Read it here.

When I first found out, you may have thought I was like:

But I was totally all:

And today, I’m feeling rather:

Seriously, though. I’m so very thrilled to be a recipient of this fellowship. I’m excited to meet everyone else involved and I’m really looking forward to working on HARLOWE again. Full of love and gratitude today.

In honor of the opening of CONVERGENCE...

Fri, 08 Jun 2012 14:52:02 -0400

…I am going to do the thing I always love to do, which is to post something that has been cut from the show. In this case, it’s a chunk of monologue that I think is quite lovely, but had no business being in the play as it was.

MAN
She contained multitudes. I remember she said: I’m going through something that I very begrudgingly acknowledge as perhaps inherently female in nature. All of a sudden I have reached my thirties and my body has rebelled against the long- standing desires of my mind. Babies, it whispers to the rhythm of my heartbeat, babies, babies, babies. Thank God, it’s not constant. I can now tell you precisely when I’m ovulating based on whether or not the pampers commercials on TV have any effect on me whatsoever.

(pause)

She said: And there’s this other part of it, too. Something simpler — home, home, home. Not the home I grew up in for, although it’s always nice to visit, there is something haunting about it, as though the ghost of my former self still walked within those walls, listening to Bikini Kill and piercing her ears with safety pins. And I don’t belong with her any more, she doesn’t understand me. But New York City doesn’t feel like home to me either. Maybe it’s the constant movement, the ebb and flow of friends and colleagues, I’m not sure. I have great friends here, friends with whom I intend to remain close for the rest of my life. But I sit in my small apartment with my two cats, and I feel cozy and comfortable and utterly rootless in this world, and I can’t help but feel that this rootlessness is the cause of both my literal and metaphorical bad sense of direction.

(pause)

Before this startling admission of my secret heart that I might want to be a mother, it whispered writer, writer, writer. And that is all my mind has continued to want, after it let go of old wants and before it takes in new ones. Writer, Writer, Writer wants a home, home, home.

(pause)

So this female thing I’m experiencing, it has something to do with babies, and home, and balancing that with writer. Can I just ditch the life I’ve made for myself here? Can I really just pack it all in and go somewhere else?

(pause)

Yes, she said, actually I can. I can. Because how can anyone plant roots from the 5th floor?

CONVERGENCE
Performed by Avery Pearson

Written by Jennifer Lane
Directed by Calla Videt
Created by Sightline
Genre: Multi-character, multi-media drama
Running Time: 50 minutes

Friday, June 8 at 9:00 pm
Saturday, June 9 at 2:00 pm
Monday, June 11 at 9:00 pm
Thursday, June 14 at 7:00 pm
Sunday, June 17 at 4:00 pm

How far would you go to protect your family from harm, or to ensure them a spot in the Kingdom of Heaven? A haunting story of fear and love, faith and reason, Convergence explores the intersection of seemingly opposed forces, and the explosive consequences of their collision.

CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS!

CONVERGENCE Trailer Written by Jennifer LanePerformed by Avery...

Thu, 24 May 2012 10:27:39 -0400

CONVERGENCE Trailer

Written by Jennifer Lane
Performed by Avery Pearson
Directed by Calla Videt
Produced by Sightline
Part of the soloNOVA Festival

These are the rules.

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 23:36:51 -0400

This Saturday will be the first reading of a drastically updated draft of my play, once titled Asylum and now titled The Seer and the Witch. And one of my favorite things to do is to share a long-ago-cut scene from the very first draft of the play, back when it was a total train wreck, unfit for public consumption. The character that used to be called Alice is now called Emily; The character that used to be called Daniel is now called Greer; The character called Elizabeth is now called Eleanor; The madwomen are no more. I’m pretty sure that I had just finished reading the complete works of Sarah Kane when I wrote the first draft of this play…

Scene 6. [dream] Any space, outside the contextual markers of time or place.

ALICE: You came.

DANIEL: I had to.

ALICE: What are the rules here?

DANIEL: No rules.

ALICE: We’ll say we’re in love, then.

DANIEL: We’re in love.

ALICE: And we’ll remove from each other the things we hate most and we will make each other perfect. As a show of solidarity, you can go first.

DANIEL: All right.

He reaches out and, as gently as one can do such things, he rips her eyes from her skull. He puts them in his pocket. She makes no noise. She weeps blood.

ALICE: That was to be expected. But it won’t change what you want changed.

DANIEL: It’s your turn.

ALICE: Before I go, I want you to say that you love me.

DANIEL: I love you.

ALICE: You lie.

DANIEL: Not here.

ALICE: But you do lie.

DANIEL: Everybody lies.

ALICE: I don’t. No point.

DANIEL: Look where telling the truth got you.

ALICE: I should really start taking my sleeping medication again. I’ve been tonguing them and hiding them in my jewelry box. I can tell you these things here.

DANIEL: Yes.

ALICE: But I should really keep taking them. Not that they do much for me, but I can feel my heavy body, and it ruins the illusion of this other world.

DANIEL: It’s your turn.

ALICE: All right.

She reaches forward and touches his face, patting him gently. She cuts out his tongue, hands it to him. He puts it in his pocket.

ALICE: I hope you didn’t have something left to say.

DANIEL: (shrugs)

ALICE: Is there anything else you want to take away?

DANIEL: (he opens his mouth as though to speak. Blood pours out.)

ALICE: I’m sorry, I should have let you go twice.

DANIEL: (he shakes his head)

ALICE: Are you in pain?

DANIEL: (shakes his head, no)

ALICE: I’m not either.

DANIEL: (he reaches forward and tugs at her clothes)

ALICE: Now, yes, now. Now is fine.

She kisses him and pulls back red, their blood mingling. They undress. Naked, Daniel reaches out for Alice’s hand, and places it on his chest.

Elizabeth emerges from the shadows, watching.

(And if that weren’t crazy enough…)

Scene 8. [dream] Alice and the madwomen are playing a round of poker. They are sitting at a table and chairs built for a child. They are all wearing dress-up-like clothes and smoking cigars. There are stuffed animals in the empty chairs — they, too, are smoking cigars. Elizabeth watches.

ALICE: What are the rules?

MADWOMAN 1: Five card draw, deuces wild.

DANIEL: Give me 2 cards.

MADWOMAN 2: You.

ALICE: My cards have no faces.

MADWOMAN 1: Fold.

ALICE: All right. (she puts her cards down.)

MADWOMAN 2: Bet?

MADWOMAN 1: (she rips hair off his head and places it on the table) I call.

MADWOMAN 2: (rips out a tooth, tosses it in with the hair) All right. What’ve you got?

ALICE: Someone’s here.

They all look up at Elizabeth.

MADWOMAN 1: If you’re gonna stay, you’ve gotta play.

ALICE: Those are the rules.

MADWOMAN 2: You have to leave if you’re not going to make a bet.

Madwoman 3 is dead upstage.

ELIZABETH: What happened to her?

ALICE: She didn’t want to play.

Saturday, April 14 @2pm
The Seer and the Witch by Jennifer Lane
Directed by Kimberly Faith Hickman
Featuring Megan Channell, Jed Dickson, Sofia Jean Gomez, Maria Maloney, Jens Rasmussen, Carly Robins

The past and present collide in the forms of Eleanor and Emily, two women who haunt the same room at the Elgin Institute of Mental Health. Though they live a century apart, finding each other may be their only hope of a life outside hospital walls.

The New Ohio Theatre
154 Christopher Street (btw Greenwich & Washington)
No Reservations Required - $10 Suggested Donation (cash only)
Sponsored by Brooklyn Brewery and Monsieur Touton Wine

I want to play, too.

Fri, 23 Mar 2012 00:30:53 -0400

Daniel S. Burt’s Drama 100

Via http://fuckyeahgreatplays.tumblr.com/. Daniel Burt’s ESSENTIAL 100 PLAYS. Bold what you’ve seen, italicize what you’ve read, underline what you’ve worked on/been in.

King Lear
Oedipus the King
Hamlet
Oresteia
Macbeth
Long Day’s Journey Into Night
Othello
Waiting for Godot
Medea
Twelfth Night
A Doll’s House
The Cherry Orchard
The Bacchae
The Importance of Being Earnest
Antigone
Tartuffe
Antony and Cleopatra
Mother Courage and Her Children
Lysistrata
Doctor Faustus
Death of a Salesman
Woyczek
Volpone, or The Fox
Henry IV
A Streetcar Named Desire
The Way of the World
Major Barbara
The Tempest
Endgame
Miss Julie
Sakuntala
The Peony Pavillion
Three Sisters
The Misanthrope
Life is a Dream
Hedda Gabler
School for Scandal
Playboy of the Western World
The Iceman Cometh
The Love Suicides and Sonezaki
Everyman
Angels in America
Six Characters in Search of an Author
Man and Superman
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Phedre
Romeo and Juliet
Look Back in Anger
The Homecoming
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
The Plough and the Stars
The Alchemist
Trojan Women
St. Joan
Blood Wedding
The Glass Menagerie
The Marriage of Figaro
The Good Person of Setzuan
She Stoops to Conquer
Murder in the Cathedral
The Bald Soprano
Ghost Sonata
The Inspector General
The Crucible
Marat/Sade
Translations
The Beggar’s Opera
Amphitryon
A Raisin in the Sun
No Exit
Our Town
The Country Wife
Travesties
The Lower Depths
Private Lives
Fool for Love
A Flea in Her Ear
Glengarry Glen Ross
King Ubu
Cloud Nine
“Master Harold”…and the Boys
Orpheus
At the Hawk’s Well
The Well Curb
The Little Foxes
The Other Shore
Fences
The Dybbuk
The Visit
The Weavers
Le Cid
The Rover
Awake and Sing!
The Brothers
The Balcony
Accidental Death of an Anarchist
The Hostage
The Heidi Chronicles
The King’s Best Magistrate
Peter Pan

I feel like a) I’m not familiar with too many of these plays for someone with a gosh-darned MFA in playwriting and b) that there are some big ones missing. To say nothing of the poor showing of ladies on this list. So I made a list of some of my favorite lady-writer plays. I have read all of the plays below, but I have seen precisely two of them.

Eurydice - Sarah Ruhl
Blasted - Sarah Kane
Ruined - Lynn Nottage
How I Learned to Drive - Paula Vogel
A Number - Caryl Churchill
Lascivious Something - Sheila Callaghan
Scarcity - Lucy Thurber
‘night Mother - Marsha Norman
The Aliens - Annie Baker
Topdog/Underdog - Suzan Lori Parks
The Heidi Chronicles - Wendy Wasserstein
The Children’s Hour - Lillian Hellman
Stop Kiss - Diana Son
Yellowman - Dael Orlandersmith
Birth and After Birth - Tina Howe

Now you add your favorites.

This Woman's Work

Sun, 04 Mar 2012 23:54:26 -0500

I remember when I was in college, I was very concerned about my writing being labeled ”too female”. I’m not even sure what that means any more, “too female”. I lived with a collection of the precious few straight men on Sarah Lawrence’s small Westchester campus, and they were some of the dearest friends I have ever made, and their irreverent, boisterous natures rubbed off on me and the work I was producing. It was very important to me that my prose be sharp and direct, lacking in sentimentality and evading anything that so much as peripherally touched on such concepts as love or romance or, God Forbid, things like child birth or breast exams or menses. My writing was stripped of my female experience completely, and as such, it fell so short of my potential that I had thought I might give it up altogether, this thing I loved so much. Of course, none of this was the fault of my friends, even slightly. They were supportive and receptive, and I felt like a part of some secret boys club, where we drank whiskey and smoked cigarettes and had sexual conquests, and never once did I feel other; I was always one of them.

And I’m honestly not sure what shifted in the years between college and graduate school, but something fundamentally changed in the way I viewed my work, or at least the way I viewed the world and my place in it. It might have started when I talked to my mother about her experiences as a business woman. “I remember,” she told me, “being seven months pregnant with you, flying to New York City to receive the Business Woman of the Year award, and returning home to a working environment where I was making less money than my male employees.” She gave a slow shake of her head, but ultimately simply shrugged her narrow shoulders and smiled — it’s just how things were. Were. But in many ways, it’s still how things are. Women are outperforming men in almost every sector (they are earning better grades and completing more degrees, they are entering the workforce in droves and their unemployment numbers are lower); and in almost every sector, women are making less money and enjoying fewer opportunities (all you need to do is take a look at the most recent census information to corroborate these statements).

Sarah Lawrence was a great place to undergo the pain of transformation from teenager to adult — it was a cozy, liberal cocoon that was 70% girls anyway. But I think it made me blind to the reality of what it was going to mean to be a lady writer (or, indeed, a lady anything) out in the real world. Sure, I’d studied my feminist theory, but I was oblivious to the fact that there are people in this world who, when a woman speaks up for herself, will call her names in order to silence her. There are pundits who will hear the congressional testimony of a smart, young law student and he will go on the radio and he will call her a whore. I didn’t see how fervently people would fight to keep us from having what I think are basic health care rights, how so many of these decisions were being made by people who don’t even possess the genitalia in question. I had no idea that the very act of getting engaged would throw me into a total identity crisis because I didn’t want it to mean that I would have to give up everything I had worked for, only to be subsumed by the ideal of a normal, nuclear family. I could not have foreseen the number of times I would close my eyes and wish to wake up a boy so that I wouldn’t be dismissed as being too emotional, so that I wouldn’t have to worry about walking home from the bar after midnight in my neighborhood, so that my writing — the thing that I loved above anything else in the entire world — might be seen as a universal story, and not just something for other women.

I went so far as to try to come up with a male pseudonym (I had no trouble determining that this Jenny would, if she were a boy, make a very fine Jackson). Maybe, just maybe, I could fool the world into thinking I was back in that boys club. And I wrote with the goal of making my stories easy and accessible, with a male protagonist who was always full of brooding and smoked cigarettes and drank whiskey and had sexual conquests. Then I entered graduate school trying to convince myself that my gender needn’t play a role in the work I was doing, one way or the other. And while I was there, I played with style and I experimented with language and movement and I exploded my idea of playmaking and threw all my interests up into the air and let them rain down on me in a million weird little stories and then —

Then I wrote my thesis. Quickly, urgently, and all at once. One day there was nothing there, and then three days later, there was a whole draft of this weird new thing. And it was the most me that any of my writing has ever been and it was female. It was a broken woman who had lost a pregnancy who languished in the womb-like solace of a warm bath, reconciling the loss of her mother with the incessant nagging of an overbearing sister with the strangeness of her own battered body, and it was so wholly me and so wholly of a woman that I was no longer able to deny those parts of myself. And then I stopped wanting to. I stopped wanting to be in that boys club — I think the boys already have all that stuff covered.

I decided to write all this down today because I want to contribute to the national dialogue, in some small way. The national dialogue about a woman’s place in this country, as a citizen, as an artist, as a writer. I want to remind the Powers that Be that women consume more media than men, and so telling a woman’s story is simply a smart business move. I want to tell the cruel pundits that calling people names is not enough to silence them. I want to be another voice that is shouting at the politicians to stop attacking the basic health rights of your female constituents because it’s just a waste of time and money. We are tenacious: our stories are stories of resilience and healing. And I know now, finally, as I begin to officially push 30, that it is important that the work I do come wholly and unapologetically from me, a lady writer.

writerly meme

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 16:31:07 -0500

I was recently interviewed by Adam Szymkowicz, and that was pretty fun.
(Click here to read the interview.)
And the thing I liked best about it was how it got me thinking about what was important to me as a writer, playwright, artist, business person. So I have created a cut-and-paste meme for writers in the hopes that it will help me refocus as I embark on a slew of rewrites and start-from-scratch projects. I’ve compiled a list from several memes for writers and artists, and I have cut some questions and added others. It’s for fun, it’s for work. If you write things down for fun or money, you should answer them, too. I really, really want to read your answers.

(Also that amazing header image is from this article.)

1. What kind of writing do you write?
Plays, primarily. But also fiction and teleplays. I have yet to finish a screenplay, but I fully intend to, some day.

2. What writing-related sites have you signed up for?
The Playwright’s Center (http://www.pwcenter.org/) is definitely at the top of the list of most-helpful-playwright-sites-ever, but there have been others. The Official Playwrights of Facebook group has also been good. I also like Poets & Writers, the website and the magazine.

3. Share your oldest piece of dialogue/prose that you can find.
The following is from the very first play I ever wrote, a terrible thing with an excellent title: The Will of Wild Birds. In it, Frankie and Brendan are married, and Frankie has a nosebleed.

FRANKIE: I have a nosebleed.

BRENDAN: You need to quit digging for green gold up there, baby bird.

FRANKIE: It’s just because the air is so dry in here!

BRENDAN: Uh huh.

FRANKIE: I did used to bury it, though.

BRENDAN: What?

FRANKIE: When I was a kid, I would pick my nose and bury my boogers in the carpeting.

BRENDAN: Gross.

FRANKIE: Only when I was mad at my mom, though. What strange things we do as children, to seek our revenge.

4. What defines your style?
A strong, distinctly female perspective and the use of poetic language. I also don’t tend to exist firmly in the realm of total naturalism.

5. What is your favorite piece that you have created?
Harlowe. It was an intensely personal project in so many ways, but it was also the most artistically fulfilling thing I’ve ever worked on. Some people are strong and some people are not and strong people sometimes don’t seem strong, while weak people sometimes do. I am a weak-seeming person who is secretly strong. He was a strong-seeming person who is secretly weak. I am much more powerful.

6. How do you define your biggest failure?
Every time I don’t apply to something because I figure I just won’t get in, that is a failure. And I do it a lot, and I find any excuse not to apply. I mean, what is that about? Don’t I want to succeed? Obviously, I do. And I make myself apply. I have gotten in to somethings, but most things I have gotten rejected from, and I think it’s just exhausting. It’s a struggle, every time I send something out. But I do it. And I need to do it a lot more, I need to be doing it constantly. So to boil it down, I guess my biggest failure has been my shoddy self-promotion.

7. Are you looking to make a career of writing? Why or why not?
Yes. That is my Ultimate Goal, when people ask me, “What do you do?” I will say (as I do now), “I am a writer.” And when they follow up with, “Yes, but what do you do as a job?” Instead of saying that I work in arts administration, I want to say, “I am a writer.”

8. How/where do you physically work?
I do the bulk of my work on my bed, laying on my tummy in front of my computer. And it’s like a bad dream, where every few minutes I sit up, type some more, lay back down, type some more — I toss and turn. I do my editing at a desk, preferably with a red pen which I then type back into my document. I cannot write seriously with other people around, or with the television on. I get very snippy and irritable when I am interrupted when I’m on a roll.

9. About what would you absolutely refuse to write?
I would probably refuse to write propaganda of any kind, but other than that… Oh, Mike has asked me not to write about the Navy, so long as he’s serving in it. But I probably will one day after he’s out.

10. Are names important to you? Titles?
Names are absolutely vital, they are often a turning point for me in character development. Titles are not as important on an artistic level, but they are on a business level, I think. I saw this amazing play once about this girl whose twin sister dies in an apocalyptic flood and she carries her around and tries to give her a life — it was absolutely incredible. But I can’t remember what it was called, only that the title seemed to have nothing to do with the amazing, bizarre, beautiful, disturbing play that it was supposed to represent.

11. What is your writing-related goal for this year? For twenty years from now?
My goal for 2012 is to finish the first draft of a novel. My goal for 20 years from now is to have cultivated a successful, consistently rewarding and challenging career as a playwright and novelist. Should I have the good fortune of working in television and film as well, that would also be delightful, but the more I think about it, the more convinced I am that I want to do plays and books first and foremost.

Now, for fun…
Do you ever write naked? Naked? No. But I also rarely write in attire that would be suitable to be seen in by the outside world. Are you jealous of other writers? Yes. Often I am very jealous. Have you ever been in trouble with the police? No. Does your wife love you? I haven’t got a wife. But if I had one, I could foresee no circumstance under which she would not love me. I’m incredibly lovable. If you were going to commit the perfect murder, how would you go about it? As afraid as I am of it, it would have to involve dipping the body in acid so that it just disintegrated into nothing. Gross. Has the dog ever eaten your manuscript? I haven’t got a dog. But my cats have legit chewed my shit up. What’s the loveliest thing you have ever seen? Probably Notre Dame. Or the astronomical clock in Prague. Why do you never write about sex? I do write about it. A lot. But it often gets edited down considerable. Though not in Harlowe wherein we had the opportunity to coin the phrase: Frosty Blowj. What are books for? Stories and secrets, mostly. Fancy hardcovers make nice decorations. Do you really go around in a corset, high heels and a whip, subjugating men? Not since Sarah Lawrence.

2011 Year in Review

Fri, 30 Dec 2011 11:37:33 -0500

Perhaps if I were a more consistent blogger, I wouldn’t feel the need to write up one of these long-winded reflections about the preceding year as it draws to a close, but I am not a more consistent blogger and I have to say that of all the years of my life, 2011 deserves one good, long look. This has been, without question, the most challenging year so far — the best, the busiest, the most emotionally exhausting. And I saw it coming, too, somehow. I knew 2011 wasn’t going to pull any punches. I expected a motherfucking rollercoaster, and I was not disappointed.

I turned 27 shortly after the new year, and soon thereafter, I began what became the most frustrating and disappointing employment experience ever. Some good things did come out of it, but it was by and large an infuriating few months. However, simultaneously, I went into rehearsals for HARLOWE, my Columbia University thesis play, and continued to work with Sarah Ruhl, one of my favorite playwrights ever. Not to mention the best director and cast I could have ever asked for. The entire process of working on that play was the most rewarding artistic experience of my life so far, and it represented what I think is my best work to date. I have never been as wholly satisfied as I was with my final performance of that play, when all of the technical elements finally came together, and I was so heartened to see packed houses for every show. This is not enough, these words, to talk about how much I loved every moment of work on that piece, nor how proud I was of the final result. The play still needs work, to be sure, and I am still looking for a home for it in order to do that work, but it was just good. Really good. And the director and cast made it even better than what I wrote and being a part of it will forever be one of my favorite things that I have done.

I graduated from Columbia with boatloads of student loan debtin May. I don’t regret it — I knew what I was getting myself into when I enrolled. I was fortunate enough to have received fellowships for the first 2 years of the program that cut my tuition in half, but I will still be struggling to pay this off for many, many years to come. But to me, it was worth it. It was pouring rain on my graduation day, but my mom and my dear friend Selena came to see me get my fakey diploma and I got to hear Tony Kushner give a rapid-fire speech. It was bittersweet, as I could have happily remained a student indefinitely, but I loved my classmates and it all went just about as well as I could have hoped. Is it douchey of me to have framed my degree? Maybe. But I’m fuckin’ proud of that shit, yo. I worked my ass off, maintained a job throughout and paid for it all myself. Even if I hated living in Harlem, I wouldn’t’ve changed a thing.

I finally — FINALLY — went to Europe. Christine (a.k.a. BMF) and I did the responsible thing and used the remainder of our student loans to spend a month in 4 different European countries. It ruled so hard, like seriously. So hard. I could spend hours writing about that trip and what it did to me. I had wanted to go to Prague for as long as I can remember, and finally being there changed something in me. Like when you dream of something for over a decade and then you make it happen for yourself… there is power in that. Maybe this all sounds lame but it seriously made me realize that I am the arbiter of my own happiness and with a little planning and a little saving, I can see everything I’ve ever dreamed of seeing.

The joy of world travel was quickly usurped by a royal Fucking Over care of two friends of mine concerning living arrangements. Without going into the details, I was quickly in a tail spin about where I would go when my lease was up, and panic led me to acquire My First All-Mine One-Bedroom Apartment, instead of moving to Chicago. After I moved in, I thought, ok, this will work out just fine and the anxiety began to abate, and I started to really dig being back in Astoria and having my own space.

This all wore off rather quickly when I got laid off in August. Not fired, thank God, but laid off. And I knew it was coming. My hours had been scaled back the week previous, so that Monday morning, I got all dolled up and decided that I would look good if I were going to be jobless. They were all very nice about it, but I had been there for 3 years and the work load had been steadily deteriorating. But let me tell you this: Being unemployed messed with me way more than I ever could have anticipated. I was jobless and totally dependent on my Navy-boyfriend for months. My sense of self-worth was depleted considerably and I fell into a very deep depression that was only exacerbated by the fact that I was no longer seeing the therapist I had been seeing for the last 2 years because my school insurance had run out. Then it got even worse when I got a sinus infection and put off going to a walk-in clinic because I couldn’t actually afford to go to a walk-in clinic and didn’t want to beg my parents for the cash to do it. But I remained sick for weeks on end, and finally I caved, my mother called me silly for not asking sooner, and I went, dropping nearly $200 on care and medicine. I would say that being sick, unemployed, broke and alone was probably the low point of the year.

Oh, wait. No. That isn’t true. The low-point of the year was an intensely personal fight that I got into with my parents. I don’t really want to go into it in a public forum, but it was, without question, the hardest conversations I have ever had with anyone in my life, ever. It was just awful. I wanted to disappear completely.

Over the course of all this stuff, I lost 35 pounds, and then gained 15 pounds. I started running, got up to a 25 minute nonstop run, then stopped running when I got sick. I have been all over the map with my health and fitness. From February to May, I was a machine, running 5 days a week and sticking to my Nutrisystem diet. I dropped 4 sizes and felt amazing. Then when the depression hit, all of my good habits went out the window and I started to gain. It’s pretty depressing. I am hoping to get back to my good habits early in the new year. Yeah. Me and everyone else in America. At least I’m still 20 lbs healthier than last year.

Oh, and also? This was the first year that I lived away from my boyfriend of 7 years, as he joined the Navy in 2010 and moved for training in Great Lakes, IL. That was extremely difficult in and of itself, but I think it was even worse this year, when I really needed his presence and support. He missed my thesis, through no fault of his own, and part of me will always be sad that he hasn’t really seen what I can do.

Things started to look up when Selena took me to Hershey Park and I got a phone call saying that I had been accepted into the 2012 TerraNova Groundbreakers Playwriting Group. That was such a fun day. I had started to actually relax a little and it was like, when I stopped constantly obsessing over my future, things started to happen for me.

Pressure was building in all directions, because I needed a job if I intended to stay in the city for the duration of the writing group. During the months of September and October, I sent out at least 20 resumes a day, five days a week, all the while finishing a new play called The Burning Brand, a new play called The Descant and beginning work on a new solo piece. The low point of the job hunt was when I went to interview at a restaurant for a gig waiting tables, a thing I promised myself I wouldn’t go back to doing because I had hated it so much. But I was disappointed when I didn’t even get that job, and thought I might be forced to pack it all in and move back in with my parents. Fortunately, I was keeping myself involved in the theater world throughout this process as well. I began volunteering at the Astoria Performing Arts Center as their Literary Manager, and it’s been really fun to be a part of such a great organization with such a lovely group of people. I set out with high hopes of being able to be a phenomenal literary manager who reads everything cover-to-cover in a very timely fashion and who does not give priority to people she knows or recommendations from people she knows. And I have disappointed myself. I continue to try to be a fair and balanced evaluator, but I am one person reading nearly 200 scripts and I’m failing to be as quick and fair as I had set out to be. Though something I find interesting is that I am way more likely to read a script by someone I follow on twitter than I am to read anyone else’s, regardless of whether or not I know them. So. Take that for what it’s worth.

So anyway, I went on 20 different interviews, not including several second-interviews, for various jobs. And then in November, at the height of my sinus infection, I was finally offered a job and I am now the Administrative Director for the League of Professional Theatre Women. It’s super awesome, too, because the job is in the same building as where the writing group meets, and it’s a half-hour commute on one train. Not bad, not bad.

Some smaller things happened, too. Like I saw Book of Mormon and went to the beach for the first time in NY and got to eat at Ninja and got to know the work of some amazing new writers and started a silly webcomic and went to Chicago a couple of times and killed Deathwing in World of Warcraft and got an XBox and started really liking wine and saw Arcadia for the first time after having read it a million times and saw Angels in America after having read it a million times. Seeing Ben Folds finally play live. Oh I had my first agent meetings this year, too. Though I am sad to say that nothing has yet come of them. For the first time I had a haircut that I hated so much I cried about it (yep, it was that bad) and I got really sick (like for nearly a month) twice this year. I got to hear Neil Gaiman speak and I dressed up as the 11th Dr. Who for Halloween. I got so sick that I had to miss a weekend visit to see my boyfriend and that was sad, but I got to go home to Michigan a few times and both of my parents came to visit me in NY to see my new apartment. I got the prettiest new blue coat for Christmas and I’m fairly certain my travel curse has lifted.

The last, and most recent, really big thing that happened this year is that I got engaged, on December 26th, in the loveliest way I could have imagined, and my fiance (that’s the first time I’ve used that word… kinda weird…) and I are spending the remainder of 2011 relaxing at home with our cats, seeing friends, drinking wine (well, mostly I drink the wine. He drinks beer.) and playing video games and watching How I Met Your Mother on Netflix.

The above writing doesn’t really do justice to the year, but it’s nice to spend some time with it, as Mike plays Star Wars: The Old Republic in the background. This was an insane year, so jam-packed with stuff that I don’t even know how 2012 can compete. But I have confidence that she’ll figure something out.

And now: all this again, in Meme form!

1. What did you do in 2011 that you’d never done before?

Got an MFA, went to Europe, got engaged.

2. Did you keep your new years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

I don’t recall ever making one, but I lost weight this year so I will go ahead and say yes!

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

No.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

Yes, my aunt Linda.

5. What countries did you visit?

England, France, The Czech Republic and the Netherlands.

6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?

Health insurance (though I only lacked that for half of 2011) and some money in my savings account.

7. What date from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why:

April 15, 16 and 19th - Harlowe. May 18th - Columbia University School of the Arts Graduation. December 26th - engagement.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Definitely the master’s degree.

9. What was your biggest failure?

Being unemployed for weeks and weeks and gaining back 15 pounds of the weight I’d lost. Like a boss.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

I definitely spent 2 months of this year sick, which is way more than usual. But nothing too terribly serious, so in that sense, I’m lucky.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

Definitely my Xbox (though Mike got that for me) as it has allowed me to watch tv and movies and play games!

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

Casey, Selena and Christine. They have been there for me in a big, big way during a very tumultuous time.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

I’m going to plead the fifth on this one.

14. Where did most of your money go?

To Columbia, to travel, and to more basic things like food and bills.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

Angels in America with Trystan; every time I visited Mike or he came to visit me; getting into TerraNova; Going to Europe.

16. What song will always remind you of 2011?

‘This Year ’ - The Mountain Goats - I am gonna make it through this year if it kills me.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:

i. Happier or sadder?

Happier, definitely.

ii. Thinner or fatter?

Thinner.

iii. Richer or poorer?

Much, much poorer. Monetarily speaking.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?

Exercise.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?

Not exercise.

20. How did you spend Christmas?

In Michigan, with my family.

21. How will you spend New Years Eve?

In Astoria, going to two parties.

22. Did you fall in love in 2011?

I did one better — I stayed in love.

23. How many one-night stands?

None.

24. What was your favorite TV program?

Friday Night Lights!

25. What was your favorite website/ internet phenomenon?

Evernote (does that count?) I started using it this year and it’s fantastic.

26. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

Nope. No one new got added to that exceptionally short list.

27. What was the best book you read?

The Solitude of Prime Numbers.

28. What was your greatest musical discovery?

No Children by The Mountain Goats — one of those songs that got me through some tough times by putting a smile on my face. Also Mumford and Sons. Their entire album.

29. What did you want and get?

I was fortunate enough to get a lot of things that I wanted this year.

30. What did you want and not get?

Ya know what? I think all told, this year was a win in the want-and-get category. I’m not inclined to complain.

31. What was your favorite film of this year?

Midnight in Paris.

32. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

I turned 27 and I went to dinner with some friends at Benihana. Which I will probably do again this year.

33. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

Getting my job in August instead of November.

34. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?

My Dad Says I Wear Too Much Black So I’m Trying Not To Wear So Much Black.

35. What kept you sane?

Actually? Video games. This year when I got too overloaded, it was such a joy to just plug in and zone out for a while.

36. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Michael really pulled a Fassbender on me this year.

37. What political issue stirred you the most?

Gay marriage passing in New York, in a good way. The continual threat of defunding Planned Parenthood, in a bad way.

38. Who did you miss?

Mike. I don’t think you guys realize how difficult it’s been to have him so far away.

39. Who were the best new people you met?

The APAC crew and the TerraNova crew, most definitely.

40. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011:

Sometimes, the only way to make a decision is to take everyone else out of the equation but yourself so that you might actually figure out your own value system and what is important to you. Despite all of the conflict, I have actually managed to live according to what it is that I want, even though a lot of people have tried to influence me one way or another. It’s been extremely hard, but it’s worth it, in the end.

41. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:

Finishing the hat.

How you have to finish the hat.

How you watch the rest of the world from a window

while you finish the hat.

Mapping out a sky.

What you feel like, planning a sky.

What you feel when voices that come through the window go

until they distance and die.

Until there’s nothing but sky.

42. What are your plans for 2012?

Work, and work hard. See my friends more often and let people know more regularly that I care about them, love them, and/or want to get to know them better. Maybe get married. We’ll see.

Yesterday, I went to my first ComicCon. I was going to write a...

Sun, 16 Oct 2011 20:58:47 -0400

Yesterday, I went to my first ComicCon. I was going to write a blog post about it, but I thought I would make a comic about it instead, as that seemed far more fitting.

While I was there, I bought myself an ugly doll. In my brain, pink domo and ugly doll are BFFs.

New Play Blog asked “What is the future of theater?”...

Fri, 07 Oct 2011 19:22:35 -0400

New Play Blog asked “What is the future of theater?” This was my answer.

I should probably have just written it out, as I am a writer and thus far better at articulating myself in text than when I speak. Forgive me when I stumbled over my words. I get nervous in front of a camera… even when I’m alone in my apartment.

Also, the kitty who shows up, that’s Nubert: Champion of the Frozen Wastes. He likes to sit on the back of the couch.

An Exercise in Futility

Mon, 03 Oct 2011 02:17:00 -0400

Ya know what? I just re-read this post and I think it is actually sloppier and less organized than my last not-really-a-plan post. So. I’ll leave it here where I can reference it if need be, but I seriously wouldn’t recommend that anyone else slog through it. No point, really. It’s a mess in there.

I have been criticized — gently, encouragingly — for my “plan” being not very plan-like at all. I see the points my critics are making: it’s more of a statement of goals than a plan. Luckily for me, they tell me that that is step 1. So a friend of mine found me this article on the internet that’ll apparently help me make a plan. So, I’m just gonna do it. Maybe it’ll help.

1. Look back and learn. Jot down five past accomplishments you love thinking about. “Reminding yourself of these triumphs will make you feel more competent and confident, traits that help predict whether you’re likely to lead a contented, satisfying life,” Miller says.

Ok, um. One: The last performance of Harlowe. Never have I felt such pride and gratitude, never have I felt so wholly accomplished as an artist. And that has my mentorship with Sarah rolled up into it, because she was such a part of that journey. Man, working on Harlowe was the best thing ever. Rehearsals in Shelley’s bathtub… the whole thing. Excellent. Ok, two: Getting my MFA from Columbia. And that has the 3 years of diligent work and internships all wrapped up in it, too, as well as the fact that I put myself through it on my own and held a job at the same time. Frankly, that was hard. And awesome. And totally worth it. Three: Getting that thing. Yeah, I’m being vague on purpose, but it made me feel pretty good. Um. This exercise is making me feel like I haven’t accomplished very much, which I think was beside the point. Like, how small am I supposed to go, here? Go me, I built my desk all by myself? I guess, four: I felt particularly accomplished when I completed my first spec script and a TV exec read it and gave me notes and said it was good. Five: Psychomachia (and DAKSP, too, I guess) really those things that — with the support of wonderful friends and artists — I made happen for myself. I am a just-do-it type, and I always feel accomplished after one of those projects is completed.

2. Brainstorm like crazy. Set a stopwatch for 10 minutes and list everything you want to do in your life, however out-there or ambitious, without holding back. Ask yourself three questions to focus your thoughts: (1) Is there anything I’ve left unfinished that I’d like to complete? (2) Are there classes I’d love to take or skills I’m dying to learn? (3) Are there ways I want to give back to others? You’ll end up with a master list to get you started; it’s what you’ll use to craft a more concise, focused plan.

In no particular order whatsoever: write a novel; sell that novel so that it is then wildly successful; write many novels thereafter; complete a screenplay; become fluent in another language; visit Greece, Ireland, Scotland, Spain, Austria, Italy, Germany, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Australia, China, Thailand, Egypt, South Africa, Iceland, India, Bali, and others that I have surely forgotten; I would like to contribute significantly to women’s rights activism though that is very vague; volunteer at a suicide hotline; win a significant playwriting award; be produced off Broadway; I guess on Broadway, too; write a musical; learn to play the cello; learn to play the harp; learn advanced coding languages; go see the Northern Lights; go scuba diving; sing at a jazz club while wearing a long black gown; own a home; own a car; have a daughter; get a job that I don’t hate; no, get a job that I love; or even better - support myself entirely through my writing; lose 30 more lbs; learn astrology/tarot; learn more about the way the universe works - physics and all that; find a red wine that I actually enjoy; find a dog that I love and adopt him/her; write a memoir about that thing; pay off my student loans; get married; chart my ancestry; make a scrapbook; own a piano and re-learn how to play it; become an internet celebrity; go to one of the major awards ceremonies in a dress that my friend Lauren designs for me; help my parents get their company out of debt; be better at styling my own hair; run a 5K marathon; swim all the time; get an Agent; make a new very close friend.

3. Reflect on regret. Scan your megalist and ask yourself, If I’m exactly where I am today five years from now, which of these goals would I most regret not pursuing? The answer to this question will help you edit your list to the most meaningful aims. Why five years? That’s long enough to make major strides but short enough to imagine how you want your life to look.

Write a novel; complete a screenplay; be produced Off-Broadway; visit Ireland, Italy, Greece; lose 30 more lbs & run a 5K; make a new close friend. That all seems more than doable in five years.

4. Dissect your top goals. Next, investigate why certain ideas, such as spending more time with family, doing something creative or traveling to exotic locales, made it on your plan. For each, ask yourself, Is this something I want for myself or something others want for me? What will achieving it do for me? How will it make my life more fulfilling? In what ways will it help me create my ideal existence? Write your answers next to each goal. Once you understand the reasons for your ambitions, you’ll feel even more motivated to pursue them.

Write a novel - I want this for myself, because I’ve wanted it my whole life. Why, though? Because… I love literature and I want to contribute my stories to the zeitgeist. And I just want to see if I can, because I have always imagined that I can. Achieving this will be a point of pride for me, and give me another avenue to pursue my ultimate goal of Make Money As A Writer. But also I just love to tell stories. I am going to spend my days telling stories, that is how I want to spend my time. Telling stories. My ideal existence is that — spending my days as a professional storyteller.

Complete a screenplay - Screenplays have always given me trouble, so I mostly want to see if I can. But otherwise it has the same reasons behind it as wanting to write a novel.

Be produced Off-Broadway - This is a mark of where I expect myself to be in 5 years. If I haven’t been produced off-Broadway by then — or at least at some major regional venue — I will have to seriously rethink my career steps as a playwright. This is something I want for myself, but I think more than that it’s something I expect of myself, a bar I’ve set for myself.

Visit Ireland and Greece - I want to seeeee the whole woooooorld. And I just went on a major trip wherein I visited 4 European countries. I think it may be a while before I have the opportunity to do that again, but I sincerely hope the opportunity arises sooner rather than later. I don’t think there is a time in my life where I was as happy as I was for those 3 weeks on that trip. Bliss, I tell you. Just… happiness.

Lose 30lbs and run a 5K - Eh. I think this made it on there because it’s another expectation I have of myself. Maybe it doesn’t really deserve to remain among the rest of these items. But it would be good for me. And maybe part of shaping the life I want for myself is disciplining myself to do the stuff I don’t want to do to get the outcome I want (being super hot and able to run a marathon).

Make a new close friend - I have great friends, but it has been a while since I’ve gotten close to someone new. It’s important for me to be reminded that there are people who are worth trusting. I tend to be a bit of a loner, but I do love getting to know people, andI love when people want to get to know me. I want to fall in love with a new person. Not like romantically, but just… ya know, person to person.

After you’ve sketched out your big-picture strategy, you’ve got to make it work in your everyday life. Start by examining your list for conflicts. If going after one goal will make another impossible—e.g., you want to go to graduate school and save to buy a home—you’ll have to prioritize. “It’s OK to postpone certain plans until later,” Miller says. Whatever your time frame, write down a few things you’ll need to do in the short term (daily, weekly, monthly) to achieve each goal.

I think this is all starting to suffer from the same problem as my last “plan”. In that it isn’t very planlike at all. Because what else can I really say but… Write? Oh and also, diet and go running. And go out sometimes so that you can meet people to befriend. Hey, look at that. I am doing (most of) those things. Ok, here’s another list I found, let’s try this one instead:

Career - I want to be paid for my writing; I want to be a part of a nonprofit theatrical organization. And be paid for it.

Financial - This doesn’t matter as much to me, so long as I am enjoying the work. But in five years I would ideally like to be making a minimum of $50k a year with good benefits. I would like to have made a dent in my student loan repayment. I would like to not be stressed about finances.

Education - I would really like to teach undergraduate writing. But I would also like to go back to school casually for web/graphic design and learn those skills. i have otherwise reached my Education goals. Much to my dismay (boo, MFA being a terminal degree)

Family - I… think I want to be a parent? I’m scared that having children will strip me of my identity. I’m afraid that I will love my children so much that I won’t love my work enough. I’m afraid that having children will take away all of my ambition. Whoa. That was intense. But it’s all true. I’m terrified that I will have children and that I will be so in love with them that there won’t be room for anything else in my life and that everything I’ve worked my ass off for will just amount to fuckall. Or… or worse! Worse, that I won’t love them more. That I’ll ruin them utterly because they can’t compare to this thing I love so much, this work that I can’t seem to live without. Oh god, the damage that I could do… Please, someone tell me I am not the first person to freak out about this.

Artistic - Uh, yes. Most of my goals are artistic.

Attitude - Oh man, I have GOT to get a handle on this depression. My anxiety has become manageable. I have learned to spot the symptoms of an attack early and talk myself down from them, and when I can’t, I pop a handy Xanax. And if they’re not available, I know how to ride it out in a way I didn’t before. Thank you, DBT. But the depression is not handled. And it comes and goes as it likes and fucks me up.

Physical - Lose 30lbs and run a 5K.

Pleasure - Travel, travel, travel. I want to see the whole wide wonderful world. And other things, see the list above, like learning some instruments, etc.

Public Service - Women’s rights activism; suicide hotline volunteer; maybe also volunteer at an animal shelter because I love kitties.

Bah. I can’t seem to make these bullets go away. And also? This is just more… goal-stating. So how do I do it, then? How do I articulate HOW I’m going to do it? Can someone please show me, because I feel like I’m spinning my wheels here. And now I’m tired. Ugh. I’m done with this and going to bed.

Someone, a real planner, give me an example of what a good plan looks like. Please. Please?

I feel like I just wasted an hour on this when I could’ve been working on my play. Bah. Grumpy now. Whatever. Goodnight, moon.

THE PLAN(s) [subject to change]

Mon, 26 Sep 2011 23:22:21 -0400

Inspired as I was by this post on the 2amt blog, I decided that a plan is precisely what I needed. What began as a Writerly Plan turned into something much broader, and I decided that no only did it need to be a living document (most of it is scrawled out in clipped sentences in Evernote) but it needed to exist on the internet, the idea being that if people knew I said I was gonna do it, then I had best really actually do it.

I have broken my plan down into three segments:

Writerly Goals* - Submissions, my development as an artist, my personal branding as a writer, the delineation and prioritization of my ongoing projects
Professional Goals* - From Whence the Cash Flows
Life/Personal Goals - Anything that does not fit into the above

*I am particularly interested at the point where these two items intersect, because when I begin to generate livable income I will have reached one of my ULTIMATE goals: Make A Living Wage From Writing. So, lets plan some plans, shall we?

WRITERLY GOALS

1. Submit to at least one thing a month. That shouldn’t be so hard. However the more specific goal is to really stay on top of my submission tracker document. I started a new one tonight to try to get myself organized. Check it out:

I needed something that could tell me what I had done already and what still needed doing. So as you can see, anything in yellow is still pending! I am going to have weekly — if not daily — contact with this document. (Fellow writers, have you got something similar? I showed you mine, now show me yours.)

2. Write. Right now my schedule allows me to spend several hours a day writing, but even when my schedule changes, I need to be writing 5 days a week. Because I have lots of…

3. Projects:

Finish draft 1 of Insomnia Play (working title)
Finish draft 1 of Untitled Centralia Play
Work with Trystan on Tesla Project
Finish draft 1 of Bruised Fruit, screenplay
Adapt Harlowe into a screenplay
Create an outline for the Gypsy novel
Create an outline for the Push/Pull telepath teleplay
Redo the outline for the fantasy novel
Work with BMF on: deranged romcom, scifi short(s), arthur c clark?
Figure out what to do with FYLW, consult ce, cc, kl and ik.
Write a new 10-minute play
Spec an hour drama
Receive notes and complete draft 2 of Nocturne
With TNGB, work new draft of Asylum
Create and submit new short stories, because you used to be able to do that once

The first two items are in order, as they’re at the forefront of my creative brainspace today, but then everything else sort of falls apart. Because, as you can see, I have a lot of crap rattling about up there. So, I shall have to prioritize. However, I am going to wait until at least the first item is checked off the list before I figure out what comes next. One thing at a time, people.

4. Web presence. I am going to do an overhaul of my website in the coming months, and I am going to recommit to blogging and social networking because I believe that there is much value in this technology, and I intend to use it to my full advantage.

PROFESSIONAL GOALS

1. Uhh… get a job. Every day from 9AM to 1PM I scour playbill.com, NYFA.org, Idealist.org, MediaBistro.com, Mandy.com, LinkedIn.com, Craigslist.org, Bookjobs.com and Digital Variety to find myself some employment. When I first graduated, I was set on finding something “in my field”. But I got laid off due to lack of stuff for me to do about a month ago now and I’m gettin’ super stir-crazy. Oh yeah, and I’m broke. And there is nothing glamorous about being a starving artist. If you can’t pay rent, you can’t be creative. I should say, I can’t, because apparently all of the characters in RENT handled it just fine… (side note: we knew we were old when we started to think that a) Mark and Roger’s flat was awesome and b) they should just get fuckin’ jobs).

If getting a job doesn’t work, then my plan is to make one for myself. That is, I’ll launch a small web-design company, targeting largely actors and writers, and I shall take on clients of my own. Part of me is really scared to do this, but it’s also kind of exciting. I’m giving myself til November 1 to find a job the old-fashioned way. Then, I forge ahead like the pioneer I am (?) and make it happen myself.

If getting a job doesn’t work AND making a job doesn’t work, well then there’s clearly only one path that remains: sex work.

Only kidding.

My concurrent plan is to also look for grants for artists, emergency grants as well. I am going to make this year work. I am going to do it. And if the entire thing is a struggle and I’m exhausted and depressed, I won’t renew my lease, and I will pack it in and move with my Navy Man to San Diego. At which point I will be exhausted and depressed, but not homeless, and on a beach.

LIFE/PERSONAL GOALS

1. I would really like to be in a stable position by this time next year, stable enough that I can start doing things like planning my wedding (yeah, he has to gimme the ring first), and planning my trip to South America, and figuring out when I can go back to Prague, or travel to see the Northern Lights, and check some more stuff off the old bucket list. But that’s a ways off…

2. I also want to lose that final 25lbs that’s been clinging to my ass and thighs all summer. From January to June, I dropped 35lbs through running and the Nutrisystem diet. Being in Europe derailed that, and being depressed during my frantic move made it worse. But I am trying to get back on track. I don’t like to think that I’m that girl who is constantly obsessing about stuff like this, but the fact of the matter was… when I was consistently running and eating well, I had more energy and I was happier. And when I have energy and am happy, I do my best work. Also, I’m prettier.

3. Make more art just for myself. Where did my songwriting go? Where, my digital art? I do many arts, I want to do more, more consistently. More, just for me, because doing art makes me happy.

Whew. That was a big, long blog post, wasn’t it? All of these things are subject to change on a whim. Also, I’ve probably forgotten a lot. But that’s why it’s a living document. So, ok, what’s your plan?

Dear Artists - PRACTICE - This has been a public service...

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 18:04:37 -0400

Dear Artists - PRACTICE - This has been a public service announcement from Jenny.

How to be a Graduate Student

Thu, 19 May 2011 01:59:00 -0400

When asked why you want to apply to graduate school, tell nicely-worded half-truths about wanting more specific training in your field and wanting to open up your professional network; add something about how the recession makes it just the perfect time to continue your eduction. But leave out the details concerning your staggering inability to be a functional adult outside of an academic context and your mounting despair surrounding the idea of working in an office in perpetuity. Apply to a handful of programs from the Safety school (which promptly mixes up your materials with someone named Sarah Gillespie and offers you a conciliatory MA in English Literature) to the Reach school, and experience mild befuddlement when you get accepted to only the Safeties and the Reaches and nothing in between. Reserve your spot at an Ivy League institution before having the opportunity to even glance at the number listed next to “Cost of Attendance” and spend several months in the grip of elation, as though the simple fact of admittance would mean anything on a resume.

Begin your program. Weep tears of joy when the school grants you a scholarship for one year, a fellowship for another, that cuts the cost of your tuition in half. Realize shortly thereafter that the impact those numbers have on your total debt is not as large as you might have hoped. Weep a different sort of tears. Mortgage your future to the federal government in the way of student loans, but justify it to all your wary friends as an “investment in yourself”. Try to make a little extra flow doing part-time work in design and coding, but spend many of your working hours browsing the university library for grant opportunities — find none, briefly feel destined to a life of destitution, and then go back to gleefully ignoring the black cloud of debt looming just beyond the horizon of graduation.

Despite some initial financial adversity, begin to excel as a graduate student — largely because Graduate School becomes your entire world. When you aren’t coding cross-eyed at your part time job, you’re in class; when you’re not in class, feverishly scribbling every brilliant idiom your seasoned professors put forth, you’re doing homework; and when you’re not doing homework, you’re playing the Sims wherein, when you realize that you’ve constructed these tiny versions of yourself with personality types that make it nigh impossible for them to reach their professional goals, you leave them to die in doorless, windowless boxes from starvation, sleep deprivation, exposure to their own waste or some twisted combination thereof.

Spend the first two years genuinely engaged in what you’re being taught — meet dozens of artists who challenge and inspire you, some of whom even think what you are doing is excellent, something that they want to be a part of. Find out that nothing in the entire universe feels better than the right collaborator on the right project, and watch real magic happen in shoddy rehearsal spaces all over campus. Fall in love more times than you ever thought possible; find inspiration in the face of an actor who speaks your words better than they sounded in your head; find it in the eyes of a director, as they build for you from the ground up; find it in the mouth of a dramaturg who doesn’t let you get away with shit; find it over and over and over until you think you can’t possibly feel that way again, and then feel that way again. And feel that way about the work of your peers, and feel that way about the work of the past. Find a stunning translation of an early Brecht play and let it change everything. Watch a play where the simple act of digging into rich, earthy soil tears you apart and let that change everything. Read every single one of the plays by your teachers that you can get your hands on, and let those change everything. Think about how you never thought how much you could change.

Write with abandon — write everything. Try things you would never have otherwise tried. Write about post-apocalyptic robots in love and watch other artists make that crazy premise work. Not just work — thrive, live. And learn, really learn, that regardless of what bit of crazy nonsense comes out of your head, there will be people who are into that. Realize that the head of your department said that to you on day one: “There will be people who are into what you’re into, and people who aren’t, and you find the ones that are. And that’s the deal.” Decide that that sounds like a pretty decent deal.

Write your thesis in a 3-day haze; rewrite it just as quickly. Get your idol as your mentor and let her buy you a tart and a latte and talk about how to be a person with a life and also an artist. Find the idea very confusing — ask about having babies, then quickly wonder why in the world you, of all people, would ask about being an artist with babies. Since when do you want babies? Since never, right? Your uterus has apparently staged a coup and has decided for you that it wants babies. Try not to sound crazy in front of your Idol/Mentor; try to focus on the work… but feel confident in the work. The work is not the problem — you are the problem. Want to hug her for all of her sage advice. Hug her.

Assemble your dream team for your thesis production and love every second of it — even the rewrite wherein you were convinced you had squelched any speck of originality by over-development. Want nothing more in the world than to work on your thesis with those people forever; know you could be content doing just that. Nearly go on a murderous rampage when a sound-cue related incident veritably destroys the last scene of your play two nights in a row, but think of how that final performance was the best work of your entire life. The absolute best.

So. Do your best and worst work; have no social life. Miss your friends and family. Miss your boyfriend. But do your work. And never once regret that you chose this; know it was the right choice. Because when graduation day comes, as it did for me today, you will look around the room as one of your favorite playwrights of all time gives the commencement speech, and you will be filled with pride. Because you decided to pursue that which you love and you did it alongside some of the most talented people you ever had the privilege of knowing, working with, and loving. Frame your degree and hang it on your bedroom wall. Have no idea what in the world will come next, but resolve to perceive it not as a cause for panic and fear and despair but rather as a canvas of endless possibility.

30-Day Song Challenge: Compressed

Sun, 15 May 2011 23:12:11 -0400

I don’t think I would remember to update my Facebook every day for 30 days, but I really like when people do the 30-day song challenge in my news feed because it has introduced me to all sorts of music. I want to participate, but I want to do it all at once — I don’t like leaving projects unfinished, see. I guess that means I fail the challenge… or I win, because I finished faster than everyone else…?

01 - your favorite song - This was very hard to decide: Best Imitation of Myself by Ben Folds. No, Time by Tom Waits. Or Possibly Half a Mind by The Verve Pipe, which I couldn’t find on Youtube.
02 - your least favorite song - Umbrella. Ella. Ella. Ey. Ey. Ey. etc.
03 - a song that makes you happy - What You Wish For by Guster.
04 - a song that makes you sad - Papa Was A Rodeo by The Magnetic Fields. I love this song, but it makes me so, so sad.
05 - a song that reminds you of someone - Mack the Knife by Bobby Darin has always, for reasons completely passing my understanding, reminded me of my long-time boyfriend Mike. To my knowledge, he is not a serial killer, nor a member of the Rat Pack so why it reminds me of him is anyone’s guess.
06 - a song that reminds you of somewhere - Say Hello, Wave Goodbye by David Grey reminds me of West Palm Beach, Florida, circa 2001.
07 - a song that reminds you of a certain event - Left and Leaving by The Weakerthans. Reminds me of something very difficult, and it’s hard for me to hear this song without getting upset, which is too bad because it’s a beautiful song.
08 - a song that you know all the words to - The Mariners Revenge Song by The Decemberists.
09 - a song that you can dance to - Square Dance by Eminem. Anyone who has seen Nilla Puddin’ come out knows how I do.
10 - a song you currently can’t stop listening to - No Children by The Mountain Goats. Obsessed for some reason.
11 - a song from a band you love - Girl Anachronism by The Dresden Dolls.
12 - a song from a band you hate - I don’t listen to bands I hate, so I am just going to include another song I like that doesn’t fit anywhere else. Fuck Was I by Jenny Owen Youngs.
13 - a song that is a guilty pleasure - Gold Digger by Kanye. Yep.
14 - a song that no one would expect you to love - Starlight by the Wailin’ Jennys. I think people might be surprised to see the country music in my collection.
15 - a song that describes you - This is tough. I feel connected to The Engine Driver by The Decemberists. And Nothing Gets Crossed Out by Bright Eyes kind of describes my life right now. But I think Extraordinary Machine by Fiona Apple does it best.
16 - a song that you used to love but now hate - Wishing Heart by Lisa Loeb reminds me of someone who was once very near to me and really hurt me. So I don’t hate the song, per se, but I usually skip over it when it comes on iTunes.
17 - a song that you hear often on the radio - I never listen to the radio any more…
18 - a song that you wish you heard on the radio - see above.
19 - a song from your favorite album - I Know by Fiona Apple from When the Pawn… Or Frank Sinatra by Cake off of Fashion Nugget, which I think is one of the best play-through albums of all time. Second only, I think, to Kid A by Radiohead.
20 - a song that you listen to when you’re angry - Bloody Motherfucking Asshole by Martha Wainwright. Or Sexual Powertrip by Blue October. Or Strawberry Gashes by Jackoff Jill. Or other assorted angst-driven music.
21 - a song that you listen to when you’re happy - Portions for Foxes by Rilo Kiley. <3
22 - a song that you listen to when you’re sad - Get Lonely by the Mountain Goats. This is not a great recording of it, but it’s a beautiful and sad song.
23 - a song that you want to play at your wedding - Unchained Melody. Maybe not as my wedding song, but maybe to dance to with my dad.
24 - a song that you want to play at your funeral - Jenny, You’re Barely Alive by Rilo Kiley. What? That’s funny.
25 - a song that makes you laugh - Keilbasa Sausage by Tenacious D. Makes me giggle.
26 - a song that you can play on an instrument - The Book of Love. The link takes you to an MP3 of me playing it, actually. My brother helped.
27 - a song that you wish you could play - The Adagio Sostenuto of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto, No. 2 Opus 18 in C Minor — this is seriously the most beautiful piece of music ever written, and I wish I were good enough on the piano to play it.
28 - a great cover of a song you love - Can’t Keep My Eyes Off You as covered by Muse. Awesome cover. Oh, also Tori Amos’ cover of Leonard Cohen’s Famous Blue Raincoat.
29 - a song from your childhood - Chantilly Lace by the Big Bopper. My dad used to put this on the jukebox in our basement when I was a kid, and I would put on my poodle skirt and we would dance together and sing it.
30 - your favorite song at this time last year - 1816, the Year Without a Summer by Rasputina.

I sincerely hope that all my friends do this so that I can see what music they choose and then listen to it and thereby discover delicious new music. So, get to it.

Within the Dichotomy

Mon, 02 May 2011 16:32:40 -0400

Something really interesting is happening in the wake of the news of Osama Bin Laden’s death — people are fighting about how we should all feel about it. My Facebook and Twitter feeds are filled with diametrically opposed views on the subject: Flag-waving jubilation; accusations of inhumanity for said flag-waving jubilation. Quotations by Mark Twain; Quotations by Dr. King, etc. I am feeling pretty comfortable on where I stand on the subject* but what I’m currently reacting to is how defensive everyone seems to be getting. So, I read these two articles, the first being on the psychology of revenge, and why we should not celebrate Bin Laden’s death, and the second was a defense of that celebration. And putting aside the fact that the second article is infinitely better in terms of prose and style, they seem to paint a pretty clear picture of where a lot of us fall. I think it’s legitimate to have questions about what this means for the future of our national security, what this means for the future of the wars we are currently fighting, and for the war on terror in general. I hope that in the coming weeks we will receive answers to these questions. But in the mean time, singing the Star Spangled Banner outside of the White House does not make someone a monster. And refusing to engage in the celebration does not make someone un-American. Both responses — and any other along the spectrum of emotion — make us human. I believe that there is room for varied response, and that as we engage in political discourse on the subject, we would do well to remember that we are speaking to other human beings, and we ought to engage with them with some measure of respect.

* So where do I fall? I am happy that those Navy Seals found him and killed him. I do not feel the need to take to the streets in celebration, nor am I inclined to condemn those who do. Bin Laden was a symbol — of hatred and intolerance and the condemnation of the American way of life — and I cannot be anything but grateful that such a symbol was destroyed. Deeds such as those for which he was responsible cannot go unpunished. I only wish it had not taken a decade to enact such justice.

And so, my thesis is over. I am pleased to report that it went...

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 00:23:08 -0400

And so, my thesis is over. I am pleased to report that it went exceptionally well — save for a few small technical issues (er, there was an electrical fire during my tech; we did the best we could). I could not be happier with my artistic team. They were perfect and they made my play beautiful. I genuinely fell in love with the entire process — play, people and all. What a feeling. Oh, and take a look at these great production photos!

I am also happy to report that there has been some interest in the piece. I don’t want to jinx it so I am not going to say anything more than that, but I’m glad that I get to spend more time with Harlowe, even if (for now) it is just by myself in the world of revision and adaptation.

I also have to admit that I am looking forward to creating something new to love. So I am going to post this monologue from the play (this replaced the monologue I cut: see below.) as a temporary farewell. Bye, Harlowe. Thank you.

ACT 2, SCENE 1

Harlowe is in an empty bath tub, holding a hand mirror, examining the tiny laparoscopic scars on her stomach. She is wearing a T- shirt and shorts.

I used to think that scar tissue was stronger than the tissue it replaced, that somehow the skin can learn from it’s mistake and knit itself more tightly; fortify itself more completely against an environment that would harm it. But that isn’t so. Actually what happens is the skin forgets it’s original pattern and stitches itself up slap-dash, the fibers facing all in one direction instead of recreating the latticework around it. So after many years have passed, and the scar is faint and white, it will only ever be almost as strong as before.

(pause, she runs the bath water)

I think my sense of time — if I have a sense of time — I think my sense of time lives in my bones. While the skin forgets, the bones do not, they never do. The bones remember every petty jealousy, every small injustice. They moan their protest early when they ache, late when they desire to stretch out. And my bones are wise; they know things that my brain and heart and skin cannot know.

(pause, she turns off the faucet, checks the temperature.)

I also used to think — and I’m fairly certain that everyone else thinks this as well — I used to think that time can heal. Time can’t do that at all. I don’t know what makes you heal, but it isn’t time. Time is a silent companion to whatever it is that sweeps in and patches you up. Time is a witness; Time passes judgment.

(she climbs into the tub in her pajamas)

But scar tissue — there are no nerve endings in scar tissue. So time will pass, and this fibrous mass of collagen will form and fade and be weaker than the skin that surrounds it, but it can’t be hurt again, not really. Not in the same way. If you were to cut over it again, it wouldn’t feel a thing.

(pause)

So I guess in that sense, it is stronger; in that sense, it does learn.

In honor of Harlowe

Fri, 08 Apr 2011 02:48:28 -0400

My thesis play opens in one week — one week. As you can imagine, I’m wracked with nerves and battling a panic-spiral. However, anxiety aside, I’m actually extremely satisfied with how it’s shaping up and giddy over being able to share it with people. As it stands, opening night is sold out (!!!) so I think we can look forward to an exciting run.

As with my last play, Psychomachia, I decided to (instead of overtly writing about my panic-spiral) share a monologue that was cut from the play entirely. What appears below does NOT appear in Harlowe in any way, and with good reason — the monologue below doesn’t make any sense in the context of the play. It never did. Which begs the question, why did I write it in the first place? Well, I think maybe I just got an idea for another play while working through Harlowe’s first rewrite. And anyway, I am fond of this tradition I’ve started of sharing things that have been cut. It’s like a sneak peek into the development process and also a way for me to hold onto the bits of the messier drafts of these pieces I so love. And so, below, draft 2 Harlowe speaks.

(Harlowe is back in the tub, leaning forward over the side, her arms crossed under her chin.)

I often dream of a house with blue shutters and a red door and in my dream it starts out vivid and new, so new that the grass hasn’t been planted and I can smell the paint; so new that I leave palm prints in fresh-laid cement and the window panes still boast manufacturers stickers. And then it begins to bloom with life and fill up with voices, bustle with movement — people build lives inside those walls; they hang a tire swing from the oak in the yard, maybe they paint the shutters a different color. They hang birthday signs over fireplaces and carve notches in the door frame. Then it begins to empty, the floorboards have sagged under the weight of the inhabitants and the paint begins has cracked; the wood starts to decay and the shingles begin to slide off the roof. After a time the house looks like the bottom half of a toothless grin, and after more time still, it turns entirely to dust.

(She lifts one of the lit scented candles and dips a finger into the wax, blows on it to let it dry, then does it to the next finger and the next, etc.)

When I wake up from that dream I feel profoundly sad, and I lay in bed and I imagine that house at it’s most beautiful, at it’s most vibrant. And I think what if… What if the house were to be destroyed at the height of it’s beauty, and thereby remembered for that beauty, as something wonderful and vigorous, something loved, instead of evaporating. Into nothing. Into dust.

(She tears the label off of the candle and holds it to the flame, watches as it curls with heat.)

Or, before that, even — the house still standing, but empty, taking up a perfectly good plot of land and yet remaining uninhabitable, a roof askew, structural integrity compromised. Surely, then, it is better to burn it to the ground. Surely, then, it is better to raze it than to watch it decay.

(She drops the candle into the water.)

So, too, with people I think. So, too, with people.

HARLOWE - April 15 at 7, 16 at 2 and 19 at 2 at 3LD. Visit columbiastages.org or jennifer-lane.net for more information.