Notes From the Field

Staged Reading of "Maidenhead" at Brooklyn College

2011-10-22T21:05:00.000-07:00

On Friday I had the privilege of reading the role of Angela in Brooklyn College MFA Playwright Kim Davies' new play, Maidenhead.

In a feudal, alternate-universe United States, high-school prom queen Angela Johnson is a vestal virgin gone rogue, dragging her gay bestie and her father's AmEx to the big bad city and throwing them all into high-stakes crime. Nothing is sacred when you're sharp, subtle, and a shapely seventeen, and schoolgirl Angela knows how to play for keeps. If beauty is fleeting and virginity is a woman's treasure, she'll buy low, sell high, and take her payment in unmarked bills. But even when the future seems most certain, Angela can't escape her past. In K. Davies's sharp new satire, sex sells, winner takes all, and nobody comes out clean.

Directed by MFA directing alumnus, Welker White, curated by Andy Buck, an MA candidate in Theater History, with design consultation by MFA Design candidate, Tatsuki Nakamura, the cast includes current students and acting alumni Emmanuel Elpenord, Paula Jon deRose, Michael Colby Jones, Jonathon Maldonado, Aaron Mednick, Mervyn Morris, Jeremy Ping, Keelie Sheridan, and Darius Stone.

William Alfred Reading

2011-10-21T15:58:00.000-07:00

The Brooklyn College Library recently announced it's collection of personal letters to and from playwright William Alfred (former Brooklyn College professor), celebrated by a staged reading of several of the letters from Gertrude Stein, Lillian Hellman and others. I was asked to read a letter by Elizabeth Hardwick, a friend of Alfred's going through a difficult divorce.

The readers and directors at the performance: from L to R Professors Robert Cohen and Judylee Vivier, MFA Actors Jeremy Ping and Aaron Mednick, MFA Director Josh Penzell and MFA Actors Patrick McCormick and myself!

The Friar's Foundation Adopt-A-Scholar Reception

2011-10-07T08:22:00.000-07:00

So many updates! Here's the first!

Last night I along with several other scholars from NYC arts programs were honored by the Friar's Club as a part of their Adopt-A-Scholar Program. Friar's Club members generously donated scholarship monies to help us finance our studies in our chosen fields, and I am so honored to be one of the recipients!

Each college had one student perform and one student speak- I was lucky enough to be selected to perform a monologue from my one-woman show, A Woman in Progress. I was STOKED to get to perform in front of such an esteemed audience. I was also mildly terrified...

In the bathroom getting ready to perform. NERVES!

My fellow 1st year MFA, Jonny, was selected to speak on behalf of the Brooklyn College contingency- he was a hit! He expressed his gratitude sincerely and humbly, but not without some chop-busting- it IS the Friar's Club (you know, the ones who throw the Celebrity Roasts)- laughter is important...

And then... it was my turn! My monologue was very well received, and I truly enjoyed performing it!

From the very bottom of my heart, thank you to the Friar's Club for your commitment to helping young artists finance the training they need to hone their skills. Education is truly the most generous gift one can give.

Some love for my fellow multi-hypenates!

2011-09-24T10:56:00.000-07:00

Some Actors Work Both Sides of a Script

By JASON ZINOMAN

Published: September 23, 2011

Robert Wright for The New York Times

AT the end of a 90-minute conversation Jesse Eisenberg announced that what he really would like to do is write a musical. To which Zoe Kazan responded, “That’s the most impressive thing you’ve said this whole time.” Mr. Eisenberg answered back by listing other comments he had made. “Musical theater totally trumps that,” she retorted.

Enlarge This Image

Merrick Morton/Sony — Columbia Pictures

Jesse Eisenberg, left, and Joseph Mazzello in a scene from the film “The Social Network.”

Ms. Kazan, 28, and Mr. Eisenberg, who will be 28 next month, trade barbs in a way that only people who run in the same circles would. These actors have known each other for years. They are both slightly built New Yorkers known for intelligent performances dramatizing eccentric anxiety. Mr. Eisenberg is more famous because of blockbuster movies like “The Social Network,” but Ms. Kazan has more experience onstage, starring most recently in the revival of “Angels in America.” But they both give the impression that they are younger than they are, of being indie even when acting in Hollywood or on Broadway. Now they have something else in common: They have each written a play that has a debut next month.

Ms. Kazan’s “We Live Here,” a dysfunctional-family drama set before a wedding, opens atManhattan Theater Club on Oct. 12, the same day that Mr. Eisenberg’s “Asuncion” begins previews at the Cherry Lane Theater. Mr. Eisenberg stars in his comedy, a Rattlestick Playwrights Theater production, as a naïve blogger whose ideals clash with his life experience. On a recent morning they chatted with Jason Zinoman over coffee. These are excerpts from the conversation.

Q. It’s a cliché for actors to say, “I want to direct,” but less often do I hear them say, “I want to write a play.” Why did you do it?

ZOE KAZAN I always wrote. My parents are writers. It just seemed like something people did. I took a writing class in college, liked it, and my first year out of school I couldn’t get a job, so I wrote a play. I never wanted to be a playwright. I just didn’t say no to any of my interests. I don’t have any hobbies.

JESSE EISENBERG People ask me what my hobbies are in interviews, and I always say biking. But all I bike for is to get to rehearsal more quickly. I have no hobbies either.

KAZAN Way to go. I bet you and I would make fascinating dinner companions.

EISENBERG Pure narcissism. We could have separate dinners alone.

KAZAN I am my own wife.

Q. Jesse, tell me about your play.

EISENBERG It’s about a writer obsessed with big issues but who doesn’t do anything about them. I do what I like to do, explore parts of myself that I am embarrassed by. I grew up in an apolitical household. I never left the country. When I became an adult, I started traveling and became interested in politics, and I probably talked about things in a silly, ignorant way. So I explored this in myself and exaggerated it for comedic effect.

Q. How exaggerated is it? One of the main characters, the one played by you, gets mugged and then sympathizes with his attackers.

EISENBERG I was mugged one night in New York and slammed into a concrete pillar, and I did an interview where I said I completely understand why they attacked me. It was a poor, black neighborhood. Someone sent me an article saying: “You ignorant idiot. It’s more offensive to defend these people. It’s more racist to defend them.” He’s right, and that is the impetus for the first scene.

Q. Jesse’s play deals with a relationship between brothers, while yours is about an equally fraught sibling relationship.

KAZAN I have a sister who I am close to. I was interested in the idea of the sister relationship in general. I wrote a first draft in fall of 2009. MTC commissioned it, and they gave me some money. When I was acting in “A Behanding [in Spokane],” I was going in five hours early and working on it there.

Q. Did Martin McDonagh [the author of “Behanding’] give feedback?

KAZAN He read it.

EISENBERG [Imitating Mr. McDonagh] How come no one gets his head sawed off in this?

KAZAN You don’t know, Jesse, you haven’t read it.

EISENBERG Listen, I read the play, but I think you left out a page where someone gets his tongue cut out and stapled to his eye.

KAZAN I guess I don’t really seek notes from a broad range of people. It’s more like we were becoming friends, and I was going early and he was like: What are you doing?

Q. Jesse, who do you give work to?

EISENBERG If I think my play is bad, I’ll send it to my mother because she only gives me compliments. If I think it’s good, jeez, I don’t know. My mom calls me every 16 minutes, and she says: “That’s great sweetie. You’re my favorite child out of the three of you. Why are you not president?”

Q. Zoe, you grew up with two screenwriters as parents.

KAZAN My parents will sit down at the dining-room table and give notes on each other’s scripts. It’s the worst thing in the world. It’s like the house is burning down. It’s awful for my sister and me.

EISENBERG You should give your script to my mother. She would be real encouraging.

KAZAN I would love that. Then maybe I would be her favorite child.

Q. Which is the biggest challenge for you as a writer: character, plot or language?

EISENBERG Aspects of each. It’s a cop-out of an answer. At each point I come to a problem with a plot point or character, it seems insurmountable. Or is it unsurmountable? Not to be surmounted? So language is my answer.

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Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

Zoe Kazan in a scene from Martin McDonagh's play “A Behanding in Spokane” on Broadway in 2010.

KAZAN I think action should be revealed through character, so if you have a plot problem, it’s probably a character problem. It’s fun and easy to write language, but there were things I loved that I had to get rid of because they are no longer carrying their weight.

Q. Does the fact you are actors have any impact on the amount of trust you have that your cast will find the right subtext in your lines?

KAZAN My rewriting process has been a lot about taking away the explicit and letting the subtext speak for itself. Sam [Gold, who is directing the play] is pushing me to be brave in pursuit of that. I think it’s hard for an actor.

Q. One thing that struck me about both your plays is that in an age when plays are becoming more cinematic in structure, yours are not.

KAZAN We both work in film, so if we are going to write a play, why not write a play?

EISENBERG There’s something strange about theater. My characters consistently demonize elitism, but of course it’s taking place in a theater where only so many people can see it. I’ve been in silly popcorn movies — the kind of thing that as an actor you might feel embarrassed about — but those movies reach many more people. In a play you’re basically performing for rich people.

Q. Broadway was once the ultimate in success for a young dramatist. How do you think of it now?

KAZAN Broadway is different now than in our parents’ generation. The number of straight plays opening there now is so small compared to the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s. I see many more plays Off Broadway by dint of ticket price and what’s being produced. If it costs more, it has to reach a larger audience. That’s why there aren’t more risky plays on Broadway.

EISENBERG I don’t consider Broadway for us — as theatergoers. I never even consider going there to see something.

KAZAN I want to see “Book of Mormon,” but for $400? Look, [turning to Mr. Eisenberg] for 60 bucks, 65 bucks I can see your play, right?

EISENBERG $75, actually. Listen I know someone who can get you in.

KAZAN $75? I’m not going to see your play.

EISENBERG Hey, I was in a zombie movie.

Q. Zoe, you also wrote a movie called “He Loves Me” that is supposed to come out next year. What is it about?

KAZAN It’s a magic realist romantic comedy. Paul [Dano, who is her boyfriend] plays a Jonathan Safran Foer-type writer who has writer’s block. He has one big novel and can’t follow it up. He starts to dream about this girl and then magical high jinks ensue. But it’s rooted in reality and comes from my experience. I was in relationships in my late teens with much older men and always felt like a piece of clay. But when I got older, I wasn’t so fluid as a person anymore. My relationships got better but harder. I wanted to write about that.

Q. Jesse, you just finished shooting a Woody Allen movie currently titled “The Bop Decameron.” Why do actors always adopt his mannerisms when starring in his films? Is it because his humor is so influential or is it in the cadences of the lines?

EISENBERG Those two plus a third reason, which is that after each take, he’s giving you notes and his voice is so iconic and funny and specific. Its impossible not to [imitate it]. You also want to indulge fully in being in a Woody Allen movie. He would say, “Don’t be hamstrung by dialogue and say whatever you want.” And I just end up making his jokes. At one point I realized after I did a scene that I made a joke from “Manhattan.”

KAZAN Steal from the best, man.

EISENBERG Just not in front of him. Go down the block first.

MFA Acting Week 3

2011-09-18T04:52:00.000-07:00

Monday 9/12

Improv

Today marked our first improv session and I can tell I am going to love it. This course will serve more as an opportunity to become acquainted with our own unique individual creative processes than to 'teach improv'. We discussed some of the personal obstacles we as actors encounter- doubting and denying impulses and fearing that we aren't enough (original enough, funny enough, clever enough, giving enough...). We often forget to stop and realize how much more energy we expend when we restrain ourselves and restrict our impulses, rather than allowing ourselves to be without judgement. Our professor used a beautiful analogy that resonated deeply with me- if we think of ourselves as houses, our experiences and emotions are stored in different rooms, some of which we allow free access to, others of which are locked and guarded. It's important that we know what is in each room of our house so that we can access and call upon the things that our work demands from us.

Tuesday 9/13

Speech

We continued working on the production of consonant sounds and had a mini-group quiz. Everyone passed!

Wednesday 9/14

Movement

Our readings for this course gave us background information on the Alexander Technique, including how Alexander himself discovered the principles he would go on to teach. We discussed the startle response- the body's physiological and neurological pre-choreographed response to danger, and how this physically manifests in a species that is constantly living under stress. The righting reflex, which the body naturally does when the danger is removed, manifests in the head and neck leading the spine into length. We also began to discuss the cycle of awareness, inhibition and direction.

Acting
We did a facial mirroring exercise today where we sat across from a partner and conversed with them while taking on any facial manipulations we observed in them- raised eyebrows, wrinkled foreheads, etc. More than imitating, it required a release into our partner which necessitated working with ease. This allowed us to be more open when observing and being observed. We did some more improv work and discussed the impact that place has on our behavior.

Thursday 9/15

Speech
We had a double speech session today as our voice teacher is away working with the RSC. We continued work on our consonant sounds and then played with the power that different sounds have in different words.

Kinetics
Today we discussed the elements of the theatre auditory- sound, tempo, pitch, volume, stress and phrasing. We expiremented with this and then recapped all of the elements- kinetic, auditory and visual, through which we will analyze scenes and characters in the future. We finished up our abstract art/ movement exercise as we began to think of ourselves not only intellectually but also as physical entities with lines, forms, shapes, etc. As actors we are both the sculptor and the sculpture.

Carbon Rose Magazine!

2011-09-16T07:38:00.000-07:00

I'm featured in this month's Carbon Rose Magazine! Check it out here.

The Greatest Speech Ever Made

2011-09-13T07:52:00.000-07:00

Shared with me by my dear friend, filmmaker Alessio Cappelletti- currently working on a film project entitled For Peace.

MFA Acting Week 2 Redux

2011-09-11T18:34:00.000-07:00

HOW have three full weeks already passed? I'm a bit behind- here's a week 2 recap!

Monday 9/5

No Classes

Tuesday 9/6

Voice- We focused on the anatomy of the vocal mechanism and had a discussion on the components of an effective vocal warmup and its purpose- to free the instrument and facilitate effective breathing and emotional connection, allowing access to a free, responsible, authentic and connected voice.

Speech- Consonants! Wahoo! We learned all 26 consonant sounds, where they're made in the mouth, what type of sound they are (stop-plosive, fricative, glide, affricate, nasal or lateral) and the corresponding script and print IPA symbols.

Wednesday 9/7

Movement- In addition to our continued exploration of the foundation of the Alexander Technique, we did an exercise to discover the true locations of our joints (vs. where we perceive our joints to be). We were asked by our teacher to observe our repertoire of movement patterns without judgment.

Acting- We shared our experiences from our sensory observation assignment and then did a simple improv exercise. Person A sat on stage while person B left the room. B returned with a relationship and objective, and A was only allowed to respond to B's words and behavior- A was not allowed to contribute any new information. It was interesting to explore simply listening and being affected.

Thursday 9/8

Voice- We brought our monologues in to workshop from a vocal perspective. My classical piece from Sophocles' Electra is a powerful and emotional piece- unfortunately I have a tendency of holding vocally in heightened situations- releasing this completely changed my monologue in a wonderful way. We also had a short discussion on the idea that nothing in an actor is compartmentalized- it is impossible to allow disconnect and a lack of integration in our training- everything is related (voice, breath, physicality, emotion...).

Speech- Speech is an essence of identity and is not something training will or should change about someone. We train our speech to be able to make a choice- we increase our range and sharpen our instrument to be able to meet the demands of the text when we are called upon to do so, but there is truly no right or wrong way to speak as an individual, there are only shades of effectiveness- did it work? Did my audience believe me? We also discussed the power of certain sounds found in the English language and the impact they have on the listener.

Kinetics- This class focused on the elements of the theatre visual, including line, form, mass, color, texture and space. We did some exciting exercises exploring the manipulation of a shape (our bodies) to evoke different reactions in ourselves and our audiences.

This week was special because in addition to our classes, we had prep (Friday), auditions (Saturday) and callbacks (Sunday) for Eurydice- one of the fall productions that needed to add a few castmembers. (Brooklyn College tries not to cast MFA Actors in their first semester so that we have an opportunity to acclimate- fall shows are usually cast in the spring and then filled in with new students.)

Relaxing on campus with classmates Andrea and Sarah after auditions.

I also had the opportunity to see an absolutely stunning production of The Little Mermaid by the Glass Bandits Theatre Company in McCarren Park with my classmates Aaron, Patrick, Jeremy and Jeremy's wife Laura. The puppet work was flawless, the a capella vocals were haunting and the piece moved swiftly- every detail was simply and perfectly attended to. And it was free. Awesome!

Stay tuned for Week 3's recap!

In case you missed it, check out Week 1 here.

Cheap Improv Classes!

2011-09-11T15:10:00.000-07:00

CHEAP IMPROV!

Mind The Art Entertainment proudly offers some of the cheapest and most HIGH QUALITY improv training in the city! Sign up with a friend and you both get 20% off!

Only $93 for 5 sessions, Tuesdays starting 10/11, including an open performance on the 6th week.

-Are you somebody that has seen some improv and thought “Hey, I would like to try some of that there stuff right there.”?

-Are you an acting type person who wants to expand their repertoire of things you’re good at and want to be able to bring to the table to make you more marketable and successful in this the hardest of professions?

-Are you a non-actor who wants to beef-up your confidence level, learn how to relax and just have fun and play with other people?

-Have you wanted to do improv but were scared away by the high sticker price of some of the improv training in the city?

-Are you scared of improv?

Then perhaps these classes are for you.

LEVEL 1:

For the beginner and those with no formal training. Learn the basics of how to free yourself up and think like an improviser.

Runs: 5 weeks, culminating in a class show on the sixth week. Tuesday nights starting October 11th

Time: 5:30pm-7:30pm on the aforementioned Tuesdays.

Class show to be at 7pm on November 15th

LEVEL 2:

For the improviser who wants to rise to the next level. Improve your level of play, listening and understanding. Focus on long-form improv and creating real, believable characters in hilarious circumstances.

Runs: 5 weeks, culminating in a class show on the sixth week. Tuesday nights starting October 11th

Time: 8:00pm-10:00pm on the aforementioned Tuesdays.

Class show to be at 9pm on November 15th

YOUR TEACHER IS JOE KURTZ: Joe is a founding board member of Mind The Art Entertainment and is the director of their Acting Division. He studied improv at iO (formerly Improv Olympic) in Chicago, IL and is a graduate of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Some of Joe’s teachers include T.J. Jagodowski (T.J. and Dave), Peter Gwinn (writer for The Colbert Report and author of Group Improvisation) and Charna Halpern (author of Truth in Comedy and Art by Committee). Joe has been teaching improv for the past couple of years while appearing in numerous productions through the city. His play, Die, premiered last year at LaMaMa E.T.C.

Testimonials from previous students:

"Joe is such a pleasure to have as an improv coach. He really lets us explore at our own pace, but at the same time, really helps us get away from our usual habits, to explore it in a different way. He makes it such a fun space to work in, and I’m so glad to have him once a week to help me not think and just go crazy and let go. It really helps me with my everyday auditions as well!" – Ashley C. Williams (star of the “The Human Centipede”)

"Joe is a wonderfully creative flexible and patient instructor. He makes his classroom a completely safe space to explore your craft and get back to the basics of acting. His improv workshops are a rare jewel and asset for anyone interested in building theatrical flexibility and confidence."- Ariana Paganetti (Off-Broadway producer)

Auditions in the AM, Audience in the PM

2011-09-11T05:27:00.000-07:00

Yesterday AM the MFA and BFA actors (along with a few BA students) auditioned for the remaining roles in one of Brooklyn College's fall productions. Usually, BC casts the fall shows in the spring and tries to avoid casting first semester MFA students (so as not to overload us), but there are a few openings in Sarah Ruhl's Eurydice, so we all went in to show our work and introduce ourself both to the faculty and student directors.

Auditions went well! Afterwards, I spent some time relaxing on campus with my fellow female 1st year cohorts- Andrea and Sarah!

Last night, I schlepped across Brooklyn (quite the arduous task, as my regular train wasn't running- I DEFINITELY got my workout in for the day) to see the Glass Bandits Theatre Company's production of The Little Mermaid (Hans Christian Andersen style, NOT Michael Eisner style). They set up a bare-bones stage in the middle of the park- I brought a blanket and arrived early for a front-row seat!

I was joined by my MFA Acting classmate Jeremy and his beautiful wife, Laura!

And two other classmates- Aaron and Patrick (as seen in my latest beach excursion).

From L to R- myself, Aaron, Patrick and Jeremy- evidently we can't get enough of each other, as we spend all day, every day, together in class and STILL socialize on the weekends... :)

The Little Mermaid was absolutely breathtaking. A solid ensemble cast provided gorgeous and haunting a capella vocals, mesmerizing puppet work and a heartfelt and honest portrayal of a story that is often watered down to make it less tragic. The choreography was perfection. The lighting (something you wouldn't think you'd notice in a park) was perfection. The direction was... perfection. I adored EVERY detail of this well thought out production, as did all of my cohorts. Bravo!

And now... I'm off to callbacks from yesterday's auditions for Brooklyn College's production of Sarah Ruhl's Eurydice. They're seeing myself and a few other females to fill in some small parts that weren't cast last fall, but a few of my classmates are up for the male lead! Send good vibes! :)

MFA Acting- Week One Recap

2011-09-05T19:05:00.000-07:00

It's here! It's happening! Wait- WHAT? We already finished our first week? Wow. That was fast.

The Brooklyn College MFA Acting Class of 2013- from L to R- Patrick, Jeremy, Jonny, Aaron, myself, Andrea and Sarah.

As I've said many, many times before, I'm so thrilled, honored and humbled to be here. My classmates are talented, dedicated and very unique. My professors are passionate about their work and committed to our development as performers. The program focuses on our individual development and growth as unique artists with unique voices.

Week two begins tomorrow! Insane! Here's an incredibly un-detailed and oversimplified recap of week one- hopefully I'll have time to share more specifics in the coming weeks!

Voice

We've begun to study the voice from both an anatomical and a holistic viewpoint. We're starting to learn what components in the body are used to create vocal sounds, what the role of the voice is in an actor's craft and the incredible importance of the breath in vocal production.

-Actors need discipline to be free.

-We are our instruments.

-Our voices are our most intimate expressions of ourselves.

Diction and Dialect

In this course we've begun breaking down what speech is- the use of specific sounds, pitch, inflection and emphasis which we use to communicate. We've begun to develop a warmup which engages all the physical components of speech including our tongues, lips, jaws, soft palates, faces, etc.

-There is no one proper way to speak, except clearly and effectively.

Movement/Alexander Technique

Our first class focused a lot on becoming aware of and being present with our bodies while moving. We had the opportunity to move organically while telling a story and then were asked to follow someone else's movements while telling the same story- it was interesting to experience and study a foreign movement pattern while telling a familiar story.

-Can you observe yourself without judgement?

Acting

Much of our discussion centered around the idea of of being curious and aware but existing comfortably without answers- it's ok to not always know why or how something is in this exact moment, so long as we're aware. We also spoke about the intimate and vulnerable sides of acting, and how important these things are to creativity. Lastly, we focused our attention on a performer's energy and how vital it is to the work we do.

-The only way you can create is to be open to the energy of other actors.

-Let yourself be without answers.

Kinetics/ Analysis

Our first class was focused on the idea of the theatre as a living art- the audience is present for both the inspiration and the creation as they exist in live time.

-The theatre is a place for seeing, an auditorium is a place for hearing, and acting is the doing of a deed (which is where kinetics come into play).

Improv

Updates/ Thoughts yet to come- the hurricane and Labor Day have cancelled two Mondays in a row, so we've not yet had an improv class.

MFA Acting Orientation

2011-08-26T09:59:00.000-07:00

I'm bracing myself for a weekend of reading, writing and running from Hurricane Irene, but before we're evacuated (true story- I live in the coastal evacuation zone- in a basement), I wanted to share some thoughts from yesterday's orientation at Brooklyn College!

First on the schedule was a meeting with the head of our department. We talked a bit about what to expect on this journey, got our schedules and went over our first assignments. My program is very small- there are seven first year MFA actors (including myself) and 7 second years. The second years came for an informal Q & A and we got to know each other a bit, which was wonderful. They were so kind and welcoming and helped relieve a lot of our anxiety about starting school. I feel very blessed to be a part of such a supportive group!

Next we attended a department-wide orientation (where we got to meet the MFA Directors, Designers, Dramaturgs and Theatre Managment students). It was inspiring and a bit humbling to meet everyone and hear a bit about their story. Our department seems to have students representing every continent, many states, all ages and backgrounds- each of us brought together by our love of and dedication to the theatre. It's a powerful thing to sit amongst so many others and hear what they've been through to get to this point. Additionally, we learned that Brooklyn College's Theatre program has been ranked 14th in the country by the Princeton Review.

I went out with some of my classmates and fellow theatre department friends last night- it was wonderful to get to know everyone better!

I'm currently finishing up/ tweaking a few assignments for next week, including a writing piece about the story of my voice and some general assessments of where I am right now as an actor. As soon as I'm happy with them, I'll be sharing pieces of the assignments on this blog. Check back soon!

'Twas the Night Before Orientation...

2011-08-24T17:58:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is Orientation, and then on Friday, I begin my first day of MFA Acting studies at Brooklyn College.

Deep breaths.

I'm thrilled to get started, but a bit nervous about the unknown.

As One Door Closes...

2011-08-23T08:03:00.000-07:00

Box of tissues ready? Check. OK. Here goes....

I never, ever wanted to be a teacher. My grandma, father, several cousins and one of my sisters are all teachers. I am genetically pre-dispositioned to shape the minds of young people, but for a very long time, I wanted nothing to do with it. I wanted to break the mold, buck the trend and do what made me happy. And that was (and still is) performing. I've always been an advocate for arts education because I know first-hand how life-changing free, no strings attached arts training can be, but it hadn't really occurred to me that I should be the one teaching it.

The more I learned about the tragic and sickly state of arts in public education and the huge disparities between high and low-income areas, I felt physically ill. It touches close to home. As a quick recap for those of you who don't know my story, financial struggle was a very large and ever present part of my upbringing- at times affording basic survival necessities was difficult, so spend extra money on arts training was not realistic for our family. I was blessed to have been born into a family that appreciated the value of art, however, and they worked hard to find opportunities for my sisters and I. Through the gracious and generous donation of time and instruction from my very kind dance teacher, we were allowed to attend class even when we couldn't pay for it, and several impactful theatre directors volunteered their personal time and resources to help me grow and prepare for further actor training. I am forever indebted to these individuals who believed in me and more importantly, who believed in the importance and power of art.

At the end of the day, arts education is NOT about grooming the next generation of artists (that's just an added benefit). Kids need arts education because it provides:

-permission to be unique

-a positive outlet

-an opportunity to learn about yourself and other people

-a way to look and make sense of the world we live in

-a platform on which to stand and express what's important to you

Being the person to give that to these kids is something I will treasure for the rest of my life.

And now that I'm weeping hysterically, here's a recap of my final day teaching.

We did a full run-through in the AM with costumes, props, etc. It went smoothly, so I let the kids enjoy a few hours relaxing before we prepared for the show.

We played in the gym!

And then we went outside.

The kids LOVE stealing my iced coffee and then impersonating me. Evidently I stand like this?!

We played salon (which basically means I let the kids ~~tear out~~ braid my hair until I can't handle the pain any longer).

And I hung around with some of my favorite boys.

When we went back inside, the kids had lunch and I fed them THE COOKIES (a huge hit), and then it was time to start makeup!

In our ~~costume closet~~ super fancy makeup studio.

I got some much needed help from my awesome co-worker Ivan, who did all of the "old people makeup".

EVERYONE in the older grades gets stage makeup. Even the boys. And I think they like it...

Haephestus from Pandora's Box, looking old and busted.

Sometimes the boys end up looking prettier than me. I try not to be jealous. In my defense, he is wearing more makeup than I am in this photo.

Drama also teaches valuable life skills like NOT twitching when there's a mascara wand up in yo grill. This kid's got it down pat.

I made a quick transformation (as I was narrating/ emceeing) into one of my favorite Forever 21 dresses I picked up years ago- last worn here, and my wedding shoes!

There are few things better for your confidence than working with kids. I was told I looked like "a princess", "a super model", "a movie star", "a mermaid", "Hannah Montana" (compliment?) and "Princess Peach". I'll take it!

Getting the show started with one of my handsome co-hosts. :)

K/1st telling the Cherokee legend of Why The Trees Lose Their Leaves.

2nd/3rd's presentation of the Maori legend of Why The Kiwi Lost It's Wings.

4th/5th's rendition of Pandora's Box.

Watching proudly from the wings.

Pandora and Hope.

DANCE TIME! K/1st doing a Native American dance.

2nd/ 3rd's Polynesian dance.

My little divas doing the choreography from our Cardio-Dance elective class.

4th/ 5th lyrical dance.

And then it was time to say goodbye. Ooof.

One of my students gave me the lei they had made for their costume! :)

I started out smiling...

But the tears weren't far behind...

I got to share a few last silly moments with some kids.

And some more serious ones with others...

I don't get to interact very much with parents because I don't sign the kids in or out of the program, so it was nice to have the opportunity to tell them how amazingly talented their children are.

With a few- of MANY- amazing co-workers. I couldn't do it without these guys.

I snagged all of my teacher swag and headed home to finish packing for HLS and run to the train station.

I could go on for another six or seven pages, but instead, I'll end on a note of gratitude to my students and the organizations that make the work I do possible.

Teaching has given me:

-A true appreciation of unconditional love and adoration.

-A much stronger sense of purpose and self.

-Gratitude for my parents and former teachers.

-A clearer idea of what's important to me.

-An unchangeably galvanized belief in the power and importance of arts education.

-Faith in future generations.

Thanks for listening to the ramblings of this weepy and emotional girl. It'll be a few years before the next "Miss Keelie" post, but I'm excited to begin my adventures in graduate school, which I'll be blogging about here. Orientation is Thursday!

Fringe NYC Reviews

2011-08-16T13:33:00.000-07:00

I had the privilege of seeing three Fringe shows this past weekend as a reviewer for NYTheatre.com. I didn't care for two of them, but LOVED the third. You can read my review of Mic at the Flamboyan Theatre here.

Before I Die...

2011-08-09T04:34:00.000-07:00

I first came across this interactive public art project earlier this year, and was taken aback by how beautiful, simple and universal it is. Answering the "before I die...." prompt might be an interesting addition to character study...

Check it out here:

Thoughts and Reflections: "A Practical Handbook for the Actor"

2011-08-06T13:02:00.000-07:00

I'd call this a book report, but it's not. Let's go with "free response". I'm including a few passages from the book that stood out to me, and what they made me think. Abandon all dependence on rationally organized thoughts, ye who enter here.

"Acting requires common sense, bravery and a lot of will: the common sense to translate whatever you are given into simple, actable terms; the bravery to throw yourself into the action of the play despite fear of failure, self consciousness and a thousand other obstacles; and the will to adhere to your ideals even though it might not be the easiest thing to do." (p6)

“When truth and virtue are so rare in almost every area of our society, the world needs theatre and the theatre needs actors who will bring the truth of the human soul to the stage. The theatre may now be the only place in society where people can go to hear the truth.” (p.7)

-What does it say about us as a species that we create replications of ourselves to tell ourselves the truth? I ask this more out of curiosity than condemnation. What is so bad about the truth that we choose to refract it through art? Are we not designed to be able to handle/ process truth in it's simplest form? Is the truth so simple and mundane that we change it- sculpt, mold, twist, bend, paint, conceal and tear to adorn it with more intricacy than it possesses?

"The reason great actors are so compelling is that they have the courage to bring their personalities to bear on everything they do... you have the right and responsibility to bring to the stage who you are."

-How often are we so stuck in our own heads that we fear our characters are repetitive, or redundant, or too similar to ourselves? For a long time, my greatest fear was to go on stage and seem too much like myself- I measured the merit of my performance by the distance I could put between who I was on-stage and who I was in real-life. It was agonizing, and not very much fun.

"The person you are is a thousand times more interesting that the best acotr you could ever hope to be." (Stanislavski, quoted on p 75)

-I often find myself concerned that I'm not doing the complexity of my character justice. Have I created a rounded, three-dimensional person? It's easy to forget that you already are one...

"Rehearsal is not a battleground but an incubator." (p 77)

-When dealing with conflicts, it's a good idea to keep in mind that everyone shares the same goal of doing the piece justice.

"Nothing is more cleansing or exhilarating than watching a human being standing true to his intentions, no matter how impossibly high the odds are against him." (p 85)

Bruder, Melissa, Lee Michael Cohn, Madeleine Oinek, Nathaniel Pollack, Robert Previto, Scott Zigler. A Practical Handbook for the Actor. Random House. New York. 1986.

Food for thought...

2011-08-04T06:25:00.001-07:00

There will be, in the next generation or so, a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing dictatorship without tears, so to speak, producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them, but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda or brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods. And this seems to be the final revolution.—Aldous Huxley

What's Genocide?

2011-08-01T04:49:00.000-07:00

I recently came across this piece. It struck me as particularly poignant and unfortunately, too accurate in the struggles myself and my fellow educators in the NYC DOE (or really, in education ANYWHERE) face.

WHAT'S GENOCIDE?

their high school principal
told me I couldn’t teach
poetry with profanity
so I asked my students,
“Raise your hand if you’ve heard of the Holocaust.”
in unison, their arms rose up like poisonous gas
then straightened out like an SS infantry
“Okay. Please put your hands down.
Now raise your hand if you’ve heard of the Rwandan genocide.”
blank stares mixed with curious ignorance
a quivering hand out of the crowd
half-way raised, like a lone survivor
struggling to stand up in Kigali
“Luz, are you sure about that?”
“No.”
“That’s what I thought.”

“Carlos—what’s genocide?”

they won’t let you hear the truth at school
if that person says “fuck”
can’t even talk about “fuck”
even though a third of your senior class
is pregnant.

I can’t teach an 18-year-old girl in a public school
how to use a condom that will save her life
and that of the orphan she will be forced
to give to the foster care system—
“Carlos, how many 13-year-olds do you know that are HIV-positive?”

“Honestly, none. But I do visit a shelter every Monday and talk with
six 12-year-old girls with diagnosed AIDS.”
while 4th graders three blocks away give little boys blowjobs during recess
I met an 11-year-old gang member in the Bronx who carries
a semi-automatic weapon to study hall so he can make it home
and you want me to censor my language

“Carlos, what’s genocide?”

your books leave out Emmett Till and Medgar Evers
call themselves “World History” and don’t mention
King Leopold or diamond mines
call themselves “Politics in the Modern World”
and don’t mention Apartheid

“Carlos, what’s genocide?”

you wonder why children hide in adult bodies
lie under light-color-eyed contact lenses
learn to fetishize the size of their asses
and simultaneously hate their lips
my students thought Che Guevara was a rapper
from East Harlem
still think my Mumia t-shirt is of Bob Marley
how can literacy not include Phyllis Wheatley?
schools were built in the shadows of ghosts
filtered through incest and grinding teeth
molded under veils of extravagant ritual

“Carlos, what’s genocide?”

“Roselyn, how old was she? Cuántos años tuvo tu madre cuando se murió?”

“My mother had 32 years when she died. Ella era bellísima.”

…what’s genocide?

they’ve moved from sterilizing “Boriqua” women
injecting indigenous sisters with Hepatitis B,
now they just kill mothers with silent poison
stain their loyalty and love into veins and suffocate them

…what’s genocide?

Ridwan’s father hung himself
in the box because he thought his son
was ashamed of him

…what’s genocide?

Maureen’s mother gave her
skin lightening cream
the day before she started the 6th grade

…what’s genocide?

she carves straight lines into her
beautiful brown thighs so she can remember
what it feels like to heal

…what’s genocide?
…what’s genocide?

“Carlos, what’s genocide?”

“Luz, this…
this right here…

is genocide.”

- Carlos Andrés Gómez

Hamlet and MacBeth- Full Performances on PBS Arts

2011-07-30T21:16:00.000-07:00

Free full-production videos of the RSC's film for television Hamlet and MacBeth on PBS Arts? Yes, please.

Hamlet, anyone?

Or perhaps you prefer the Scottish play?

Side Note: These witches scared the CRAP out of me. Thanks for the nightmares, BBC.

Photo Shoot with MoDeZinz Photography and Design!

2011-07-26T17:19:00.000-07:00

My friend Monica Dodge of MoDeZinz Photography and Design is doing a photo series on love: specifically what makes couples unique. Since Joe and I are both actors, we decided to do a shoot of us portraying some of our famous couples from theatre, film and pop culture. We shot at the beautiful Glove Theatre (the site of my recent wedding), using some of their gorgeous costume pieces. How often do you get to do a photo shoot with one of your favorite friends AND your husband at your wedding location

(which happens to be a theatre)?

LORD & LADY MACBETH

ABIGAIL WILLIAMS & JOHN PROCTOR

SID & NANCY

ANTONY & CLEOPATRA

Monica is a longtime friend, and it's so awesome to see her photography progress over the years! She's based out of the Capital District in NY, but she sometimes finds herself in NYC. Check her out!

Just A Writer Alone In The Woods...

2011-07-21T09:21:00.000-07:00

It's been a busy summer! Here's a long overdue recap of my playwrighting residency at Wildacres Retreat in Little Switzerland, NC.

I have three new plays in the works, but carving out time to sit down, relax and let the writing happen is difficult. I can write a page of blog material in ten minutes, but it could take me three hours to write a page of dialogue for a play. Creative writing is just a slower process (for me, anyways). After writing and performing my one-woman show, A Woman In Progress, I found myself with a renewed passion for writing. When I found out that I had been accepted to Brooklyn College’s MFA Acting program, I knew that in the fall, I would have very little time for anything but my studies. If I wanted to crank out another play, or two (or three), it HAD to happen this summer.

Wildacres exceeded my expectation in EVERY regard! The artist’s cabin is separate from the main retreat to allow for privacy and focus, a brisk 20 walk (/hike) down the gravel road. The cabin is beautifully appointed, generously sized, and inspiring in and of itself. The grounds and facilities are gorgeous. The best part by far, though, is the staff. I have never felt more at home with a group of people I just met. I’m referred to as the “cabin dweller”- the affectionate nickname given to the current resident artist.

Fred and Mary Kay- my surrogate grandparents for the week!

The amazing Sherry Lovett- storyteller extraordinaire!

The property is stunningly gorgeous. I mean, how can you NOT be inspired by this?

It was a productive week! I'm almost completely finished with a draft of a new piece called His Brother's War, the first installment in a three-piece adaptation of Aeschlyus' Oresteia.

I'm so grateful to everyone at Wildacres for this wonderful opportunity!

Spring Performance/ Awards Ceremony

2011-06-06T05:29:00.000-07:00

Friday evening my students performed their spring show- the last time I'll get to work with the older ones who are graduating out of the program. It is equal parts heart-warming and heart-breaking to see how far they've come since we started working together and how close to my heart they've become. I'm a weeping mess every time I think about our last day together, but I'll spare you too much mush... Enjoy some photos of my adorable kiddos!

Handing out the Most Promising Dancer Award to a deserving young man.

All of the Dance Award Recipients.

Being a diva star...

Posing with the Most Improved Dancer Award Recipient. I'm so amazingly proud of this kid and how much he's improved since our first class together two years ago!

Chillin' at the afterparty! (I DIDN'T eat a hotdog... don't worry! :)

This little lady ballroom dances! So talented! :)

Deep in conversation...

With one of my former dance students (and Dance Award Recipient)- I LOVE it when my former students come back to see me after they've graduated the program!

I. LOVE. MY. JOB.

Martha Graham to Agnes DeMille

2011-05-25T04:36:00.000-07:00

I had my first meeting today with my six future classmates and Judylee Vivier, the head of the MFA Acting department at Brooklyn College. Professor Vivier shared with us a beautiful passage that really spoke to the journey of an actor, and I had to share it!

Martha Graham to Agnes DeMille

"There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium: and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is, nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly--to keep the channel open. You do no even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others."

This passage really resonated with me. Particularly the bit about it being "not your business to determine how good it is, nor how it compares with other expressions." Can you imagine a world in which actors did not compare themselves and their performances to other actors- a world in which we allow ourselves to be free enough to follow our impulses, regardless of what they look and sound like? It's something I strive for constantly and this piece reminded me how important it is to do so.

Are you regularly able to "keep the channel open"? If not, what challenges prevent you from doing so?

Catching up...

2011-05-04T07:16:00.000-07:00

Wow! I've only been out of town for three weeks, but it feels like three years! I promise a more substantial post soon, but for now, here's a link to my wedding photos.

In other news- I'll be running my 3rd Tough Mudder on Mother's Day! I'm psyched! Check out the course here!

Anti-Violence Art Show at the NY Aquarium

2011-04-09T14:12:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was my last day teaching for three weeks, and though I'm THRILLED to have the time off for the wedding and honeymoon, I'm going to miss my little ones like crazy. They're all convinced that I'm going to have a baby soon because "That's what you do when you get married" but as I tell them all the time, I have 180 children at the moment- why on earth would I need any more?

Last night, my students' work was displayed in an Anti-Violence Art Show along with the works of a few other YWCA afterschool programs at the NY Aquarium. I adore my students and I love my job, but admittedly, the areas that the YWCA serves are under-served in many ways, and violence is a very real part of growing up in Coney Island, Brownsville and some of the other rougher parts of Brooklyn. Under the guidance of my colleague Erin Welsh, the kids created artwork that reflected how they felt about the violence that surrounds them, and what they hope for their futures. Words cannot express how proud I am of my accomplished, intelligent and talented students.

With some of my awesome students!

With the art and drama specialists from my YWCA site!

Why I LOVE Donors Choose!

2011-04-01T04:04:00.000-07:00

Got $10? $5? $1? Teachers spend SO MUCH personal money on supplies when classroom budgets fall short- Donors Choice allows you to pick a classroom project to help fund and the kids in the class send thank you's! Joe and I donated to Donor's Choose as one of our Wedding Favor Charities. Check out their website!

Calling all Playwrights and Filmmakers!

2011-03-28T16:08:00.000-07:00

We are now accepting submissions for:

Mind The Art Shorts Festival

Celebrating the creative forces behind short plays, films, & musicals

April 18th – May 8th @ Center Stage, NY (48 West 21st Street)

If you have a short film, short play, or short musical, then submit your work and be a part of this incredible festival. Your piece will have two showcasing opportunities and a chance to win one of the following prizes!

Winner of Best Short Film will receive:

$250 Cash Prize & A Festival Distribution Package!

A Festival Distribution Package is an opportunity for the winners to have their short film submitted to film festivals around the world. Mind The Art Entertainment will, at our expense, create an individual custom-made package for your film to showcase it internationally. Under the guidance of our Filmmaking and Production Divisions, your film will undergo a year-long development and marketing analysis and will be submitted to film festivals around the world that are suited to your film. You will also be granted the opportunity to work with our Filmmaking Division and attend networking events, screenings, and industry gatherings.

Winner of Best Short Play or Musical will receive:

$250 Cash Prize & A Production Development Package!

A Production Development Package is a producing opportunity in which Mind The Art Entertainment will take a full-length play or musical by the winning playwright and begin a series of intensive workshops to refine it en route to constructing a full-scale production. The ultimate goal is to produce the piece within the next year in a theater in NYC for a three week run with a fully professional creative team. The winner of this package need not already have full length material written but can develop a piece from scratch with Mind The Art Entertainment.

How do I apply?

It's easy! You can apply online or by mail, and the submission fee is only $20. We are looking for short material that can be easily showcased. If you are selected to participate in either the film or theater segments of the festival, you will be given two public screenings/performances. It is important to note that we are not producing the short play or musical for you; rather, you will get 2 time slots, and it will be up to you to present your material as best as possible. You will be given a tech time slot before your performances to set and rehearse simple cues in the performance space. We are seeking material that is innovative, original, highly creative, and rich in artistry. The winners will join our ranks as resident artists of the company as we develop their projects over the coming year. Films will be showcased between April 18th and May 1st. Theatrical pieces will be showcased between April 29th and May 8th.

For Film, the online deadline is April 8th at 11:59pm. First, pay your submission fee of $20 at www.mindtheartentertainment.com/Festivals.html. Then email a link to your movie to projects@mindtheartentertainment.com with your contact info and the billing name you used to pay your submission fee. Do not include trailers, cover letters, resumes, long bios, production stills, etc. Only include the link to your film, your contact info, and the name used for billing so we can verify payment. Anything else will not be considered. We are looking at the artistry of the submitted film and that film alone.

For Theater (Play or Musical), the online deadline is April 8th at 11:59pm. First, pay your submission fee of $20 at www.mindtheartentertainment.com/Festivals.html. Then email a script (for musicals please also include at least one song) to projects@mindtheartentertainment.com with your contact info and the billing name you used to pay your submission fee. Do not include posters, cover letters, resumes, long bios, production stills, etc. Only include the script (and at least one song, recorded or sheet music, for musicals), your contact info, and the name used for billing so we can verify payment. Anything else will not be considered.

If you do not have a link to your film online or your script or music isn’t available online, please pay your submission fee online and then mail a DVD of your film or for theater a hard copy of your script (and a CD or sheet music of at least one song for musicals), along with your contact info and the billing name used to pay your submission fee, postmarked no later than April 6th, to:

Christian De Gré / Mind The Art

346 Gates Avenue #C2

Brooklyn, NY 11216

That's it! We will email you a confirmation of your submission, and the participants of the festival will be announced on our website and Facebook page on April 11th.

Once accepted into the festival, 5 finalists will be selected in each category (Film & Theater). These will be chosen based on an audience ballot. The grand prize winner in each category will be chosen by the Board of Mind The Art Entertainment and a panel of industry professionals. Be a part of this festival and enter for the chance to have your work showcased! Get your work out there for people to see!

Win this festival and you will not only join our ranks as a Resident Artist, but will also have your work developed, marketed, produced, and supported by an award-winning production company!

For more info or to Apply please go to:

www.mindtheartentertainment.com/Festivals.html

For an example of our work come see Mind The Art’s acclaimed production of The Timing of a Day, playing April 1^st-17^that Center Stage, NY. Tickets at www.mindtheartentertainment.com

Vote for me?!

2011-03-25T11:42:00.001-07:00

I've entered TheaterMania.com's Facebook Contest to select the trophy chaperones for the 56th Annual Drama Desk Awards. I'm so geeked out about this possibility! The 5 male and 5 female contestants with the most votes will advance to the finals, and they'll pick two men and two women to be a part of this honored tradition and be on national television and worldwide media (a dream come true for this aspiring actress).

Voting takes 5 seconds and is free! Simply search for TheaterMania.com on Facebook (or click the link), "like" their page, and then scroll down their wall until you find the photo of me below, and "like" the photo!

Pretty please? :)

xoxo

Spreading the Love

2011-03-23T14:07:00.000-07:00

That's me and the guy I'm going to marry in 24 days. We love each other. A lot. I'm fairly certain my wedding day will be one of the happiest days in my life. And if I'm going to be THAT happy, then I want to share some of that happiness. In lieu of traditional wedding favors, Joe and I have decided to donate to our favorite charities. I've included those organizations below. Please take a moment to stop by and check out the amazing work they're doing.

I'm pretty sure our guests won't walk away disappointed that they didn't get a baggie of Jordan almonds and a customized matchbook...

Sexism in American Theatre

2011-03-19T16:08:00.000-07:00

If you haven't already read Theresa Rebeck's Laura Pels Keynote Address, which I found on Women and Hollywood, check it out below. And THANK YOU, Theresa Rebeck, for speaking out.

Text of Theresa Rebeck Laura Pels Keynote Address

by MELISSA SILVERSTEIN on MARCH 16, 2010

in STATISTICS,THEATRE

Last night I saw someone do something very brave. My friend, Theresa Rebeck, a very successful playwright, TV writer and novelist, got up in front of a group of theatre people and talked about gender. She talked about how her career has been hampered because she is a woman. She talked about how she became toxic after a bad NY Times review. She talked about the abysmal number of plays produced by women. She talked about the missing women’s plays.

She challenged the theatre community to acknowledge that it has a gender problem and to do something about it.

Theresa has been kind enough to share her entire speech with us. It is funny and it is important because it is the TRUTH. Also, if you don’t know who Theresa is please check out this introduction that playwright John Weidmanwrote.

Because I am someone who believes in the power of storytelling, I am going to tell you a story. It is the story of a play, and the story of things that happened to me, because of that play.
The play is called The Butterfly Collection. I wrote it in 1999.   It is about a family of artists, and the tensions that rise between the father, who is a successful novelist, and his two sons, one of whom is a struggling actor, and the other who is an antiques dealer.   Tim Sanford at Playwrights Horizons fell in love with this play and said he would produce it in the fall of 2000, and he talked to the guys who run South Coast Rep and they read it and included it in the new play festival that spring, so that we had a chance to work on it out there. The workshop was great, and we were the hit of the festival. When the play came into New York the following fall, we had a thrilling cast—Marion Seldes and Brian Murray, in their first production together, Reed Birney, Betsey Aidem, and the young Maggie Lacy in her New York stage debut. Bartlett Sher directed, and there was enormous excitement gathering around the production. A lot of commercial producers came, as people felt that it could potentially move. Nine separate regional theaters were circling to produce it. American theater magazine called my agent to ask for the script because they were interested in publishing it (in those cool inserts I was very excited I’ve always wanted one of those).   Audiences were thrilled with the play. Lincoln Center Library was filming it for their collection.
When the New York Times published its review it was not what anyone expected. The reviewer, who shall remain nameless, dismissed the play—which was about art and family—as a feminist diatribe.   He accused me of having a thinly veiled man-hating agenda, and in a truly bizarre paragraph at the end of the review, he expressed sympathy to the director because he had to work with someone as hideous as me.
The review was horrible and personal and projected all sorts of terrible things on me. I was shocked, a lot of people were shocked. And there was real outcry in the community. A lot of letters were written to the Times—someone told me it was sixty letters, which I don’t know how anyone would know that but it made me feel better, even though none of them were published. Apologies were made behind the scenes, none to me but to other people. The heroic Tina Howe went to the Dramatists Guild council and read the review aloud and insisted something be done about this; she and a lot of people made the excellent point that if anyone at the Times had ever dared to publish a review as racist or homophobic or anti-Semitic as this review was, in its bigotry—well, the review would never have been published.   So there was a flurry of upset.   But with a review that bad, the play closed. All the other productions went away. American Theater magazine went away.   Everybody knew that that was a crazy misogynistic review. But no one would produce the play. Ever again. And you should know that many people consider it my best play. Still.
This is what happened to me in the months after that.
–People couldn’t get over it. For about a year and a half, I had people come up to me at least once a week and this is what the conversation would be:
NICE PERSON: Hi Theresa, how are you? I saw the Butterfly Collection! Wow it was so beautiful! What a great evening of theater!
THERESA: Thank you.
NICE PERSON: That review was crazy! So misogynistic! Wow, how could he write something like that?
And then this nice person would go on and on and on about that crazy misogynistic review, so I got to live through it all over again.
I cannot tell you how many of these conversations I had. Maybe 200. Then one day I did an interview with the great Chuck Mee, and after the interview was over, and the reporter had left, Chuck said to me, “I sawThe Butterfly Collection. It was really beautiful.” And I said, “Thank you.” And then I waited, for the rest of the conversation, about that crazy review, and Chuck didn’t say it. All he said was, that play was beautiful, and for a minute, I had my play back.
The other person who repeated and heroically gave me my play back was the wonderful actress Lyn Cohen, who was really angry about what happened and who would speak to me with such courage and compassion about it that even though I didn’t want to really talk about it, she always made me feel better.
This is another thing that happened: A whole lot of people decided I should change my identity.   This is the conversation I had with other well meaning people:
NICE PERSON: You know Theresa everybody knows that your work is terrific but the New York critics don’t like you personally.
THERESA: How can they not like me personally? They don’t know me!
NICE PERSON: Hey! We love you. But you know what you should do? You should produce your plays under a male pseudonym.
THERESA: You mean, I should pretend to be a man?
NICE PERSON: That’s right. That’s the only way they will accept you. Or the plays! They would like your plays, if only you hadn’t written them!
Okay I know that sounds crazy but I swear I had that conversation at least a dozen times. Arthur Kopit, who really is great and I love him, thought this was a hilarious idea and he had a lot of fun figuring out for me how I would pull that off, becoming a man. We never went as far as surgery but there were lots of other clever ideas about how what I might do to trick people into thinking I was a man, which is what I needed to do, to make my identity acceptable.
This is another thing that happened to me: One of my friends who was a producer in New York told me that this was all a sign, that I was being told by the Times that I am not welcome in New York and I should think of something else to do with my life.
This is another thing that happened: A close friend of mine who is a theater director started screaming at me in restaurants and he told me I wasn’t an artist.
This is another thing that happened to me: My agent said, you know Theresa, how you’ve always wanted to write a novel? Maybe you should do that. Which is not necessarily bad advice, but it’s also not particularly advice you want to hear from your THEATRE AGENT. He also told me that my next two plays, Omnium Gatherum and Bad Dates, were unproduce-able and that he couldn’t represent them.
And, I couldn’t get produced. He was right about that. No one wanted to touch the Butterfly Collection and no one wanted to touch me. And then I fell off of the map. I got really depressed because of all this, as you might imagine, and I couldn’t think anymore, and I was spending way too much time lying on the couch all day, and I was drinking white wine a lot, in one inch increments, I would lie on the couch and tell myself I wasn’t turning into an alcoholic because I was only drinking white wine one inch at a time. And then one day my son, who was five years old at the time, came up to me and said, “Mom, are you all right?” And I looked at him and I thought: GET UP. It is your job to take care of this kid and it’s not his job to take care of you and you are not going to turn into this person. So I got off the couch.
And then a bunch of other things happened that were equally or more hideous, it’s not like getting off the couch solved everything. I did start writing a novel, although that’s a whole different story. But I really was off the grid, for two years, and then one day I went to see my friend Sinan’s play up at the Longwharf, and I caught a ride back to the city with John Eisner, and we talked for three hours and he said you should come up to the Lark. And then the next day Arthur Kopit called and told me as well, you should come up to the Lark. And the Lark saved me. They saved my sanity and they saved my career and I thank them for everything they have done for me, and what they do for a lot of playwrights, there is no organization, in my mind, that does more.
And that is the last time I am telling that story. I am never telling that story again. But I tell it today because I don’t want to hear from anybody that there isn’t, or hasn’t been, a real gender problem in the American theater. I really did think about what I might talk to you about today and I had no choice, honestly, I felt like my whole career as a playwright has been so hyperdefined by my gender—sometimes I feel like it is strangely blinding, even—and it’s time for all of us to look at this, and talk about it, without going “oh there’s not really a problem” because there IS a problem—and then start talking about what we, as a community, are going to do to solve it.
This is an important point to realize: Before I came to New York and started working in the theater, I was never told that being a girl was going to be a problem for me in any way that I took seriously. It’s not like I was a stranger to conservatism. I know a lot about the Republican party and the Catholic church because I was raised, basically, in both. Both my parents were staunch Ohio Republican Catholics until some point where my mother got a clue and switched parties and now she’s a democrat and my father is still a republican so since then they’ve done nothing but fight incessantly about politics. My father, who is as I said both republican and catholic, thinks I’m insane BUT there was a moment in my childhood, when some of his buddies got into ribbing him about having so many daughters. He had four daughters and two sons, and someone apparently even expressed pity one day, the story goes, one of his golfing buddies said something like, “Poor George, what is he going to do with all those girls?” And it pissed him off, and he came home and said to my democratic mother, “Those girls can do anything the boys can do.” And that is what the expectation was, in my house. Then I went to an all girls Catholic high school where the nuns were all quietly radical liberation theologists who were secretly agitating for women’s ordination. Then I went to Notre Dame, which was more traditionally conservative, but I couldn’t take it tooo seriously because they had things like panty raids there. I thought it was just too dumb to be believed. And then I went to Brandeis, where I read a lot of feminist literary theory and considered questions like “Is the Gaze Male?” This was in the EIGHTIES, that’s more than 25 years ago, for people who are counting.   And at the time there were fantastic plays being produced all over the country by Wendy Wasserstein and Tina Howe and Marsha Norman and Emily Mann, and I thought it was a cool thing, to be a woman playwright. I thought, I’m not in the Catholic Church anymore, and the world is saying we haven’t heard from the women, and now we’re ready!
And then I began my career as a professional playwright, where I was told that since I’m a woman, if I write about women, that means I have a feminist agenda and that’s BAD.    I also got told that when I write about men, since I’m a woman, that I clearly have a feminist agenda, and that’s bad too. I couldn’t write about anything without hearing that I had a feminist agenda. It turned out that being a woman playwright was just in and of itself suspect; if you are a woman playwright by definition you have a feminist agenda, which was so bad, it annihilated the work itself.   Apparently the other word for woman playwright might as well be ‘witch.’
As an aside let me add, I would rather be called a witch than a man hater. Honestly ‘man hater’ really does need to be simply off the table. It bugs the shit out of me. I have a husband and a son and a lot of men in my life who I love a lot and it’s creepy, that people would toss that ugly accusation at anyone in the jovial spirit of name-calling. Someone actually called me that at a party a couple of weeks ago and I wanted to hit him. BUT I DIDN’T.    Anyway, if you need to call me a name, the preferred insult would be “witch,” or “madwoman in the attic” is also acceptable.
So those are some of the ways I know there actually is a gender problem in the American theater. This is another way: Because so many people—not just Arthur Kopit—have told me, over the years, that in order to have a career that is commensurate with my talent, I should pretend to be a man. This is another way I know there is a problem: Because the extraordinary Julia Jordan ran the numbers for us.
Two years ago in what I think was an act of inspired intelligence and courage, Julia Jordan conducted a series of town halls at New Dramatists, which put the question of gender parity on the table for the American theater to discuss. She invited women playwrights to come and present their situation and they showed up in droves. Then she invited artistic directors and literary managers to come and confront the situation with us. And this is the situation: Plays written by women are not being produced. In 2007, the one year I opened a play on Broadway, I was the only woman playwright who did so. That year, nationwide, 12 per cent of the new plays produced all over the country were by women. That means 88 percent of the new plays produced were written by men. (Back in 1918 before women had the right to vote, the percentage of new plays in New York, written by women, was higher. It was higher before we had the vote.)
Generally, over the last 25 years the number of plays produced that were written by women seems to have vacillated between 12 and 17 percent.
This is a disastrous statistic, and it is related to another disastrous statistic, which is the number of women writers and directors in Hollywood. This year 6 percent of films were directed by women, and 8 percent of produced screenplays were written by women, or women had a shared credit on them. That means 88 percent of all plays were written by men, 94 percent of all movies were directed by men, and 92 percent of all movies were written by men.
Women playwrights like myself have a lot of anecdotal evidence to support some pretty coherent theories about why this is the case. People in the power structure seem more mystified and often they don’t seem sure that there is a problem. (One of them actually said to me, not to long ago, “But Theresa, where ARE the women playwrights?” Seriously, he looked me in the face and said that.) Several artistic directors have expressed concern at the idea of “quotas,” they really don’t like the word “quota.” I don’t like that word either. Another word I don’t like is “discrimination” and, “censorship,” and I wish I could get them to dislike those words as much as they dislike “quotas.” “Boys club” is another couple of words I could very well live without. But since there is so much murky territory in language, I think this discussion of numbers is very useful.
Here is what the numbers say to me: If we lived in an ideal world, the balance of new plays produced in theaters all over America would come out to, roughly, fifty/fifty. The Dramatists Guild—of which I am a proud member, I serve on the council and it’s a great organization, everyone who is a playwright should belong, here’s a shout out to Gary Garrison and Ralph Sevush you are excellent, and so is Stephen Schwartz our excellent president. Anyway the Dramatist Guild tracks the percentages of women and men who enter graduate school as playwriting students, and it also tracks the numbers of people who apply for membership, and those numbers either stick to the 50/50 ratio OR there is a higher number of women. So in the ideal world, those women and men who are over the years developing their craft as playwrights should rise though the system at an even rate.   This is not what is happening. Women are being shut out, at different levels of development and production, and you end up with this crazy 17 percent number which seems to be the highest percentage we can get to, year in and year out. Seventeen percent of fifty percent is thirty four percent of a hundred percent. (Bear with me I’m not making this up I’m actually pretty good at math.) That means that sixty-six percent of the best plays by women—the plays that SHOULD be rising to the top, the plays that in a fair world would move into the culture as the stories we are telling ourselves—sixty six percent of women’s stories are being lost. Every year.
And I have to reiterate the premise of those numbers is that playwriting is NOT in fact a gene on a Y chromosome, and that we are NOT losing women playwrights because they decided to run off and have babies.   The reason we lost all those women playwrights is, We buried their work, and we sent them away.
I would also like to note that in January a lot of reports came out about the recent study of the American Council on Education, which informed us that last year women earned more than half the degrees granted in every category—associate, bachelor, master, doctor or professional. The actual numbers nationwide stand at 57 percent women, and 43 percent men, and they have stood somewhere in that vicinity since the year 2000. USA Today asks, is this “cause for celebration, or concern?”
When I read all these accounts, I thought 43 percent, wow, women playwrights would be so happy if our numbers got up to 43 percent. We would be throwing parties. But the people who do the studies and write these reports up are in fact WORRIED that it’s not fair to the boys, that they only have 43 percent of the slots in the college population. This is a bad thing we are told, for a lot of reasons, principle among them that smart girls won’t have enough men to date. (That is how the NY Times reported the story.) A lot of colleges have admitted that just as they might consider race or geographical diversity in building freshman classes, they similarly look for gender parity, which means they are letting boys in over more qualified girls—which does look like affirmative action, or shall we say “quotas,” which apparently are okay when they favor boys.
So women playwrights live in a world where we are told it is a bad thing if women are 57 percent of the undergraduate population, because that’s too big an imbalance, but it’s an okay thing if women are only getting 17 percent or 6 percent or 9 percent of the best jobs in show business (and elsewhere, in America) and if we tried to rectify that it would be unfair because it would involve “quotas.”
Now let me tell you something: A lot of people will think that what I just pointed out was a “feminist” statement. But I don’t actually see it that way. I see these contradictions as just kind of comical and even, well, stupid. As an indication that there is just something truly systemically unfair going on here. That’s not a feminist agenda. That’s the truth.
I never had an agenda. I just wanted to write plays that told the truth. Some of those plays told the truth about what it is like to live on this planet, as a woman. Why would that be off the table? Why would that story be something that they only do in fiction, or on cable tv? Why can’t we do that in the theater? I just don’t think that we want to align ourselves with the backward-looking institutions of culture. We want to see ourselves, I think, as a relevant and intellectually rigorous and culturally progressive community. It’s past time to acknowledge the fact that that means welcoming the voices of women into the cultural discussion.
There are a lot of ways to do this. Primarily, I think, we need to encourage theaters and producers and foundations and boards of directors, to extend to women playwrights the kind of excellent programs which have been put in place to encourage the work of minority playwrights. All across America, and here in New York, there has been strong and necessary support for these voices, and wonderful writers have emerged because of that support. I have been told so many times over the years that theaters and foundations are interested in “diversity” but that doesn’t mean women. That needs to change. We need to stop discussing why the numbers are so bad, and stop asking where are the women playwrights, and we need to start recognizing them where they are—which is right in front of us–and hold them up and celebrate their voices, and produce their plays.
In that context, I would like to report that this year, in New York, the following plays were produced:
Circle Mirror Transformation, by Annie Baker
Or, by Liz Duffy Adams
This, by Melissa James Gibson
The Vibrator Play, by Sarah Ruhl
The Understudy, by me
Smudge, by Rachel Axler
Happy Now, by Lucinda Coxon
All of these plays have received wide critical recognition; most of them were extended and all of them played to packed houses. In short, there were a lot of plays by women in New York this year, and they were not only fierce and dazzling and interesting: They also made a lot of money. Tim Sanford, over at Playwrights Horizons, who has long been an unacknowledged champion of women’s plays, is having a truly sensational season, in a worried, recessionary economy.   He deserves it. Julia Crosby over there at the Women’s Project is also having a sensational season, and she and they deserve it, too.
Which brings us finally to another couple of statistics which I think are worth noting: Women buy more tickets. They buy 55 percent of movie tickets and anywhere from sixty to SIXTY FIVE percent of theater tickets. So opening our stages and our hearts and our minds to women playwrights is not only cool and relevant and interesting and just—it is also a sound business model.
Sir David Hare recently made news by informing the London Telegraph that “many of today’s best plays were being written by women, but that “macho” theater managers were failing to capitalize on the trend.”   That is a direct quote, and here’s another: “I don’t think the repertory of most theaters is reflecting what seems to be happening in terms of the most interesting new theater. We would hope to see management in theater reflecting where we think the creativity in playwriting is coming from.”
A friend of mine was worried about me after all that shit went down withThe Butterfly Collection, so she got me a session with an astrologer named Coral. So Coral did my chart, which was apparently in very poor shape at the time, like me. And she got very specific about the names of the stars and the planets which were passing through my heavens, and apparently there’s a planet out there named Cairon, it’s not actually a planet I think it’s one of the moons of Jupiter, but Coral informed that Cairon is the wounded healer, and Cairon was just all over my chart. Then, and now; I apparently have been claimed in every way by Cairon, the wounded healer. And there is no question, I am wounded. But I offer you all this information as a hope that I might actually provide one of the healing voices in this discussion. I really do believe that if enough people stand up and say this cannot go on, it will not go on. After a season like this one, where so many plays in New York were by women, and were so relevant, and important, and successful, both in what they achieved dramatically, and the way they drew in audiences, we will not go back.   We will not go back.
There is a Native American saying, “It takes a thousand voices to tell a single story.”    And Walter Cronkite told us, “In seeking truth, you have to get both sides of the story.”
It’s time to hear both sides, to hear all voices, to build a culture where stories are told by both men and women. That is the way the planet is going to survive, and it’s the way we are going to survive.
Thank you very much.

Graduate School, here I come!

2011-03-16T16:42:00.001-07:00

I've accepted an offer to join the Brooklyn College MFA Acting Program this fall! I'm thrilled, to say the least! Brooklyn College is conveniently located near my apartment (where I've lived for almost six years), the faculty were wonderful to meet and work with at the callback and I've heard wonderful things about the program.

The opportunity to spend two years focusing solely on my growth as a performer is something I've long been hoping and waiting for! Check back soon for more details!

Win Four Free Theatre Tickets!

2011-03-10T04:12:00.000-08:00

To celebrate the upcoming extension of our award-winning play, The Timing of a Day, Mind The Art Entertainment is sponsoring a haiku contest. It's free, and the winner gets four tickets to The Timing of a Day or any other upcoming MTAE production. The winning haiku will be included in the program for The Timing of a Day, and the winning haiku and three honorable mentions will be published on Mind The Art Entertainment’s website.

How to enter:

Write a haiku about living with someone. A haiku is composed of three lines: the first consisting of five syllables, the second consisting of seven syllables, and the third consisting of five syllables.

Email submissions to: Keelie.A.Sheridan@gmail.com by 11:59pm EST on Friday, March 11th. Our panel of judges will select the Top Twenty Semi-Finalists, which will be posted on Monday, March 14th on Mind The Art Entertainment’s Facebook page. Public voting will take place through 11:59pm on Friday, March 18th. The five haikus with the most “likes” on our Facebook page will advance to the finals, and the winner will be selected by our judges and announced on Monday, March 21st.

It's that simple! Write a haiku to win free tickets to a Mind The Art Entertainment production!

And don't forget to come see The Timing of a Day...

Written by Owen Panettieri
Directed By Joey Brenneman

Starring Justin Anselmi, Miguel Govea, Nik Kourtis, and R. Elizabeth Woodard

Performances April 1-17, 2011 at Center Stage, NY (48 W. 21st St, 4th Floor, New York, NY 10010)

Wednesday through Friday at 8pm, Saturday at 3pm and 8pm, and Sunday at 3pm

Purchase tickets at www.MindTheArtEntertainment.com/Tickets.html

"So you wrote it AND you performed it?"

2011-02-27T18:01:00.000-08:00

I've been asked a lot of questions about the process I went through for my one-woman show, A Woman In Progress, which recently had it's world premiere at La MaMa E.T.C., regarding script conception, writing, revising, workshopping, rehearsing and ultimately production and performance. I can say without reservation that this was one of the most daunting projects I've ever created/ been a part of, so inevitably, I learned A LOT along the way. I'm happy to share some of that here. I'll break it up into two parts: Writing- Workshopping and then Rehearsals-Performance.

WRITING

This was my first full-length play. I had written shorter pieces before that I hadn't shared with anyone, and had begun a few other pieces, but hadn't seen them through to completion. I've been writing literally since I learned how, though my forms of choice have usually been short story, essays or journalism. I have no formal training in writing other than what I learned in high school and a few basic courses in college. In the fall of 2009, I enrolled in a Playwrighting Independent Study at SUNY ESC as a part of my bachelors degree. I was assigned to write either two shorter plays or one full-length play. I began to revive a piece I had started years earlier, and quickly lost interest... I was plagued by this nagging voice (which I'd later learn was that of Helen from AWIP) who was insisting that I tell HER story, regardless of where it fit in the piece I was currently working on. Mid-semester, I completely changed gears, and set out to write Helen's story. Initially, she addressed the audience while interacting non-verbally with a series of characters who only spoke through her. I fell into a strict formula for the unfolding of events, and fortunately realized that this would yield a terribly boring play. I re-worked the play frantically during the remaining two weeks of the semester and turned in a solid foundation of a play that was by no means ready to perform, but was well on it's way.

REVISING

I forgot the play existed, for a while. It sat, untouched, on my computer for several months. I had shared it with a few members of my company, Mind the Art Entertainment, and got some encouraging feedback, but life got in the way and the piece was pushed to the back burner. I began thinking about the play again this past summer and after a few days of reflection, decided to crack it open and have a look around. It was quite refreshing to have completely stepped away from the piece for a period of time and revisiting it with fresh eyes allowed me to re-envision what needed to be changed structurally while valuing the character and pieces of dialogue that I was quite proud of. I did some extensive editing and re-working on my own, before enlisting the help of my fiance, Joe Kurtz (also a writer and actor). I'm a lucky girl- Joe's writing instincts are usually spot on and I trust him and his feedback. His suggestions were instrumental in getting the piece to a point where I was comfortable sharing it again.

WORKSHOPPING

The next few steps in this process took place rather quickly- in the fall of 2010 I re-sent it to my colleagues at Mind the Art, including my dear friend Alessio Cappelletti, with the request that he look over the piece, give feedback, and decide if he was interested in directing it. We had no real plan of when or where the piece would go up. I received a phone call from Christian DeGre asking permission to present the piece to La MaMa E.T.C. as a part of Mind the Art's next Anthology Series and two days later on October 31st, 2010, we received the green light to produce A Woman in Progress on January 21st and 22nd, 2011 at La MaMa E.T.C.. Joy and panic quickly set in- the piece was NOT ready to begin rehearsals, and I was still looking for feedback to do my final edits. Alessio agreed to direct and jumped right in with critiques and ideas. Alessio is another artist who I respect and trust and his background in film shed a whole new light on the potential of the piece. He took the small instances of projected video that I had written into the stage directions and turned them into a vital and dimension adding secondary character. I had two short weeks to produce the final version of the script.

Photos from A WOMAN IN PROGRESS

2011-02-16T18:44:00.000-08:00

As promised, here are some photos from the world premiere of my one-woman show, A Woman In Progress, at La MaMa E.T.C., compliments of the talented Rachel Esterday.

Life...

2011-02-15T11:37:00.000-08:00

This will be brief (potentially)- just a quick update on where I'm at and what's happening in my life. January was AWESOME. My one-woman show, A Woman in Progress, premiered at La MaMa E.T.C. with a really enthusiastic reception from La MaMa and the audience (pictures to follow). I was thrown a beautiful surprise bridal shower by my amazing bridesmaids. One of my best friends visited from New Mexico. The Brightest Star Awards were a huge success. I started auditioning for MFA Acting programs (NYU, USD Old Glove and FSU Asolo Rep). I made the final 25 in NYC Midnight's Tweet Me A Story Contest. I applied for a few playwrighting residencies. My mom and my sister Kieren both got wonderful new full-time jobs!

February thusfar has been pretty slammin' as well. I've continued my MFA Acting auditions (UC Irvine and Yale). My sister, Kieren, won Miss Fulton County. My one-woman show has been submitted to the NYC Fringe Festival. My students at two separate schools (PS 209 in Brooklyn and PS/MS 279 in the Bronx) have their mid-year performances this week. My entertainment company, Mind the Art Entertainment, has extended it's run of Storytime with Mr. Buttermen: Fables for Adults Living in a Modern World (in which my fiance, Joe, has written and performs). In my spare time, I'll be wedding planning (I'm getting married in 2 months)!

The next few months will be equally jam-packed, but I'm READY.

Miss Fulton County 2011

2011-02-07T07:36:00.000-08:00

Brace yourselves- this is going to be a long one...

This local holds a special place in my heart. In my senior year of high school/ freshman year of college (I was an early admissions student at FMCC, so I did both at the same time), I competed at Miss Fulton County- my introduction to the Miss America Organization. I was 17 and quite honestly had no idea what I was doing. I did know that I loved community service (I was doing a lot of work with the Ronald McDonald House at the time), I loved dancing and I could really use some financial assistance for college. The Miss Fulton County Organization ran several workshops encompassing paperwork, on stage presentation, mock-interviews and even wardrobe assistance (lending out wardrobe pieces to girls who haven't been able to secure outfits for each phase of competition). It was a crash course in what would become a huge part of my future, and I was very grateful for the encouragement I received. I placed third runner up and walked away with a $750 scholarship and a tremendous confidence boost.

My sisters Kieren and Courtney both attended FMCC and had the opportunity to compete at Miss Fulton County. In 2009, my youngest sister, Courtney, competed in and won Miss Fulton County- her first MAO local pageant! In addition to their impressive scholarship offerings (Courtney received $4,000 for winning), the Miss Fulton County Organization provided her with tremendous support in her preparations for Miss New York, along with the backing of the entire county.

Kieren competed several times in Miss Fulton County as a student at FMCC, and improved each year, but never placed. When my family relocated to Fulton County last fall under stressful circumstances, it was difficult to maintain a positive outlook. A silver lining to what was a trying and difficult time for my family was that Kieren would be eligible to participate in this wonderful program in her last year of age eligibility in the Miss America Organization.

I took the late train Friday evening after work to Albany so I could be there Saturday AM to do Kieren's makeup for her interview!

Looking beautiful before her interview!

Once Kieren was on her way to her interview, my mom and I began a baking frenzy for the MFC bakesale! I named these Snow-Capped Cupcakes, because I'm a nerd, and I name EVERYTHING. Kieren returned home to relax for a bit after her interview.

In true MFC tradition, the weather was RIDICULOUS immediately preceding the pageant, so I volunteered to do the shoveling/ clean off the cars (partially because I'm a fool, but also because I'm nice and didn't want Kieren ruining her fake tan in the snow)! Before we knew it, it was time to head over to the Gloversville High School for the pageant!

I was joined by my longtime friend (and Mr. Greater NYC 2010), Daniel Cimino!

The ladies rocked out during opening number!

The lovely Heather, Miss Fulton County 2010, talked about her year.

Kieren in On-Stage Question.

During intermission, I caught up with some friends!

Amy Valenti- Miss Finger Lakes 2010, Courtney Sheridan- Miss Empire Rose 2010, Claire Buffie- Miss NY 2010, and myself.

Kieren in Evening Wear.

My homegirl Colleen in Evening Wear!

Isn't she gorgeous? Congratulations, Heather, on an amazing year!

Former Miss Fulton County's line up on stage for the 40th Anniversary!

A 3-way tie for Miss Congeniality! Congratulations Kieren, Colleen and Misty!

Congratulations Amanda- Talent and Interview Winner and 2nd RU!

Congratulations to Danielle Trumbull- 1st RU! Way to go, girl!

And the winner of a $5,040 scholarship and the new Miss Fulton County 2011 is...

(Special Thanks to Amy Valenti for the video- I get horribly nervous watching and always forget to film this part).

KIEREN SHERIDAN! WAHOOOOOOO! (Insert screaming, tears and cheering here)

Kieren is one of the hardest workers and most dedicated individuals I know (of course, I'm biased), and will make an AMAZING Miss Fulton County.

(I stole this photo from Connie)

Shawn had the best weekend ever- Kieren won Miss Fulton County and the Packers won the Superbowl...

Kieren and my super proud parents!

My favorite photo of the evening! Coming home after the after-party!

As always, the Leader Herald provided great morning-after coverage of the pageant! Check it out here.

Block Institute's Brightest Star Awards!

2011-02-07T06:18:00.000-08:00

Last weekend we celebrated the culmination of months of work and preparation. The 2nd Annual Brightest Star Awards were a complete success, and the caliber of the finalists was astonishing! I can only imagine how difficult the judges' jobs were!

Before the show we got to spend some time with some of the finalists, including Lois Koegan- one of the individuals I work with through Block's Expressive Arts Program!

I got to escort Barry- one of the awesome people I work with in the Expressive Arts Program!

Our esteemed panel of judges certainly had their work cut out for them!

The crowd was so enthusiastic and supportive!

Thank you to my beautiful friends, Alison Stroming- Miss New York's Outstanding Teen, Claire Buffie- Miss New York 2010, Jackie Holmes- Miss Manhattan 2010 and Christina Moore- Miss Brooklyn 2011 for helping us make this event so special!

Jackie sang "Not For the Life of Me" from Throughly Modern Millie!

And Christina danced for us!

Giving Aman his hard-earned sash!

Todd Adelman (one of my dear friends/ staff contacts at Block Institute), Aman and myself!

Congratulations Aman Khaja, the Block Institute Brightest Star 2011! I've worked with Aman as the director of the Expressive Arts Program at Block, and I couldn't be prouder! He's an all around terrific guy!

Aman with all the finalists!

Aman with his wonderful parents!

The perfect end to the perfect evening- an AMAZING performance by FLAME!

Vote for me?!

2011-01-31T16:17:00.000-08:00

I made the Final 25 on NYC Midnight's Tweet Me A Story Contest- there will be a people's choice winner AND a judge's choice winner- would you vote for me? It takes 3.3 seconds, is free and there's no registration required!

Join Us Tonight!

2011-01-29T12:07:00.000-08:00

7p Awards Gala

Reception with FLAME to follow immediately!

Block Institute- 376 Bay 44th St, Brooklyn

With special guests Claire Buffie- Miss New York 2010, Alison Stroming- Miss New York's Outstanding Teen 2010, Christina Moore- Miss Brooklyn 2011 and Jackie Holmes- Miss Manhattan 2010!

SNOW DAY!

2011-01-27T06:25:00.001-08:00

Although the first email I got from the DOE (below) was a bit deceiving...

All Schools Are Closed Today, January 27

All New York City public schools will be open closed today, January 27, 2011.

For more information, please call 311 or visit the Department of Education's website.

To Turn Her Middle School Around, A Principal Invests in the Arts

2011-01-24T19:03:00.001-08:00

To turn her middle school around, a principal invests in the arts

by Kate Schimel

At 9:30 this morning, the principal of the Ron Brown Academy in Brooklyn stood in her school’s auditorium, watching a fight break out.

Across from her, a tall girl in a tight pink shirt slapped at the girl in front of her. Three other girls grabbed the tall one’s arms and kicked at her legs. The girls broke apart as two boys doing cartwheels chased them off stage.

The principal, Celeste Douglas, broke into applause. She was watching the teenagers — who had grins plastered to their faces, and whose fight moves had been carefully choreographed by their teachers — perform their winter dance routine.

“Music makes me feel free,” said Justin, one of the dancers, after the performance. He is a seventh grader at Ron Brown, a middle school in Bedford-Stuyvesant.

Music has also provided the school with an opportunity to improve its test scores, boost attendance and jump off the state’s watch list.

An unusual solution

When Douglas first arrived at Ron Brown Academy in 2006, she found a school in crisis.

Attendance hovered just above 80 percent, students performed poorly on standardized tests, and the previous spring, state officials had put the school on the SURR list of the lowest performing schools in New York. Douglas had three years to improve the school or risk seeing it shut down.

Faced with low performance and small budgets, other schools have cut extra programming and reinforced ELA and math skills. “One of the first things to get cut in schools is the arts program. I felt a lot of pressure to do the same thing,” Douglas said today, sitting in her office, a space decorated with pictures of her students’ performances and trophies of their successes.

She knew that improving instruction was crucial, but she didn’t think it was enough. “The first issue was engagement. I realized our kids were just not coming to school,” said Douglas. “I was looking for something to engage kids and I didn’t know what it was.”

In 2007, she heard about a project at the Center for Arts Education to develop arts programs at low-performing middle schools. The program, called the School Arts Support Initiative, or SASI, demands a lot of partner schools. Working with an arts coach from the center, schools have to offer entirely new courses in drama, dance, music, and the visual arts. They have to hire a new batch of educators who, with help from the center, design the courses and teach them. And the schools must provide space for students to perform and practice; revise their scheduling to accommodate the new courses; and find funding to pay for it all.

Although a bulk of the program — the cost of the coach, professional development, and partnerships with theaters and drama organizations— comes from a U.S. Department of Education grant, the school itself must find funding for many of the other expenses, including art supplies and teachers.

At Ron Brown, space is tight, since the school shares a building with two other schools. About 240 Ron Brown students crowd onto a floor and a half. Some teachers have to share classrooms. Douglas’ budget didn’t have much room for growth, either.

But Douglas decided to work with the center anyway. The design of the program fit with her larger strategy of investing in helping teachers improve their instruction.

To raise the money needed to pay the extra teachers, she applied for outside grants. The school already had a dance studio; she took advantage of it and added a small arts studio inside a tiny classroom. The fact that she was already on a hiring binge allowed her to bring in new teachers who could play double roles at the school.

The school’s theater director also teaches English language arts. In addition to two full-time dance teachers and a visual arts teacher, other teachers help with directing and monitoring students during performances.

“People have come out of the woodwork,” said Brian Nagel, the visual arts teacher, “including a science teacher with a beautiful voice.”

The school is increasingly centered around art. As 6th graders, students are introduced to the range of art disciplines. At the end of the year, they choose an “art major,” which they study in more depth in 7th and 8th grade.

The school has altered the daily schedule to accommodate a full arts sequence. Each student attends an art class, even if that means that she has to be occasionally pulled from another class. Friday afternoons are also completely devoted to arts programming.

Douglas noted that she has had to make a lot of tough decisions to maintain the program, including excessing a math teacher last year instead of an art teacher.

“Out of the woodwork”

Developing an arts program was not just about introducing the students to art. The art classes are used to reinforce the student’s learning in other areas.

A key goal for teachers is to learn “how to marry the learning standards to the artistic process,” said Dr. Carol Feinberg, the director of the SASI program.

Students at the school have responded well to the changes. Some have even come from other schools to participate. A seventh grader, Jordan, who danced in the winter showcase, said he was failing classes at his previous school. He transferred to Ron Brown halfway through his sixth grade year. “My family comes from a long line of dancers,” he said, perched calmly on the edge of the stage. He is now active in an after-school activity called the rap and recording club and doing well in school.

Talent and interest has come from unexpected places. Nagle, the visual arts teacher, described a moment when a quiet sixth grade girl approached him in his studio. She pointed to the still life art pieces that hang in the hallways. “Trees are my life,” she said. “I want to learn how to do that so I can draw trees.”

Laura Hill, the English teacher who directs the school’s plays, said that one of the biggest successes has been getting the boys involved. At first, teachers struggled to get boys excited about dance that didn’t involve hip-hop, she said. But this winter, she was proud to see a large group of boys participate in the swing and jazz performances in the dance showcase.

Still, several boys mentioned today that their favorite dance piece was the finale, set to the song “I Whip My Hair” by Willow Smith.

“Pockets of success”

Douglas has started to see some promising results. For one, parents are more involved.

“I can tell you when I started, we would do a workshop and have two parents and now we have 50 or 60,” Douglas said. “We have found the best way to bring parents in is to celebrate their kids’ talent.” The winter showcase two weeks ago drew a large crowd.

School attendance has also improved, jumping from 86 percent in 2006 to 91 percent so far this year, according to the DOE. Test scores are also on the rise. The percent of students scoring at or above Level 3 on the state-wide ELA tests jumped from 21 percent in 2007 to 52 percent in 2009. No scores have been released since the state changed its grading standards, but the school received a B for student progress on its last progress report from the city.

One of the biggest triumphs has been getting off the SURR list in 2008, a full year shy of the deadline imposed by the state for improvement. “I am not going to say the arts are the Holy Grail,” said Russell Granet, the school’s arts coach. “But I do know from Ms. Douglas that the school is a much calmer place.”

Douglas plans to continue to develop the program, including adding a school orchestra. One of her goals this year is to support students who want to attend specialized arts high schools. “There is a lot of raw talent,” said Nagel, but none of the teachers or administrators knew how to help their students to create suitable portfolios or go through the stressful interview process.

Douglas is optimistic. “We are seeing pockets of success,” she said.

Said Granet, “It is not a process to be rushed. You need to plan it.”

My One-Woman Show and an Advocacy Tip

2011-01-22T09:11:00.000-08:00

Tonight is the last night of my one-woman show, A Woman in Progress, at La MaMa E.T.C. Get your tickets here!

ALSO, if you can spare 1.5 minutes, head on over to the NYSAAE Public Action Page and encourage your elected officials to support the NYS Summer School for the Arts.

In other news, tomorrow marks the start of my MFA auditions. First stop? NYU Tisch! Wish me luck.

Long Time, No Post!

2011-01-06T06:36:00.000-08:00

Let it suffice to say that my life has been 100% taken over by work, MFA audition preparation, prepping for my upcoming Natural Muscle Bikini Competition and my one-woman show, A Woman In Progress.

On top of all that, it's an exciting week! My friend Claire Buffie, Miss NY 2010 has arrived in Las Vegas to compete for Miss America 2011. She's a strong advocate for equal rights, a savvy business woman and an all around cool person, and she needs your help. This year, the public has the ability to vote a contestant into the top 15 at Miss America! Voting is quick and easy! Click here for details!

I'll be posting Miss America updates throughout the week! Stay tuned!

Tickets for my one-woman show are now on sale!

2010-12-15T10:45:00.001-08:00

A WOMAN IN PROGRESS

written and performed by

Keelie A. Sheridan

directed by

Alessio Cappelletti

montage by

Luis Cordero

promotional photography by

Monica Dodge of MoDeZinz Photography and Design

The Club @ La Mama e.t.c.

January 21st and 22nd at 10p

A part of the Mind the Art Entertainment Anthology II

Buy your tickets here!

Come support! A fundraiser for my upcoming one-woman show!

2010-12-11T18:12:00.000-08:00

Putting the Heart in the Holidays

2010-12-01T04:45:00.000-08:00

Maybe it's because I have really good parents, but I've always had a difficult time buying into the commercialized versions of popular holidays. I wrote a journal entry when I was 11 where I tried to describe holidays from the perspective of an alien who just arrived at earth and was reporting it's observations back to it's home planet (I was that kind of 12 year old...). I lost that journal (sadly), but I remember how absurd the descriptions of our holiday customs sounded when taken out of the context of "Christmas" or "Thanksgiving"... (Sitting on a fat stranger's lap and telling him our deepest desires? Awkward.)

I do, however, REALLY enjoy giving gifts to my friends and family. I especially like making things to give as gifts, but I've found myself busier this holiday season than ever before... So I NEED to go shopping. Which is tough when you have a LONG list and money is tight. I had considered making donations to personally relevant charities for everyone on my list, but admittedly, it's nice to be able to physically hand something to someone, as a gesture of your love and appreciation.

Q: What's a girl to do who's torn between giving her savings to worthwhile causes and buying Christmas presents?

A: Buying gifts through an organization that supports those charities she was going to contribute to anyways! DUH!

Change.org has created a FANTASTIC holiday gift guide highlighting organizations that support a tremendous variety of causes who sell holiday gifts that let you give to your loved ones AND give to those in need.

Check it out here!

You can find a gift for almost anyone to fit ANY budget! I've already bought two of my gifts from Made By Survivors, which employs and supports victims of human trafficking, but I can't tell you what (as I'm pretty sure the gift recipients read my blog...)

Happy Holidays!

Let's Talk About Bullying

2010-11-30T16:18:00.000-08:00

As Miss Brooklyn 2009 and Miss Greater NYC 2010, I promoted arts-in-education opportunities. My friend Claire Buffie, Miss New York 2010, is advocating for LGBT rights, with a particular focus on young people. She recently passed on to me this amazing new project that bridges our platforms of using art to make change, and opening pathways of understanding and hope for young people who are troubled by unaccepting peers. http://itgetsbetterplay.blogspot.com/...

LET'S TALK ABOUT BULLYING

With the recent string of unfortunate and preventable teen suicides as a result of bullying, we've decided to take the It Gets Better campaign to a new level: with a live, honest-account stage show made up of YOUR stories: "Let's Talk About Bullying"

We are anonymously collecting stories from across the NYC area: stories about being the victim of bullying, how you may have perpetuated it, witnessed it, are taking steps to stop it, and everything in between. We want to hear YOUR stories. Collected stories will be turned into monologues and pieced together for a night of live, honest theatre in an new, original play we're calling "Let's Talk About Bullying". Donations made from the play will be donated to a TBD organization that works with troubled and bullied teenagers.

We encourage everyone to submit your experiences- all replies will be ANONYMOUS so identities are protected. We're in this together. Let's end the vicious trend of teenage bullying. Through our efforts, we can hear stories that let us know IT GETS BETTER.

We're three NYC theatre artists: Actor Josh Jeffers, Actor/Activist Jacyln Hennell and Playwright Andrew Kramer, who believe in changing minds through the power of live theatre.

Join us in telling these stories.

To share your story: comment HERE (remember, NO name necessary and be SURE TO CHOOSE ANONYMOUS so comments are anonymously submitted) with your age, gender, and location and most importantly, your story. All stories will be read and formatted into stage monologues for our original play, LET'S TALK ABOUT BULLYING, to be performed in Late December in NYC. DUE TO TIME CONSTRAINTS, STORIES ACCEPTED UNTIL FRIDAY DEC. 3RD @ 5:00pm.

I'm Thankful For....

2010-11-25T13:12:00.000-08:00

-A family (of relatives and friends) that provides me with unconditional love and support

-The amazing opportunities I've been blessed with this year

-A roof over my head, clothes on my back and having enough to eat

-A career that challenges and rewards me

-The opportunity to impact the lives of my students

-My health

-My happiness

Block Institute's Expressive Arts Program

2010-11-16T05:36:00.001-08:00

As many of you know, I've become increasingly involved with Brooklyn's Block Institute over the past few years, and have joined their staff as a drama and expressive arts instructor. My teaching schedule has become increasingly hectic, (I now work for Block Institute, Community Word Project and the YWCA), but truly loving the work that I do and the people I work with makes the workload feel much lighter! Last night's Visual Arts Seminar at Block Institute was no exception, and I left in a much better mood than I arrived in- how many people can say THAT about their jobs?

How Will You Honor Our Veterans?

2010-11-10T16:26:00.000-08:00

https://www.mowaa.org/veterans

Starting Artists' "Why Arts Matter" Video

2010-11-09T07:48:00.000-08:00

Check out the full article here!

An Evening with Miss NY 2010

2010-11-05T17:35:00.001-07:00

Tickets are available online or at the door!

EXCITING NEWS!

2010-11-04T06:59:00.000-07:00

As I start to think about the transition from pageant world to the real world, my poor blog seems terribly confused. Q: Is it still a platform blog? ( A: Yep. I work in arts in education, so expect to hear A LOT about that). Q: Is it still a pageant blog? (Ummmmm... Sort of. I have a lot of friends who are still competing, and I love supporting them!) Q: Is it my personal blog? (A: Maybe a little... Expect to hear tidbits about my upcoming wedding, the planning of which I find equal parts exhilarating and overwhelming). Q: Is it my professional blog? (A: Probably yes- it does have my name in the title, doesn't it?)

So without further ado, it brings me greater joy than almost anything in the world to announce that my one-woman show, A Woman In Progress which I began writing in the fall of 2009 will have it's world premiere at NYC's historic La Mama e.t.c., produced by my very own Mind the Art Entertainment, and directed by my dear friend Alessio Cappelletti, on January 20th and 21st, 2011, at 10p.

This is huge for me on a couple of levels. I'm still trying to comprehend the fact that I wrote a slightly provocative full-length one-woman show. That it was decent enough to get the endorsement of my entertainment company (we hold each other to pretty high standards) and La Mama e.t.c. is kind of mind-blowing. And then there's the fact that I'll be on stage, alone, left to my own devices for 90 minutes. I can't help but reflect back upon how far Mind the Art Entertainment has come in such little time (we were founded in 2007), and how grateful I am to be able to create and perform the type of work that touches my soul with the support and guidance of my colleagues (and dear friends). And I'm beyond stoked that one of my dearest friends (and coincidentally, one of Joe's dearest friends as well- he's a groomsman in our wedding) will be directing. I've respected Alessio as an artist since the first day we meet as students at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in 2004, and I'm thrilled to be working with him on my first solo piece.

I'm currently working on some minor re-writes, and then we'll be diving into rehearsals. Check back for updates!

Brightest Star Semi-Finalist Awards Ceremony!

2010-11-01T09:06:00.000-07:00

Diana Greene, myself, Calvin (2009 Brightest Star), Claire (Miss NY) and Christina (Miss Brooklyn 2011)

Why Arts Matter Maria Ibarra ArtGives

2010-10-25T11:07:00.000-07:00

Lights on Afterschool

2010-10-24T06:44:00.000-07:00

As many of you know, I've been working with one of the YWCA's afterschool programs in Brooklyn since 2009, teaching dance and mentoring kids in grades K-5 everyday, Monday-Friday, afterschool. These kids have become a part of my life in a major way, and the feeling is mutual- the dedicated staff at our program provides the kids with a structured environment and regular contact with adult role models who care about them, their development, and their success. In addition to homework help and an afterschool meal, we provide our students with drama, dance, visual art and recreational education. Our program is in high demand, and because we can only accommodate twenty children from each grade level, we have a pretty sizeable wait list for families who want their children in the program. Check out the Afterschool Alliance's New York City After 3p Report on why there is such a need for this type of programming. Another interesting report to note is Afterschool Programs: Making a Difference in America's Communities by Improving Academic Achievement, Keeping Kids Safe and Helping Working Families. Funding is one of the key reasons that we can't serve more kids, which is why I'm so appreciative of opportunities to spread the word about the work these programs do.

On Thursday, October 21st, the Afterschool Alliance declared a national Lights On Afterschool Celebration to celebrate and raise awareness of the importance of afterschool programs. Our program decided to spend the afternoon sharing student art that was inspired by their experiences at the YWCA's afterschool program, and then watching a mini-documentary I created about our afterschool program. What a success! The art was stunning and hearing the kids talk about what afterschool program meant to them was truly heartwarming. Enjoy pictures from the celebration below, along with the video project I created!

A proud artist and her work!

5th grade boys scrambling to finish writing their "speeches"

4th grade can't wait to share their work!

5th grade anxiously awaiting their time on stage...

1st grade excitedly awaiting the older kids' presentations!

A 5th grader sharing his work... I loved this piece...

Another one of my 5th graders talking about her work- can you tell I'm proud?

One of our VERY talented 4th graders...

And last but not least- my video project! Obviously I'm not a pro, but I think the kids' awesomeness outweighs my sorry video editing skills...

Join us!

2010-10-11T15:25:00.001-07:00

Join us on Sunday, 10/24 from 3-5p at the Preliminary Rewards Reception!

Block Institute's Brightest Star Awards!

2010-10-08T16:41:00.000-07:00

Free on Sunday, October 24th from 3-5p? Then join myself, Miss Brooklyn 2009 contestant Diana Greene, Marina Montes- Miss Long Island USA, our own Miss NY- Claire Buffie and potentially a few other pageant pals as we celebrate the outstanding achievements of the semi-finalists in Block Institute's Brightest Star Awards! This is my second year of participation with this program, and I could not be more thrilled! Block Institute is an amazing organization in Brooklyn that serves adults and children with developmental disabilities. I was introduced to Block Institute when their Director of Special Projects and Nutrition Services, Todd Adelman, judged Miss Brooklyn 2009! I'm so honored to have since formed a strong and mutually beneficial partnership with them which includes implementing creative arts curriculum to their day programming and pre-school!

On 10/24, the 16 semi-finalists will become 10 finalists- one in each category of the competition. This year, I'm a preliminary judge and the mentor/ contestant liason! Since the competition is run similarly to a pageant, we'll be bringing in members of the pageant community to help coach and mentor the finalists for their self-presentation at the finals gala in January!

Check out my blogs from last year's Preliminary Awards and Finals Gala for more info!

Taylor Mali's "WhatTeachers Make"

2010-09-30T06:59:00.000-07:00

Long Time, No Blog!

2010-09-20T17:38:00.000-07:00

Oy! When did fall get here? Here's the Reader's Digest version of the past month:

In late August, I finished my second summer teaching gig at PS 90 through the YWCA. The dance, drama and visual art divisions teamed up to create a pretty awesome production of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The students were PHENOMENAL! They truly exceeded our expectations, and I was once again reminded of how lucky I am to work with this group...

With some of my 4th/5th Grade students!

Part of our amazing cast!

I had the opportunity to shoot a short film that featured my death by carrot (see photo- I couldn't make this stuff up).

(On the set of an untitled short film)

I also performed in a 24 hour play festival with Ex-Libris Theatre which was both the company's premier event, and a fundraiser for the Trinity LES Church's Food Pantry.

(Rehearsing with the cast of Everlasting Life)

After my teaching/performing gigs wrapped up, it was time for some much needed R&R, so I headed upstate to spend some time with my family! I arrived just in time for Courtney's 19th birthday!

My sisters and I with my grandparents at Courtney's 19th Birthday Bash!

I was lucky enough to be home for the 25th Anniversary of the Miss Fonda Fair Pageant, which was my entry into the pageant world, and was a very special tradition for our family. For the 25th Anniversary, all of the former Miss Fonda Fairs were invited to attend (I was Miss Fonda Fair '02, Kieren won in '05, and Courtney won in '08), and it was a great opportunity to catch up with old friends.

Kieren and I with Lexy Conti- Princess Fonda Fair 2010!

Kieren and I serving at the reception!

As a thank you for all the hard work my mom did to help my sisters and I prepare for Miss NY in June, we planned a surprise roadtrip, and took my mom to her childhood vacation spot, Seaside Heights, NJ! It had been over 25 years since my mom had been, and it was the first time my sisters and I visited. We had a great time, and my mom got to visit the bungalow they used to stay in, her favorite bakery and pizza joints, AND despite the hurricane, we got to dip our toes in the (excessively rough) water!

I hadn't planned any volunteering opportunities over my vacation, but they seem to find me, somehow... I ended up spending about 20 hours at The Glove Theatre helping to organize and clean up their beautiful costume shop. The Glove is a local non-profit theatre with TONS of history- it's in a tough spot financially, and is quite dependent on the generosity of volunteers to keep it running- I was happy to help! A very special thank you to acting Executive Director Richard Samrov for his boundless and contagious enthusiasm for this local treasure.

They have some beautiful vintage pieces- it felt good to get them hung properly and organized!

I also got to spend some time with my friends and family, and enjoy the beautiful upstate NY late summer/early fall.

Raspberry picking!

I returned to NYC a week ago, and I've had my work cut out for me! This past weekend, I shot What Happened to Peter- a short film based on Der Struwwelpeter (German children's tales).

(On the set of What Happened to Peter, reviewing lines and guzzling iced coffee!)

This fall is shaping up to be as exciting as it will be busy! Current gigs include teaching dance at PS 209 with the YWCA, teaching drama at Block Institute, teaching creative writing with Community Word Project, researching/ applying to MFA Drama programs, training for the 2010 Tough Mudder Tri-State, and preparing for my upcoming one-woman show!

I can't promise I'll be able to blog too frequently, but I CAN promise to try! :)

My latest review for NYTheatre.com

2010-08-22T08:26:00.000-07:00

FringeNYC 2010 Festival Review: OUR CONDOLENCES

nytheatre.com review
Keelie A. Sheridan · August 19, 2010

One would think we, as a species, would be more adept at communicating our thoughts and feelings on a subject as universal as death. It unites us as mortals. Some fear it, some accept it, some defy it, but we will all experience it. It's not a new phenomenon. For as long as humans have existed, we've been dying. An inevitable fact of living is outliving loved ones. We're compelled to reach out and connect with those who lose someone. Why is it, then, that no one seems to know quite what to say or how to say it when extending sympathies for another's loss? "No one really knows how to say or do the right thing, because it doesn't exist," suggests Lauren Olson, writer and performer of Our Condolences.

A quick-moving, thoughtful, and honest piece, Our Condolences illustrates several such attempts by individuals with varying intentions, based upon Olson's own experiences related to her mother's death. Characters range from an unfortunate ex-boyfriend to an overbearing post-mortem management counselor to an oblivious salesgirl and a naive young cousin, none of whom has ill-intentions, yet each of whom adopts wholly inappropriate methods of well-wishing (if inappropriateness can even exist in a context where there is no such thing as "appropriate").

Olson delivers a seamless performance, effortlessly shifting among characters of varying ages, genders, and levels of emotional stability. The cleverly written piece amplifies her strong physical and vocal performance abilities, which in turn showcases her engaging and honest style of writing. Performing something tantamount to theatrical Olympics, Olson's impressive channeling of such a wide range of individuals with no lag or overlap is a testament to her acting ability. It's quite evident that director Rachel Hamilton gets the piece, and has expertly guided its clean, blunt, and honest execution. Each character shines individually with simple costume embellishments. The minimally decorated stage is functional, well-appointed, and optimally utilized, though place is never the focus.

Through a series of in-person sketches and pre-recorded voicemails, this character-centered piece keeps the spotlight steadily pointed at the individual voices represented, what the death of one woman means to each of them, and how they relate to her survivors. Though the subject matter can be emotional and sobering, the overall tone of the piece is playful—an absolution of the deeds depicted on the stage, which is a relief for the audience, who can't help but wonder, as they watch the out-of-line-yet-true-to-life post-mortem antics unfold, "Have I ever done that?"

Curiouser and Curiouser- An Adaptation of Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"

2010-08-18T05:14:00.000-07:00

With some of my handsome boys before the show!

I. Am. So. Proud. My Block Institute kiddos performed their play last week after only four short weeks of Thursday and Friday drama class, and the progress made by most of the students is absolutely astounding. This was my first time developing and implementing curriculum for students with developmental disabilities, and though I had done my research and understood how beneficial arts education is to ANY student, I was a bit nervous going in.

My schedule consisted of 10 drama classes in a 5 hour shift, because I'll be honest, I can't say no to a class who wants to take drama, even if it means working through my lunch break. The students ranged in age between 4-7, and on the very first day I fell in love with each and every single one of them. Despite challenges of every possible variety, throughout the duration of our work together, EVERY child made progress, which I do not assume to take credit for-- drama has this universal, welcoming and familiar quality that fosters incredible personal development.

Non-verbal kids started joining in to our vocal warm-ups. Kids who started the program sitting in the corner with an aide ended up in the center of the circle for our physical warm-ups. Kids who seemed completely disengaged and unwilling to connect would jump in to correct me if I forgot a part of the play. And, most importantly for me, the teachers who knew these kids best commented on their progress. Last Friday, as I watched them take the stage and tell the story we had learned together, I was absolutely stunned to think that this was the same group I had started with four weeks earlier. They patiently waited for their turns. They didn't yell out when someone was talking. They paid attention to the action of the story, and gently helped other students who forgot what came next. The practice of drama, I've found, has the inevitable effect of making the participants into more conscientious individuals. And they were excited and happy. What more could I have asked for?