Crazytown

A DAY WITHOUT A WOMAN

By Alisha Giampola (writer/performer)

Today is International Women's Day, and a lot of women around the country are participating in a "strike" organized by those who also organized the recent Women's Marches, in support of income equality and also resistance of the current administration's agendas that so disproportionately affect women. Some schools are even closing because of how many educators requested the day off, which is awesome. The school I work for sent an email to us encouraging those who were still teaching today to wear red in solidarity. I encourage my fellow artists to participate in any way you can. For many of us writers, freelancers, performers, actually striking today will be impossible. But we can wear red, call our representatives in congress letting them know how the current administration negatively affects women and women's issues, and demonstrate our economic power by choosing not to spend money today. If half of the population becomes marginalized, especially the half that represent the lion's share of jobs in caregiving and education, everyone loses- the next generation most of all. You can support women's voices in the media and the arts- may I recommend a great article written by my dear old friend Rhana Natour, a journalist for PBS, who yesterday wrote this super interesting article about the divisions in our country?

Even though I can't fully strike today, I can wear my red and my awesome new "Nevertheless She Resisted" shirt, and stand with all you awesome ladies (and lovely feminist guy allies, of course), and refrain from a regular full-length blog post. See you all next Wednesday, same time same place, and Happy International Women's Day to all! 

Solidarity, sisters!

ALISHA GIAMPOLA is an NYC based actor/teacher/writer and strong female character.
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AND THE AWARD GOES TO

...Baby iguanas. Seriously though, read on.
By Alisha Giampola (writer/performer)

This week, we learned that we might be living in The Matrix. After a totally crazy last minute envelope mixup at the Oscars, America went from thinking the highest film award honor of Best Picture had gone to preposterously over-hyped and under-whelming La La Land to realizing that it had actually gone to the deeply moving, amazingly written, and incredibly beautiful Moonlight (strong opinions mine). This alternate reality scenario in which the best possible outcome happened to be actually true, got most of us wondering "can we go back and maybe check that presidential-election-envelope again?" 

But no, you-know-who is still currently the 45th person to hold the highest office in our land, and daily proves himself to be just a genuinely revolting human. On Monday, he realized that healthcare (as an entire concept) was much more complicated than anyone could possibly have ever anticipated. No really. Then he had a joint session of congress and basically said things like how he will "promote clean air and clean water" while literally earlier today he issued an executive order to withdraw the Clean Water Rule. No really. 

I will say that his complete lack of knowledge of the American system of government has encouraged myself and a whole lot of other people to get significantly more knowledgable ourselves in order to appropriately arm ourselves to intellectually fight back. If you haven't already availed yourself of the amazing Indivisible Guide which has been breaking the internet recently, may I recommend that you find a local group and get active? My husband, Daniel, whose preferred coping method is something I like to call Extreme Organizing, formed a local Indivisible chapter in our neighborhood. You can check ours out at our website here, and come join us for a meeting if you're interested! Our group is called the New York Indivisible Action Council, or the NYCIA Council. Haha. (Say "NYCIA Council" out loud and feel free to enjoy the little ecumenical-historical joke I made purely for my own entertainment.) 

There were a lot of amazing moments a the Oscars this year besides Moonlight's big win. Viola Davis made history as the first black woman to have earned an Oscar, Emmy, and Tony in Acting categories. Asghar Farhadi, from Iran, won for his Best Foreign Language film, and had a powerful statement against the recent unconstitutional travel ban read on his behalf by Anousheh Ansari, the first Iranian/Muslim woman in space. Not to mention that Janelle Monáe wore my new favorite outfit of all time:

I MEAN.

With the awards season wrapping up and the resistance honestly just getting started, it's been a pretty busy time. If you've also been busy, and a little overwhelmed with the state of the world, may I recommend checking out the new season of Planet Earth?! Like you need to do this immediately. We watched the first two episodes (Islands and Mountains, respectively) last night and we literally shrieked like children seventeen times. I swear at one point Daniel and I were both yelling "FASTER FASTER FASTER!" at baby iguanas on the screen. 

OMG OMG OMG OMG.
(Watch the full trailer for Planet Earth II here.)

Have a great week, Crazytown. And remember: even a baby iguana can outrun a pack of snakes. (Is it a "pack" of snakes? No. According to this, it is several possible things, all of them creepy. But a group of rattlesnakes is called a "rhumba", which is absolutely fantastic news.) 

ALISHA GIAMPOLA is an NYC based actor/teacher/writer who, just like you, had to Google whether or not that was Mel Gibson's girlfriend or daughter and, just like you, was deeply mortified to find out that she was his WIFE.
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WE'RE ALL MAD HERE.

In this review: SPOILERS for the experience of seeing Then She Fell. You've been warned.
By Alisha Giampola (writer/performer)

I am a sucker for immersive theatre experiences. I loved Sleep No More. I want all of my future theatre experiences to involve snacks and/or alcoholic beverages and even slightly intense prolonged eye-contact. Perhaps because I know what it feels like to be on the actor's side of the fourth wall, I love shows that totally destroy that wall and ask the audience to step over the crumbled ruins of it and into the action. If Sleep No More offers a voyeuristic haunted house for guests to explore masked, unguided, and at will; Then She Fell is a much more intimate, playful, disorienting experience that you engage in alone but constantly accompanied by members of the cast as well as nurses and orderlies of the institution. Oh, did I mention that you'll be spending the evening in a Victorian mental hospital? 

Inspired by the works of Lewis Carroll and his real-life, possibly romantic relationship with the child Alice Liddell, Then She Fell is a theatre piece I have come to, rather typically, several years after it started getting rapturous reviews in the Times. Honestly, it fell under my radar for a while, and then when it popped onto my radar I had to wait to rationalize the ticket price (admittedly, not cheap, but then the experience is WORTH IT), which I'm glad I did because they have a closing date of April 30, 2017. They've extended before, but who knows? So if you want to definitely go see this amazing production, I recommend getting tickets now and seeing it this spring.

Knowing that you're seeing a wildly popular show that only sells 15 tickets a performance is intimidating. For most of it, you are being directly performed to. I spent several minutes sitting silently across from an actor who was a sort of non-literal representation of the White Rabbit, painting a white rose red with a tiny paintbrush, feeling a genuine stress that we wouldn't be done in time. I participated in a mad tea party, smashing my tea cup on the table with the White and Red Queens, Rabbit, and Hatter, and then sipping a deliciously brewed concoction that I had helped choose before being whisked away again for a bedtime story (and being literally tucked into a crisp, white bed). I watched two Alices dance through a mirrored glass, once from inside the Red Queen's luxurious apartment, and once from inside a sparkling fairy burrow, while being fed purple grapes by the White Queen. Later, one of the Alices had me hand her clothing after her bath, all while asking me questions about love. At the end of that scene, we were looking directly into each other's eyes between the bannister of a staircase and she queried if I had lived happily ever after with that first person, that first person I ever loved. When I laughed lightly and said "No," her face darkened abruptly, and she ran up the stairs in a huff, too fast for me to run after. 

After the show, my husband Daniel and I tucked ourselves into a nearby bar and over a nightcap excitedly exchanged stories of everything that had happened to us since we'd been split up. We had seen part of the show together. For a few scenes, like when the Red Queen spiraled into insanity with a bottle of pills in a locked ward, we had been the only two audience members watching. But once we were separated, Daniel was led off by the Mad Hatter, a redheaded chanteuse whom we'd watched dance on top of a wardrobe earlier in the evening, and was asked riddles. I was redirected into a room with a gramophone and instructed to open increasingly large books with bottles hidden inside as a Doctor concocted me a cocktail. Then he left me alone with a stack of letters to read and the voice from the gramophone reciting The Walrus and the Carpenter. I barely had time to skim the first letter before the White Rabbit retrieved me to come paint roses with him. Meanwhile, Daniel peeled and ate an orange with one of the Alices while I, somewhere else in the building, was watching the other Alice wrestle with the Red Queen. 

Like Sleep No More, this is dance theatre. Most of the scenes have a movement-heavy element driving them. Unlike Sleep No More, the experience feels tailor-made for you and you alone. You aren't eavesdropping on these people, they are inviting you to take part, have a sip, take a bite, answer a question. "Do you take dictation?" the actor playing Lewis Carroll asked me in a room that would have been a regular writer's study, except for the pools of water sinking into the floor in unexpected places. After I wrote his letter, he signed it, placed it in a bottle, and waded into the black water barefoot to send it off with all the others. The Doctor retrieved me and brought me upstairs to play a game of chess with him. I knew immediately that it was the chess game from Through The Looking Glass. He explained the entire sequence of moves to me, guiding me through playing Alice's white pawn, as if he was reading a particularly perplexing case study. At the end, he handed me a cup of tea, retrieved the ring of keys I'd been entrusted with during the performance (and encouraged to use on any lock I found), and suddenly orderlies began bringing the 14 other people of the audience, including Daniel, into the room where I sat. The show was over. I had been the only one, maybe, to play chess with the doctor. I definitely had been the only one to finish my stay in Wonderland with the chess game scene. 

As a long time lover of Lewis Carroll's Alice books, I was delighted to recognize so many moments from the stories and from the sad and strange real-life tale of Carroll and Alice. The show is a beautiful and beautifully sympathetic exploration of duality, sanity, reality, and the magic of childhood. At the beginning of the show, just as the audience members are starting to be whisked off by different actors to begin their own personalized journey through the piece, the Doctor offers a definition of liminality. From the Latin limin, meaning "threshold". We get our English word "lintel" from here. Liminality is the quality of ambiguity and disorientation experienced by participants in a ritual, usually magical or spiritual, that occurs midway through- before the participant has been changed completely by the ritual, but are no longer what they were before they began. The show attempts to make adolescent Alices of us all. Not quite big, not quite small, not quite having drunk all of the bottle yet, but definitely having taken a nice sip. Few shows have touched me and haunted me as much as this one has, and I am excited to see more from Third Rail Projects, who developed this and other immersive pieces, as theatre like this becomes more and more prolific and available. I look forward to the day when the idea of seeing a piece of theatre that isn't located in a repurposed warehouse space in Brooklyn is unusual. 

The only photo here that I actually took (after the show was over of course) of my "prescription" for the tea I chose during the Mad Tea Party and the stamped program I was given at the end of the show. The two other pictures in this article are press photos. The current company of Then She Fell can be found here.

 

ALISHA GIAMPOLA is an NYC based actor/teacher/writer who did gyre and gimble in the wabe.
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AND NOW, A REGULARLY SCHEDULED BREAK FROM THE REVOLUTION.

By Alisha Giampola (writer/performer) 

Three recommendations for some short film watching this Oscar season that are all better than La La Land:

This year, my favorite Oscar-nominated live-action short film was a gut-wrenching, timely French piece that evoked the current refugee crisis and general political climate...Enemies Within. 

My favorite Oscar-nominated animated short film was a SANDPIPER film about a BABY SANDPIPER and featuring OTHER SANDPIPERS including an adorable MAMA SANDPIPER. Watch the whole film here and die of adorableness:

Devastating, yet deeply vital to see, is my favorite Oscar-nominated documentary short: the Netflix film about the heroic efforts of the rescue team currently working to save innocent lives in Syria, White Helmets.

PROTEST IS THE NEW BRUNCH

It's only February.
By Alisha Giampola (writer/performer)

When satire has become reality, when those leading our government are making Orwellian propaganda seem tame by comparison, when the creators of South Park don't even know how to make fun of the current administration, because truth has become too much stranger than even the fictions of their twisted minds... what is the right approach? What tone do artists take during times like this to resist fascism and authoritarian moves like literally attempting to destroy the amendment that maintains our government's fine line of separation between church and state? It isn't funny anymore, and making fun of it feels daunting. Why bother satirizing a man who can tweet stuff like this with a dead-straight face: "I don't know Putin, have no deals in Russia, and the haters are going crazy..." I mean.... okayyyyy, dude. I literally don't know what to say about that. When you spend your entire Black History Month speech talking about how everyone likes you and you got more votes than anyone in the whole world ever and everyone else is losers, and then say things like: "Frederick Douglass is an example of somebody who's done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more, I notice," as if Frederick Douglass is a real up-and-comer in middle management of a small but promising office supplies company... I just literally don't know what to say. 

Which is why I'm realizing more and more that the only way to respond to this preposterousness is with total and complete sincerity. (Although, there is absolutely a time and place for wit, and this is making me laugh today in the face of the utterly ridiculous confirmation of Betsey DeVos as Secretary of Education.) So. What do I mean by sincerity? I don't mean a total lack of irony. I don't mean "eschewing the lifesaving gift of comedy altogether". I just mean like, show up. I, a total and utterly insincere jerk, have been going to protests. Singing "This Land Is Our Land" alongside people holding homemade signs. Writing postcards to my congresspeople. Calling my senators and representatives EVERY SINGLE DAY (and also calling the ones in Florida, where I grew up, because I still have a Florida area code, and enjoy calling Marco Rubio and reminding him that he got bought by Betsy DeVos). 

Some people have gotten really fired up about caring about the future of our democracy. A lot of awesome people I know have always cared about the political climate of our country, and are not foul-weather activists like myself, who suddenly realized a few months ago that being mildly displeased about things but only actually bothering about them when they affect you is a really shitty way to be a human. But some of us needed things to become really horrible to become involved. As a kid I remember reading about Anne Frank and Sojourner Truth and the French Revolution and thinking: "Oh, so like if I ever saw things get bad politically, it would be pretty clear who the good guys and bad guys are. Everyone I know and care about would also be like 'Yeah, clearly those are the bad guys and here's our secret hiding place and here's our box of stolen ration cards.'" But that's not how things are. Yeah, it's pretty easy to see who the bad guys are, but it's really unclear how to deal with them and how bad they actually have to let things get before it's justified to begin calling them bad guys. And it is certainly surprising how many people don't clearly see the same distinctions between good guys and bad guys. 

I guess what I'm saying is, life is way more complicated than I expected when I was eleven, but is also surprisingly way more simple. I'm mortified that our country isn't accepting refugees from the country my own family escaped from during the last century, and I'm even more mortified that I feel so utterly helpless about how little I can ultimately do. Some of my friends are deciding to refocus their careers and run for office and help become one of the good guys in our government. Others are leading the resistance and gently pushing back on every human rights-compromising decision coming out of the White House today. Educators like myself have their work cut out for them for these next few years. Raising more tolerant, kind, inquisitive, questioning, inclusive humans is clearly in order. Humans who don't bully, who understand that the success of a group can be really good for the success of each individual in the group. Humans who are confident enough to accept that not everyone has to think exactly the same way, but we do all have to find a way to work together or our planet is doomed. Humans who recognize that just because someone believes in a different religion than you, that doesn't mean they're dangerous. Humans who are students of history and encourage others to be lifelong students as well. 

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair… we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way…”
- Charles Dickens "A Tale of Two Cities" (how did he KNOW, AMIRITE?!) -

If you live in (or are planning a visit to) NYC, and you'd like to partake in some art that embodies the sentiment of "resist, with sincerity", may I recommend a few things that I'm currently interested in?

-The Museum of Modern Art's curated displays of art from the countries affected by the administrations' unconstitutional travel ban.
- An upcoming production (starring a former director of mine, Kevin Del Aguila! Yay, Kevin!) of Brecht's The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, a parable play about a dictator to be performed on February 20th, with ticket sales benefiting the Southern Poverty Law Center. 
- Sweat, a widely acclaimed Public Theatre drama about the struggle of the working class transfers to Broadway in March.

A couple other things I'd love to recommend this week are an Oscar-nominated documentary that I loved (and at our house where Daniel tries and frequently succeeds at seeing every nominated film every awards season, I can tell you that I see a lot of Oscar-nominated documentaries): Life, Animated- a beautiful story about a young man with autism who communicates through the films he loves. Also, this week's This American Life was heartbreaking and timely.

A picture I took during this week's protest in Washington Square Park. #thisiswhatdemocracysoundslike
I am proud to live in a city that stands strong with refugees from the devastation in Syria (and every other place in need of hope and freedom). 

ALISHA GIAMPOLA is an NYC based actor/teacher/writer who has no idea why La La Land has been nominated for so many Oscars.
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WEDNESDAY READING

By Alisha Giampola (writer/performer)

The Crazytown site has been down, and I'm not sure if it will be back up for this to post Wednesday morning, so I'm just going to leave two articles here that I think are worth a read during this intense week. 

~ Sam Waterston's thoughtful opinion piece in The Washington Post.

~ David Frum (former Bush speechwriter) writes a long, but deeply thought-out article for The Atlantic.

We'll be back up to our usual shenanigans next week- in the meantime, artists, don't put down those protest signs just yet! And if you haven't already, the First Action (out of 10 actions in 100 days) on the Women's March website is up and you can download postcards to write to your members of congress! 

MY CONCERNS DON'T FIT ON THIS SIGN

By Alisha Giampola (writer/performer)

This past weekend, the Women's March drew millions of participants around the globe (on all 7 continents! Yes, on Antarctica too!!) In response to the march, Trump tweeted "Why didn't these people vote?" A similar sentiment to "Why are you marching anyway? Bet you don't even know." We do know. we did vote. I voted. Every single person I went to the march with or personally knew who was marching voted. We marched because it was the first day of an administration that women and marginalized people everywhere fear. We marched to hold a leader, who has made it clear that he believes the rules do not apply to him, accountable.

I'm old enough to have seen how much or little effect government leadership has on my daily life. I've lived under a president I voted for and a president I didn't vote for. I've seen presidents that I like make bad decisions and presidents I dislike make good ones. But I've never been more scared of what an administration could do to me or the people I care about, who are going to be affected by his corruption, incompetence, solipsism, and greed. I'm concerned about the long term consequences of his leadership on a country that I love and a planet that I and the entire rest of the human population live on. This weekend's rally energized those of us who feel deeply concerned. We are more prepared than ever to spend the rest of his term in office being as involved as we can to do whatever we can as citizens to block his hateful policies. More people voted against him than for him. More people are afraid of his leadership than thrilled by it. I voted against this man, so I get to protest his presence as the leader of the country I love and live in.

In a world of "alternative facts", with people more divided politically than ever, and a growing group of newly awakened young activists (myself included) who are trying to make sense of what is and is not reality, I feel it's important to simply share what I see with my own eyes, what I know affects me and the people I love for others who might not be in my same situation. It's the division that already exists amongst us that will be preyed on in coming days as legislation takes away civil liberties or blocks environmental regulations. It has already begun, and it will continue as long as we allow ourselves to be distracted, apathetic, or prone to infighting. 

So what did I see with my own eyes this weekend? I saw peaceful men and women come together in numbers unexpectedly vast exercising their constitutional right to protest, being supported by similarly peaceful men and women in uniform. I saw people who have been fighting the good fight for a long time and people who have never participated in activism before. I am deeply aware that this is only the beginning. We cannot smugly congratulate ourselves on a large and peaceful rally and begin to relax. The rally was a call to further action; not the only action necessary of concerned citizens. 

The way administrations like this shape facts to suit their needs and squash dissent by painting those in opposition to them as thugs or criminals has been outlined for us many times in history and literature. They way to resist is to continue to call and write to our representatives. To demand to be heard. To compassionately listen to those who voted for him, hoping against hope that he would upend a system he's actually more than happy to use for his own benefit. To remember that this is not normal. Squashing the freedom of speech of scientists and the press by a president is alarming, to say the least. To remember that our inclusiveness and compassion outnumbers his egotism and hate. We even outnumber the very loud, very powerful, very privileged members of our government who now feel empowered to take off their masks of pretense and make laws to return our country to the past when life was more oppressive and dangerous for people of color, women, and immigrants. 

Protest consists of so much more than marching. We can all legally resist the policies we disagree with at every turn. We can take simple daily steps like calling our members of congress every time we see injustice being legislated, every time liberties are squashed. Here are some good ideas of the everyday actions we can take under this new administration, but I challenge us as artists to do more. To use our talents to challenge viewpoints, uplift allies, inform and educate. Under other demagogues, in the face of other propaganda, reality as it was actually being experienced was preserved by the writers, the painters, the storytellers. I realize that this is the first time I've felt truly oppressed by my government and humbly recognize that is a real indication of my immense privilege. I stand with those less fortunate than I, especially refugees and minorities who are vulnerable to this administration's policies, and hope to use my privilege to help resist injustice and protect them. I, someone who has never been an activist, commit to activism now to protect my future, the future of the children I teach every day, the future of our planet, and the future of our collective faith in American democracy.

ALISHA GIAMPOLA is an NYC based actor/teacher/writer who hopes Ruth Bader Ginsburg is taking her vitamins. 
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RISE UP

All the ladies who truly feel me
Throw your hands up at me
By Alisha Giampola (writer/performer)

I visited the Whitney Museum this past weekend with a dear friend on her birthday. She's an artist herself, and as a writer, I deeply respect anyone who can create a picture to replace my thousand words. We stopped at one point in front of the same piece, by Annette Lemieux, titled Left Right Left Right. 

Reading a bit about the artist and the piece, which was created in 1995, I learned that the piece used to be exhibited upright, with the fists (some of which are of famous activists and leaders such as Martin Luther King, Jr.) shown right side up. Although, even upright, "several of the images are flipped, so that the same fist appears raised in opposing directions, and the use of photographs from various decades injects difference into what appears on first glance to be a unified front." Originally the work was meant to indicate (continuing in the words of the curated description): "that protests—and the political and ideological issues that occasion them—are more complex, encompassing contradictions and opposing views." However, in the wake of the recent election, the artist requested that her work be flipped upside down: “Lemieux’s gesture suggests a commitment to individual agency, the continuing power of protest, and a feeling, in her words, that the ‘world has turned upside down’,” the museum explained in a statement. 

I think it's fascinating, and not unexpected, that the artist has found new and refreshed meaning in her own art. Originally questioning the unity of any protest, the artist now sees her own work as a statement about the continuing power of such protest, including her own ability to participate through her chosen artistic voice. 

Meryl Streep stated last week in her powerful speech as she received a lifetime achievement award at the Golden Globes that an actor's "only job is to enter the lives of people who are different from us, and let you feel what that feels like." I daresay that is the only job of any artist. Writer, composer, actor, painter, sculptor. Artists everywhere have always been the empathizers of the world. We remind others to think outside of themselves even for just a minute. To remember how a mere breath, a tiny edit on a strand of DNA, a hair's breadth, separates them from a life immeasurably different from their own. 

The Women's March on Washington is this weekend. There are marches planned all over the nation, and in several countries, but I am going to Washington D.C. with my husband and some friends. I know I'm lucky to be able to go directly to our nation's capital to peacefully petition and protest the administration there. If you are interested in attending, or standing alongside us in an affiliated march in your city or town, you can read about the Mission and Unity Principles of those participating here and here. If you, like me, are afraid of what the next few years of leadership in this country could upend, and especially if you (like me) are new to activism (I used to think that my only responsibility as a citizen was showing up to vote once every few years) - I urge you to join us! I am heartened to know how many of my creative, artistic, inclusive community will be supporting the march on Saturday, and if you're planning to go to D.C. may I suggest availing yourself of one of these helpful lists of what to bring/how to stay safe? 

Other protests and rallies in light of recent political events are scheduled around the inauguration weekend, including one for those who work in the theatre community, called The Ghostlight Project, which is scheduling a simultaneous, peaceful event for January 19th at theatres all across the country. 

Visit their site to see more stories and join their social justice campaign. 

It's easy to be inactive when we see injustices in our world. It's a little harder right now, when so much injustice is happening every day, but it's still more comfortable to sit back, especially if you occupy a position of privilege, which I am very aware that I do. But I will say that choosing to be a part of this, to not allow my silence to validate the oppression I see, feels great. It feels active. It feels supportive of those who have the potential of being in a much less safe place four years from now than I will be. 

If you want to support some awesome artists who are supporting the March, you can get some swag over at The Outrage or support a cause that supports women's rights, like protesting the defunding of Planned Parenthood or aiding the Malala Fund by adding this adorable "Smash The Patriarchy" pin to your protest-ensemble. 

It feels like there's a lot to take in right now: threats to the environment, our foreign alliances, the freedom of the press, healthcare and social safety nets for those in need, women's reproductive rights, the security of minorities, refugees, and immigrants...but there is a clear way to speak truth to power next weekend. And by power, I don't just mean You Know Who. This rally for him will be mostly Tweet-fodder (I can see it now: "Women rallying in Washington today: didn't see any tens, all clearly bleeding out of their wherevers. SAD"). But the Executive is not the only branch of our government, and Rome didn't transition from Republic to an Empire in only a day. For the first time in my adult life, I recognize an opportunity to remind those in positions of leadership who are supposed to be in Washington to represent my interests and the interests of all Americans that I am watching them. I am paying attention. I am remaining vigilant. 

See you there, ladies.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

The Women's March on Washington is the day after the inauguration, Saturday, January 21st, beginning at 10am at the intersection of Independence Avenue and 3rd Street near the US Capitol. This march is free and open for all (and not just women of course- people of all genders, colors, and creeds who are allies of women and the marginalized are encouraged to participate), but you are urged to register at the march's website if you are able, so a semi-accurate headcount can be used to ensure proper security and resources (more than 200,000 people are already expected). 

ALISHA GIAMPOLA is an NYC based actor/teacher/writer who will be in D.C. this Saturday wearing a hat her Syrian great-grandmother crocheted.
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LET'S DO THIS.

Welcome to 2017, year of the FIRE ROOSTER. Seriously.
By Alisha Giampola (writer/performer)

Has anyone in this family ever seen a fire rooster?

When I was little I loved looking at the Chinese zodiac paper placemats that would invariably be under your plate of egg rolls and duck sauce. I loved how arbitrary the parings of years to animals seemed. I loved that awesome or mystical creatures like dragons and tigers held the same positions of importance as goats and rats. I loved that animals who would never in real life hang out together were considered compatible as friends or partners. Oxen and roosters. Dragons and monkeys. 

Roosters, according to Chinese astrology (and also basic common sense for anyone who has ever been near a farm), are the punctual waker-uppers of the animal kingdom. They represent timeliness and constancy. I personally have felt very drawn towards making 2017 a year of consistency for myself. Consistency in all areas of life. Writing, charitable giving, activism. Not making changes that are unsustainable, but doing a little bit each day in the things that really matter. I've been working on a new project that I'd like to focus more on in the new year. The book of a musical, which is something I've never tried before. New things are scary, and change is scary, and 2017 might be a little scary, but in the words of the great Stephen Sondheim: scary is exciting, and nice is different than good. I've been really nice for a long time, but this year I'd like to also be good. 

Crazytown is on a break right now, and I won't be posting next week, but I'll be returning the week after and I'm looking forward to seeing the kind of good that can be created by artists and creatives during 2017. 

ALISHA GIAMPOLA is an NYC based actor/teacher/writer and Wood Ox, born in 1985.
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WE NEED A LITTLE CHRISTMAS

Right. This. Very. Minute.
By Alisha Giampola (Writer/Performer)

It doesn't feel like Christmas yet in New York. There's only been a brief flurry of snow, nothing to stick, nothing to take a picture of. Even I, grumpiest of cold-weather persons, have not yet unpacked my heaviest winter coat. The overall feeling of sadness and dread that settled over the city after the election has not yet dissipated. Difficult times, corrupt leadership, war and strife, these things frequently nudge our greatest artists to produce their greatest art. Beauty is always best forged in the hottest fire. This week, I took myself to see a dear old friend in a play that I absolutely love, but have never had the opportunity to see. Jonathan Larson, of Rent fame, wrote only one other musical in his too-short life. The Keen Company's Tick, Tick...BOOM! is playing right now at The Acorn Theatre in Midtown, and if you have a chance before your flight home this holiday (it closes for good on December 18th), I highly recommend that you see it. Besides the fact that the three actors in it (including my amazingly talented friend George Salazar), are all phenomenal- this show resonates right now in a way that feels incredibly contemporary, despite being set in 1990. Disillusioned by friends having to sell out and work for soulless corporations, struggling with the pull between creating art and seeking stability, uninspired by Bush-era politics, wondering what the decade of one's thirties will bring, and set deep in the heart of the AIDS crisis, I had forgotten how relevant so much of the script is. The AIDS crisis aside, it's basically the life of me and like 90% of my friends.

This holiday season, it feels like we just voted in the Grinch, Mr. Potter, Ebenezer Scrooge...(just basically every bad guy from every Christmas movie ever but with none of the redeeming qualities rolled into one) into office. It felt good to take in art- challenging, beautiful, heartbreaking art. It was a reminder that there is always ugliness, and the job of artists is to shine flashlights into the corners and make the cockroaches scuttle. And there are a lot of dark corners right now. When bullies vie for other bullies to be put in charge, when refugees are being turned away and innocent people are ducking bombs, when an entire country has been conned, it's easy to feel like kindness and generosity are sorely lacking in this world this holiday season. But what George Bailey and Tiny Tim and Mrs. Claus and the Cratchits and Susan Walker and Buddy the Elf and all the Whos down in Whoville want you to remember is that kindness and love and art are the best and really only way to protest anything.

2016 has been a hard year for our world and this new year feels both promising and slightly ominous. So much rests on the small, everyday actions of all of us. The kind of person who assumes the mantle of the most powerful person the world stage, yet feels the need to write a tweet every time someone satirizes him, is the kind of person who requires attention, positive or negative, at any cost. That's the kind of person who will continue to surround themselves with yes-men and sycophants, regardless of their danger to others or to democracy in general. Journalists have their work cut out for them, as do all persons currently in or planning to run for office in this country and in other world democracies. What can artists do in 2017? What should our New Years Resolution be? We can refuse to bend our moral compass towards the closest, brassiest magnet. We can choose our ability to express ourselves to others as a platform for love instead of hate, for inclusivity instead of hostility. We can call the emperor out for wearing no clothes, in numbers too multitudinous to be retweeted. We can keep creating. Keep questioning. As the last song of Tick, Tick...BOOM! reminds us: "Fear or love baby? Don't say the answer: actions speak louder than words." 

I've been thinking a lot about the finale of the operetta Candide by Leonard Bernstein. In college, I sang the role of Paquette in a staging of that final song we performed in a small cabaret of several opera pieces. It is a beautiful song with beautiful lyrics and when I try to talk about what I hope artists do with the time we all have in 2017, when I think about the words I would most like to be my New Years Resolution, if such things can be resolved, these are the words that keep playing through my mind:

Let dreamers dream what worlds they please
Those Edens can't be found
The sweetest flow'rs, the fairest trees
Are grown in solid ground.
We're neither pure nor wise nor good,
We'll do the best we know
We'll build our house and chop our wood
And make our garden grow
And make our garden grow.

ALISHA GIAMPOLA is an NYC based actor/teacher/writer who would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas. Kiss my ass. Kiss his ass. Happy Hanukkah.
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