Crazytown

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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WHEN THE BAD BOYFRIEND DOES GOOD

AKA I fell in love with theatre again this weekend.
By Kathleen Choe (actor/singer/writer)

Amy Poehler said to treat your career “like a bad boyfriend” and that “…it is healthy to remember you can always leave and go sleep with someone else.”

I feel the theatre has been a “bad boyfriend” as of late. I love it and I always will, but it’s been on the outs with me: the lack of diversity in the stories being told, lack of diversity in casting, the unwillingness to pay actors a living wage, the defensiveness of members of the community when any of this gets called out. When I tried to talk to it, it refused to listen and shut down all the arguments, smiling and repeating over and over, “But it’s getting better.”

So Iike a bad boyfriend I pushed it to the side, loving it but needing space. Until last Friday when it asked me away for a long weekend.

Last Friday, I went up to the Geva Theatre Center to work on a devised piece based on the idea of the American Dream—what it is, what it has become, if it still exists. For four days, I got to be in a room with nine other very talented people:

Got to be in a room that looked like this.
Missing: our awesome Stage Manager, Becca Poccia.

...to hash out and exchange thoughts over this idea to create something completely new. At the end of the process we put up what we had devised in front of an audience to hear and exchange ideas with them.

To add icing on top of this very delicious cake, I even got paid to do it.

And what d’ya know? I fell in love with the theatre again.  I remembered what excited me about theatre in the first place. Collaboration. Conversation. To be sure those two are not always comfortable when put together, but when they combine something beautiful almost always emerges: possibility.

How to devise a play in four days = Good people + coffee + laughter 

Theater is not just feel-good bedtime stories for rich people, it’s not just where you go for the experience of being part of a standing ovation in the audience at the end. Watching a fellow human being in front of you and seeing their story unfold has a power that can open perceptions, and as a wise man once said, with great power comes great responsibility.

To entertain is only an iota of what the theatre can do, and yet these days it seems that’s mostly what the theatre is being used for.

To engage an audience with a diverse cast and different stories is possible, yet the struggle to see diverse casts or hear different stories goes on.

To pay artists for to what they love—create—is possible, and yet the resistance against doing so persists.

So, bad boyfriend. You reminded why you’ve made me happy in the past, of your potential, of what you’re capable of when you pause, and stop, and listen. That you have the ability and capacity to treat me and my fellow artists well.

Thank you for that.

Let’s see what else you’ve got.

 

KATHLEEN CHOE is a NYC based actor, singer, and writer. www.www.kathleen-choe.com
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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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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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2016: LET HIM DIE

As the poet once wrote.
by Kathleen Choe (actor/singer/writer)

I’ve got nothing.

Nothing except this stanza of the Tennyson poem  In Memoriam in my mind:

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,    
The flying cloud, the frosty light:    
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

I think of this poem every year as the old year ends, but it’s usually the second stanza that sticks in my mind:

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Let him go. Those words are a lot more peaceful than let him die, but that's all I can think of.

2016. DIE. Leave. Never come back.

There have been good things that have happened this year. I have a home, a home I love that I come back to every day that’s mine. I’ve settled into a neighborhood I love in a city I love. My family is healthy.

But there’s also loss that has happened as well. Loss of patience. Loss of childhood heroes. Loss of optimism.

The first and last I'm trying doing my best to hold onto. The second one I have no control over. Death--however sad--is a part of life. To lose childhood icons means to lose a living reminder of who I used to be, a marker of who I've become since.

I have no pictures to post, nothing to make this blog super-catchy or interesting or SEO worthy or viral or whatever else there is, just thought; and the one thought I have right now is that my hope going into a new year could always be characterized as steady and strong, and right now it’s a fragile thread.

Fragile thread vs. steady and strong. What does that mean, going into 2017? Will a fragile thread grow strong?

I wish I knew.

2017, I welcome you, but I do it with a warm, cautious smile. I do it with one hand behind me, holding a sharp instrument or a blunt object.

I pray that I will not have to use either.

But I’m ready to use both.

KATHLEEN CHOE is a NYC based actor, singer, and writer. www.www.kathleen-choe.com
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THE GASPS FOR HOPE IN 2016

Looking for glimpses of light as 2016 ends.
by Kathleen Choe (actor/singer/writer)

Honestly I’m just waiting for 2016 to end, though I’ve got trepidations about what’s to come in 2017. I won’t talk about why; anyone watching the news or who hasn’t been living under a rock can guess. I’m exhausted talking about the state of the world and the country, and right now I can only see what’s in front of me…namely, heading out of town to visit family for the holidays.

I’m realizing more than ever about how important it is to hold onto hope. Finding it as 2016 comes to a close has been hard, but not impossible. A company I love, Rising Circle Theater Collective, had an event for women artists of color to come together and share their stories. In a burst of courage I readily said “yes” when my friend Nancy asked me to read one of my Crazytown blog posts out loud (and nearly chickened out when the hour of the event approached).

I showed up!
The proof is in the photo booth.

The night was full of laughter and determination...and hope. For the people who didn’t bring work to share, Nancy had put questions into a hat for them to pull out and answer. One of the questions was this:

photo credit: Chelsea Harrison

Actor, writer, and educator Chelsea Harrison pulled that thought-provoker out of the hat, then proceeded to give an amazing and eloquent explanation. 

Women--in particular women of color--always show up when there’s something that needs to be done. Always. This election was the last gasp of the white patriarchy. “We know we have work to do, we know it will be hard, but we also know that The Future is Female.”

The future.

Hope. I cling to it. I have to. The alternative is to stay still and let the world become a place I don’t want it to be.

I will take it any way I can, and fight for it every way I can, and if what I fight for doesn’t come to pass, I’ll know I didn’t stay silent. And I’ll pick myself up and start again.

Hope. The future.

Here’s to that.

Merry Christmas, all.

KATHLEEN CHOE is a NYC based actor, singer, and writer. www.www.kathleen-choe.com
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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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CONNECT, G*D@##!T

Follwing the advice of the (annoying) higher self.
By Kathleen Choe (actor/singer/writer)

I'm sitting in my apartment after a day of working from home on my computer, spending my breaks reading awful news headline (cabinet appointments) after awful news headline (Walter Scott, Ohio...). I look at the clock. 3:53pm.

I signed with my agents a few months ago. I love them. It’s almost time for their holiday party. I feel dejected and gross and the last thing I want to do is make small talk with people I don't know.

Connect, goddamit.

I text two of my friends. Ugh. Not in the mood to make small talk with strangers. Just want to stay home and stay in my comfy schlubby clothes watch Netflix.

Show up, they say. It will be fun. You don’t have to stay long. Watch Netflix when you get home.

Oddly, saying (or texting) my social anxiety makes me feel better. I remember that I had emailed another one of my friends to see if she was going—also signed with the same agents—and she said yes, so I know there will be at least one friendly face. And wine.

Connect, goddammit.

I pick out some funky earrings, some makeup, look in the mirror and feel better. Also, skinny jeans still fit after Thanksgiving (woot).

Presentable. Yay.

En route I buy some gloves and a hat at Duane Reade because my agents are collecting clothing items at their holiday party to donate to charity, because they’re cool like that.

I show up. It’s packed. When I walk in my agents greet me warmly and point me in the direction of the bar. I get a glass of red and look around for my friend and realize she hasn’t arrived yet.

I busily fill a plate with hors d’oeuvres and take a gulp of wine. The “gah-awkward-dork-in-the-corner” pit takes root in my stomach. I stuff a shrimp (or two) in my mouth, sip (gulp) some wine, and decide that I’ll stick around for thirty minutes, then exit.

Connect, goddammit.

I scowl. Shut up, I tell the inner voice.

Then I see an old classmate. I smile. I know from Facebook she’s gotten her MFA in Acting and has been working steadily since then, but actual live conversation hasn’t happened for...wow. A few years.

She: How have you been?
Me: Honestly? Still trying to get over this election.
She: (grimaces) Same. (lifts glass) To Nasty Women.

We drink. We laugh. She introduces me to her friend who she’s come with, and they tell me about the show they were in, and life, and I relax.

Wow. I’m enjoying myself.

Connect, goddammit.

Her friend has just sampled some of the booze-laden cake which he encourages me to try, but I never make it to the table to get a piece because my friend shows up with another friend of ours and the booze-laden cake can wait. Yet another mutual friend shows up and we all chat together. I make my way over to the bathroom, and run into someone who works in the office, who introduces me to another person in the office and some other people he’s talking to…fellow actors, writers, artists. We all talk, and laugh, and talk.

Connect, goddammit.

My friends come to say goodbye and I swerve on my feet and realize that I should probably head out too. 30 minutes has turned into 2+ hours, but I’m in a much better frame of mind than when I walked in.

When I’m down, my usual MO is to isolate and disappear. I didn’t this time. I’m glad. As angry as I've been about the state of our country and as worried as I am about the future, on top of everything else that comes with being an artist in this city…this. People. Being around and engaging with your fellow human beings, community. It never fails to remind you of what’s important.

Pretty Cool People.
(And some random finger photobombing)

Connect. OK.

Happy Holiday Season, y’all.

KATHLEEN CHOE is a NYC based actor, singer, and writer. www.www.kathleen-choe.com
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