Why you should help John Clancy and Nancy Walsh right now

I very rarely do this, in fact I think I have never done this on this blog, but I'm going to make a pitch here for why you should help two artists/producers, John Clancy and Nancy Walsh, who were seminal in making a whole downtown NYC theater scene explode into consciousness in the 1990s and 2000s.

They were two of the people, along with Elena Holy, who formed The Present Company in the 1990s. At first they worked out of a space in Hell's Kitchen, but in the late-90s, after having launched the first FringeNYC festival (which is now a NYC institution run by the indefatigable Elena Holy), they decided they needed a theater space so bought what had basically been a garage/crack den on Stanton Street and converted it into The Present Company Theatorium.  This was a crazy idea built on little more than a dream, when the Lower East Side was still dangerous, especially East of Essex.  This now seems like a joke, I know, but believe me back in the 90s, it was not overrun by expensive widgit shops and artisanal cafes.

They made it work, just…and at a certain point it stopped working as a space, but the Fringe kept going and John and Nan decided in 2001 (right before 9/11) to do more independent producing and Elena held down The Present Company fort, eventually transitioning to offices in midtown with other artists and focusing primarily on FringeNYC.

OK, so those are the base facts.  But why help John and Nan now?  Well, here's why I did (and versions of my story can be told by many other artists who they nurtured at crucial times in their creative careers).

Back in the same 1990s, I was transitioning from running a theater company to doing my own exploratory work in a lab with some brave actors from that company (Fred Backus, Chris Campbell, Renee Bucciarelli and Dan Berkey primarily).  I was paying for space to do this, having no idea where this work was going, all of us following impulses like so many human divining rods.  Enter John Clancy.  He decides to pop by and see this lab.  Originally, we had rented space at the old Present Company and he'd seen some of the work we had done with Monkey Wrench Theater.  So we knew each other.

He sits watching a lab wherein I think we were exploring the idea of the gender grid.  This meant somehow creating scenarios about gender and following them wherever they went.  Sometimes these workshops got very weird and conflicts arose between all of us that were in relation to the work but also each other.  The idea of the 'grid' is the rules of the room, so we were tapping into stuff that was pretty deep at times.  Like I said, I had no idea where this was going.

John watched one of these workshops and got very excited by it, because he's like that, fearless - likes stuff that's alive.  He said, why don't you guys come over and work in our new space?  For free.

So, just like that, we had free rehearsal space in NYC.  This is rare and invaluable.  Granted the space was the back room of a dank theater space where sometimes we had to choose between heat or light because the electrics were so bad, and the idea of lying on the carpet was - well - probably not very wise.  But, we had space.  And more than that: we had the confidence of a peer.  We went from exploring on our own to exploring within the context of a larger community.

John, Nan and Elena then accepted my proposal to direct a show, Gorky's Wife written by a friend of mine, Greek playwright, Elena Penga.  They produced this show.  In the course of that experience, we all made plenty of mistakes, it was one of those 'learning experiences' you wish you didn't have to have.  But in the midst of it, John once again proved himself the mensch that he is.  First, we lost an actor right before opening and John, summer stock vet that he was, memorized the role overnight and performed in the play.  Consequently, he also helped us deal with the issue of the large rat that kept popping up in the dressing room and once even on stage (only in NYC: diva rats).

After this show, we all sat down to talk about what went wrong.  This conversation alone was a minor miracle (because it was civilized and constructive not blamey and weird).  We all had stuff to answer for and we all knew it  In the midst of that conversation, John turned to me and said: write down what it is you really want to do and give it to me.  We'll see what we can do.

What I wrote in response to that request in 1999 remained my mission statement for many years, was the centerpiece of my PhD thesis in 2009 and the mission of Apocryphal Theatre.  It is still a guiding document today.  Though I am in a deep period of introspection, having such a specific document is valuable even if it shifts because it points to where I've been and may go.  The larger point is: from a pretty crappy situation, John requested something of me that has been invaluable.

The lab went on to show experiments at the Theatorium, we taught workshops at FringeNYC, one of which led to my being asked to teach in London at Chisenhale Dance Space in 2000 - which led eventually to my being in London for 8 years, running a theater company, doing a PhD, etc.

But wait there's more…In the midst of the 1990s period, I wrote a text.  Something I wasn't sure what it was, but that became Word to Your Mama (my first stage text).  I had never written a professional stage text before and was directing it for the briefly incarnated yet wondrous Screaming Venus Kallisti Festival.  I had no idea what I was doing.  (Translation: I was very scared and very happy - these are Always the times I'm happiest and usually do my best work but at the time am terrified.)  We were having a great time.  I was working with Nicole Higgins, Kate Ward and Monica Sirignano, while we stumbled through how to make this into something that could go on stage.

Before anyone saw it, I asked John to come to a dress rehearsal.  The first run through had been painful and slow and I was nervous about what he would see.  I became very ill the night before with food poisoning (or fear depending on your POV) and could not make it to that rehearsal.  My ADs (Carolyn Raship and Julie Blumenthal) were there to lead the run through.  I was suffering on the sofa, unable to move my body when the phone rang.  I let the answering machine get it (remember: old fashioned answering machines?!) and heard John's voice talking about how great he thought the piece was and how it should be in the Fringe and just babbling goodness on the phone.  (John and I share this enthusiasm gene: when loving something, we really love it - and yes the opposite also applies.)

Perhaps needless to say, I suddenly felt much better, rose from my bed and walked and we had a great run of the show, both at Kallisti in midtown and downtown during FringeNYC 2000.  The play was published by Martin Denton his New York Theatre Experience series in Plays & Playwrights 2001.  John has since selected it for a syllabus called Indie Theater 101, which is or will be available soon on  indietheaternow.com.

I have not mentioned Nan here, but she is equally important.  She was somehow always there, with a supportive word, or helping out by acting in a reading of a new piece.  Her presence is essential as an actor and human being.  She is grounding, has a wicked and wonderful sense of humor and a no BS New England sensibility.  We all spent ages in their apartment in the Lower East Side either plotting new theater schemes, shooting the shit, suffering through the 2000 election or mourning 9/11.

Their apartment on the Lower East Side.  This apartment has been a focal point for many people to crash, hang, get their support or just fucking freak out.  And it is this apartment they are in danger of losing.  For the first time I remember ever, John and Nan are asking for help, and it is to keep this apartment.

They have given and given for years, even as Nan has struggled (with astonishing resilience) since 2002 with brain tumors.  They have brought their own and others' work to Edinburgh, produced countless shows downtown and started numerous helpful organizations to promote the whole downtown theater community.

But even more than that: they are human beings, who have shared their human-ness with so many.  Now it's time to give back or if you don't know them, pay it forward.

I urge you to help them in their campaign by clicking here: Indiegogo

Poor Kids on Frontline

You just have to go and watch this documentary if you didn't see it tonight.  You can watch it for free on pbs.org at Frontline.  It is a devastating account of American poverty from children's perspectives.  Their parents all are working.  They still don't have enough to eat or stable places to live.  The girls reminded me very much of my friends when I lived in Waterford, CT in the early 70s and other kids I knew in rural Maine in the 60s.  I was never quite that poor, though we were pretty close at times.  At these friend's houses, I slept over night on beds without sheets, had dinners that weren't dinners and spent time in houses with little to no furniture.

The fact there is not more help for both the kids and their struggling parents then or now (no surprise two of the three families struggling because of health issues) is a disgrace.

The fact that the 'sponsor' of the show was Goldman Sachs hawking the idea that their investment in companies will save the world beggars belief.  I suppose we are meant to believe if they were investing in these sad little people's towns all would be well.  Disgusting.

What is so gut wrenching about the documentary, made not surprisingly by a British filmmaker, is that the kids are so resilient in one way and so vulnerable in another.  They are wise beyond their years.  Most of them are having trouble enrolling in school because of instability, however, so what will become of them?

It's a terrifying and fearless look into everything that is wrong with America.  Having lived for 8 years in a country, the UK, where there is an actual safety net, I am just mortified Again by my own country.  And ashamed.

That's not enough though.  Action is necessary.  The Occupy movement is part of that, yes.  But there needs to be a deeper change in consciousness.  I really hope enough people watch this show to begin that shift away from the idiotic idea that 'the market' will save us.

Have a cold.

Yes it's that basic.  I have a cold.  I haven't written in here for a while so just checking in briefly.  Typing in bed…

After the election, I taught a class, then went to the internment of my stepfather Tom in his hometown of York, PA.  That was difficult though was able to connect with Tom's sister and her husband.  The event was simple, a graveside Episcopal service.  I read T.S. Eliot and Rilke.  Tom's daughter did a remembrance, there were psalms and prayers.  I'm not a big organized religion person so it just washes over me.  No connection.  A box of ashes in the ground.  Lots of younger people milling around.  Wanting to connect.  Not sure I did.

Basically, I'm in that time of grieving wherein I'm just kind of depressed and exhausted.  I have managed to get some applications out, which is good.  Would be incredible if any of them came to anything.  Haven't done any writing.  Have no energy except for the absolutely necessary.

Loss is loss and it feels like this right now.  Wish I had something beautiful to say about it.  I don't.

I have had some lovely times here and there with friends old and new.

I'm going to ground.  Some kind of zero.  Then we'll see what's next.

Back to bed...Happy Thanks Giving.  (I am grateful by the way, for much, but right now just feel exhausted.  Been trying to outrun that exhaustion but that led to the cold.)

Somewhere in my building someone burnt toast.  Ah, NYC apartment living.

Update: no, not toast, the remnants of my ginger/lemon tea boiling in a pan.  Good thing I was still awake.  No one died, except the pan.  Alas, poor pan, I knew ye when I had just bought you from Homegoods...

The female body...

Received this via email today - no attribution to the image but it's just gorgeous.  Will let it stand.


And, in regards to the election: well, phew.  Theocracy averted, multicultural demographic asserted, 20 women voted into the Senate.  Still a raging capitalist whacko-ville, but it could be worse.

Vote with your uterus girls & those who love them/us

Hey there girlfriends and the men who love them:  so like I know Obama isn't perfect, OK.  I don't agree with his use of drones and a lot of other things besides.  However, I do care that I get to control my body, specifically my uterus and that my step-nieces get to control theirs, not to mention students and many people I know.  Sadly, this election has come down to controlling a basic body part for women.  It is that sad.

There are other things of course.  Jobs to me at this point is a nonsense word, not because the ability to make a living is nonsense but because the idea that the dude who brought you Bain Capital that did more to throw people out of work in this country in favor of 3rd world country workers is going to bring us jobs that allow people to make a living is just a big fucking joke.

Plus there's Paul Ryan and his happy band of religious fundamentalists who would be happy with Sharia law if it was called Christian.

So, the choice is clear if you're female and believe you should be able to: (a) have access to birth control, (b) control your own uterus and (c ) be assured that if you are raped, no one will ask you if it's been a 'legitimate' rape or not…you know stuff like that.

Therefore, if you're female and/or love the women in your life, the choice is clear.

Please vote.    

Of grieving and gratitude

So I'm on the train as I type this, traveling to D.C. to direct a reading of my play We live in financial times at Busboys & Poets for Monday night (see right hand panel for details) and feeling weird like I'm abandoning NYC, which is how I felt when I left NYC for the first time after 9/11, which wasn't until Thanksgiving of that year.  Even more so then, I felt like I wanted to cling to every stone and piece of pavement, every tree, person and store sign, hoping it wouldn't move.

Now it's more about the people, hoping everyone will be there when I got back.  Someone I met when I first moved to Inwood died suddenly a few weeks ago so that was rattling and very sad.  He was someone who welcomed me and was a lovely soul.  Seeing body bags coming out of Staten Island is also horrendous.  I don't have a TV so the images come in fits and starts online, from the NYTimes and Twitter.

A moment to say: during an ongoing crisis, Twitter can be amazing if you find people to follow that you trust and don't get overly excited about rumors that come from unknown sources.  I leaned heavily on Twitter during Sandy and before that the riots in London in August 2011.  That was how I found my local MP Stella Creasy (in London) who was walking around checking out every rumor in person, until 3am each night.  Her twitter feed, unlike the news was Not hysterical, was reasoned and had a lot to do with keeping Walthamstow calm.

Through Twitter this time I could keep up to date with details of power, subways, etc. without having to see images and more images of destruction or watch all the political posturing.

I am going in and out of some form of PTSD, that much I know.  It takes many forms - goes back to 9/11 and further back than that.  I am also simultaneously OK and stable.  It's hard to explain this paradox, but it is my life these days: both feeling lots of emotions, sometimes overwhelming emotion, but at the same time able to function - but crucially NOT in some disassociated way, which may seem efficient and calm but is actually cover for lights on, nobody home and is usually accompanied by a low level sense of resentment that others can't keep their own shit together as well as me, thank you very much.

My functioning now is both on a much more basic, somewhat compromised level.  I am exhausted, forgetful, sometimes just cry or want to cry.  But I can also move forward with my basic commitments, self-care, caring for my cat, my artistic commitments, work stuff and other commitments to people with whom I meet in church basements on folding chairs.

My service during Sandy has been limited to taking friends from downtown in to my uptown apartment and going to meetings where people talk a lot about how they feel and how powerless we are over this and that.  This actually helps as improbable as that must sound to any of you who have no experience of such groups.  On paper, it really shouldn't work, the fact it does is no small miracle.

So I am grateful for those meetings, for my friends, for Amtrak trains working, for the subway rumbling back, for having had power and internet the whole time of Sandy, for not having had to lose my home or life or the life of someone very close to me, at least not this month.

Speaking of which, next weekend will be the internment of my stepfather Tom's ashes, a ritual I frankly dread.  I have been to memorial celebrations, which are one thing, even funerals.  But putting a body or ashes in the ground is excruciating.  My last experience of that was a friend from London who lost his 10 year old daughter from a chronic illness.  Seeing that little pink coffin go into the ground was unbelievably awful, though the place: a wood in East London, was so beautiful it was a strangely bittersweet experience.  I just stared at Sean and his wife Laura arm in arm with their other two gorgeous little ones, love coming off them like actual light, astonished at their dignity, their pain, their grieving AND their gratitude for everyone.  Life and death so close the line seemed almost translucent.  Laura got pregnant again soon after Alice's death and they have another child now.   These are people without a lot of money by the way, and if they had lived in the U.S. I don't know if they could have gotten the care and assistance they had and have in the UK.

These experiences of loss, all of them, are a hurricane.  Some seem personal, but none of them are.  That is what Job is about I believe - today anyway.  Human powerlessness in the face of these larger forces.  We can rant and rail against it all, we can resist what is, we can and do get angry, hurt, sad, cry, jump up and down and that's OK and natural.  But it won't change a thing.

But in the same way these things don't happen To us in a personal way, they also aren't Caused by us.  The whole surrender to reality thing is actually quite freeing.  Because until we acknowledge there Is in fact a hurricane in front of us, we won't do anything to get out of its path or understand the carnage we see around us.  I think this is in part what Nietzsche was on about when he talked in the Four Great Errors about false causality.  So many things go into every moment that are out of our control.  The tragicomedy of human experience is how much we think we do control when we don't.  Or blame others for their actions for the same reason.  Gods help us all.

Now that I think about it, the end of We live in financial times is an attempt to address this fact.  So while I have frankly not been able to even think about this staged reading I'm about to direct, I have been experiencing it.  In my Very Long history of directing (since 1980 = 32 years - yikes!), these moments can be quite fruitful because I am forced to look at what is rather than what I wish was there.  The true reality of the room rather than my Ideas about it.  Because I don't have any other choice, that's a damn good thing.

Having said that, I now have a couple hours on a train so should use this time to re-read my own damn play….

If you're in D.C. on Monday (eve of election day in the U.S., Guy Fawkes night in the UK - and what an interesting combo that is!), please do come along and join us.  Dean Baker who will be joining us for the talkback predicted the 2008 crash and I for one want to hear what he says about where we are now and - selfishly - if the play embodies this in any meaningful way.  I believe it does something philosophically, but am not an economist so want to know if I got any of that right or whether my attempts at grasping that world (especially as it relates to theater/tricks/feints are off.

Be well everyone.  I miss you already NYC.  Please everyone stay safe and please all of the social services and Occupy folks and everyone who's pitching in, take care of all the folks who are suffering.  Thank you all who are doing this unsung work, and also the MTA workers, train folks, hospital workers, police, sanitation people, teachers, administrators on all levels…all of you: you are what makes NYC hum, strum and keep its beat and I love you all.

Hurricane Sandy Inwood Update No. 2

Some of us in Inwood feel so lucky to have been spared the hell of places like Hoboken or the fires in Queens and/or slow tedium of life without power or basics downtown that we're beginning to almost feel guilty.  We just keep getting days off from work and time with our local friends.

So, I'm now hosting downtown friends uptown, so they can have a day with whacky stuff like lights, a shower, internet access and cooked food.  The first one tonight is an old friend from college, Spencer, who arrived a few days ago from Spain and is staying at a friends' amazing house downtown.  All great except a hurricane showed up, he has no phone, power, etc.  So, while we had hoped to sneak in a couple hours during his busy schedule meeting publishers and drumming up support for his project in the Honduras working with orphans on creating a book of poetry (more on that later), instead we met at a cafe on the Upper West Side (he walked from 10th to 96th Street and I started by bus then got a livery cab from 204th), went to a writer's meeting together and another friend from college drove us back up to my place where we had the luxury of many hours to catch up after not having seen each other in 25 years.  He read me some of his newest, extraordinary poetry, which was quite a treat.

Tomorrow, we will be joined by friend Nina who has been stuck in her place alone downtown without power for days.  As she said, the novelty of reading by candlelight and her new intimacy with neighbors is wearing off and now (because she is freelance and works out of her home), she needs to just start working again.  Plus have a real shower.

The good news is: apparently my Housing Works thrift-store fold out sofa works.  I have ordered an air bed but that hasn't arrived yet.  Was originally for my mother's visit over Christmas but wish I had ordered earlier so could bring in more power outage refugees.

This is my little way of helping out.

I am being much less productive but having a lot more fun, so there you have it.  And what a gift to have time with friends, old and new.

The day before was spent with local friends, walking through Inwood, hanging out at Darling Cafe with the many blinking souls happy to be outside, with their little children in tow, wearing such combos as tutus, striped stocking, polka dot rain coats and little blue wellies or golden waterproof shoes, all of us happily drinking fancy things like cinnamon roiboos tea and soy lattes.  We walked close to the park but not inside because not allowed.  We took photos of downed trees, everyone smiling at each other, knowing how lucky we all were to be alive and so comfortable.  The evening was spent in Riverdale watching a silly movie and eating pizza with another friend who kindly picked me up and drop me off in his now-much-desired-yet-not-usually-considered-necessary-in-NYC: car.

However, there is still the sense of the devastation downtown, the photos of the ravages of the fires and flooding, knowing the grinding frustration of so many and seeing the weird subway map for tomorrow. Blessings, first of all for the MTA for getting any of the subway up and running this fast given the fact the Entire system was flooded.  But this map, with downtown invisible can only remind many of us of 9/11, and the sense of injury.  This time a hurricane, which you can't blame personally (thank God/dess for that) but the sense of devastation nonetheless.  And Gov. Cuomo saying - wisely - that we have to learn from this storm because there will be more like it, we are vulnerable now.  Yes, Virginia, there is a climate change.

Hurricane Sandy seeming to be fulfilling Jung's prophecy that whatever you repress comes back to you as fate.  Climate change not discussed during this election because we need "jobs" aka dirty energy aka climate change issues a luxury item we can't address.  Then along comes Sandy to say: not so fast.  I'm here, I'm pissed off and I'm not Going Anywhere.

Like all disasters involving high winds and tides, it cleans out the cobwebs of denial of so much, offers openings desired and profoundly not desired.  Loss of people and place, rearrangement of literal and spiritual and emotional furniture.

Prayers and blessings to those of you who have had horrendous losses and to those of you who have found new joys and rest.  We're all here and Sandy has reminded us that we are lucky to be so, this gift of life is nothing to take for granted and none of us really owns - well - anything.