Songs for the Struggling Artist

Songs for the StrugglingArtist

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I blogcast about Artist stuff. And Arts Related stuff. Also feminism. *In each episode, I read a post from my Songs for the Struggling Artist blog and play a song at the end.

Choreography for Kids

Recently, I went to see a middle schools’ production of a musical. It was one of the Broadway JR series shows – where they do an edited version of a Broadway show and sing along to pre-recorded tracks. I used to teach for a program helping to implement these shows so I am pretty familiar with what the deal is. They’ve become very popular and the program has succeeded in getting a lot more kids into musicals. That’s pretty cool. When I asked a kid in this production about the dances, she told me

Apr 1, • 14:56

Forgetting Feminist History

During the Hollywood Reporter’s roundtable for documentary filmmakers, the woman who made a doc about Frida Kahlo said, “There’s a whole universe of people who are incredibly invested in Frida. We heard from a few, making sure that we didn’t call her a “feminist,” because that word didn’t exist when Frida was alive.”I don’t doubt that a lot of people are invested in Frida Kahlo and I don’t doubt that her feminism is contentious – but “feminist” was absolutely a word in Frida’s lifetime. It had b

Mar 25, • 17:08

Wave Him Through

As I stood on the corner, waiting for a walk signal, a tall man in a long coat came to stand next to me. When the light changed, I started to go but then noticed that this man next to me was waving a car to go ahead of him into the street before us. The car hesitated. I suspect the car could see that there were two of us waiting to cross, only one of whom was waving, and pedestrians have the right away. The tall man was insistent, however, and the car drove through the crosswalk, down the street

Mar 17, • 12:02

Not Into Politics

In the days before the election, my friend made a LOT of phone calls on behalf of the Harris campaign. He spoke to quite a few people who were truly undecided. They really exist! He told me about someone who said, “I just don’t know anything about the candidates.” And I was so jealous of them! How is it possible to avoid knowing about these people? I do not TRY to learn a lot about these folks – but it feels like it’s just in the air. Are these folks not breathing the same air as me?But, really,

Mar 11, • 14:58

My Computer's New Nickname

When I first got a computer, I gave it a name. I don’t remember which one came first, Bertram or Mr. Finkelstein. I believe I named my hard drive in college; It was the Stinky Cheese Drive. I don’t know when I stopped naming my computers but I think it’s been a few years at least.Then the other day, I told my friend I was going to go check in with my digital world and he said, “Oh, are you going to go look at your Good News Machine?”To keep reading My Computer's New Nickname ⁠visit the Songs for

Mar 4, • 14:56

I Went to See a Play About a Quilt

The main reason I wanted to see The Blood Quilt was because it was about a family making a quilt together and having made some quilts with my family, I was interested. I don’t see a lot of plays about stuff I know about so I was curious. Would I gain some insight into my own experience? Discover some hidden metaphor in my family’s crafting? Would I learn something about crafting – or maybe the craft of playwriting?To keep reading I Went to See a Play About a Quilt visit the Songs for the Struggl

Feb 25, • 23:33

Tips for Structuring a Creative Life

When I graduated from college, I went straight into my first acting job which was a six month Shakespeare tour that was pretty intense. It was very full time. But then, when I wasn’t re-hired there, which had been my plan, I was suddenly out of work and out of a structure for my time. It threw me for a big loop. I began, then, the process of hustling to get more acting jobs, but also the process of making sure I continued to create things. This second thing is the most significant in how I build

Feb 18, • 14:47

The Song That Broke the Dam

I don’t know if I hadn’t cried yet about therapist-in-chief being elected again or if I’m just forgetting all the other times I’ve cried before, but I do have a sensation of not really dealing with or processing this reality thus far. I’ve been pretty numb and disassociated. I know that much. I didn’t even mention the forthcoming transition of power in therapy a few days before. Oh, Trump? Is that happening? La di da.Anyway – a crack in the dam appeared when someone postedLily Allen’s cover of R

Feb 11, • 16:28

Monologue from a 1913 Suffrage Meeting

Just a little extra this week. This is a monologue written by Marie Jenney Howe for a 1913 Women's Suffrage meeting. I found it while doing some research for a project about a women's secret society and couldn't resist recording it for you. Some things will feel familiar even now, over a hundred years later. Click here to read along. This is a Bonus Episode To support this podcast: Give it 5 stars in Apple Podcasts. Write a nice review! Rate it wherever you listen or via: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Feb 5, • 20:37

Will This Residency Be Kind?

This residency opportunity popped up in my feed. It sounded amazing. A week in a castle with artists from many disciplines on an island off the coast of England? A collaborative exploration in conversation with international artists and the tidal patterns? Yes, please. I could use the magic of a castle and a group process by the water. How do I apply? I was all ready to hit the application button when I noticed the specification that artists be “reasonably fit” and prepared to be outdoors in all

Feb 4, • 17:17

Sh*t Bag Shelf

I confess that when the news started to come out about Neil Gaiman’s terrible behavior, I did not dig deep on it. I really did not want to know. As a fan of his work, and maybe even a student of it, this particular dark turn was one I did not want to be true. I assumed it was true and I assumed it was bad and yet I sort of sang to myself, with my hands over my ears, hoping it would go away. But at the same time, as a public feminist, I felt like it was probably my duty not to turn away from my

Jan 28, • 17:35

Discoverability Is the Issue

While talking with a friend about the ups and downs of making money from writing on the internet, it occurred to me that almost all the support I receive is from people who know me in real life. There are exceptions, of course, but the vast majority of support comes from friends, family and friends of friends and family. As I told my friend, I have found that my only successful marketing strategy has ever been to make friends with people. And truth be told, I tend to think of any supporters I ha

Jan 21, • 20:42

What Should We Do With All This Bad Art?

The dance piece was genuinely terrible. The dancer couldn’t really dance. The choreographer seemed to have a four movement/gesture vocabulary and the “concept” was cringe-inducing. I could tell you more about it, and I’m tempted to, because talking about terrible art can be very fun, but I think any further details would start to be hurtful and maybe mean. These artists have no real power yet. They don’t deserve a take-down. I spent about a third of the piece trying to imagine what jobs these pe

Jan 14, • 16:44

America Hates Women a Lot More than I Realized - Or, Thoughts from the First Week, Post-Election

When I spent my junior year of college in Italy, I found myself not particularly bothered by the catcalling there. While there was a lot more of it, it always seemed kind of good natured. When I walked down the street, men shouted, “Bella! Ti amo!” (“Beautiful, I love you!”) And you know, I didn’t mind because I felt no implied threat behind it. It just felt like a kind of sweet spontaneous expression of appreciation. When I got catcalled in the US, my home country, there was always something ki

Jan 7, • 17:43

The Little Sister Effect

My jaw hit the floor when Catherine O’Hara, comedic genius, said she used to tell her ideas to Dave Thomas so he could pitch them to their SCTV group instead of her. Catherine O’Hara?! One of the most innovative performers we have, had as much trouble getting ideas out in a meeting as a lot women have?! She was ona podcast, telling this to Julia Louis-Dreyfus, a similarly remarkable comedic mind, who then shared that she, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, still, after decades of comedic accomplishments, has

Dec 31, 2024 • 15:34

Trying to Write the Day After the Election

It’s the day after election day. It was a rough night and I’m here at a café on the Upper East Side to write through this difficult moment. It’s 75 degrees in New York City in November (Nothing to worry about! No global warming to see here! Good thing no one’s declared a climate emergency yet!) so the patio is more full than usual. The man at the table next to me turns his body to directly face me, away from his table. It is a full body stare. To keep reading Trying to Write the Day After the El

Dec 23, 2024 • 15:22

The Canon Is Stuck

My library finally re-opened post-pandemic and I went in for a celebratory look around. Though it supposedly had been re-modeled, it seemed to look exactly the same. (Except now there seemed to be no way to access the card catalogue? WTF?) I took a look at the theatre section because, you know, Theatre Nerd, and was struck by how much the selection of plays resembled the selection of plays that were in the library when I was growing up. It struck me that the accepted literary canon of theatrical

Dec 17, 2024 • 16:28

Something I Was Thinking About On Election Day 2024

Trigger Warning: I don’t think this piece is any more triggering than just living in the world at the moment but if you’re not feeling like reading the words r*pe and r*pist a bunch, just skip this one, my friends. * It’s Election Day in New York City. Astoria, particularly. I see a guy in a Trump baseball hat. We don’t see a lot of those around here and I hope we never will again but watching him make his jaunty way up the sidewalk playing his air piano, I started to think about how he’s marked

Dec 9, 2024 • 15:03

An Ode to Professor Bobo

A video I saw on BlueSky of a guy playing a cigar box guitar, while wearing a tin can helmet/mask, made me think of a teacher I had many years ago. That teacher told us to call him Professor Bobo (his name was Bobby Hansson) and he wore loud Hawaiian shirts with even louder wide neck ties. He had a big white and grey beard and his straight gray hair was cut a bit below his ears. He had the look of a 70s Santa on vacation. I adored him. I took a workshop with him at Penland School of Crafts at t

Dec 2, 2024 • 15:38

The Resistance Will Be Recycled

A few days after the election, I received a piece of writing in my email inbox about art and fascism. It was a thoughtful piece and good advice but I also thought, “Yeah, I wrote almost the same piece in 2016. This lady’s is a newsletter, mine was a blog but the content is almost exactly the same.” Did this lady copy me from 8 years ago? No. Not a chance. She’s a big shot. I’m sure she’s never seen my blog. I think what we’re seeing is that there’s not much to say this time that we didn’t say th

Nov 26, 2024 • 16:11

Please Don't Start Your Play Like This

It had been a long time since I’d seen a play, so I was kind of excited when the lights went down. When they came up, one of the three women on stage said, “Where should we begin?” and my head just sank into my hand in disappointment. I instantly knew the play I was going to spend the next couple of hours with, would not be great. To keep reading ⁠ Please Don't Start Your Play Like This visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. This is Episode 422 Song: Start With the Ending Image by ⁠⁠⁠M

Nov 19, 2024 • 16:53

What Can I Say to Keep You from Putting Your Finger in that Socket?

As I rounded the block of my polling place, I saw a couple bent over one of the VOTE HERE arrows on the sidewalk, filming a video. They were wrapping up, saying something about saving our country. Then they noticed me.  I haven’t been able to stop thinking about the look they gave me when they looked up and saw me approaching. It was a kind of chagrin, I think – but also a lot like the look a child will give you when you catch them doing something you’ve expressly told them not to do. “No hittin

Nov 12, 2024 • 19:13

I Am Not Compliant

My doctor had a trainee with him so he kept telling her things about my treatment and the way he viewed what has happened to me. He heaped praise on me, saying how he wished all his patients were so compliant, how I did everything he told me to do, what a good patient I have been. I wanted to puke. To keep reading I Am Not Compliant visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. This is Episode 420 Song: Need a Little Time Off for Bad Behavior Image by Jonathan Pielmayer via Unsplash To suppo

Nov 5, 2024 • 17:00

My Laptop Is in Memphis

My guitar tuner ran out of battery recently so I ordered a new one, popped out the old one and replaced it. It took no time at all and cost me a couple of bucks.  The battery in my laptop started to fail so I took it to the Apple store, as recommended, and had them look at it. Yep, needs a new battery, they said. $249. But Apple devices are not designed for us to pop out the batteries and replace them. They designed these things so that they, and only they, can change them out. It’s annoying, bu

Oct 28, 2024 • 17:23

What We Store, What We Delete

My laptop’s battery has been behaving badly so I made an appointment to have it looked at. The confirmation message said I should update my software before my appointment so I set about making that happen. Unfortunately, I did not have enough storage space to update my operating system, so I had to set about clearing some stuff out. To keep reading What We Store, What We Delete visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. This is Episode 418 Song: 7:30 by Bright Red Boots Image by Ula Kuzma v

Oct 21, 2024 • 20:12

Apple Seems to Be Getting into My Business

When Chase bank charged me $15 for not having enough money in my account, I switched to USAA bank. I felt very strongly that people (and especially me) should not be penalized for being insolvent. I went with USAA because when my friends would put down their cards after a meal and discovered they all had USAA, they would all commence to talk about how much they loved their bank. I had literally never heard of anyone loving their bank before so when Chase let me down with that $15 charge, I sign

Oct 15, 2024 • 24:26

"Can You Make a Living Doing That?"

An artist friend of mine is about to meet a lot of new people and is dreading the conversations that will include the inevitable question, “So, what do you do?”. She knows when she tells them she’s an artist, they’re going to ask, “Can you make a living doing that?” and it’s going to make her feel bad. I don’t know why people feel like this is a socially acceptable question to ask artists but I, too, have been confronted with these sorts of responses when conversing with civilians. When I was an

Oct 7, 2024 • 18:59

I Let You Down SInéad

The loss of Sinéad O’Connor hit me harder than I would have expected. I hadn’t been much of a fan in her glory days and while I respected her, I hadn’t paid her much mind in the intervening years. I suppose I’d imagined she’d always be here and I looked forward to seeing what an old lady version of Sinéad might get up to and then suddenly she was gone. In the outpouring of press in the wake of her death, I learned a lot about her and saw many clips and I started to feel embarrassed about my prev

Oct 1, 2024 • 17:57

Missing Writing Practice

One of the things about maintaining a pretty regular practice over the years, is that one really does start to depend on it. In recent years, I’ve hardly ever missed a day of writing. I fight like hell for it and mostly I succeed. It is the anchor in my day, wherever I am and whatever else I’m doing. This is largely possible because I don’t tend to have a lot of other people around me. Other people have needs and the more of them there are, the harder it is to get your own into the mix. This is

Sep 23, 2024 • 13:34

A Goggle Story

When I pulled out my goggles for the first time in a while, I started laughing, remembering when a friend of mine asked me if I’d pulled them out of the pool’s lost and found. I said, “No, these are mine.” He thought they were a child’s goggles because they are a colorful green with a bubblegum pink strap. “Nope,” I explained, “I bought them.” “By accident?” “Nope. Entirely on purpose.” “Why?” To keep reading A Goggle Story visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. This is Episode 4

Sep 16, 2024 • 13:31

I Finally Saw Purple Rain

When Purple Rain came out, I was approaching my eleventh birthday. I wasn’t allowed to go see it but I did have the album. I also saw the videos, though I’m not sure how, as I don’t think we had a TV yet. Forty years have somehow gone by since I didn’t see Purple Rain so I went to an anniversary screening in Brooklyn Bridge Park. I found myself both moved and troubled by the experience. The crowd was amazing. From the opening number of the film, almost everyone was up on their feet, ready to go

Sep 10, 2024 • 22:25

Tips for the Rejected from Someone Oft Rejected

A friend of mine was recently rejected for a job and it stung a bit. They’re someone who hadn’t often had the experience of rejection, having mostly done their own thing where they needed no one’s approval but their own. Honestly, I think this person is better off without this job they were applying for but I sympathize with the pain of rejection, particularly when it’s for the first time, really. As someone who has been rejected hundreds, if not thousands of times, I thought I might help ease t

Sep 2, 2024 • 14:13

Female Opt Out

Now that I have an expensive piece of medical tech installed in my arm, I can no longer go through the body scan when I go through airport security. I flew out of JFK, which, as usual, was an absolute zoo, and when I finally got to the scanning portion of the proceedings, I tried to explain the issue. When they understood, the man shouted “Opt out” and called for “female agent.” The pat down I then received was so thorough, it felt punitive. Like, was it really necessary to run your hand between

Aug 26, 2024 • 17:20

Writing in a Beautiful Place

I’m currently seated on a deck that looks out over the Pacific Ocean, on Bowen Island in British Columbia. I can smell the saltwater from here and hear the lap of the waves. When I look up, I see the mountains and little islands across the bay. Wildflowers dot the hillside. I have an iced coffee and pen and paper. I’m not sure how this scenario could be more idyllic. To read more of Writing in a Beautiful Place visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. This is Episode 409 Song: No Distrac

Aug 19, 2024 • 13:51

A Day at the End of May

The nurse turned pale when she read the glucometer. The whole office kicked into emergency mode and when the doc came in, he let me know I was going to be there a while. My blood sugar was super high and had been super high every time I’d been tested over the last five months but now that I was in this endocrinology office, it was suddenly an emergency. A young man came in to give me an insulin shot and asked me if it was Type One or Type Two and I gave him the biggest shrug I have ever shrugged

Aug 13, 2024 • 24:07

A Different Measure of Success

The little black velvet notebook reappeared and I thumbed through it. I had called it The Adventure Book and at the top of each page, there was an idea I’d written there at some point. I don’t remember why I decided to do that or why I stopped but I assume it was meant to encourage the development of each idea. In re-reading these ideas from I don’t know how long ago, I was struck by how many of them I’d actually made happen.  To keep reading A Different Measure of Success visit the Songs for th

Aug 6, 2024 • 14:26

Print This for Extra Comprehension

A patron of mine sent me a message about receiving my zine, explaining that her husband found it easier to read the paper version because he didn’t really read so much on the computer. I said I understood and felt similarly – that I much preferred paper to reading on-line. Which is funny, really, because I publish most of my stuff on the internet. This exchange made me think of a moment of transition that happened at one of my jobs years ago. It started like this: I’d been working at BAM as a te

Jul 29, 2024 • 14:38

Something Familiar About this Russian Show

Folks over on the Period Drama subreddit recommended the Russian series, Detective Anna, and as previously established, I am a particular fan of period workplace dramas about women, so this seemed right up my street. Anna is not really a detective, though. She has visions of dead people who then help her solve their murders. It’s a ghost detective show, I guess. Like a Pulling Daisies or The Ghost Whisperer or Medium. (There’s a genre now, it seems.) Detective Anna takes place in the late 1800s

Jul 1, 2024 • 15:06

Signature Strengths Seem Neat But Confusing

Because I get my Feldenkrais liability insurance through a massage therapy umbrella, they send me Massage Therapy Journal, which I read, even though I am not a massage therapist. I figure I might learn something. What the heck? In the issue I just finished, they talked a lot about how to avoid burnout and take care of one’s self at work. Much of the content involved identifying one’s top strengths and leaning into them. Now, about a decade ago, I got really into the Strengths Movement which was

Jun 25, 2024 • 20:28

Boxed Up Knowledge

The other night, I found myself watching an interview with a theatre practitioner I admire a great deal. He’s an amazing performer, director, teacher and thoughtful analyst of his craft. I found myself taking notes – adding them to previous documents I’d created, filled with his tips and tricks. But as I was taking notes, full of enthusiasm and excitement, I felt an undercurrent of “Why?” Why was I furiously writing down his clown exercises or his recipe for comic developments? I haven’t put on

Jun 17, 2024 • 13:18

Poor Things AKA Sexy Baby Lady Frankenstein

Despite my appreciation for Yorgos Lanthimos’ earlier work, I was not planning on seeing Poor Things. A lot of my feminist friends were not fans and I figured I could skip it. But then I learned that Kathryn Hunter was in it, playing a madam, and I got curious. (I worked with Kathryn on a show in London a while ago so she’s very dear to me.) So I watched it. Apparently there was a whole conversation around whether or not this was a feminist film. (Answer: not.) But it is, as my friend said, some

Jun 11, 2024 • 16:25

I Would Accept that Time Travel Invitation

The other day, I was feeling so much despair about how things are and where we were headed as a culture. I thought, “If someone showed up with a time machine and asked me if I wanted to go back to the 70s or 80s to live, I’d absolutely say yes.” I told my friend about this feeling and she said, “I’m coming with you.” We figured we should bring her kids and her husband (she was pretty sure they’d want to go, too), and my partner and maybe another friend of ours and her family – if they were up fo

Jun 4, 2024 • 21:09

Documentary Theatre in a Documentary

Despite my swearing off Wrongfully Convicted podcasts, I found myself watching a similarly themed docu-series recently. I was maybe halfway into the first episode before I realized it was a doozy of a wrongful conviction case. Were it not for the theatre element, I might have quit watching right then. I’m glad I stuck around. Mind Over Murder is about the impact a murder had on a small town in Nebraska called Beatrice (Bay-AA-trice). Six people were sent to prison for the crime, then pardoned an

May 28, 2024 • 19:01

Social Media Silos

The venue told us to tag them on social media so they could share our posts. I said, “We’ve tagged you multiple times on Twitter, TikTok and Facebook. Are you not seeing them?” “Oh,” they said, “We’re not active there. I guess it’s really just Instagram.” For some people (mostly Millennials, I guess), “Social media” just means Instagram. I happen to loathe Instagram the most. So for me, I lean toward Twitter and Facebook – but it’s all social media to me. I still post things to Instagram, even t

May 21, 2024 • 15:26

"I Don't Do Zoom"

A friend of mine has developed a show to be performed on Zoom. It’s an innovative concept and she’s doing that innovating in a form where people don’t necessarily expect to see innovation. She asked someone to attend this show and they said, “I don’t do Zoom,” which understandably got under my friend’s skin a little bit. It’s a little like someone saying they don’t go to the theatre when you give them a postcard for your show in a theatre. To keep reading "I Don't Do Zoom" visit th

May 14, 2024 • 19:18

What's Next?

There are probably some artists that aren’t utterly flummoxed by the question “What’s next?” but I am not one of them. It’s usually an inner cascade of “Oh dear god, I don’t know! How will I go on with no real plan! This person just wants a simple answer. I have nothing. No plans. Nothing is next! I’m doomed!” This is not because I don’t have any possibilities on the horizon. I’m just not ready to look at the horizon, particularly if I’m in the middle of a project. Maybe to regular people, with

May 6, 2024 • 16:28

Promotional Tips for Everything

Since I have several podcasts that are now hosted by Spotify, I receive their newsletter (four copies, one for each podcast) which offers podcasting tips. I mostly ignore them, as I have read MANY tips previously and there’s rarely anything new. I clicked on the most recent one though, since it was about how to grow your audience. I’m in the middle of putting out a new podcast so I figured I could use some reminders of that kind of information. Ultimately, there was nothing in it I hadn’t seen b

Apr 30, 2024 • 19:58

Click the Clicks You Want to See in the World

The podcast I was listening to was about the crisis in journalism – about how so many news sites were disappearing, how so many journalists are losing their jobs and about how the landscape was changing so dramatically and not for the better. (This country has lost one third of its newspapers and two thirds of its journalists since 2005 and it is accelerating.) I was only half listening – truth be told. I was still pretty wiped out from COVID and I was dozing a fair amount. But then – after a hi

Apr 23, 2024 • 21:32

Is Anger a Symptom of COVID 19?

On Monday, March 4th, I tested positive for COVID. I tested negative on March 1st when I woke up with a swollen throat and subsequently slept for the later part of the weekend. By Monday, the fever had gone and I was feeling a bit better. But I tested anyway because I had a rehearsal to go to and I wanted to be able to go in clear. Surprise! The thing is – I have been very careful. I’ve rarely eaten indoors at a restaurant. I don’t go indoors for longer than a couple of minutes without a mask. I

Apr 16, 2024 • 19:14

Working on a Theme

Close observers of my work might notice some commonalities between my most recent audio drama, The Defense, and my previous audio drama, The Dragoning. They both feature nice women who develop magical defensive and destructive abilities. They both hinge on fear and power. They are structured very differently and the contexts are not the same, but at the center of both are nice and dangerous women. You might say I’m trying to work something out. We’re in the middle of rehearsing for and recording

Apr 9, 2024 • 14:04

Are They Trying to Go Out of Business?

A while back, I wrote about how they started locking up the toothpaste at my chain pharmacy/drugstore. Since then the drugstore has only expanded their lock-up program. Now, they lock up soap and deodorant and vitamins and eye drops and much more. There were a lot of news stories about this; These big drug stores (CVS, Walgreens, Rite Aid, etc) were claiming that there was a massive theft problem at their stores and they needed help to fix it. But then, those stories were debunked. Not only has

Apr 2, 2024 • 17:14

It's the Indifference that Will Get You

There’s not nearly as much criticism as I expected in this artist’s life. When I got started, I really thought people would be lining up to tell me what was wrong with my work all the time. I think it’s what a lot of people are afraid of when it comes to sharing their creations. What are people going to say? I know now that the thing people are most likely going to say is nothing. I want to be clear that I’m not asking for criticism. Sometimes nothing is better than whatever catty thing someone

Mar 26, 2024 • 18:04

Whisper Acting

We decided to watch the second season of The Wheel of Time (A fantasy adventure show on Amazon) and by the middle of the show, we were laughing our faces off. This was not because the show is funny. It is not. It takes itself very seriously. But we were cracking ourselves up due to the near universal use of Whisper Acting. The Wheel of Time is hardly the first show to go all in on Whisper Acting but they go hard and it happened to be the show where it started to become ridiculous. We started tal

Mar 19, 2024 • 14:57

An Indie Theatre Person Visits Some Casting Sites

In the past few years, when I’ve made theatre or audio drama, I’ve mostly drawn on people who were already in my circle or in the circle of my circle. This is generally my preferred way of doing things, as it allows me to avoid the more businessy side of the business. (I know it’s show business but for me, it’s art.) But this time, neither my circle nor my circles’ circles were big enough to do the job of casting my show. I had to engage with some casting websites. The last time I went to a cast

Mar 12, 2024 • 16:56

Rebroadcast of Performing Arts Going Dark

This surprise re-broadcast is brought to you by COVID 19! Almost four years after COVID came into our lives, I have, for the first time, tested positive. I have literally no idea where I could have picked it up but here we are. So, in honor of my positive test and the upcoming four year anniversary of this business, I give to you this encore episode. It was 195. If you'd like to read it instead, visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. Song: Dragon Ate My Boyfriend Image by Maurici

Mar 5, 2024 • 26:23

Your Favorite Feminist Killjoy Goes to See Six, The Musical

You might think I’d be the target audience for Six. I am, after all, obsessed with reframing old stories so as to give women some power they otherwise might not have in their narratives. But while Six seems to think it’s doing that, it almost feels like the opposite. The premise is paper thin. The six wives of Henry VIII gather together to put on a show and have a contest to see who had it worse. (Spoiler alert?) That’s really all there is to the show.  Each wife sings a song about her troubles

Feb 27, 2024 • 17:25

Introducing The Defense

This is a taste of my new audio drama. You can help us out by subscribing to The Defense, giving it five stars and writing a review! If you've listened to The Dragoning, you'll hear some familiar names and some new ones! A live recording of an audio drama podcast about a group of women grappling with their defense, a seemingly magical power that protects them from harm.  Get a glimpse behind the curtain of live podcast drama. Come see the serio-comic podcast sauce get made, four episod

Feb 20, 2024 • 18:37

It Is So Much Easier to Not Make Things

It’s December. I’m back to putting on a show. I’m doing all the things you have to do to make a show happen. I’m getting a team together. I’m casting actors. I’m writing a press release. I’m crafting a marketing strategy. And at a every inflection point, I think, “Golly this is hard.” I think, “Why did I get myself into this?” And at every turn in the road, I think, “Wouldn’t it be easier to just not?” At every mile marker I feel sure I’ve made an irreversible mistake and failure is inevitable.

Feb 20, 2024 • 14:11

Rebroadcast of I Am a Dragon Now. The Fear of Men Is My Food.

I'm recovering from recording some episodes of my new Audio Drama series, The Defense - so I'm rebroadcasting the inspiration for the previous Audio Drama series (The Dragoning). You'll probably also hear some carryover into The Defense. And I forgot to say during the intro that this post was provoked by the Kavanaugh hearings. * An excerpt: I am nice. I am so nice. My whole life I have been told I am nice. When I received criticism, it was that I was too nice. And not just once e

Feb 13, 2024 • 20:23

Rebroadcast of The Glamour of Grammys - Ep 82

I am without much voice today so I'm rebroadcasting an early episode. Believe me, none of us want to hear my "Easy like Sunday morning" today. And because it was the Grammys yesterday and a lot of people are talking about them, I thought I'd reshare this one. * In the old times, the fairies roamed the green hills. They were powerful and mischievous. There were many varieties of fairy – with different specialties but the power they principally possessed was something called gl

Feb 6, 2024 • 23:09

SEO Is So Dumb

For years I’d been seeing discussions of “SEO” all over my websites. Every company seemed to want to help me improve this SEO business so I eventually looked it up to try and understand it. In case you don’t have six websites the way I do, (I am a maniac. They’re here, here, here, here, here and right here) or maybe you’ve never encountered SEO before or maybe SEO stands for “Sexy Elephant Opera” for you – allow me to explain. In this case SEO is an acronym for Search Engine Optimization. It is

Jan 29, 2024 • 15:38

Some Good News for Some Friends, From the Future

On my way to go see a dance piece, I stopped off at the Drama Bookshop and noticed that they had a collection of plays written by my old friend. I figured I should buy it, since I have a goal to dedicate a shelf, nay, a bookcase, to the work of my friends. Also, I wanted to read the plays. Over the years, we’ve been less in touch so I haven’t managed to see everything or read everything. In our twenties, we were very close. We talked on the phone many nights a week and we’d go out and wander the

Jan 23, 2024 • 14:50

Timeline Confusion on a TV Show

The scene is a flashback. It’s looking like the 60s because the teen is in a silky turtleneck mini dress and the mom’s hair is up, cocktail hour style. But the song is Jim Croce’s “I Got a Name” which came out in 1973, so probably it’s supposed to be 1973 and this group is just rocking their clothes from eight years ago. I mean, that’s how humans are, sometimes. They wear their clothes from the previous decade. Not everyone is in style all the time. And hey, maybe this song isn’t telling us it’s

Jan 23, 2024 • 19:57

An AI Dilemma (in Podcasting and Beyond)

When I heard (in an Audio Drama group), about the AI descriptions taking over podcasts on Goodpods (a podcast platform), I headed straight over to see if my audio drama (The Dragoning) had been subjected to this treatment. It was not, so I moved on with my week, not thinking much of it. Then another audio drama group began to talk about how outrageous and wrong these descriptions were and how they were pulling their shows from the platform. So I went back to check and, still, The Dragoning was u

Jan 9, 2024 • 25:43

Welcome to My Grant Info Session

There are about thirty artists in the classroom that is not designed for a lecture but is being used for one anyway. We are required to attend this information session in order to be eligible for our local arts funding. It is a two hour Power Point presentation about how to fill out the grant form. About an hour into it, the facilitator asked “Are we having fun?” and the silence was deafening. The facilitator is very personable and he’s working so hard to make this content less deadly than it is

Jan 2, 2024 • 25:33

How I Became the #4 Singer-Songwriter in Queens

This week I found out I had reached the #4 spot on the Singer Songwriter charts in Queens. This kind of success doesn’t come around very often in my life so I thought I’d share what I did to make it happen. You know what I did? Absolutely nothing. Not one single thing. Last week, I got a notice that, since I hadn’t logged on in so long, Reverb Nation was going to suspend my account. So I logged in. That’s all I did. I didn’t upload new songs. I didn’t change my profile pics. I didn’t upload a vi

Dec 18, 2023 • 15:18

I May Have Listened to My Last Wrongful Conviction Podcast

As you might have surmised, I listen to a lot of podcasts. I used to do a podcast recommendation of every episode of my own podcast. While True Crime isn’t my top genre, sometimes it can satisfy the itch for an involving, multi-layered mystery. There’s not always a solution or resolution (which I do not find satisfying) but the journey there is usually very compelling. There are a lot of great shows beyond Serial – which may have kicked off the popularity of this genre. I’ve gotten into stories

Dec 12, 2023 • 14:48

Spotify Is Acting Like a Cartoon Villain

Over a decade ago, my friend wished I could be there to sing her baby some lullabies so I recorded some and wrote one specifically for him. Then I burned those songs onto a CD and put them in the mail. I did this for a fair number of my friends with babies for a fair number of years. Then some of the parents of those babies wished they could listen to them on Spotify and so I put them up there and they became available for anyone who wanted them. Now, hardly anyone has a CD player anymore, so I

Dec 5, 2023 • 19:19

Questioning My Sense of History - Or, Some Historical Inquiry Inspired by Deutschland 83

Sometimes you have an awareness of the historical quality of the moment you’re going through. I had a very clear sense that things would never be the same after the eleventh of September, 2001. I could feel the day being engraved in the land, in our memories, in our timelines. But a lot stuff doesn’t FEEL significant while it’s happening, especially childhood events, even if people TELL you a moment is momentous, sometimes it just all blends together in the fabric of a life. I’ve lived long enou

Nov 28, 2023 • 21:44

Some Actor Training You Don't Get in School

When I was in high school and dreaming of being an actor, I read a lot of the major acting texts. I read Stanislavksi. I read Stella Adler. I read Uta Hagen. I read Sanford Meisner. I was particularly enchanted with the Meisner book and tried to square it with the Meisner exercises we’d done at the Governor’s School for the Arts. They didn’t QUITE connect and I could never really apply what I learned to actual shows but I was captivated and all these texts seemed to strive for a more authentic,

Nov 21, 2023 • 15:27

I Wish Lockwood and Co Would Give George a Break

After I finished writing my novel for kids, I realized I was not particularly well versed in what kids were reading these days and so set out to read all the contemporary middle grade fiction I could get my hands on. Top of my list: The Secret Keepers, The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place, The Bromeliad Trilogy, The Girl Who Drank the Moon and Miss Ellicott’s School for the Magically Minded. There’s a lot of great stuff out there. And they tend to be real page turners compared to a lot of a

Nov 14, 2023 • 23:00

More Empress Elisabeth Rage Content (Or, Yes, I Watched Corsage)

After reading a bit about the history of Empress Elisabeth of Austria (because of questions that came up after watching The Empress), I learned of another Empress Elisabeth (AKA Sisi) project in the pipeline. The film, Corsage, was reported to look at the darker side of the empress, dealing with her fatphobia, her tightlacing and obsession with her extremely long hair. After the overly romantic fantasy version of this woman in The Empress, I was ready for a thornier Sisi. I thought this new film

Nov 7, 2023 • 20:37

Why Are You Wasting Your Time Directing?

I’ve been thinking a lot about this thing someone said to me when I was in graduate school. I’d just performed a role I’d always dreamed of playing (Imogen in Cymbeline) and at the cast party was propped up on some chairs resting the ankle I’d twisted during the show. A faculty member came up and complimented my performance (those compliments are lost to my memory) and then said, “I don’t know why you’re wasting your time directing.” Let me give you some context for this very odd compliment. I w

Oct 31, 2023 • 18:39

Can Businesses Do the Business They Do, Please?

By the time I signed up with Patreon, I’d had about thirteen years of fundraising experience. Having started a theatre company in 2001, I’d explored all kinds of ways to fund our work. In the beginning, it was just writing letters and asking for help. (Weirdly, still the most successful method.) Then, as the internet became more integrated into our lives, we watched Charity Donor Portals come and go out of business and then crowdfunding kicked in. We ran campaigns on CrowdRise and Indiegogo and

Oct 24, 2023 • 21:15

Writers Aren't Magic

A writer of my acquaintance recently had an op-ed published in the Washington Post about theatre and what should be done about the death spiral it seems to be in. In the piece, she proposed some ways to fix some of the problems the field has found itself in. She named the difficulties, the history and offered a solution. In watching the response to the article roll in, I was struck by how those who were opposed to her ideas seemed to think the proposal was a plan that was about to be put into pl

Oct 17, 2023 • 19:34

Productivity and the Arts

While I am a big fan of having an artistic practice, (the kind where you just do your art, whether you’re in the mood or not), I’m also a big believer in the power of staring out a window. I think a full artist’s life is a combination of the two – periods of dedicated work or practice and periods of staring out the window. I fear, in our (metaphorically speaking) productivity obsessed world, that the staring out the window piece will be (or has been) lost. One of the reasons to go to an artist’s

Oct 10, 2023 • 15:57

Wait, A Playwright Is an Artist?!

The barista at one of my local coffee spots noticed I’d been gone awhile so when he asked, I told him I’d been in Crete at an artist’s residency. He’s from Cyprus so we had a good old chat about food and language and weather and then I went outside to drink my coffee and write. Mid-write, a man walked up to me and said, “Did I overhear you say you were at an artist residency?” “Yes,” I said. “Oh, what kind of artist are you?” he asked. “I’m a playwright,” I said, which is, of course only part

Oct 2, 2023 • 17:33

The Mysterious Disappearance of My Local Arts Council

Because my play is about Cretan history and the neighborhood I live in is full of Cretans (and other Greeks), I figured I should apply to my local arts council for some hyper local funding. That is, New York State or New York City funding would be too broad, I would need Queens funding. So I went to the Queens Council on the Arts’ website and all that was there was a little box for putting in a password. There was no website there or anywhere. I went to their NYC gov page and it led to several d

Sep 25, 2023 • 16:37

Feminist Art Might Mean Something Different to Us

At this evening of art, artist after artist talked about feminism as a key to understanding their work. “Ok,” I thought, “I’m in a safe crowd. There’s no reason to soft pedal the underlying feminist ideas in my work when I talk about it. I’ll just lay some things out that I usually obscure a little bit.” So, thinking I was in a feminist crowd, I talked about some feminist stuff and explained some of its feminist underpinnings. How quickly I discovered that I had misread the room! Immediately, I

Sep 19, 2023 • 13:52

Was the Residency Productive?

In the past, I’ve made my own residencies – with the assistance of my friends’ generosity of space. These self-styled residencies have always been highly focused and productive dives into a project. But this time, at my first official residency (i.e. not one I made up) I found something quite different than the ones I invented. Funnily enough, I found this group residency not nearly as productive as ones I’ve done on my own. What with so many activities and long leisurely meals and field trips a

Sep 12, 2023 • 19:08

Emily Is Fun

You might be surprised to learn this if you only know me through the blog (or podcast) but once upon a time, I could be counted on to create a bubble of good time around me. It’s one of the reasons it’s not a terrible idea to invite me to your party. (Remember when I asked you to invite me to your party a few years ago? Back in the before times?)  I may tend toward rage, fury and righteous indignation here on the blog but out in the world, I’m generally a reasonably nice and pleasant lady to be

Sep 4, 2023 • 14:06

The One Thing I Might Have in Common with Ron DeSantis

There are so many reasons  I’m glad to be alive in JUST this moment. There are abundant stories to read or watch. I can listen to music anywhere I go. Podcasts are a thing. Migraine medicine is really taking giant leaps ahead. It is a richer world in terms of diversity and representation. So much progress has been made. But as my 50th birthday looms ahead, I find I am also in a kind of mourning for the world I grew up in. Sometimes I feel as though I have been dropped in a strange future and exp

Aug 28, 2023 • 16:39

In Praise of Medicines

I used to be the kind of person who tried not to take any medication. If I had a headache, I’d try to avoid taking anything for it out of some sense of nobility or stoicism. Maybe I thought it made me strong to suffer? Maybe I thought it somehow made me a better person? Now that I know that some of those headaches were probably migraines, I understand that this was exactly the wrong strategy. Pretty much every migraine medication works better the sooner you take it. This tough guy approach of re

Aug 21, 2023 • 16:03

Internet Memories and Fandoms

At some point in my youth, my school brought in these Kid News Shows that we would watch at the start of the day. Logistically, I don’t know how this was possible as we were still in the AV cart era and there surely weren’t enough TVs for all the classrooms. Maybe it was a weekly experience? I don’t know. But I remember these kid reporters. They always seemed a little absurd to me, like, they were playing reporter and taking it all a little too seriously. It felt a little like dressing up a pet

Aug 15, 2023 • 19:52

Some Passport Drama (A Piece in Three Locations)

I’m sitting outside the Tip O’ Neil Federal Building in Boston. I’ve got another hour before I can get in line to pick up my passport, which is the reason I’ve come here. Not just to this building but to Boston. I feel very sure that there is someone from Boston sitting outside the New York passport office at this exact moment. They can’t believe they had to travel all the way to New York to renew their passport while I’m still shocked I had to travel all the way to Boston. American government s

Aug 8, 2023 • 21:36

Joining the Under the Radar Mourners

My friend and I enjoy coming up with more accurate names for performing arts festivals here in NYC. You like the Next Wave Festival at BAM? Me too! We call it the Previous Wave, though, because almost everything in it hit its stride 30 to 40 years ago. Which is not to say it’s not good! Pina Bausch’s company still performs her work with integrity and style. But Pina Bausch died 14 years ago and the last time she was a new up and coming artist was around about 40 or 50 years ago.   Now everyone’s

Aug 1, 2023 • 18:34

The Answer Is Magnets

Before bed, I was reading the third book in V. E. Schwab’s Shades of Magic trilogy. I had a hard time putting it down as our two heroes were in a very tight spot, battling a killer magician creature that could dissipate itself. How were they going to get out of this mess? And, maybe more to the point, how was the writer going to get them out? It took me a while to get to sleep as I was turning over the problem but eventually I began to dream and I woke myself up multiple times in the night, tryi

Jul 25, 2023 • 15:42

Rebroadcast of Still Waiting to Be Discovered

As a child, I wanted to be an actor but I lived in a small city wherein my opportunities were mostly school plays and community theatre. This did not stop me hoping that some director or producer would stumble upon me and whisk me away to Broadway or the movies. I imagined someone like the Hollywood guy in Cold Comfort Farm seeing me somewhere and a light would shine on me the way it does on Rufus Sewell and he’d know I was gonna be a star! The fact that I was a shy, quiet, unremarkable looking

Jul 17, 2023 • 17:37

Rebroadcast of Art, Entertainment and Spongebob Squarepants

This is a rebroadcast of my second most popular blogcast. From the blog; My friend told me about some friends of hers who came to see her dance performance and were clearly pretty baffled by it. She didn’t take this personally because she understood that these friends of hers had no experience of contemporary dance or art in general. What was ironic about these folks with no art experience was that they were convinced they were dedicated arts supporters. They went to tons of Broadway shows after

Jul 10, 2023 • 22:45

You Just Don't Get It, Do You?

While watching the new Perry Mason show, I heard one character say to another, “You just don’t get it, do you?” and I wanted to ring a bell. Ding, ding, ding! Every screenwriter’s favorite line! There was a bit of a stir around a movie clip video supercut a while back which featured one character after another saying, “You just don’t get it, do you?” As you watch, you can start to feel crazy as one person after another says, in almost exactly the same tone (because there’s really only one line r

Jul 3, 2023 • 14:30

Bring Those Knees In, Boys!

TRIGGER WARNING: This piece will devolve into (imaginary) violence and (imaginary) men will be the victims. Also, some strong language. * A few times in the last few months, I’ve gone to the theatre and found I was seated next to a young man. How young, I’m not sure – maybe 20s or 30s? But every time, I find myself contending with their young man knees pressing into mine. It drives me absolutely bananas but I refuse to be knee pressed out of the space to which I am entitled. I’ve sometimes just

Jun 26, 2023 • 16:42

Rebroadcast of Ideas, Glitter and Places to Put Them

I'm out of the country so I'm posting one of my least played blogcasts. This is the tenth episode! From all the way back in 2016. It features an original song that I gave NO context for whatsoever. I feel I must have explained it later? Here's the intro of the piece, though: Over the years I’ve been a part of various schemes that are meant to help artists. Most of the schemes in NYC are schemes to improve our business skills, to make us bigger and more solid institutions. These make

Jun 19, 2023 • 12:51

Replay -Screaming Songs for Men

I had to travel to Boston to get my passport renewed last week for this trip to Canada I'm on right now so I couldn't record the podcast in advance as I'd planned so I'm posting a replay/rebroadcast of my most popular blogcast. Next week I'll re-post one of my least popular - just for balance. I'll be back on the regular schedule when I get back to NYC. For the episode: For the podcast version of the blog, I try and find a song to pair it with – a song that speaks to the

Jun 12, 2023 • 18:36

A Nugget of an Idea

I had an idea. I was thinking about how funny Time can be. How an event can feel like it was just yesterday and ten years ago, all at once.  I wrote to myself, Time Is a Tricky Witch and I liked it. It made me laugh. Then, a whole narrative emerged where Time was a tricky witch who’d enrolled a nice old man with a long beard to represent her – so whenever anyone had a complaint, they went to Father Time instead of her and she was as free to make as much mischief with time as she wanted. To s

Jun 5, 2023 • 14:30

Some Secrets of a Migraine Life

When I was at the height of my Teaching Artist powers, I kept an extraordinarily erratic schedule. One morning I’d have to be in Jamaica by 8 am, the next day, I didn’t have a meeting in Manhattan until 4. The following day I’d be in the Bronx from 10 and some days, I’d have gigs in all three boroughs. Some days I’d have no gigs. I woke up at a different time every day, ate at a different time every day and was rarely in the same place two days in a row. I loved that no two days were exactly ali

May 29, 2023 • 21:04

Part Two of Lessons in Adaptation (from the Disappointing TV Version of The Power)

This Part Two of a Two Part Series on my viewing of The Power. You can read Part One here. Here’s Part Two: Since I started writing this, I’ve watched more episodes – which hasn’t really improved my opinion of the show, though I am grateful that it has shifted out of exposition and into stuff happening. But as stuff happens, characters keep saying, “This is going to change the world.” And while I understand that people really do say that in the midst of crisis, as I’m sure we all heard a lot of

May 22, 2023 • 21:54

Lessons in Adaptation (from the Disappointing TV Version of The Power)

For years now, I have been hotly anticipating the TV version of the novel, The Power. I would occasionally search for it on IMDB or Google, just to see when we might get a televised version of this book that kept me going in some difficult years. I was advised to read The Power by a friend around about the time dragons came into my life and I feel a kinship with Naomi Alderman and the world she created in her book. In case you haven’t read it, it’s the story of a power that teen girls develop wh

May 16, 2023 • 23:36

It Feels Like Cheating

My friend suggested we both apply to this artist residency in Greece. When I looked at it, I noticed there was a fee to attend and I almost didn’t apply – but then I thought about how much I’d love to be on Crete with my friend so I went ahead and submitted for it, hoping to maybe get one of the few fellowships they offer. About a month or so later, I got an email saying I was accepted to the residency and then another saying I had not received the Fellowship. And the worst part, my friend had n

May 8, 2023 • 21:15

Travel through International TV

For a while, I thought my interest in International Television was coming from a desire to escape, to be so far from my own world that I couldn’t even understand the language or the norms. That may still be a factor, but lately I’ve found that watching these things has revealed things about my own culture, the patterns that were underneath that were previously invisible to me because they were just the air I breathe. Of course a TV program is not the culture itself. A TV show tends to reveal thi

May 1, 2023 • 17:24

Theatre Doesn't Have to Be Toxic

Once upon a time in New York City, my friends and I started a theatre company. We’d have readings and rehearsals at our apartments. We made molds for masks in my kitchen. We had snacks and drinks and a generally lovely time. We wrote our first fundraising letter at Yaffa Café in the East Village and rubbed one of their buddha statues’ bellies for luck. The bumps in the road were quickly smoothed and we threw some fun post show parties. We also made some pretty kick-ass magical shows, if I do say

Apr 24, 2023 • 18:46

How to Be a Spotify Top Artist

At the end of the year, Spotify sends everyone (with an account) a summary of their year on the app/website. They’ll tell you your Top Song and your Top Artist – that is, the stuff you listened to the most. Sometimes it’ll assign you a personality based on this information. One year they told me I was Adventurous because I “listen to non-mainstream artists 100% more than the average Spotify listener”.  Aside from the suspect percentage, I liked this personality assignment. I like to be seen as a

Apr 18, 2023 • 24:59

Targeting the Regulars

Last year, I wrote about my experience of giving blood for the first time. I read it again in the process of preparing the 2022 zine – and it made me think about what has happened since. You may remember how genuinely terrible the blood donation folks were at welcoming me, a newcomer. It was clear they were set up for regulars. As soon as I donated, the one time, it was clear that I was now a regular in the system’s eyes. Whereas, before I donated I never heard anything about blood donation, now

Apr 11, 2023 • 16:28

How to Shine a Light on the Dark Corners in Healthcare?

When I was going through the Great Medication Refill Denial Crisis of 2022, very few other people were aware of it, or involved. The receptionists and the pharmacy consultants knew I was struggling. Some friends and family heard about it from me. The doctor who denied the refill may have not even been aware of the repercussions of her actions. There was enormous drama happening in a very dark corner. Then I wrote about it. And I learned that other people I know have gone through similar difficul

Apr 4, 2023 • 15:00

Awards Cost Money

Well – I paid $175 to be considered for an Ambie award for The Dragoning (in the DIY category for low budget productions). The Ambies are the podcast awards that the entertainment business seem to take seriously. They’re discussed in publications like Variety and the Hollywood Reporter. Was it a smart investment to spend $175 to try and get nominated? If we’d gotten selected for the finals, it definitely would have been. But for a return of absolutely bupkiss, it feels like it’s not. It feels li

Mar 27, 2023 • 18:46

People, Trojan Horsing and More Fleishman Is In Trouble Content

Probably because I have now written TWO pieces about Fleishman Is in Trouble, my friend sent me Lizzy Caplan’s interview where she talks about the show, and her role as Libby. My friend figured I’d be interested and he figured right! Lizzy Caplan explains that the writer (Taffy Brodesser – Akner) created the novel as a kind of Trojan horse, a way to trick people into reading/watching a story about a woman. (Tricksy! Didn’t I tell you?) Caplan says, “Libby discovers in our story – that people don

Mar 21, 2023 • 17:27

The Stupidity of Tár

Can anyone introduce me to film critic, Amy Taubin? I discovered her awesomeness when I went searching for some sensible criticism about the much lauded film, Tár, and found her on a podcast talking a great deal of sense. She said, “It has to be one of the stupidest movies I’ve seen in many a long year” and I could not have agreed more. I said something similar, out loud, multiple times, as we watched it (at home, don’t worry. I wasn’t exclaiming in public!). It was a very stupid movie, which wa

Mar 14, 2023 • 17:53

Art or Hobby?

My artist friend was in artistic crisis. We all of us have them and the crises are so clever, they seem to always give us new takes on the theme. There seems to be an endless variety of artistic crises to be had. Knock one down, another, slightly re-framed one, will pop up to take its place. This one my friend was in was a hobby crisis. It’s one where she asked herself something like, “Is my work just a hobby? Other people seem to see it that way.” From the outside, I can tell her, “No, your art

Mar 7, 2023 • 15:21

Writing Experience

I was full of fury. I had so much I wanted to sort through, so much I wanted to unpack and so much to say. Normally, this is a recipe for a white hot blog post that comes streaming out of my pen. But I was entirely jammed up. I didn’t know where to start or how to dive in and I was frustrated, not just by the medical situation that was driving the post but also the struggle to write about it. In talking about it with my friend, he pointed out that for things like the arts and feminist issues, I’

Feb 27, 2023 • 14:08

Smiling on Zoom

The thing about Zoom for me is, I usually end up on the floor crying after the meeting is over. It’s either that or a migraine. I couldn’t tell you exactly why. There are a lot of reasons a human mind might respond negatively to this experience. Could be the cognitive load, the slight asynchrony, constraints on mobility or the many other documented reasons Zoom can be challenging. But all I know is, taking part in any Zoom, be it party, reading, rehearsal or meeting, will result in either sobbin

Feb 21, 2023 • 16:40

Some Gen X Quibbles with Fleishman Is in Trouble

This is going to be a regular thing now, isn’t it? This thing where Millennials play Gen X-ers now? This is going to happen a lot from here on out, I’m starting to realize. I’d already watched seven episodes of Fleishman Is in Trouble but it hadn’t been bothering me much. I was too pre-occupied with how it compared to the book and what had changed and wondering if I felt differently about it as a TV show. But then, Lizzy Caplan’s character went to a barbeque in New Jersey and the scene was just

Feb 14, 2023 • 22:39

Medication Denied. Many Things Questioned.

A week before my scheduled appointment with the woman who was to be my new neurologist, I found out that she explicitly refused to refill my migraine meds. I’d been having trouble getting the refill for weeks and finally got word that it was intentional. This medication significantly reduces the numbers of migraines I get and is a key component to my maintaining a decent quality of life. Refusing my access to it was essentially guaranteeing me pain, suffering, loss of work, loss of pleasure, los

Feb 7, 2023 • 24:46

I Love Your Terrible Show

Sometimes someone you love makes a work of art of which you are not a fan. You wish you liked it but really, you think it stinks. If it’s a piece of performing art work, like some theatre or some dance or some music, you might sit through it trying to understand why this person you love has worked so hard on something so terrible. This feels bad. Sometimes we don’t go and see the work of people that we love just to avoid the feeling. It’s not so much that we’re afraid to have to talk to them abo

Jan 31, 2023 • 19:22

Can Gen X Women Play Gen X Women Please?

It was the publicity photo that filled me with rage. In it, star reporters, Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, stand like bookends around actors, Carey Mulligan and Zoe Kazan, who are leaning on a ladder. I’ve got nothing against ladders or any of the people involved but still the photo made me mad. Here we have two of our Gen X heroes, two women who heroically chased down a thorny story, putting themselves at risk and for no reason at all, other than “Hollywood” they are being portrayed by two young

Jan 24, 2023 • 16:38

In Which I Read that Dragon Book - Part 4 - The Final Chapters

Finally, after three more endings, I have finished this book. In addition to the last chapters, I also read the acknowledgements. If I’d known how furious the experience of reading all this would make me, I would not have read it before bed – but alas, there I was at 3:18am, raging at the ceiling. The book itself turned out to be pretty low impact. The sister turns dragon and wins a Nobel Peace Prize. The dragons put an end to war; All war is over. (I may have injured my eyes rolling them at thi

Jan 17, 2023 • 21:32

In Which I Read that Dragon Book, Part Three

If you’ve been playing along, I’ve been reading this book due to its weird commonality with both my dragon blog and my audio drama. You can read or listen to Part One and/or Part Two. I will spoil this book for you so if you want to be surprised by anything that happens, skip this one. Not that that would be a big deal, actually. NOV 8 I’m back in the game with When Women Were Dragons. I had apparently read 78% before it was returned to the library. So we’re back on the horse (or dragon) with 22

Jan 10, 2023 • 12:58

The Death of Gatsby and the Scene

Around about the time I was coming of age, my hometown was becoming a scene. Our hometown band was about to hit the mainstream and art was seeping out of every corner of the place. There were plays in bars, on the street, in art galleries. There was an artist who sold his paintings for $3 and also painted the walls and restrooms of restaurants all over town. His work was everywhere. It was a heady moment. Into that heady moment, stepped a man who my friends and I called Gatsby, because he was al

Jan 3, 2023 • 25:30

A Moment with Ferlinghetti

Maybe it’s the weather today, which has a kind of air that feels like San Francisco, but for whatever reason, I flashbacked to the time I met Lawrence Ferlinghetti. It was my first time in San Francisco, and I’d already been to City Lights, hoping to lay eyes on him, this poet who’d inspired me in my teens. I used to make artworks out of his poems. I’d photocopy my favorites, paste them to a newspaper front page and paint around them. She was very earnest, teen Emily. Anyway – early twenties Emi

Dec 27, 2022 • 12:59

Cheffing and Cooking in Education

It’s been a while since I’ve been in a classroom but an interview about my time at BAM and a journey through some old files have gotten me thinking about it some. It feels like I miss it a little bit and I’ve been trying to work out what part of it is still calling to me. I’m not nostalgic for being in a classroom. I suppose I miss being with the students some but I don’t miss the toxic environments that most schools tend to be. I think what I really miss is inventing exercises. That’s the creat

Dec 20, 2022 • 15:24

The Empress' Shoes

It was the shoes that made me suspicious. It was either the kind of story that was true and became the central story of this woman’s history OR it was entirely invented. So I went looking for some historical context for The Empress, a German TV show about Elisabeth of Austria. I learned a lot, though found nothing about the shoes. I’ll come back to them later. The show is delightful; I’m not going to lie. It is a fun romantic period drama full of court intrigue and historical detail. I am enjoyi

Dec 13, 2022 • 18:34

The Free Ride Mystery

When I ran my Metrocard through the turnstile, it came up Insufficient Funds and I frowned and looked around for the machines to fill it up. (I was not in my usual station so it wasn’t immediately obvious.) As I walked away, I heard this police officer call me back. There’d been three of them lounging by the turnstiles and one of them had come forward and was offering to swipe me in. I was baffled but not about to argue. He told me to have a nice day and off I went, very confused. As I rode home

Dec 6, 2022 • 13:16

Making Shakespeare Accessible

In an interview about my work in Shakespeare education, I was asked what we did to make Shakespeare accessible to the students. I couldn’t help but laugh. To me, it’s like asking, “How do we make hip hop accessible to the students? How do we make Marvel movies accessible?” You don’t have to make Shakespeare accessible. It just is. Does everyone love it? Nope. That’s ok. Not everyone loves Marvel movies either, believe it or not. But put a really fantastic Shakespeare play in front of students an

Nov 29, 2022 • 20:36

A Visit from the TikTok Fairy Godfather

The video made me cry. It was clearly meant to – and it succeeded. It’s the one where the young man asks the stranger – an old man with his walker – if he’ll go to Disneyland with him and they go to Disneyland and have a fantastic time and at the end, the old man (100 years old, a veteran, we’re told) tries to express what the day has meant to him and cries. He says he thought his life was over. It is moving and very sweet. And very popular. I saw the TikTok video on Twitter where it had million

Nov 22, 2022 • 14:23

Playwright in a Novel, Playwright in a Film

This book I’m reading is not the first book to do this, but it is the latest and it is enough of a trend that, when it happened in this book, I may have said, out loud, “Oh no, not this again.” It’s this thing where novelists and screenwriters put a playwright in their piece. In these works, the playwright always becomes super successful and gets famous and rich and, I have to assume, receives all the accolades the writer dreams of, but in theatre form. My sense is that they do this because they

Nov 14, 2022 • 16:45

Your Work Isn't Trash

My storage unit was filled with show shit. That is, it was full of props, set pieces, costumes, puppets, mask molds, rehearsal materials, marketing stuff and lots of random creative remains. I hadn’t seen these things in a long while so when it began to emerge, I said, “Well, a lot of this is going in the garbage!” Meanwhile, it’s complicated. I saved a lot of this stuff out of a sincere hope that I’d find a way to produce the shows again. I have those giant gold frames, the hat boxes and the po

Nov 8, 2022 • 10:52

Part Two of In Which I Read that Dragon Book

This is part two of my journey of reading When Women Were Dragons. If you want to know why I’m reading this, catch up with my questions around plagiarism here. If you want to read Part One, start here. And I’m just a fountain of spoilers so skip this one if you’re wanting to be surprised by anything that happens in this book. Now PART 2 September 4 I can really feel how Barnhill is a children’s book writer. I’m actually surprised this book is being sold as one for adults. The narrator is a child

Nov 1, 2022 • 25:05

In Which I Read that Dragon Book

In a wave of curiosity, I put myself on the waiting list for my library’s digital copy of When Women Were Dragons, the novel that came out this year in which a dragoning is a featured event. (I wrote about this funny “coincidence” not so long ago.) The wait was going to be months long so I figured I didn’t have to read it – but it would be on my list should I want to. When it suddenly became available, I didn’t WANT to read it but I also couldn’t help myself. What is this book’s deal? I started

Oct 25, 2022 • 18:54

I Also Know Victoria's Secret

There’s a song by a young woman, that has emerged via Tik Tok, that is extremely popular, called “Victoria’s Secret.” In it, she (she goes by Jax) reveals that the secret of Victoria is that she was made up by a dude. It’s a fun pop tune about body empowerment, with Victoria’s Secret at the center. It’s a super catchy song and I recommend the video on her Tik Tok which is a flash mob video in front of a Victoria’s Secret. I’ve had the song in my head pretty much since I heard it. And every

Oct 17, 2022 • 12:21

Thinking About Respectability in Law and Theatre

Mostly I don’t worry about respectability. I’m aware that I work in fields that lack a certain respectability and that by operating at the margins, I do not rank high on a lot of people’s respectability scales. I notice it particularly in the comments on anything that proposes providing support for artists (for housing, basic income, anything – “Why should we help these people who don’t even do a regular job for a living?”). I have made a kind of peace with my lack of respectability and can some

Oct 10, 2022 • 16:16

Gluttons for Our Doom

You will likely not be surprised to learn I was crazy for the Indigo Girls in my youth. When I learned to play guitar, it was Indigo Girls’ songs that I particularly focused on. I didn’t learn the entire Nomads, Indians and Saints songbook but I got pretty close. In those days, we bought songbooks. There were no chords on the internet since there wasn’t much internet. Somehow in the last couple of decades, I’d lost track of what the Indigo Girls were making (along with almost every other band I

Oct 3, 2022 • 19:55

Put Up Your Dukes

In case it’s not completely obvious, I’m a fairly conflict averse person. I hate when people argue. I get anxious when tensions rise. I do not enjoy a debate. I would almost always prefer to exchange smiles then to exchange “words” with anyone. Sometimes, on-line, people will think I like heated “discussions” because I have strong opinions and I express them through this particular medium. Just for the record, I do not. I will do a LOT to avoid a heated “discussion.” As the time for jury deliber

Sep 20, 2022 • 12:46

An Applause Button for Podcasts

When I started my first podcast six years ago, I quickly discovered that it was a low engagement form. Podcasts aren’t easy to share and the platforms that they’re on, and the medium they’re made of, don’t make it easy for people to respond. If you’ve ever been listening to a podcast and felt the impulse to share it, you know how challenging that can be. My listeners manage it with tweets and retweets and Facebook comments – but there’s no direct way to tell me they liked it or to share it with

Sep 13, 2022 • 14:02

We Need Fiction in Schools

I was thinking about how important the study of fiction has been to me and to my peers and what a shame it is that these muscles have been un-exercised in many American schools. I was thinking about it because I was on a jury and the process of deliberation felt familiar somehow and it wasn’t just because I’ve had to teach 12 Angry Men a few times. One of the things that surprised me about my fellow jurors was how much they were inclined to just make things up. Several of them came up with “theo

Sep 6, 2022 • 13:28

That Thing Playbill Said About Peter Brook

If you’re not a theatre nerd, you may not be aware of the stature that Peter Brook, theatre luminary who recently died at age 97, had with us theatre folk. His book, The Empty Space, is the sort of text your theatre friends are likely to wax rhapsodic about. It has changed a lot people’s lives and inspired many a theatre maker to make more artful, high minded art. The Empty Space encourages us to both be simpler and more exacting in our work. He talked about how theatre is as simple a

Aug 30, 2022 • 17:42

Rebroadcast of This Hour's for You

I'm out of town so I'm re-posting an episode from 2019 that I felt could use another go. I've been thinking a lot about this again this week. Here's This Hour's for You from September 2019: I read Brigid Schulte’s article, A Woman’s Greatest Enemy? A Lack of Time to Herself, and something snapped. I am not just taking time for myself, for my art, though it can feel that way. I am also taking time for all the women who can’t spare an hour. By taking time for myself the way Popeye takes spinach,

Aug 23, 2022 • 23:16

The Theatre of the Court

In one of the videos they play for jurors, the narrator explains the Court as being a lot like Theatre. He explained the roles and the conflict, the set and the setting. I was intrigued by this explanation because, as a theatre maker, I would not assume people understood theatre any more than they do a court. If court is a show, though, it is not necessarily a good one. To read more of The Theatre of the Court visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. This is Episode 317 Song: Jackso

Aug 16, 2022 • 20:57

Is This a Dragon Zeitgeist?

As many of my readers will be aware, back in 2018, provoked by the Brett Kavanaugh hearings, I wrote a piece called “I Am a Dragon Now. The Fear of Men Is My Food.” A few months after that piece went around, elements of it poured themselves into a piece that became The Dragoning, an audio drama podcast. The podcast came out in the spring of 2020 and Season Two just launched. I’m taking you through this timeline because here, in 2022, an award winning author has published a novel called When Wome

Aug 9, 2022 • 18:14

What I Was Supposed to Get Out of Jury Service and What I Got Instead

People like to tell you that being a part of a jury for a trial gave them a new sense of appreciation for the court system. The videos preparing you for jury service like to report that people say this as well. I might have thought this would happen to me, too, but in fact, it was something like the opposite. The whole experience made me incredibly sad. Now that it’s over, I can tell you why. Warning: there’s a lot about bowels in this case. I was selected to serve in a civil suit brought by a p

Aug 1, 2022 • 17:26

Men Most Macho in Theatre

When I saw Ray Liotta had died, I was shocked and saddened. I was a fan of his work and he seemed like a good human. In his honor, I listened to an interview he did with Marc Maron on the WTF podcast a few years ago and enjoyed learning more about him and his journey. It did make me think, though. And it did make me wish for change in the way we do show biz. Apparently, Liotta had no real interest in acting when the opportunity to do it presented itself to him. He got talked into auditioning for

Jul 25, 2022 • 13:41

Do I Make Media?

For jury duty, we had to fill out information about ourselves that the lawyers then used as conversation points during jury selection. The first lawyer looked at my occupation (writer, podcaster, theatre maker, performer, Feldenkrais practitioner) and said something that I couldn’t understand at first. He said, as a statement, not a question, “You work in (unintelligible).” As I tried to work out what he’d said, he asked, “You’re a podcaster?” This I knew what to do with. Yes. I am a podcaster.

Jul 19, 2022 • 14:39

Melt the Guns

Whenever I see a story about gun violence and it makes me feel sad and angry and helpless, I tweet a link to the XTC song, “Melt the Guns.” I don’t say what it’s for. I just tweet the song. It’s not a project. I don’t feel like I need to stay up to date with shootings so I can catch them all or anything. There are too many for that. If you tracked all the tweets, you could probably connect them to the news story fairly easily. Not that there’d be much point in doing that. It’s just, you’d be abl

Jul 12, 2022 • 16:00

My Real Job

For years, I was haunted by a man with a briefcase who followed me everywhere I went. He wore a suit and a hat and he was always popping his head around corners, wondering if I was ready to accept My Real Job. He was kind of creepy and very persistent and, of course, a figment of my imagination. Picture Mr. Slugworth in the Willy Wonka movie from 1971, sneaking around alleys. He hadn’t always been personified. Before I put a face to him, he was just a concept, a fear that hung around, making me

Jul 5, 2022 • 13:38

No Right to Be Disappointed in Me

An artist friend told me about a dream they had in which one of their artistic teachers asked what they’d been up to in such a way that suggested great disappointment in this artist’s achievements. The artist was stunned and speechless. For a lot of artists, this is a highly relatable dream. Many of us had teachers or colleagues that felt we had a lot of potential in our youth and while most of them don’t come right out and say, “What happened?,” we can feel their disappointment. They thought we

Jun 28, 2022 • 12:59

The Ship Is Turning

There was a week when a lot of good things happened at once. It felt so strange and I realized that I had grown very used to things going either badly or just sort of going. It felt like I’d been on a giant ship and it had, for years, been headed toward desolation. I’m not sure I was fully aware I was on a ship headed toward desolation. If you’d asked me, “Are you on a big ship?” I’m not sure I’d have said yes. It’s a metaphor I was not conscious of at all until it started to shift. To keep read

Jun 21, 2022 • 16:30

Maybe Stick Around Twitter a Little While Longer?

Twitter has never been my drug. I wasn’t into it when it started and I only begrudgingly wade in there now. I used to set a timer for ten minutes so I could get in and get out. I’m not a fan of it but it’s where a lot of people are, so I feel obligated to check in with it and participate. I feel the same way about Instagram and TikTok. I have about five minutes of tolerance on those platforms before I am done. Facebook is stickier for me. Most of my friends and family are there. I love them. I l

Jun 13, 2022 • 18:22

How to Be with a Grieving Person

There are a lot of things I wish I’d known when friends and family have lost loved ones in the past. I wish I could have known them without knowing such grief myself but unfortunately that is how I learned it. I noticed that those who have experienced a loss like mine were the most adept at engaging with me in a difficult time. It is a skill forged in tears, it would seem. I know people worry about what to say to someone who’s lost someone – so a lot of times folks just don’t reach out at all. T

Jun 7, 2022 • 17:39

Confusing Art with Money

With a couple of decades in the indie theatre trenches behind me, I have some complicated feelings around money and art. I believe in paying artists. I think it’s important to give value in a monetary form to people who create. I fight hard to make it happen as often as I can. But I would much prefer to work with a group of people who aren’t doing it for the money. As soon as money gets involved, there’s always someone who starts treating me like I’m PepsiCo and makes demands, defines rigid term

May 31, 2022 • 17:33

Do People Really Have an Aversion to Creativity?

The science in it seems sketchy and it’s not clear which people this may be true for – but the New York Times put out this article about how there’s a Creativity Problem and it feels true to me. Obviously, my feelings are not good science but if what this article posits is correct, a lot of people have a subconscious aversion to, or are pretty ambivalent about, creativity. They’ll say they like it, that they want it, that creativity is valuable to them. Then underneath, their subconscious seems

May 24, 2022 • 14:22

Crowdfunding the Arts Doesn't Work

My theatre company is over twenty years old. We started in 2001 and we’ve seen some things. For our first show, we raised funds by writing a letter – yes, an actual paper letter – and we mailed it to anyone we thought might write us a check. This worked pretty well. I’d have to double check the numbers but it’s not impossible that it was the most effective fundraising we ever did. There are a couple of reasons for that, I imagine. One is the First Steps Toward a Dream Effect. This is the thing w

May 17, 2022 • 20:15

Should I Try to Work with Egotistical D-bags?

The minute I met the artistic director of that Shakespeare company, I thought “Oh he’s an egotistical douchebag.” Then I saw his show. I did not want to like it but it wasn’t terrible. I mean, the thing with doing Shakespeare is, the text is always interesting so as long as you don’t get in the way too much, it’s possible to put on a decent show, even if you’re an egotistical douchebag. To read more of Should I Try to Work with Egotistical Douchebags? visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist bl

May 10, 2022 • 20:42

In Praise of the Monologue

Despite having written and created an audio drama podcast made up entirely of monologues, before now, I’d have told you I hated monologues. When casting actors, I would never ask for a monologue for the audition. I felt sure they could tell me nothing about what an actor would do in a show. I know I have delivered a few rants on the subject before. I could not fathom why preparing one classical and one contemporary monologue became a norm. As a director, I found them useless. My feeling was a mo

May 3, 2022 • 15:27

Predicting the Grief Weather

This one's about grief. A few days after my brother was killed, I was scheduled to give a Feldenkrais lesson to a new client. We’d been planning it for months and I hadn’t had work in ages so it seemed reasonable to keep the appointment. I figured it would be good to have something to do as I was mostly just walking around crying. Despite my best efforts, it did not go well. We did not connect and a few days later she wrote to say she was going with another practitioner. It’s highly probab

Apr 26, 2022 • 15:42

Three Hundredth Episode - Horn Blowin' Time!

As I surely have said before, I am not fond of tooting my own horn but only a handful of others will toot their horns for me so if my horn needs tooting, the task generally falls to me. I have to seek out the milestones, keep the markers in sight and just generally seek out opportunities for self horn tooting. It’s tooting time again. I’m writing this in anticipation of my Three Hundredth Episode of the podcast version of this blog. The blog is almost 14 years old. The podcast turned six this mo

Apr 19, 2022 • 17:35

The Theatre Theater Problem and the Intermission

If it’s not entirely obvious, I’m a THEATRE person. I am not a THEATER person, not really. This is partly a silly distinction of spelling and partly a really serious long-standing American problem. And before I go any further with this, let me acknowledge that I now think I’m on the wrong side of this divide. It’s a side I’ve fought for, one that I reinforce every time I spell my company’s name or website or email address, and one I somehow cannot seem to let go, no matter how on the wrong side

Apr 11, 2022 • 19:41

The Macintosh in Tick, Tick...Boom!

In the first couple of minutes of the film, the character of famous theatre writer, Jonathan Larson, introduces us to the year (a pan shot of a Calvin and Hobbes calendar that reveals it is January 1990) and a lot of his stuff. He tells us about his two keyboards, his music collection and his Macintosh computer. My brain did a little record scratch of “Huh?” at this but I had a movie to watch so I watched it, occasionally squinting my eyes at his machine when he’d type a single word on that comp

Apr 5, 2022 • 24:32

Have You Ever Used This Before?

There’s a great Thai restaurant in my neighborhood where we would always get the same thing – the Sukhothai soup with wide ribbon noodles. They used to, before they brought the soup, bring out a little caddie with various toppings, a bottle of fish sauce and a container of peanuts and every time, they’d say, with exactly the same tone and phrasing, “Have you ever used this before?” We’d say yes and proceeded to enjoy the soup with the confidence that we were approaching the condiments appropriat

Mar 29, 2022 • 17:17

Context Is Everything: A Gen X Look at the Lost Daughter

There’s a little bit of a conversation happening in feminist circles around the movie The Lost Daughter, written and directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal. I felt it was my duty, as a feminist on the internet, to watch it. I didn’t really think I’d have anything to SAY about it necessarily but I like to be informed and it turns out I do have something to say. Funnily enough my thoughts are probably more Gen X related than feminist related, though. I suppose at its heart it’s Gen X feminism that’s gotten

Mar 21, 2022 • 25:35

This Reboot Sucks

I guess I never imagined a dystopia would be so dull. Dystopian novels are full of marauding bands and dramatic battles. This is like sitting in the waiting room of a corporate marketing agency, waiting to join a focus group you really don’t want to join but are hoping they’re going to pay you enough to make the trip worthwhile. Just sitting here. Waiting for someone boring to call your name. In a mask. When the pandemic hit NYC in March of 2020 – and all of the performing arts shut down, when n

Mar 15, 2022 • 19:36

My Pandemic Guide to International TV - Part Two

Last week, I took us (mostly) to Spain, Italy and Turkey. And now it’s on to France, Germany, Mexico, Colombia, Brazil and beyond. To read this Pandemic Guide to International TV, visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. This is Episode 294 Song: Se Essa Rua Fosse Minha Image via Pixabay To support this podcast: Give it 5 stars in Apple Podcasts. Write a nice review! Rate it wherever you listen or via: https://ratethispodcast.com/strugglingartist Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainb

Mar 8, 2022 • 21:49

My Pandemic Guide to International TV - Part One

My guess is that international TV got its hooks into me these last two years because there’s something about getting so far away from the world I live in, they don’t even speak my language. Or maybe the extra “labor” of reading subtitles kept my attention when it was inclined to wander? Or maybe it’s like traveling in a period where I mostly just saw the kitchen table? Whatever the reason, the various streaming platforms have afforded me the opportunity of diving into international TV shows galo

Mar 1, 2022 • 18:31

The Women's Lane

Rebecca Solnit recently posted this essay that Mary Beard wrote back in 2014. It’s about women speaking in public and the ways classical culture was built around telling women to shut up. Also about how that trend has continued. It’s brilliant for all the reasons Mary Beard is often brilliant but the thing that feels like new information for me is the bit about women generally only being allowed to have a voice on matters that pertain to women. The one exception to the impulse to silence women i

Feb 22, 2022 • 19:56

Thrashing Acceptance

As winter approached, I freaked out a little. The idea that we were looking down the barrel of a third pandemic winter just zorked my feelings up. (Yes, I know that’s not a real word. I had to make one up; That’s how zorked up my feelings were.) I wanted to run but there was nowhere to run to. The pandemic is freaking everywhere. You can’t escape it. It’s better in some places (a lot better!) but those places sure as hell don’t want my New York ass in their uncovidy environs. I had a couple of p

Feb 15, 2022 • 24:13

Waterworks at the Street Circus

When I walked up to check out the booths at Open Streets (the program that closes down/opens up a couple of blocks to give the neighborhood more public space) I wasn’t prepared for a show. When I approached the second block, I saw a crowd and a truck and then I saw some clowns getting the crowd fired for their circus. Their performance style was so familiar, I almost just walked away – feeling an habitual “I know what this is. I don’t need to watch it.” But then I found myself not walking away.

Feb 8, 2022 • 18:08

Inspiration Obstacles

Ladies and Gentlemen, Whales and Snails, Lobsters and Crabs, Crayfish and Crawlers: I have something of a reputation for keeping going in the face of difficulty. I am a self-proclaimed shark and I swim ever forward. I hold space for people who once stood where I stand and need me to keep going as a sort of beacon. That is a responsibility I take very seriously and I hold that beacon high, my squids and octopi. But I have to confess to you that my arm has gotten very tired of holding that beacon

Feb 1, 2022 • 22:11

The Face I Made Up

In the year or so of going to this café, I have only ever seen the owner in mask – until yesterday. Yesterday, he was outside working on his shed and he was without his mask. For the first time, I saw the lower half of his face and if he hadn’t greeted me warmly and started chatting, I would never have recognized him. I am fascinated by this trick of my brain. Put a piece of fabric over this guy’s face, I could easily pick him out of a crowd. Without it, I think I’ve never seen him before. It’s

Jan 25, 2022 • 15:16

I'm Sorry But the Temptation to Say This Will Be Great

My favorite café closed and it was really the only choice in this particular neighborhood, which I pass through with some frequency. In the interim, someone has opened a chain café that has some decent outdoor seating on a spacious sidewalk so I’ve ended up there a few times when I’m in the area. The place is called Joe and the Juice and it’s important that you know its name as I tell you about it because its name is the key to this story. To keep reading I'm Sorry But the Temptation to Say This

Jan 18, 2022 • 16:45

My Genius Idea for a Book

I just remembered this absolutely genius idea for a book I had about 25 years ago. When you hear it, you’re going to be like, “Yeah! What a brilliant idea! What a shame you didn’t put that together! You’d be a millionaire already!” Here it is: A guide book of cafes around the country, with reviews and photos and maybe little drawings and scraps of writing I’d done in them. Can you believe I missed out on this golden opportunity? To keep reading My Genius Idea for a Book visit the Songs for the S

Jan 11, 2022 • 13:15

The One Who Called 911

The one I can’t stop thinking about is the person who called 911, the person who witnessed the accident that killed my youngest brother. I feel enormous tenderness for that person, even though I know nothing about them. The only thing I know is that they saw the accident and called 911. They will likely have the image of it in their brain forever. I have an imaginary version of it in my brain that will likely be with me for as long but the caller has the actual event there in their brain. I’m su

Jan 4, 2022 • 18:59

Now Is the Winter of My Discontent

The temperature has dropped. I pulled my winter coat out of the closet. Our third pandemic winter has begun. Last year, I sat writing under the heat lamps outside at the Toast and Roast, grateful not to have to be at my kitchen table to write but dreaming of the day we’d get the vaccine and I could safely sit inside a café again. And here I am. Back outside at the Toast and Roast (the only coffee place with heat lamps in my neighborhood) despite the fact that I have been vaccinated and have been

Dec 28, 2021 • 18:41

"What's a PDF?"

Because I’d read some interesting criticism/praise of the TV show, Younger, I decided to check it out, despite it NOT being a Spanish TV show. (Truthfully, I have expanded into TV from France, Colombia, Italy, Germany, Brazil and Turkey at this point, so it’s more like: despite it not being an international period drama.) The premise is that a 40-ish year old woman pretends to be 26 so she can get a job in publishing. She’s played by Sutton Foster who is, according to Wikipedia, currently 46 and

Dec 21, 2021 • 20:14

Maybe I Should Go Into Business

Creativity is incredibly important to me. That’s why I read Jonah Lehrer’s book, Imagine: How Creativity Works, even though he’s been disgraced for being a little too “creative” with his Bob Dylan quotes. Before he got himself disgraced, he made all the podcast rounds so not much of the book was a particular surprise to me. I’ve heard the story of the invention of the Swiffer. I know all about Pixar’s architecture. I am familiar with 3M’s post-it note development. However, the cumulative effect

Dec 13, 2021 • 17:05

Inclusive Gatekeeping

The application form asked my age, so I answered the question and submitted my application. But after I did, I started to worry. Should I have skipped that question? Should I have submitted it to Honor Roll, the group of women playwrights over 40 that works to combat ageism and sexism in American theatre? Had I just set myself up for being rejected by revealing that I am 48? The form asked. I answered. I’m not yet used to being vigilant on this topic. I tried to be attentive to ageism before it

Dec 7, 2021 • 15:03

Give Me Your Witches, Your Ghouls, Your Severed Limbs Hanging in Trees

The cheerful scarecrow dolls and corn cob clusters don’t thrill me but I will celebrate any nod toward decoration this month. I embrace your paper pumpkin, your hay bale, your autumnal faux leaf display. But I am delighted by your circle of witches, your zombie doll babies, your floating spectres, your plastic bag ghosts, your homemade headless magician, your skeletons engaged in activities, your dagger wielding clown child on a swing, your smoke machine, your sound effects, your back-lit and up

Nov 30, 2021 • 13:59

Circles of Gen X Friends

Someone in the Gen X subreddit proposed a “dating” app for making Gen X friends. I expressed my enthusiasm for it, saying it appealed to me because most of my Gen X friends have moved out of NYC. Someone replied that they still had a lot of Gen X friends in NYC and I did not respond to that person with a hearty sarcastic, “Well good for you! Aren’t you a lucky one?” Though I wanted to. I did not say, “I guess most of your friends didn’t move to NYC to chase their theatre dreams or their art drea

Nov 23, 2021 • 15:58

Lessons from Italian Media

Back in 1993, I got my first passport and moved to Italy for my junior year abroad. One of the things I was most excited about was getting to see the culture and art of an entirely different country. The internet was in its infancy then, so going places was really the only way to see what other nations were making. I was hungry for Italian pop, Italian TV, Italian cinema, Italian theatre, whatever I could get my eyes and ears on. I understood, too, that watching and listening to these things wou

Nov 16, 2021 • 24:25

The Internet Is Not a Friend

In the throes of my grief, I thought I’d just go along as normal, just get on the internet, see what’s what. You will be stunned to learn that the internet did not make me feel any better! Over and over, I turned to the internet and over and over, it did not help. Not Facebook, not Twitter, not Reddit, not Instagram. Shocking, I know. To keep reading The Internet Is Not a Friend visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. This is Episode 277 Song: Somebody Pick Up My Pieces Image via Old Boo

Nov 9, 2021 • 19:40

A Grant Ain't One

You may not be shocked to learn that the City did not give me one of its 5k City Artist Corps Grants. I did end up applying for it, after all that sturm und drang – and two days after my birthday – I got a rejection email from them. Happy Birthday to me! Well, I guess I got 99 problems but a grant ain’t one. You may be saying to yourself – “Well, Emily, perhaps if you hadn’t publicly complained about this grant in two previous blog posts, maybe they would have given it to you! Maybe badmouthing

Nov 2, 2021 • 14:21

Non-Regulation Time Machine Dream

A day or two after the news, my partner asked me what I needed. I said, “a time machine.” I’m pretty sure he knew what I wanted to do with it. I’ve watched and read enough time travel fiction to know that this is usually the one thing you’re not allowed to do with a time machine if you get your hands on one. You’re not supposed to use time travel to prevent someone’s death. I know. But grief can make a person reckless and I might not worry too much about the butterfly effect if I could save my b

Oct 26, 2021 • 15:19

In Which I Attempt to Reflect on the 20th Anniversary of the Things

Y’all know me. I love to reflect. Reflecting on stuff is my favorite thing and I do it on the regular. But I’m having some trouble reflecting on this 20th anniversary of 9-11. I want to. It seems important to, especially as this is also the 20th anniversary of the birth of my theatre company, but – like, my brain just sort of dances around it and will not settle. I’m much more interested in the three young women next to me at this outdoor patio of this café. They were recently college stud

Oct 19, 2021 • 19:16

The Time Machine of Music

Music can be a time machine. Play Duran Duran’s “Rio” and I am instantly transported to a carpeted spot in front of the Barbie doll mansion I’d created in my closet in the mid 80s. Put on Primus’ “Nature Boy” and I’m in a cargo van in 1997 with several Shakespeare dudes who are wildly flinging themselves around, while the Shakespeare dude driver nods his head in time. I did not like this song at the time but now I do, not just because I’m angrier these days, but because of how quickly it can ret

Oct 12, 2021 • 23:13

Every Word I Wrote

After the death of an old friend, I went on an excavation of old writings in my computer. I went back 24 years to find a poem I’d written about this friend and waded through so much writing I hadn’t thought about in decades. The thing that stood out to me about this process and encountering the self that made it all was how much I used to believe that what I made would eventually be read or seen. I didn’t necessarily think all those poems would be published – certainly I didn’t feel that poetry

Oct 5, 2021 • 14:15

A Body of Work

One thing I’ve always been mildly obsessed with has been creating a body of work. It’s an odd thing for a theatre person – given that the art form is so deeply enmeshed in the present and is mostly ephemeral – but I’ve been concerned with it for as long as I can remember. I think I only started to understand how unusual it was in recent years, while looking at other theatre company’s websites. They will often only feature their current show – with no information or photos or descriptions of show

Sep 28, 2021 • 16:58

Making "Something"

In response to my post about the $5k arts grant, several sweet well-meaning people offered some suggestions for stuff I could do to take advantage of it. There were project suggestions and ideas for ways to game the system. But the parts I can’t stop thinking about are the suggestions that featured “making something” because that “something” is exactly the thing that’s at issue. The art happens in the “something.” That’s the place where the idea happens. Deciding what the “something” will be is

Sep 21, 2021 • 16:01

A Night at the Wet Opera

All day, it had been threatening to rain but we decided to risk it and go to the park to see the opera performance. Neither of us had seen a show in person since the shut down so it felt like a big event. We showed our vaccine passports at the vaccine entrance of the Bryant Park lawn and were directed to the folding chairs and tables we could take and place anywhere in the area. There was a cordoned off section way at the back for the socially distanced chairs set up for the non-vaccinated. (Thi

Sep 7, 2021 • 13:01

The Arts Save the Children

We had a hopeful politician come to our door, campaigning, and so we asked her about what she’d do for the arts. She said she understood the value of the arts, that they kept kids out of trouble, the way sports had for her as a kid so she supports them. It’s a sweet story, really. I enjoyed that story and I like this politician a lot but I hate this reasoning. First, supporting arts programs for kids is not supporting the Arts. It’s great and I spent many years in those trenches but Arts Educati

Aug 31, 2021 • 17:15

The Intersection of Capitalism and Patriarchy Is a Killer

You know how certain roads just seem to be extra dangerous? At some intersections, you see heaps of flowers and other tributes to people who were lost there. Governments attempt to put up traffic lights or stop signs but some of those intersections are just relentlessly dangerous. The places where patriarchy meets capitalism are like that, metaphorically speaking and they seem particularly dangerous for Gen X men. The day I watched the memorial service for my Gen X actor friend, I also saw an ob

Aug 23, 2021 • 14:54

I'm Going to Have to Ask You to Not Silver Lining This

During my first post-vaccine trip away, I heard a few people talking about their positive experiences of the pandemic. One said, joyously, “There’s really a silver lining to all this!” I think she was talking about having time in her garden or space to be with her family but I can’t remember because my brain melted down in that moment. I don’t mean to imply that someone couldn’t have positive experiences of the pandemic or experience things as a silver lining. I don’t even mean to suggest that o

Aug 17, 2021 • 16:49

"Trying to Help Women Is Exhausting"

Look – I know I’m the kind of person that the guys who make Mythic Quest like to piss off. They’re out here making things, hoping they’ll do something to make me angry. I don’t know if they’ve ever said this out loud but it feels like their ethos is, “If I’m not making feminists mad, I’m not doing my job.” I know the type. I can tell when I’m being baited. So good job, dudes. You did it. Bait taken. I started watching Mythic Quest after I read several heartfelt reviews of it and I realized that

Aug 10, 2021 • 19:19

A $5000 Grant Would Be a $5000 Problem

A day after applications opened, the email notifications of the grant’s existence came out. After a lot of hype, the City Corp Arts Grants applications were live! I waited until midnight to look at the tab I’d left open all day. I confess I didn’t have high hopes for it. But around midnight, I finally got the will to check it out. When I finally understood what its parameters were, I cursed and shut it all down again. There was no way I could do what it was asking. Another opportunity that I was

Aug 3, 2021 • 20:48

Actors Are Not So Replaceable

We were watching the 4th Season of The Expanse – a show that takes place in the future where a lot of stuff happens in space. (We call it Space Stress – as in “You up for watching some Space Stress?”) The woman in charge of Earth was on a space shuttle talking with a man who seemed to be an advisor of some sort – maybe a vice president or secretary of education? “Who’s that guy?” we asked, since we’d never seen him before. Then the woman in charge of Earth (Chrisjen Avasarala is the character’s

Jul 27, 2021 • 19:28

Here Comes the Wave

When I was in grad school, I brought the guest director from England to see a Moliere piece made by Theatre de la Jeune Lune, on tour from Minneapolis. I’d seen Jeune Lune’s work in their home when I was on tour and fell in love with their production of The Kitchen. If you saw this production you’ll know why. (Plates!) So I knew this visiting director would find something of interest in their Moliere piece. She was very impressed and we talked about that production a lot, even later that year, w

Jul 20, 2021 • 13:37

Tricksy Feminists

In college, we made a show called Roar! The Women’s Thing! Live Girls On Stage! which I started thinking about after reading Fleishman Is in Trouble. I was just going to write a quick little review of Fleishman Is in Trouble for Goodreads but then I started thinking of that show and what we were trying to do with it, which was going to need some explaining, and then I started thinking more about the novel, which began to make me mad and voila! – blog post. To keep reading Tricksy Feminists, visi

Jul 13, 2021 • 24:08

Paulina Forgot to Cancel the Mariachi

When I started watching the Mexican TV show, House of Flowers, I was immediately struck by this one character’s way of speaking. She spoke so slowly and strangely, I thought maybe the actor was a non-native speaker – which would have been odd for a show about a family. I was so curious about this actor’s voice, I looked her up and discovered that, no, in fact, she is Mexican – though she trained in the US and worked at Steppenwolf, no less. I had no explanation for this voice but I was still int

Jul 6, 2021 • 18:22

They Locked Up the Toothpaste

While she attempted to scrape the anti-theft sticker off my shampoo, the cashier at my pharmacy told me that there’d been a big shampoo heist. She figured they were selling the expensive stuff for double the price out on the street. Got to watch out for that hot shampoo! But I get it – the expensive stuff is very expensive and worth it, unfortunately. I asked her if they’d also had a toothpaste heist because I’d noticed that they’d locked up all the toothpastes. “Oh yeah,” she said, “They hit it

Jun 29, 2021 • 16:21

Would I Go Back to the 20th Century?

There’s a Reddit question I can’t stop thinking about in which someone wanted to know what life was like in the 20th Century because they were born at the top of the 21st and couldn’t imagine it. They particularly couldn’t imagine life without the internet. They asked those of us who’d been around for the previous century if we would go back to the way things were before. Would I? Would I give up the internet and my mobile phone? Would I surrender my laptop? Sometimes I think I would. I started

Jun 21, 2021 • 23:10

Should I Quit Acting Because of X?

Since joining the acting subreddit, I’ve been seeing a lot of posts with a similar theme. They boil down to, “Will X prevent me from having an acting career?” or maybe more accurately, “I’m X or have X or did X. Should I quit acting?” In this equation, let X be a quality or physical attribute or life history. I have such complicated feelings about these posts, mostly from young actors looking ahead at a possible professional life in acting. Because on one hand, yes. You should absolutely quit ac

Jun 15, 2021 • 18:34

South Park World, Or, Learning to Like the Boy Stuff

In 1997, I was touring the country with a Shakespeare company. There were 8 men and 4 women in our troupe and because of that gender imbalance, it felt a little like living in a fraternity. For a life-long feminist like myself, it was a pretty big challenge. I mostly stayed quiet and kept my feminist killjoy thoughts to myself. I’m thinking about this today after reading Lindy West’s essay about the South Park guys. She’s a bit younger than I am so South Park was a thing she grew up with and a s

Jun 8, 2021 • 16:37

And Now I'm Mad About Curious George

As you may remember, a short while ago, I was real mad about Kiss Me, Kate when I found out it had been written by a woman but not credited to her as a sole author, even though she was the sole author. Then I learned about the authorship of Curious George. Curious freakin’ George, the kid’s book about the curious monkey. You know you read it as a child. It is one of the most popular children’s books in history. Classic! (Also, problematic and possibly racist – sorry!) And now tell me who wrote i

Jun 1, 2021 • 16:33

The Stumbler, Or, F**k Around Fridays

Listening to Laraine Newman talking about her pre-SNL days made me think about all the stars that had to align to give her the extraordinary life and career she’s had. The one that popped out for me was this quality in her youth of just messing around – just trying stuff out. She never took aim at something and strapped herself onto a rocket, she just tried stuff out, followed what she liked. Her sister was a folk singer. She followed her into the arts. Her sister did improv which Newman found t

May 25, 2021 • 18:37

A Performance Once a Week

It started when A texted me to tell me about the National Theatre’s production of Jane Eyre that was available on the internet for the week. “LOL,” I said, “I’m in the middle of watching it RIGHT NOW.” And we had a fun little text exchange about our favorite moments in the show. We decided to watch the next one “together” via text and before we knew it, we had a tradition of watching some kind of performance once a week. It has been one of the few things I’ve found genuinely sustaining in these

May 18, 2021 • 14:53

Arts "Coming Back Strong"

Hey artists of New York! Have you had a rough year? Did the pandemic kick your ass all the way down the road? Well – have no fear, the city of New York tweeted out that the Arts Are Coming Back Strong so whatever you’re feeling about things, forget about it because the city of New York thinks we’re doing great! This tweet also linked to an article about a Broadway vaccine center run by a stage manager so…I guess we’re supposed to think that having a theatre-specific vaccine center is supposed to

May 11, 2021 • 20:50

An Idea Is a Little Monster

Famous writers and artists get asked about their ideas a lot. I feel sure I’ve read a few essays about having to respond to the “Where do you get your ideas?” question, which is, apparently a ubiquitous question for a successful writer. For the record, I have never been asked this question. Though I have been asked the question that comes up at nearly every Q&A for actors in history which is, “How do you learn all those lines?” I think I will know I have achieved a measure of success as a ma

May 4, 2021 • 17:26

Remembering What Might Have Been

There was a moment there, in the early days of last year, where it felt like we could have had something different. In looking back at my posts from then, I see how we were poised on this needle of possibility. There was a funny kind of hope – a kind of excitement almost – that we could fundamentally alter how we do things. We could turn our weird dystopia of an experience upside down and have a transformed society. It felt like there was a moment where we could have canceled rent, could have sa

Apr 27, 2021 • 22:08

I Am a Vaccinated Puppy

I AM DOSED UP! I got a shot in the arm and I am feeling good. Feels good! Feels good! Just like Lionel Richie exclaimed on the radio in the waiting area as I waited for the man with the megaphone to call my number so I could book the appointment for the next dose. After hearing the podcast where Sherry Turkle described her feeling of overwhelm in being with so many people at her vaccination center after all the months of isolation, I was worried I’d be a nervous wreck. But I was more like an exc

Apr 20, 2021 • 17:06

I'm Mad About Kiss Me, Kate

Look, I know they made Kiss Me, Kate over 70 years ago but I am mad about it today. I’m sorry. Sometimes my rage is not on time. Did you know that a woman wrote the book for this musical? I did not. I work in theatre, fanatically listened to the Broadway cast album in my youth, have seen at least two productions, I care about women’s achievements in this field and I did not know that a woman wrote Kiss Me, Kate. How did I miss that? To keep reading I'm Mad About Kiss Me, Kate, visit the Songs fo

Apr 13, 2021 • 22:21

WTF with Jake Gyllenhaal

Granted, I’m a little wound up. Theatre’s been on (really stinky) mothballs for a year and I’m really tired of my tiny apartment. So. Forgive me if this response to a little podcast episode I listened to is a little overblown. But – WTF! Actually the name of the podcast is WTF and that is also literally how I felt after listening to the episode with Jake Gyllenhaal. It’s not Gyllenhaal’s fault – or Maron’s fault. (Marc Maron is the host. It’s his podcast.) It’s just that their talk about theatre

Apr 6, 2021 • 17:28

Sexy Jobs

What jobs are the sexiest? Like, if you want a character to be appealing and captivating and sexy, what job do you give them? Let’s say you want them to be at the center of a story – what job do they have? If you want to signal to an audience, “This character is sexy,” what do they do? Apparently, in Spain, if your main character is a woman, the answer is “modista” – a modista is a seamstress, but not just a seamstress or dress maker, she’s also a designer. I am on my second Spanish period drama

Mar 30, 2021 • 16:25

I Guess I Have to Talk About Cuomo

The governor of New York, where I live, is all over the news again and as much as I’d really rather not think too much about Governor Andrew Cuomo, I’m seeing so many bonehead responses to this story that I think I’m going to have to say something. I will say, just right off the bat, I am not a fan of him. I have not been a fan. I have voted against him every chance I’ve gotten. I found him tolerable for the first time when he became a voice of reason in the early pandemic times – but even his r

Mar 23, 2021 • 20:33

Some Invisible Gifts of Theatre Training

A lot of my theatre friends have been working in other fields lately, partly due to not being able to actually work in theatre in these times. I’ve had a fair number of conversations about how weirdly non-theatre people do things. (Apologies to all you non-theatre folk. I know we’re really the weird ones but you’re weird to us in some ways!) This has made me think about some of the things the performing arts train us for, that aren’t just singing high notes and how to do pas de Bourrees. To keep

Mar 16, 2021 • 21:18

This Sucks

Hey everyone – just in case you hadn’t noticed, this whole situation really sucks. I know this seems obvious and it is. But the fact that it’s obvious and that we’re all experiencing it, doesn’t make it suck any less. It sucks. Totally and completely. I just thought it might be important to acknowledge the suckitude. I’ve been seeing (virtually, of course, not so much IRL because I don’t see much IRL) a lot of people working really hard to be okay, to make a positive out of this giant negative a

Mar 9, 2021 • 19:25

Men Crying

Disculpe, pero – I cannot stop watching Spanish television shows during this pandemic. This is the third time, I know, but I’m on my fourth Bambú show and watching it (and the others) has made me think about something I had never really considered before. It was during the finale of Season 2 of Velvet (a show about a high fashion couture store in Madrid in the 50s) that I thought, “watching that character cry is one of my favorite things onscreen. I could watch that guy cry for five more hours.”

Mar 2, 2021 • 15:55

"You Can't Live in Fear"

I overheard this old school New York guy talking with an old school Eastern European lady at my local bagel shop. He said to her, “You can’t live in fear,” after she expressed her concern about the virus. He was telling her how he went inside for a dinner party and she expressed her disapproval. She doesn’t see her friends. She doesn’t go out. What is he doing? He tells her she can’t live in fear. Oh no? She can’t live in fear? Yes, she can. So can I. To keep reading "You Can't Live in Fear" vis

Feb 23, 2021 • 14:22

Tell an Artist You Saw/Heard/Experienced Their Art

Because I come from theatre, I am used to immediate feedback. I am used to people who attended the show, waiting to talk to me after, so I know they were there. When the houses are small and I’m onstage, I know who was there because, I can see every single face in the crowd. Even if only a handful of people actually say something nice, they, at least, all give us some applause. They came, they saw, they clapped. We know they were there and if we’re lucky someone will tell us something they liked

Feb 16, 2021 • 18:43

A Highly Competitive Mystery Solved

A mystery just cleared up before my very eyes. I was reading the alumni magazine from my grad school and there was an article about a brand new artist residency set up by some funders. The story was really about the funders and this generous thing they’re doing. It sounds nice enough – but what popped out at me was the description of the application process as highly competitive. This explained many things for me. As someone who applies for this sort of thing, I have often wondered why the proce

Feb 9, 2021 • 14:19

Creativity Might Be Seasonal

Someone asked me what my next project was and I panicked. “I don’t know! I don’t have anything lined up! My well has run dry! The last thing I wrote is probably my last thing ever! It’s all over.” But then I realized that last year, at almost exactly this time, I had a similar panic. I wrote a piece about it that has been one of my most popular podcast episodes and of course the well hadn’t run dry. I subsequently produced a whole season of an audio drama and wrote its second season as well. To

Feb 2, 2021 • 15:48

Gen X and the Deadly Virus

There’s an article about Gen X thriving in these pandemic times that came out back in March when the lockdown started and has been making the rounds again recently. I haven’t read it since it came out but I remember it as “We’ve been training to sit at home alone eating pop tarts our whole lives. We’re built for this!” If I remember correctly, it spoke to Gen X’s ability to stay home and keep ourselves busy. Our time to shine! At home! With pop tarts! But I’ve been thinking about this and thinki

Jan 26, 2021 • 22:45

Snot Acting

I’m going to talk about snot today. I’ve been trying to formulate thoughts about this abhorrent coup attempt that just happened but snot is a lot less disgusting so I’m going with snot right now. Why am I writing about snot? Well, I was reading an article about the best movie performances of 2020 and they were talking about Viola Davis’ work and said, “Davis has never been hampered by vanity, as past scenes of snot-dripping emotion attest.” I have thoughts. Not about Viola Davis. (Aside from she

Jan 19, 2021 • 17:27

4500 Teaching Artists (Predictably) Fall Through the Cracks

In the comments on the Gothamist article about 4,500 Teaching Artists losing work, someone said “Do you mean Art Teachers?” Here was a major publication addressing what was once my profession perhaps for the first time and the comments all suggested a complete and total lack of awareness of what the job was. One comment suggested all these out of work artists go join the army. Nice. Nice. And also hilarious. Can you imagine the guy at the recruitment office if 4,500 visual artists, musicians, ac

Jan 12, 2021 • 19:13

Searching for the Seams

After I became obsessed with Cable Girls, Netflix suggested a show called High Seas (Alta Mar) to me. It was by the same team, I came to discover, and I was quickly hooked. (Sisters solving murders on an ocean liner in the 1940s? Are you kidding me? Yes, please!) I got curious about the making of this show after watching the third season in which a deadly virus was brought on board – like, is this timely by accident or on purpose? When did this air and who made it? (Aired 2020 – made in 2019. Wh

Jan 5, 2021 • 25:47

Is There a Gen X Aesthetic?

Prior to my deep dive into Gen X-ery, I honestly didn’t think about our generation much at all. It was one of the last things I considered in my identity, particularly in my artistic identity. I have a very particular aesthetic and, I’m given to understand, an identifiable one, as well. I would have called that MY aesthetic, not a Gen X aesthetic. Then the stats for my audio drama podcast (The Dragoning, listen wherever you get your podcasts) started to roll in and it was absolutely clear who m

Dec 29, 2020 • 15:56

2020 Year in Review

I thought I should sum up this bananas year as I might want to remember what it was like for me, being all historical and everything. So I did a little month by month re-cap to finish out the year. * Happy New Year! Cheers! It’s 2020! What a nice round number this is! Maybe this’ll be my year! Twenty Twenty, so exciting. Oh yeah, January and already things are looking up! I’m back in the rehearsal room, getting back on stage next month. It’s looking good. To read more of 2020 Year in Review v

Dec 22, 2020 • 16:32

Howard Dean Came for Gen X. It Did Not Go Well for Him.

Well, well, well. Would you look at that? Howard Dean decided to come for Generation X on Twitter. He claimed we were a moral shipwreck and as evidence, cited all such examples as the recent additions to the Supreme Court, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. Well, yes, those people are all Gen X, sure. And Dean deleted the tweet after Gen X roasted him soundly – but of course, as your Gen X blogging source, I cannot let this go by. Generationally, all the conservative dirtbags Dean name-checked, are kin

Dec 15, 2020 • 17:32

Brilliant Theatre and the Pit

If you don’t work in the arts, it might be hard to understand why a really brilliant piece of work might make someone more depressed than a bad one. Sometimes, I find it baffling, as well. I mean, bad theatre can be instructive and liberating, if also infuriating, when you realize that it is not the quality of something that brings all the funders to the yard. And good theatre usually checks a box for me. I see something that was good and I say to myself, “That was good. What excellent work ever

Dec 8, 2020 • 24:28

It's Really Nothing

On the latest season of Pose, a group of the women go to a beach house. The star of the show stays out late and when she comes home at dawn, there’s a shot of her opening the gate from the beach to the house and despite the brilliance of the rest of the show, it is this moment I cannot stop thinking about. Why? Because the gate has a Magna Latch on it. This is a lock that you have to lift at the top to release the gate. It does not look like others locks. I first encountered one at the gate of

Dec 1, 2020 • 15:00

The S*** My D*** Party

Warning: Extreme crude-ness witnessed on the street which led me to explore the extreme crude-ness and expand upon it. Be forewarned. There is one crude phrase in this and you’re going to see it a lot. The day they called the election for Joe Biden, (What are we calling this day, by the way? It wants a name, the way there was V day.) I ended up at the spontaneous party on a random corner. People danced. They cheered. They clapped. They shouted exuberantly at passing cars that honked their horns

Nov 24, 2020 • 14:38

Is This Why Men Won't Wear Masks?

I have cracked it. I understand why so many men are so reluctant to wear their masks. I understand entirely. (There’s quite a bit of reporting about this gender gap in mask wearing. I’m going to lean into some binary generalizations here for effect, but gender is a spectrum and I know these things aren’t true for everyone.) I solved the mask mystery at a café where I witnessed a man in a Batman mask attempting to make a joke to the barista. When she didn’t get it, he just repeated it. He repeat

Nov 17, 2020 • 23:55

More Tips on Masks from a Mask Theatre Person

Initially, I was just going to add a little note to my first Tips on Masks from a Mask Theatre Person, a little update, as it were. I thought it was going to be a sentence or two. But I got started and before I knew it, I’d written over a thousand words. So, I guess I had a few things to say on the subject, after all these months of mask wearing. I wrote my initial Tips for Masks a few months ago when mask wearing was JUST kicking in for us in New York. According to my stats, people are still r

Nov 10, 2020 • 24:56

The New SCOTUS Handmaiden of the Patriarchy

Warning: This post is going to be a little bit crude. I find the proceedings in the Senate to be very crude, so this is nothing compared to that – but if crude language isn’t for you, this might be one to skip. Hey everybody – the Heritage Foundation would like you to know that Amy Coney Barrett is NOT a handmaid for patriarchy. I saw a headline from them saying as such when I googled her name and “Handmaid for the Patriarchy” because I was sure someone had already written this piece and found

Nov 3, 2020 • 18:39

Kittens and Fluffy Clouds

There’ve been times when I’ve seen people respond to my work with, “You’re just looking for problems.” They want me to look on the bright side. “See the good in the world!” “There are roses and sunshine!” That’s why I decided to write this piece about kittens and fluffy clouds. Who doesn’t love kittens? The problem is – there’s not much to say about kittens except the fact that they are awfully cute and there’s not much to say about fluffy clouds either, except to say that that one looks a lot

Oct 28, 2020 • 21:01

Frustrated Artists and Tyrants

From listening to the Bunga Bunga podcast, I learned that Silvio Berlusconi started as a singer. He was reasonably successful and having a great time when, apparently, his dad shamed him, asking him if he was really going to be a singer for the rest of his life. So Silvio Berlusconi quit singing. Even though he loved it. And became a shady ass real estate developer instead. This led him to becoming a shady ass media mogul and then the shady ass prime minister of Italy. Did that go well for Italy

Oct 20, 2020 • 21:40

Everybody's Favorite Nice Guy Has a New Gig

You all remember the guy who inspired my blog post about Sticky Benevolent Sexism? (It was a few people’s favorite. It’s about the time this guy asked all the ladies to stand up so the men could applaud us.) Well, I just got an email from an organization that is trying to reckon with its own racism and sexism and this guy is apparently part of some learning group on the subject. In the email, he recommends some podcasts to listen to for this racism/sexism reckoning. I happen to agree with his r

Oct 13, 2020 • 20:18

I Miss the Smiling

I’ve been going to this little sandwich shop in my neighborhood lately. It’s got a garden in the back and it’s usually pretty empty so I can take my mask off and write back there fairly easily. I never went pre-covid because it had table service and I didn’t really want a sandwich. But since I returned to Queens after almost two months away, I’ve been going a couple of times a week. It’s always the same people behind the counter and sometimes they seem to remember me and sometimes not. This las

Oct 6, 2020 • 16:46

Bill and Ted's Bogus Handling of Older Women

We did it. We watched the new Bill and Ted movie. The trailer made it look kind of charming and our Gen X nostalgia for the original was strong enough to put us in front of, what we knew would be, a very silly movie. And it was! They brought back all these cast members from the original. Ted’s Dad. Ted’s Dad’s girlfriend. A hologram of George Carlin. But significantly, despite the medieval princesses’ appearance in the earlier movie, the actresses who played them did not play them in this new mo

Sep 29, 2020 • 16:17

And Then the Internet Went Out

While I was polishing up my blog about the power outage, I googled Tropical Storm Isaias to double check I was spelling it correctly. The request timed out but I figured it was just this thing the wifi does in our apartment where it gets moody about the distance between my computer and the router. After bringing it closer and then plugging in the ethernet cable and switching everything off and on again a million times, I had to accept that there was no internet. I found it ironic that I was tryi

Sep 22, 2020 • 16:43

Comfort Is Not the Point

Now that things are starting to open up a little, there are increasingly tough decisions to be made. There are negotiations to be had. There are choices to consider. “Let me know what you’re comfortable with,” someone said as we negotiated how we’d be together in this moment. But comfort is not the point. Masks aren’t comfortable. Keeping at least six feet away from people we care about is not comfortable. Staying in, in our uncomfortable apartment, is not comfortable. But comfort isn’t the poi

Sep 15, 2020 • 18:44

Do You Have Power?

The neighbors were walking through the neighborhood checking out the damage caused by Tropical Storm Isaias. I asked them if they had power and they shook their heads. None of us had power. And of course, I’m talking about electricity. I was staying at my friend’s place and the storm had brought down trees all over the area, knocking out power lines everywhere. Rich neighborhoods, poor neighborhoods, the power grid was out for everyone. To read more of Do You Have Power? visit the Songs for the

Sep 8, 2020 • 24:52

I Am a Genius

Does it make you uncomfortable when I say I am a genius? I can see why it might. Women aren’t supposed to be geniuses, for one thing, and they should be modest, as well, so even if women COULD be geniuses, they shouldn’t go around declaring themselves such. We learn very early that we should hide our intelligence, that we should be quiet about what we’re good at and that we are never going to be seen as brilliant. Because being brilliant, and being a genius, is for boys. To read the rest of I Am

Sep 1, 2020 • 17:07

Is a Seventeen Year Old Girl Convincible?

I sort of thought I was all done sorting through my past and re-evaluating. I’d scanned through it during the various waves of Yes All Women and Me Too. But the other day, I found myself suddenly absolutely newly furious about a relationship I had when I was 17. Before this moment, I had mostly fond memories of this relationship and, despite some ups and downs, I remained friends with the man. Until now, I’d seen this relationship with the eyes of the seventeen-year-old girl who was in it. Now I

Aug 24, 2020 • 19:10

The Benefits of No One Caring About Your Work

When a friend of a friend asked me for some advice about starting a blog and Patreon, I told her the truth – that most writers struggle to find an audience and the internet is largely indifferent to our work. I realized after I hit send, that this might not be the kind of advice a writer might want to hear. I mean, I know I expected that the internet would fall at my feet and deliver me instant recognition when I first began writing and posting music there. I think imagined that there were peopl

Aug 17, 2020 • 14:44

Theatre, Celebrities, Hope and What We're Doing Now

Part of the reason I just went ahead and went full steam ahead with this podcast idea of mine a few months ago is that I thought, well, with all the theatres shut down, theatre journalists will have absolutely nothing to talk about – so maybe a little indie theatre company making work in the middle of this storm will suddenly be of interest. Maybe, I thought, this is our opening. We are, after all, still making theatre of a kind – even if it’s in solely audio form. Theatre lovers will want to he

Aug 12, 2020 • 24:46

Theatre Is Dead. Long Live the Theatre.

For the last few months, I have been trying to grapple with the loss of my primary art form. When theatres shut down back in March, it was painful but we all hoped it was temporary – just a little disruption in our theatre lives. As time has worn on, and the virus has gotten worse here in the US than it was when they shut the theatres down (Florida reported 12,000 cases this week, which is twice what New York had back in April at the height of things.) it has become increasingly clear that theat

Aug 4, 2020 • 16:44

Favorite Sons and Unicorns

Over the last few years, I have leaned into making work for young people – both as a theatre maker and as a writer. I dove head first into Theatre for Youth and then, later, into middle-grade fiction. I went to conferences for both and found that they shared something I didn’t expect. They were both fields that were largely run by women. Women were the decision makers and the middle (wo)men. Women dominated – which was very nice to see. There aren’t a lot of fields where that is true. To read mo

Jul 28, 2020 • 23:47

Now Would Be a Hard Time to Start a Creative Practice

For well over a decade, I have had a daily writing practice. I’ve developed various pieces of it over the years but it has included, consistently, at least an hour of concentrated writing. I have written about it before – here, here and here if you want to know more. The thing about a practice, the practice of anything, I suspect, is that it is not always easy but the fact of it makes some other things easier. Let’s say I had a daily swim practice (which, lord knows, if I had access to a pool I

Jul 21, 2020 • 16:24

The Difference Between A and Z and Progressive Politics

My State Assembly member has been kind of amazing at her job. Let’s call her A because this is about her but not really about her. She is amazing, though. She’s super progressive and has gotten some really sticky legislation passed. She’s kind of heroic that way. Every time I’ve sent her emails through ResistBot or something, when I wasn’t QUITE clear who was supposed to handle the thing I was concerned about, she has responded to those emails immediately and almost every time, the response has

Jul 14, 2020 • 25:35

A View from a Small Apartment in NYC

It was when I noticed I was pushing our building door open with my hip that I started dedicating clothes for inside or outside. With the pandemic raging outside, no extra precaution seemed too crazy at a certain point. So I take my clothes off at the door and go wash my hands before putting on the inside clothes. When Scott started wearing outside pants, I thought it was overkill but then I noticed all the times I made contact with the world when I went out in it – like that door and my hip. I’

Jul 7, 2020 • 22:10

How to Help Artists the Most

As a self-described struggling artist™, when the pandemic struck us and people suddenly started worrying about struggling artists, many folks thought of me. I appreciated it very much. It was quite remarkable to suddenly receive support I didn’t explicitly ask for. But as a Struggling Artist™ (just kidding, it’s not trademarked,) I have felt some ambivalence about the resources for us that I’m seeing emerge. The bulk of them are emergency funds and they are incredibly necessary for so many peop

Jun 30, 2020 • 24:10

Something About Juliet, Naked

Despite generally being a Nick Hornby fan, I resisted reading Juliet, Naked for a while because of the title. When I finally read it, I remember being glad that it wasn’t actually about a naked woman. I remember liking it but I’m fairly certain I was in a different decade of my life then. After watching the film version, I find I’m curious to re-read the book – to find out if it’s as problematic as I found the movie. I was going to say “sexist” instead of “problematic” but I’m not sure if the m

Jun 23, 2020 • 20:05

"You Have Theatre. I Have the Bachelor."

I’m an artist who tends to hang out with other artists so I sometimes have trouble making sense of, or being made sense of by, non-artists. Sometimes I discover how dramatically different our world views can be, such as when an acquaintance of mine said something like, “You have theatre, I have The Bachelor.” It was sort of a joke but I think to them it felt like a real equivalency. It helped me see that there are probably many who believe that my relationship to theatre, to writing, to the arts

Jun 16, 2020 • 15:41

You're Late. I'm Late. Let's Get to Work.

Warning: This post has got a lot of swears in it. And it’s kind of a mess. But aren’t we all? I don’t know what to say right now. We’re in a revolution which was long overdue and I feel invigorated and glad that changes are already being made in some way in some places. I also feel terrified and alarmed by the power of the police state which is acting out in the worst possible of fascist ways all over the country and particularly in my city. To read more of You're Late. I'm Late. Let's Get to W

Jun 9, 2020 • 21:59

We Tried Asking Nicely

The former prime minister of Australia was on a podcast talking about how the gender pay gap won’t be closed for decades at the current rate. She found this “frustrating.” I found it enraging. And it’s not new information. I know that every single measure of equality is moving at a glacial pace. But it struck me as I listened to her that the problem is that we are attempting to make change without making waves. The current pace, the current rate of change is unacceptable – but anything faster o

Jun 2, 2020 • 19:47

The Inspiring Solidarity of the Cable Girls

If we’ve talked about TV in the last few weeks (and we MAY have talked about TV a lot in these virus times,) I’ve surely mentioned Cable Girls to you. I’ve become a bit obsessed. It’s a Spanish TV show about switchboard operators in the early 20th century. It is stylish and sexy and most impressively, about women’s solidarity. There is nothing the women in this show won’t do for their friends. And I mean nothing. They will tank their relationships, start a strike, even stage a prison break. They

May 26, 2020 • 21:07

Tips on Masks from a Mask Theatre Person

The masks we’re all wearing these days are not the sort that would play onstage. You’d have to use them if you were playing a naturalistic surgical scene – but otherwise, these protective masks are awfully hard to express one’s self in. They may be very important for not spreading the virus but they are lousy theatre masks. Even so, I’ve been trying to figure out how to apply what I’ve learned from years of mask work to these terrible untheatrical (but incredibly important) medical ones. To read

May 19, 2020 • 21:13

The World I Imagined When I Was a Teen

Once upon a time, I dreamed of the world I would inhabit as an adult. I thought I would grow up to be Ann Magnuson or Annie Potts. I thought I would hang out in the cool clubs from Desperately Seeking Susan and be taken to a restaurant that had glass tables where I could watch myself while I was eating. The adult world I imagined featured a lot more cool haircuts and funky suits than I ever see in my actual adult life. To read more of The World I Imagined When I Was a Teen, visit the Songs for t

May 12, 2020 • 20:32

Digital Gentrification and Ontological Insecurity

When it became clear to me that my big break in theatre wasn’t coming any time soon, I began to create things in the digital space. If I couldn’t book a gig in a theatre, I could at least, play a song on-line or have some words I wrote get read. While I appreciated the opportunity to share with people around the world, I also felt somewhat banished into that space. The difficulty and expense of producing things pushed me there. The many barriers to entry exiled me there. Given a choice, I would

May 5, 2020 • 18:52

You Don't Have to Write Your Lear. Or Your Venus and Adonis Even.

As soon as the theatres shut down, the King Lear memes started. Over and over, people urged us not to bemoan our sudden retreat to our houses because Shakespeare wrote King Lear during the plague. This was meant to encourage us to believe that it might be highly productive to be sent home. Instead, it gave a lot of people anxiety about having to produce a masterpiece while navigating the challenges of social distancing. I suspect some historical context might be useful and since most Shakespear

Apr 28, 2020 • 15:05

Toilet Paper and Art

My improviser friend used to talk about his craft being toilet paper – that you pulled off a square and then threw it away. It was impermanent and that was its appeal. It was a uniquely disposable craft. In our new toilet paper obsessed society, I’m not sure this analogy works anymore. No one is hoarding improvisers. They’re stuck at home like the rest of us – their skills going wanting. If you'd like to read more of Toilet Paper and Art, visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. Th

Apr 21, 2020 • 17:58

Holding Contradictory Truths Is the Work

CW: Sexual Assault and Rape It’s not often that I listen to Alec Baldwin’s podcast but something compelled me to listen to his interview with Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor. I suppose, after listening to Ronan Farrow’s podcast about breaking his Weinstein story, I was hungry to hear about their experience. I suppose I knew that Alec Baldwin would fumble this particular ball a little. After all, he’s a part of this Hollywood world they were talking about and surely his hands are not entirely clean.

Apr 13, 2020 • 18:59

Introducing The Dragoning

The brand new audio drama podcast written by me and produced by my theatre company. (In other words, also produced by me.) You can follow and like it on Spotify. Other platforms soon to follow. This episode features Ned Massey as Ray - with sound design by Ned Massey. If you'd like to hear more episodes, please support the Indiegogo campaign. We've raised enough to make one more episode at this point. In order to make more, we'll need some more support! Donors hear the new episode first an

Apr 10, 2020 • 14:29

Performing Arts Going Dark

Have you all read Station Eleven? I mean, don’t, if you haven’t. Even the author recommends waiting a few months to read it. It’s a little too relevant right now. It hits a little too close to home. It begins with a pandemic that leads to the radical upending of civilization. You can see why you might want to wait a minute to get into it. But I’ve been thinking about it a lot this week – not just because of the pandemic – but because of what happens after the pandemic. The heart of the story is

Apr 7, 2020 • 23:12

Charmed Again

You may remember that I owe a debt of gratitude to the show Charmed. When I last wrote about it, the new Charmed, the reboot, had not yet come out. I had no idea if I would like it or hate it or if it would make me miss the old one too much. Turns out. I love it. Is it great TV? Nope. Just like the old Charmed, there’s a soapy quality that prevents it from being really great. It’s on the CW and it feels like the network sort of automatically layers everything with a teen soap opera varnish, much

Mar 31, 2020 • 19:09

A Bereft, Heartbroken, Furious, Hopeless, Bad Mood

The morning after Super Tuesday, I woke up with a song in my head. It’s a song I put on my feminist playlist a while ago and every time it comes around I think, “What is this? And what is it doing on this playlist?” Then the line about the glass ceiling comes along and I understand why it’s there but then I have to see who it is. Many times I have said, “Miley Cyrus? Really?!” But now, I know “Bad Mood” so well, I will never forget again. I’ve been listening to it on solid repeat and I’ve been

Mar 24, 2020 • 32:21

What I'm Built For

The experience of being back onstage after many years away has not been quite what I expected. I’m not getting the major highs or the “Do they like me?” lows. The major feeling is a sense of being built for it. In performing again, I feel a sense of relief at doing what I’m built for. It’s a strange feeling actually, because I have largely set acting aside to focus on other lanes of theatre, as well as other arts – and to suddenly realize how much I am still made for performing is disruptive. To

Mar 17, 2020 • 15:11

Beautiful People Wearing Glasses

We were watching a streaming show wherein one of the heroes wore glasses. He looked like a model but they dressed him like a nerdy bad boy, in dark framed glasses. We cracked up every time his glasses came off. “Who’s that hunk? Where did that hunk come from? There was a nerd there a minute ago!” And then he’d put the glasses on and we’d say, “There he is! He’s back! But where did that hunk go all of a sudden?” To keep reading Beautiful People Wearing Glasses visit the Songs for the Struggling A

Mar 10, 2020 • 17:33

Something About Warren

About a month ago, I saw a tweet that made me sob for much longer than I expected a tweet could. The tweet featured a photo of a little plastic action figure nestled into a child’s bed. It reads, in part: I found my 5yo daughter’s Elizabeth Warren action figure in her bed when I was making it this morning. When I asked her why, she said “I was scared and she makes me feel brave”. Because the thing of it is, Elizabeth Warren makes me feel brave, too. I am in solid agreement with this small child

Mar 7, 2020 • 20:52

The Other Currency in Theatre Economics

When I write a new play, I’ll usually gather a group of friends together, give them wine and snacks and we’ll read it. It’s a great way for me to hear what’s on the page and for us all to see one another. Every time, someone says, “We should do this more often.” Because a large portion of my network has largely left town to go raise their kids or whatever, I am always trying to add new people. Those people will go on to be the people I recommend when asked for actors. They’ll become the people I

Mar 3, 2020 • 21:49

There Will Never Be a Gen X President?!?

A few months ago, a friend sent me an article about Gen X and the presidency that was in the Financial Times. (Write a whole series on Gen X, people will send you Gen X articles.) In the article – the millennial writer expresses his admiration for Generation X while simultaneously declaring that we are about to miss our shot to have one of our own become president. I started to write something about it but then I let it go. It seemed to just be a fleeting inconsequential opinion piece in the Fin

Feb 25, 2020 • 18:09

Charting the Journey of a Creative Ship

Even as I wrote the piece that shortly follows, I knew it was going to be true only for the moment. I knew that whatever happened before, I would feel differently after. I just didn’t know how. I wrote this about a month ago before a reading of my work and you can be in the future with me and know that it went as well as it could go. I saw very clearly what needed to change, as well as what format it should probably take and this story has a happy ending. But I thought it would still be worth sh

Feb 17, 2020 • 14:23

Terry Gilliam in the Toaster Oven

“Mum! Dad! It’s evil! Don’t touch it!” This is the final line of one of my all time favorite movies, Time Bandits. I loved Time Bandits as a child and in the many subsequent viewings of it, as an adult, it has not diminished in my estimation. It is a delightful film made by one of my favorite filmmakers. And I didn’t just love Terry Gilliam’s Time Bandits, no. I also admired his Brazil, The Fisher King, and even his relatively unknown and under-appreciated, Tideland. Tideland is a deep cut in th

Feb 11, 2020 • 22:20

A Duck Message on New Year's Eve

Due to having lived in London for a bit, I am on the mailing lists of many English theatres and arts organizations. On New Year’s Eve, I received an email from the Institute for Contemporary Art wishing me a Happy New Year with an animated drawing of a duck. And that was it. That was the whole message. They wished me a Happy New Year with a drawing of a duck. They didn’t let me know how many hours were left in the day to make their fundraising goals. Nope. They just sent me a fun drawing of a du

Feb 4, 2020 • 13:07

All the Times I Wrote My Last Thing

As I thumbed through the first draft of the zine that I make every year for my Patreon patrons, I thought “I actually wrote some good stuff this year.” In the same breath, I thought “That’s probably all I have. I’ve written all the best things. The well has run dry. I’ve just been coasting the last month and I don’t see how I could possibly get my mojo back. It was nice while it lasted but all I have left to write are sad documentary posts about the rejections I receive.” I’d worry that I was in

Jan 27, 2020 • 12:35

Is There, Was There, a Gen X Theatre?

While watching a much lauded play by a Millennial playwright, I found myself thinking I was watching a very Millennial play. I’ve had that feeling in theatres a lot lately and it made me wonder where all the Gen X plays were. What is – what was – the Gen X Theatre? Do we have one? Or did the theatre world just sort of skip us? To read more of Is There, Was There, a Gen X Theatre? visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. This is Episode 183 Song: Schadenfreude from Avenue Q Ima

Jan 20, 2020 • 18:32

The Gen X Nod

Ever since I realized we were outnumbered, I have been keeping my eyes open for my generational peers. We are harder and harder to find – for reasons that are not entirely clear to me. (How can there only be one Gen X-er in EVERY office? Don’t some Gen X-ers work together? Where IS everyone?) But my sense is that we’re all doing this keeping our eyes open for each other now, to some degree. I’ve noticed a new thing happening – a sort of guarded acknowledgment of one another – it is the Gen X nod

Jan 14, 2020 • 15:31

A Thanksgiving Visit from the Patriarchy

As I slid into my café chair on Thanksgiving Eve, a woman in sunglasses leaned in and asked, “Are you cooking Thanksgiving dinner?” “Nope,” I said. I was not interested in having a chat. I was there to write. To read more of A Thanksgiving Visit from the Patriarchy visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. This is Episode 181 Song: If You Want to Sing Out Sing Out by Cat Stevens Image by Dana Marin via Unsplash To support the podcast: Give it 5 stars in Apple Podcasts. Write a nice r

Jan 7, 2020 • 14:54

Screaming Songs for Men

For the podcast version of the blog, I try and find a song to pair it with – a song that speaks to the content of the piece. For my piece about screaming, I searched for songs on the subject. There are a fair amount of songs with the word “scream” or “yell” in the title but almost all of them, I found, were by white guys. I found this phenomenon curious. Why are there so many scream songs by white men? What do white guys have to scream about? EVERYONE LISTENS TO ME WHEN I TALK! PEOPLE CLEAR A PA

Dec 30, 2019 • 17:26

Put Me In Your Show

Please put me in a show. You may know me more as a writer or director but I’m also a performer. I can act, sing, puppeteer, play guitar and ukulele or whatever you need. I would carry a spear like nobody’s business. I could also be a movement coach or dramaturg. Just. You know….ask me. To read more of Put Me In Your Show visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. This is Episode 179 Song: Trying by Emily Rainbow Davis Image is my headshot from six million years ago. To support t

Dec 23, 2019 • 19:37

A Visit from the Rejection Fairy and the Missing Legitimacy Fairy

I don’t know where the Legitimacy Fairy lives but I sure would like her to come visit and wave her wand over me. I know her magic doesn’t last for very long, even when she visits, but still – a visit would be nice. Also, I must have really pissed off the Rejection Fairy because she’s over here almost every day, kicking up dust and making me cry. To read more of A Visit from the Rejection Fairy and the Missing Legitimacy Fairy, visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. This is Episode 178 S

Dec 16, 2019 • 18:53

What to Do When Weinstein Shows Up at the Bar

When I read about the three people who challenged Harvey Weinstein at a show for young artists, I tried to imagine what I would have done if I’d walked in to an event and found him there. I hope I’d have been as brave as Kelly Bachman, Zoe Stuckless and Amber Rollo but I don’t know. Would I be the first person to say something to him? Probably not. I’m not particularly confrontational. But I would have, I’m fairly certain, created a hex on the spot and I would have quietly but forcefully cast so

Dec 9, 2019 • 16:49

My New Coping Mechanism

I decided I needed to find a way to adapt to these screwed up circumstances. I decided to scream every time I read or heard some new infuriating fact. Screaming is releasing and physical and expressive. I thought it might help get the fury out of me rather than letting its poison build up in there. But. I do live in a dense urban area. And probably my neighbors don’t need the extra worry of a woman screaming all the time. So I’ve implemented the Silent Scream response. To read more of My New Cop

Dec 2, 2019 • 15:01

The Weird Perils of Surviving in the Arts

It WAS a magical show. It’s not that we didn’t have difficulties – it’s just that they were so minor in the face of the magic afoot. The cast was talented and smart and game. The design team was innovative and generous. The musicians were curious and supportive. The three of us who made it happen thought of ourselves as Charmed Ones – bringing forth good art magic. It was a charmed time, I think. And I don’t think I’m wrong about how good it actually was. Anyway – that was 18 years ago. A baby w

Nov 25, 2019 • 23:00

The Collective Emily Davis

You guys. Sometimes I get a little cranky about how common my name is. Like that time, a while back, when some other Emily Davis got into some serious debt and caused debt collectors to call me at various relatives’ houses because they couldn’t be sure I wasn’t THAT Emily Davis and they really wanted to find her. Or when they wouldn’t give me a mailbox at my college post office because they said I’d just come in and withdrawn. Uh. Nope. I’d just arrived for my first year of college and I was sup

Nov 18, 2019 • 15:30

Who Gets to Rage in American Theatre?

The show nailed the standard white American male theatre director so well, I found I had fantasies of kicking his head down the road a few days later. Forgive me the violent imagery but I guess I’m a little bit furious. American Moor is a show about an actor grappling with the weight of Othello. Caught in a tug of war between the demands of the racist American Theatre system and his African American peers, the character rails and resists. He wants to rage against the injustices that rain down bu

Nov 11, 2019 • 20:37

Small Victories

I am so used to rejections that when I saw the email in my inbox, I thought, “I don’t think I can handle that rejection today.” So it took me a little minute to open it and read it and see that was actually an acknowledgement that the play is moving on to the semi-finals and woot! To read more of Small Victories, visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. This is Episode 172 Song: Things Can Only Get Better by Howard Jones Image by skeeze via Pixabay To support the podcast: Give it 5 stars

Nov 4, 2019 • 16:11

Be the Weirdo You Want to See in the World

Look – I’ve always been a LITTLE bit weird. I wore my tutu with pants and an engineer’s cap to school when I was a kid. (I might still wear this, given a chance.) I don’t care much for social conventions or fashion trends or behavioral controls. I’m sort of constitutionally an artist and a certain amount of difference discomfort is just a normal part of my life experience. But recently, I’ve been feeling like I’m much weirder than I used to be. Or rather, I’m as weird as I’ve always been but I s

Oct 28, 2019 • 13:49

"Believe in Yourself"

In the bathroom at my local café, someone has written on the wall with chalk, in what I’m sure is meant to be an inspirational font: “Believe in Yourself!” I hate this note. I know it’s meant to be uplifting but I cannot imagine that anyone could look at a note on the bathroom wall and change their belief or lack of belief in themselves. In response to this cheery message, I may have given a bathroom wall the finger. I’m not proud of it – but I think I’ve been pushed to my Believing in Myself li

Oct 21, 2019 • 18:02

Invite Me to Your Party

Are you having a party? Invite me. I would like to come. Can I guarantee that I will make it? No. Stuff happens and sometimes migraines happen to me. So I am unfortunately not a terribly reliable guest anymore. Also if it’s super late and the trains aren’t running again on the weekends, it can get a little sticky but please invite me anyway. To read more of Invite Me to Your Party, visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. Episode 169 Song: People's Parties by Joni Mitchell Image by Markit

Oct 14, 2019 • 14:10

In Which I Learn Again that Popularity Does Not Equal Quality, or a Show Called Bike

Hey girl. It’s me, yourself from a few minutes ago. I’m just writing you this little post from your past so that you can refer to it in your future the next time you’re feeling bad or insecure or despondent about how no one came to see your show or read your blog or listened to your podcast or your music or read your book. I’m going to need you to remember the nearly three hours you spent in the audience of a musical I’m going to call Bike. To read more of In Which I Learn Again that Popularity

Oct 7, 2019 • 15:54

This Hour Is for You

I read Brigid Schulte’s article, A Woman’s Greatest Enemy? A Lack of Time to Herself, and something snapped. I am not just taking time for myself, for my art, though it can feel that way. I am also taking time for all the women who can’t spare an hour. By taking time for myself the way Popeye takes spinach, I can, perhaps, begin to counteract the way the Patriarchy has stolen so much time from women over the years. I don’t just take an extra hour for myself, I can take one for Henry David Thorea

Sep 30, 2019 • 22:30

In Which I Get Myself F-ing Mad About the Roma movie

I really wasn’t mad about Roma while I was watching it. It was a quiet arty experience and I appreciated the cinematography and getting to see the very specific world it created (and perhaps documented). But I didn’t find it moving. I expected to. I brought a pocketful of tissues and I did not use a single one. Not that my tears are required for a moving experience. But I was oddly unaffected and I was trying to understand why. So I did some googling and saw this cascade of articles declaring Ro

Sep 23, 2019 • 15:07

Be Quiet. You're Disturbing the Movie.

They were doing a screening of Roma in my neighborhood so I went. The theatre was dotted with audience members – so everyone sort of had a little bubble of space for themselves. About two rows behind me sat two elderly Latino men. They were possibly the only Latinx people in the place. Once the movie began, they spoke to each other in Spanish. In a movie that is so much about atmosphere, their voices added to the experience. I was only sorry that my Spanish is not good enough to eavesdrop a litt

Sep 16, 2019 • 15:55

Finishing Things

When I first started making things, I thought the hard part of making things was the making of things. I was always reading about people who never wrote their novels or their plays or songs or whatever. From reading all these creativity books, I got the sense that just FINISHING something would put me ahead of the pack. This sense is often reinforced, even now. Just the other day I was listening to a podcast about writing and the guest and the host agreed that 95% of writers don’t finish their m

Sep 6, 2019 • 13:37

Harry Potter and the Hangover

We watched The Hangover one night, when it seemed like a couple of dumb laughs might be just the remedy for the world’s cruelties. A couple of dumb laughs were about all we got out of it in the end and half of them were from us about what extraordinary stereotypes all the “killjoy” women were. We cracked ourselves up adding lines, “That no-fun bride is mad we lost her fiancé right before her wedding. God! Women are so annoying!” My friend could not get over how conventional and conservative it w

Aug 30, 2019 • 22:16

O God, that I were a man!

The interviewer had asked me about my early career as a classical actor. I was explaining the math I did after a few years of acting wherein I realized how terrible the odds were for me in classical theatre. I’d realized I had little interest in performing in contemporary work and that the jobs in Shakespeare for women were so few that I had really very little chance of continuing to work. Then she asked me, “Do you think it would have different if you were a man?” To continue reading O God, tha

Aug 22, 2019 • 20:42

The Hamlet Project - 'Tis a Knavish Piece of Work

The café where I came up with the idea is long gone. I think it’s three to four businesses ago in that spot now. But the project that was born there took me through eight to nine years. It started in that café out of a need to goose my creative practice. I was finding my writing process to be a little less smooth than I liked. When I turned on the faucet, the creativity didn’t always flow the way it used to. I felt I needed a structure within my daily practice that might drop me in to a better s

Aug 12, 2019 • 17:03

I Am Literally Making All This Up

When I apply for artist residencies, I am almost always asked to describe the project I would work on while there. Sometimes a rather substantial word count is suggested for such things. I suspect that the application lives or dies based on my ability to pitch a possible project. (Mostly my applications die – so it would seem I am not great at this part. Either that or the application ACTUALLY lives or dies based on the résumé, in which case the project may not matter at all.) But the truth is,

Aug 5, 2019 • 19:38

I've Got My Plans for July 4th Next Year Already

What with the kids in cages, gerrymandering given a pass by the Supreme Court and civil liberties under constant attack, I found it a little difficult to work up any enthusiasm for the Fourth of July. I would have been fine to grab a pizza and watch TV, maybe try and squeeze in a little activism – but, sort of by chance, we ended up at Gantry Park in Long Island City, Queens, which is not far from where I live. It’s a waterfront park developed in the last few years and so a lot of people had gat

Jul 30, 2019 • 15:03

How to Make Money as an Artist

I have read endless articles and books on this topic and they all offer more or else the same thing in more or less optimistic language, depending on the publication. They all know that this is what everyone wants to know, so this is what they tell you, even though no one has the secret. I’m not going to lie to you – the reason why there are so many articles about how to make money from your art is because everyone wants the answer and no one knows how to do it, aside from the Steve Martin, “Fir

Jul 22, 2019 • 28:25

I'm Not Busy

“I know you’re busy,” someone will say as we look at our calendars to pick a time to meet. Sometimes I just nod, and sometimes, I say, “I’m actually not.” Most people are a little baffled by this response. How could I not be busy? And how could I confess it? There are a lot of reasons for my retreat from busy-ness but confessing it feels more and more radical and more important all the time. To read more of I'm Not Busy visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. This is Episode 156&nb

Jul 16, 2019 • 15:08

Gen X Is a Mess?!?

Well, well, my fellow Gen X-ers. We have arrived. Again. The New York Times put out a style section spread on us and I tried not to pay attention to it because I was done, my Gen X siblings, I was done with weaving together the threads of all the Gen X articles I’d read and considered and so on. It came out a month ago but apparently I can’t leave it alone. To read more of Gen X Is a Mess?!? visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. This is Episode 155 Song: Kids in America by Kim Wi

Jul 9, 2019 • 16:31

Posse. Team. Community.

Here’s what I’m looking for: A Squad. A Posse. A Team. Specifically: a squad, posse or team that is ready to mobilize for protests and marches and events. Here’s why: I do not enjoy protests and marches. I’m a highly sensitive introvert with an aversion to crowds and shouting. But I know they make a difference and I often feel as though I OUGHT to go. Unfortunately, sometimes I just can’t muster the will. The main obstacle is that while there are many many things I am very happy to do by myself

Jul 1, 2019 • 14:36

Excuse Me, Ma'am

The man in an oxford shirt came up behind me at the narrow passage of the café and did not stop moving as he said, “Excuse me, ma’am” and walked on, scrolling through his phone. I muttered, “Don’t you ma’am me,” after he passed but what I really wanted to do was set him on fire with my magical fire-shooting ability. If you'd like to keep reading Excuse Me, Ma'am, visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. This is Episode 153 Song: Witchy Woman by The Eagles Image via Pixabay To support the

Jun 18, 2019 • 16:17

The Podcast Drama That No One Is Talking About

So the body count thus far for this adventure included one public radio podcast and one non-profit podcast host. And maybe even a non-profit podcast? But this saga was not over, friends. No it was not. Because a few weeks ago, an announcement showed up in the Note to Self podcast feed. Note to Self was coming back. To read more of The Podcast Drama That No One Is Talking About visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. This is Episode 152 Song: Listen to the Radio by Nanci Griffith Im

Jun 10, 2019 • 18:59

Medusa Long Shot Rocket Rejection

I started working on my Medusa play sometime around when I started my theatre company, which was close to 18 years ago. I abandoned the play after doing a reading of it but then picked it back up a few years ago when an actor, who’d read one of the parts that first time, asked after it. I don’t know if it had been a full decade at that point but the fact that it had stuck with him after so long made me feel like it was worth grappling with. To keep reading Medusa Long Shot Rocket Rejection go to

Jun 3, 2019 • 13:39

A Better Way to Read on the Internet - Episode One Hundred and Fifty

I thought this one post I wrote was pretty good. I know they’re not all winners. There are some that I just sort of throw together and some I really work at and this one sat somewhere in the middle, in that it had the flow of something that just emerged but the shaping of something I’d considered for a while. I guess what I am trying to say is that I was proud of it. To keep reading A Better Way to Read on the Internet go to the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. This is Episode 150. Song: Be

May 28, 2019 • 18:51

A Taste of Being a Patriarch in the Patriarchy

For most of the last decade, every day, I’ve been using a line of Hamlet as my prompt for daily writing. The Hamlet Project has nearly 100,000 views and most of them are not people I know. I don’t get a lot of comments on it but when I do, they tend to assume I, the author, am a man. I have been called “sir,” for example, and also “bro.” I think, even when I am not explicitly gendered in a comment, I am assumed to be a man. I don’t know this for sure, of course – but there’s something about the

May 21, 2019 • 16:37

Americans Need Dario Fo

Thanks to my dad and the Friends of the Library, a parcel full of books by and about Dario Fo arrived at my door recently. It’s been years since I last looked at his work and suddenly I was up to my ankles in Fo plays and biographies. To read more of Americans Need Dario Fo, go to the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. This is Episode 148 Song: Working Class Hero by John Lennon Photo by D Frohman via Wikipedia Commons To support the podcast: Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.c

May 16, 2019 • 17:05

Fortune Favors the Bold and It Also Likes to Watch the Bold Fall On Its Face

I’ve been brave this week. I stepped WAAAAAAY out of my comfort zone and took a series of risks. This is not unprecedented. I have, over the course of my artist life, taken quite a few giant leaps. Wherever I do it, I try to psyche myself up with such platitudes as “Fortune favors the bold.” I tell myself, “Good things come to those who risk.” But even though these ideas help me to take the risk, they have rarely been true. To continue reading Fortune Favors the Bold and It Also Likes to Watch t

May 13, 2019 • 14:30

The Velvet Rope

After the show, we went to the lobby to wait for the actor to emerge after her performance. The lobby was pretty busy. There seemed to be a little reception in progress, featuring sparkling wine and chocolate. The party was cordoned off with a velvet rope. We were on the other side of the velvet rope. To read the rest of The Velvet Rope go to the blog. This is Episode 146 Song: Velvet Rope by Janet Jackson To support the podcast: Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/ Like the bl

May 7, 2019 • 23:30

Here Is My Blush

Why am I bright red? What's wrong with me? Oh, that's right! The blush! The flushing! The blotching! Fun with nervous system stimulation responses! Song: Points by Bright Red Boots (my old band) To support the podcast: Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/ Like the blog/show on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SongsfortheStrugglingArtist/ Support me on Patreon: www.patreon.com/emilyrdavis Or buy me a coffee on Kofi: http://ko-fi.com/emilyrainbowdavis Follow me on T

Apr 30, 2019 • 20:18

These Ads Aren't Helping

Saw some ads on the subway and they are definitely not helping. Generation X, Politics and ads for a ride-share service. You can read it on the blog here. Song: Blister in the Sun by the Violent Femmes Follow me on Twitter @erainbowd Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/ Like the blog/show on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SongsfortheStrugglingArtist/ Support me on Patreon: www.patreon.com/emilyrdavis Or buy me a coffee on Kofi: http://ko-fi.com/emilyrainbowdavis

Apr 23, 2019 • 20:30

Flashback Friday - The Very First Episode of SFTSA

This was the first episode of the podcast. It came out in March of 2016. And was originally on Soundcloud. Because of Soundcloud's space limitations, I had to delete it and most of the first 70 episodes. I decided to go ahead and upload them again here on Anchor - just in case there are any completists among you. Also - it may be interesting to hear the evolution of the podcast. Along the way, there are changes in the mic, my skills at editing, the vibe, the addition of the songs and so on. Also

Apr 19, 2019 • 3:56

Who Is this Arts Education Experience for?

Having spent a couple of decades in arts education, in a multitude of schools through a dozen or so arts organizations, I’ve had occasion to wonder who it’s all for. Maybe it seems obvious. It’s for the kids, of course! It’s for the students! Except when it’s really not. You can read the post on the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. Also, includes a chapter from my Shakespeare book. Song: Teacher Teacher by 38 Special * Follow me on Twitter @erainbowd Join my mailing

Apr 16, 2019 • 28:16

The One Who Says Thank You

What does behavior at my bagel shop have to do with the fancy cars in the neighborhood? Maybe nothing. Maybe something. You can read it on the blog here. This is the podcast search engine I mentioned: Listen Notes Song: Thank You by Alanis Morissette Follow me on Twitter @erainbowd Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/ Like the blog/show on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SongsfortheStrugglingArtist/ Support me on Patreon: www.patreon.com/emilyrdavis Or buy

Apr 9, 2019 • 17:20

Thirty Five Cents

What happened when I turned on the advertising on the podcast? Baskets and baskets of money, of course. Of course. You can read the post here on the blog. Song: Rich Girl by Hall and Oates Follow me on Twitter @erainbowd Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/ Like the blog/show on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SongsfortheStrugglingArtist/ Support me on Patreon: www.patreon.com/emilyrdavis Or buy me a coffee on Kofi: http://ko-fi.com/emilyrainbowdavis

Apr 2, 2019 • 14:15

This Is Not a Good Story

So there I was, listening to the final storyteller wrap up his story when I felt the urge to cry out, "We have reached Peak Story!" Find out what happened by listening or reading the post here on the blog. Song: The Story by Shawn Colvin Follow me on Twitter @erainbowd Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/ Like the blog/show on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SongsfortheStrugglingArtist/ Support me on Patreon: www.patreon.com/emilyrdavis Or buy me a coffee on Kofi: http://ko

Mar 26, 2019 • 22:40

Get Out of the Boom Boom Room

What are we going to do about this 45 year old play that keeps getting assigned in acting classes? You can read it here: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2019/03/10/get-out-of-the-boom-boom-room/ Song: Boom Boom (Let's Go Back to My Room) by Paul Lekakis Follow me on Twitter @erainbowd Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/ Like the blog/show on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SongsfortheStrugglingArtist/ Support me on Patreon: www.patreon.com/emilyrdavis Or buy me a coff

Mar 19, 2019 • 20:44

The Default Character Or Why Elizabeth Acevedo Made Me Cry

Watching a presentation that Acevedo gave at the SCBWI conference made me cry but why? You can read the blog here: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2019/02/28/the-default-character-and-why-elizabeth-acevedo-made-me-cry/ Song: Don't Take Me Alive by Steely Dan Follow me on Twitter @erainbowd Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/ Support me on Patreon: www.patreon.com/emilyrdavis Or buy me a coffee on Kofi: http://ko-fi.com/emilyrainbowdavis

Mar 12, 2019 • 21:52

Atmosphere, Art, Magic and Soufflés

Why is it so much easier to write in an old dusty cafe than a beautiful beach location? You can read the post here: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2019/02/18/atmosphere-art-magic-and-souffles/ Song: Margaritaville by Jimmy Buffett (for real!) Follow me on Twitter @erainbowd Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/ Support me on Patreon: www.patreon.com/emilyrdavis Or buy me a coffee on Kofi: http://ko-fi.com/emilyrainbowdavis

Mar 7, 2019 • 19:59

The Cafe Wall of Fame

Cafe La Habana is an inspiring place that has been a hang out for lots of famous writers. There's just one problem. Read it here: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2019/02/12/the-cafe-wall-of-fame/ Song: Empty Chairs at Empty Tables from Les Miserables Follow me on Twitter @erainbowd Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/ Support me on Patreon: www.patreon.com/emilyrdavisor www.patreon.com/emilyrainbowdavis Or buy me a coffee on Kofi: http://ko-fi.com/emilyrainbowdavis And

Feb 26, 2019 • 17:04

The Tribal Boost

What power does a tribe have? Who are the Kings and who are the Twos? What does Deborah Frances White's book, The Guilty Feminist have to do with it? You can also read the blog here: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2019/02/07/the-tribal-boost/ Song: "Tribe" by Kim Viera Follow me on Twitter @erainbowd Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/ Support me on Patreon: www.patreon.com/emilyrdavisor www.patreon.com/emilyrainbowdavis Or buy me a coffee on Kofi: http://ko-fi.com/emil

Feb 18, 2019 • 23:19

In Which I Try to Defend My (Seemingly Terrible) Choice to Dedicate My Life to Theatre

"Why Does She Still Do This?" - a question once asked about a theatre maker I know that still haunts me today. Except now it's "Why Do I Still Do This?" And I'm not sure I have an answer. You can read the blog here: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2019/01/28/in-which-i-try-to-defend-my-seemingly-terrible-choice-to-dedicate-my-life-to-theatre/ Song - "I Am the One" by Emily Rainbow Davis Follow me on Twitter @erainbowd Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/ Support me on Patreon:

Feb 12, 2019 • 24:03

This Is My Motherf---ing Brand

What is my personal brand? Mmm. I have some thoughts about the intersection of advertising and art and support and "creators" and Patreon and so on. Listen here or read here: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2019/01/23/this-is-my-motherf-ing-brand/ Song: This Is What I Do by Rhett Miller Follow me on Twitter @erainbowd Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/ Support me on Patreon: www.patreon.com/emilyrdavisor www.patreon.com/emilyrainbowdavis Or buy me a coffee on Kofi: http://ko-

Feb 5, 2019 • 26:49

Anger Is My Superpower

I used to think I didn't feel anger. My, how times have changed. Listen here or read it there: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2019/01/16/anger-is-my-superpower/ Song: "Angry Johnny" by Poe Follow me on Twitter @erainbowd Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/ Support me on Patreon: www.patreon.com/emilyrdavis or www.patreon.com/emilyrainbowdavis Or buy me a coffee on Kofi: http://ko-fi.com/emilyrainbowdavis

Jan 29, 2019 • 21:49

In Praise of Violence (Onstage)

What happens when I try to write a fundraising email for my theatre company and end up praising violence. Listen here or read it on the blog: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2019/01/09/in-praise-of-violence-on-stage/ More about the show referenced here: https://www.messengertheatreco.org/#/Measure/

Jan 24, 2019 • 14:42

Claiming My Name

Please allow me to introduce myself. A post about my name. Listen or read it here: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2018/12/21/claiming-my-name/ Song: I Got a Name by Jim Croce Follow me on Twitter @erainbowd Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/ Support me on Patreon: www.patreon.com/emilyrdavis Or buy me a coffee on Kofi: http://ko-fi.com/emilyrainbowdavis

Jan 1, 2019 • 17:32

Advice for Artists

The front page article in New York magazine was some advice for artists. I have some thoughts. Listen to hear them or you can read them here: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2018/12/17/advice-for-artists/ Song: Follow Your Arrow by Kacey Musgraves Follow me on Twitter @erainbowd Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/ Support me on Patreon: www.patreon.com/emilyrdavis Or buy me a coffee on Kofi: http://ko-fi.com/emilyrainbowdavis

Dec 28, 2018 • 14:35

Amplify Wednesday

Some people seem to have megaphones built into their mouths/platforms. The rest of us need amplification. This is my idea for making my corner of the world a little louder for the voices I want to hear. If you want to join me for #AmplifyWednesday, feel free! You can read the original post here: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2018/12/05/amplify-wednesday/ Song: Pump It Up by Elvis Costello Follow me on Twitter @erainbowd Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/ Support me on Patre

Dec 19, 2018 • 14:08

Books About Anger and the Safety Tax

I'm reading so many books about anger. Are they helping or making it worse? Listen here or read it here: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2018/11/29/books-about-anger-and-the-safety-tax/ Song: Martina by Meryn Cadell Follow me on Twitter @erainbowd Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/ Support me on Patreon: www.patreon.com/emilyrdavis

Dec 18, 2018 • 21:44

We Might Be Okay

In which I google how to growl and ride on a Trumpy plane. I also find hope. You can read it here: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2018/11/23/we-might-be-okay/ Song: Hungry Like the Wolf by Duran Duran Follow me on Twitter @erainbowd Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/ Support me on Patreon: www.patreon.com/emilyrdavis

Dec 9, 2018 • 16:59

If She's Not Shooting Fire from Her Fingers, I Don't Want to See It

I have very specific viewing needs these days. Many many points to the entertainment that can provide it. You can read it here: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2018/11/20/if-shes-not-shooting-fire-from-her-fingers-i-dont-want-to-see-it/ Song: "Light My Fire" by The Doors Follow me on Twitter @erainbowd Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/ Support me on Patreon: www.patreon.com/emilyrdavis

Dec 5, 2018 • 16:19

Thoughts on Defiance

In which I am confronted by a giant man in an elevator and think about what defiance means. You can read it here: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2018/11/16/thoughts-on-defiance/ Song: Murder or a Heart Attack by Old 97s Follow me on Twitter @erainbowd Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/ Support me on Patreon: www.patreon.com/emilyrdavis

Dec 1, 2018 • 15:04

I'm Not a Productive Member of Society and I Have No Worth

How do you define productivity? Do people ask you if you've had a productive day? What do they mean? What do you mean? Why are we all so obsessed with how productive we've been? You can read it here, too: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2018/11/11/im-not-a-productive-member-of-society-and-i-have-no-worth/ Song: a brand new lullaby by me, Emily Rainbow Davis, called "Reuben's Lullaby" follow me on Twitter @erainbowd Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/ Support me on Patreon: www

Nov 27, 2018 • 15:19

Why, Yes, I Am Unhinged. Thank you for noticing!

Has she become unhinged? Undone? Why, yes, she has! And speaks both in first AND third person! You can do it too! And you can read the blog here: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2018/10/30/why-yes-i-am-unhinged-thank-you-for-noticing/ Song: Undun by The Guess Who follow me on Twitter @erainbowd Join my mailing list: https://www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/ Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/emilyrdavis

Nov 20, 2018 • 15:54

Real Talk About Imagination

Am I a dragon? No. Am I a witch? I wish. But I do have a vivid imagination. Here's why that's good. Read it here: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2018/10/23/real-talk-about-imagination/ Painting by Remedios Varo Song: Magic Carpet Ride by Steppenwolf Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/emilyrdavis

Nov 13, 2018 • 13:12

How We Can Win

An irritating man in a coffee shop gives me an idea for how we can start the revolution. You can read along here: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2018/10/18/how-we-can-win/ Song: In My Command by Crowded House To support the podcast, join me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/emilyrdavis

Oct 30, 2018 • 16:07

One Woman's Dystopia Is Another Man's Utopia, I guess.

Is this shouting and racism and such what they want? Really? Also - what song should we sing at racists? You can listen here or read it at: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2018/10/13/one-womans-dystopia-is-another-mans-utopia-i-guess/ Episode 119 Song: Do You Hear the People Sing? from Les Miserables Support me here: https://www.patreon.com/emilyrdavis On Twitter @erainbowd

Oct 23, 2018 • 24:02

My Blog-o-versary! A Decade of Blogging.

In which I celebrate my tenth year of blogging and explain how we got here. You can read it here: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2018/10/09/my-blog-a-versary-a-decade-of-blogging/ This is Episode 118 Song: Reeling in the Years by Steely Dan To support me go to www.patreon.com/emilyrdavis

Oct 16, 2018 • 20:37

Maybe It's Something. Maybe It's Nothing. Or, Much Ado About a Black Square.

In which women are asked to go dark on social media and post a black square and I do some investigation. You can read along here: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2018/10/05/maybe-its-something-maybe-its-nothing-or-much-ado-about-a-black-square/ This is Episode 117 Song: American Woman by The Guess Who To support me go to https://www.patreon.com/emilyrdavis

Oct 11, 2018 • 21:35

I Am Also Part Witch

A kind of a follow up to my previous post about what it's like being a dragon now. In this post, I discover some witchy magical powers and I use them. This is Episode 116. You can read the post here: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2018/10/02/i-am-also-part-witch/ Song: Season of the Witch by Donovan To learn more about me and/or find links for music and my other podcast: https://www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/ And to support: https://www.patreon.com/emilyrdavis

Oct 5, 2018 • 17:19

I'm a Dragon Now. The Fear of Men Is My Food.

I was nice. Now I'm a dragon. Be afraid. You can read the blog post here: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2018/09/28/i-am-a-dragon-now-the-fear-of-men-is-my-food/ Song: Kid Fears by The Indigo Girls Support me here: https://www.patreon.com/emilyrdavis

Oct 2, 2018 • 17:37

This Post Is One Big Trigger Warning

There's nothing in this post that isn't also in the news pretty much constantly at the moment. So there's a trigger warning but if you've been watching the news, you'll be fine. I think. I'm furious. That's what this is. Post here: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2018/09/24/this-post-is-one-big-trigger-warning/ Song: Don't Ever Touch Me Again by Dionne Ferris To support: https://www.patreon.com/emilyrdavis

Sep 27, 2018 • 19:25

Theatre is Not a Training Ground or a Compost Bin

Theatre is an art all by itself. It's not a stepping stone up or down from other forms. You can read the post here: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2018/09/10/theatre-is-not-a-training-ground-or-a-compost-bin/ Song: (I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone by the Monkees To support me, you can become a Patreon on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/emilyrdavis

Sep 25, 2018 • 17:02

"She's a Female, So That's Interesting"

Inspired by an interview with Ron Howard about Genius. Episode 112 You can read the blog here: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2018/08/30/shes-a-female-so-thats-interesting/ Song: Never Be the Same by Crowded House

Sep 19, 2018 • 14:35

Owning Our Expertise: One Way Zephyr Teachout Is Inspiring Me

Zephyr Teachout is inspiring in so many ways. (Vote for her for Attorney General tomorrow!) But there's something about the way she talks about her expertise that really lights me up. Episode 111 Read the blog here: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2018/09/11/owning-our-expertise-one-way-zephyr-teachout-is-inspiring-me/ Song: The Day Between the Kings - Bright Red Boots

Sep 13, 2018 • 15:29

Art By the Numbers - SFTSA 110

In which I share my numbers with you and provide 6 ways to support artists. You can read it here: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2018/08/19/art-by-the-numbers-or-how-to-really-support-artists/ Song: When Numbers Get Serious by Paul Simon To support me the most: https://www.patreon.com/emilyrdavis

Sep 13, 2018 • 26:05

The Change, The Phone Booth and a Sense of Doom

What happened a couple of years ago? Was it The Change? Or A Change? Am I becoming a superhero? Listen now or you can read it here: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2018/08/13/the-change-the-phone-booth-and-a-sense-of-doom/ Song: A Change Is Gonna Come by Sam Cooke

Aug 23, 2018 • 19:33

Sometimes I Need Applause - SFTSA 108

Turns out, I've got a performer's heart still because I apparently I still crave applause. Listen here or read it here: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2018/08/05/sometimes-i-need-applause/ Song: Applause by Lady Gaga

Aug 15, 2018 • 14:57

#MigrainePose

What is this migraine pose all the kids are using on Insta these days? (Are they really? I'd be surprised. But...) You can read it here: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2018/07/27/migraine-pose/ Song: Lucinda (from the Lullaby album)

Aug 10, 2018 • 15:16

Mature

People are now calling my work "mature." In this episode, I'll explain why I don't see it as a compliment. You can read the blog post here: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2018/07/20/mature/ Song: Sci Fi Children from the forthcoming Lullaby album Join my supporters on Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/emilyrdavis

Aug 5, 2018 • 13:59

TV Folks Feeling Uncomfortable

TV Showrunners are upset about the #MeToo Climate and they're upset about having to readjust their ways of doing things. Here's why I don't feel bad for them. You can also read it here: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2018/07/09/tv-folks-feeling-uncomfortable/ Song: Sex and Candy by Marcy Playground To Support the Blog, become my patron on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/emilyrdavis

Jul 28, 2018 • 17:48

Tortoising and Hare-ing

When it comes to creative projects, are you a tortoise or a hare? Or both? You can also read this here: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2018/07/15/tortoising-and-hare-ing/ Podcasts recommended: This Sounds Serious and In the Dark Song: "Los Pollitos Dicen"

Jul 24, 2018 • 11:35

Café Culture's Death by Proliferation

In which I try to understand why cafes are all so lame. You can read it here: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2018/06/29/cafe-cultures-death-by-proliferation/ Song - A La Nanita Nana Episode 103

Jul 17, 2018 • 11:56

SFTSA Bonus - Announcing My New Podcast (You Know, For Kids!)

This episode introduces the podcast I'm making for young people in which I read my novel, chapter by chapter. Check it out here: https://www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/readingthelibrarybook

Jul 12, 2018 • 6:51

Why I'm Thinking About Lullabies So Much

In which I explain my current project/obsession. You can read it here: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2018/06/26/why-im-thinking-about-lullabies-so-much/ Send me your lullabies, particularly those of separated families. Song - "Oscar" by Emily Rainbow Davis

Jul 10, 2018 • 11:27

"He Just Came with the Building"

What the head of an arts organization said at the Memorial of an artist. You can read it here: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2018/06/17/he-just-came-with-the-building/ Song: A Girl Named George by Emily Rainbow Davis Recommendation: Look for William Wade's music I'm @erainbowd on Twitter To support the podcast, become my patron on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/emilyrdavis

Jul 3, 2018 • 12:02

SFTSA Episode 100 - 100th Episode

Celebrate! With cake! It's my 100th Episode! And some stuff I've learned along the way! You can read the blog here: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2018/06/12/100th-episode/ Meanwhile, included in this episode: A trailer for my NEW podcast (for kids!) https://anchor.fm/reading-the-library-book Song: Lost Lullaby written by me, Emily, for the children separated at the border

Jun 25, 2018 • 16:04

A Great Idea for a Musical

What is art? And who gets to decide? Inspired by a comment on the blog, this episode also proposes a brand new musical. (And if it happens, I totally want a cut!) You can read it here: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2018/06/07/a-great-idea-for-a-musical-or-what-is-art-and-who-gets-to-decide/ Song: Wynken, Blynken and Nod by The Simon Sisters Episode 99

Jun 21, 2018 • 20:56

Just One Song

What's one small thing you can do to make your life better? This is one small thing making my life better. You can read it here: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2018/05/31/just-one-song/ Song: The Owl and The Pussycat - music by Lucy Simon Episode 98

Jun 15, 2018 • 15:33

A Big Disappointment and How to Go On

For several months I held on to the possible good news and then it wasn't good news anymore. A story in the vulnerability of stories and hope and such. You can read it here: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2018/05/25/a-big-disappointment-and-how-to-go-on/ Song: Sweet Baby James by James Taylor And if you'd like to help me keep making work, you can become my patron on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/emilyrdavis Follow me on Twitter: @erainbowd Episode 97

Jun 11, 2018 • 15:55

What No Money Means

When I spoke to some college students about a life in theatre they vigorously nodded when I asked them if they knew there was no money it but did they really know what that meant? Read it here: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2018/05/22/what-no-money-really-means/ Song: All Through the Night by Jules Shear (Cyndi Lauper) Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/emilyrdavis Episode 96

Jun 5, 2018 • 17:20

Everything Interesting Happens at the Edges

Inspired by the challenges to the American theatre establishment, this blogcast explores why outsiders are the challengers. You can read it here: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2018/05/14/everything-interesting-happens-at-the-edges/ Song: "Sacha's Song" by Emily Rainbow Davis, available on Lullabies on Spotify and other digital platforms To support the podcast: Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/ Like the blog/show on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SongsfortheStrugg

May 25, 2018 • 16:29

My Dentist Thinks I'm Cool

I realized something after my dentist told me I was cool. You can read it here on the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. Song: "Beautiful Red Dress" by Laurie Anderson To support the podcast: Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/ Like the blog/show on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SongsfortheStrugglingArtist/ Support me on Patreon: www.patreon.com/emilyrdavis Or buy me a coffee on Kofi: http://ko-fi.com/emilyrainbowdavis Follow me on Twitter @erainbowd

May 17, 2018 • 15:18

Hope Hangover

What's wrong with getting my hopes up? Well - there are consequences, for sure. You can read the blog here on Songs for the Struggling Artist. Song: "Hope Hangover" - written especially for this blog by me, Emily Rainbow Davis To support the podcast: Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/ Like the blog/show on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SongsfortheStrugglingArtist/ Support me on Patreon: www.patreon.com/emilyrdavis Or buy me a coffee on Kofi: http://ko-fi.com/

May 10, 2018 • 12:18

Migraine and the F-ing Patriarchy

"What is the migraine trying to protect you from?" Listen to find out the answer. Spoiler alert: it's the F-ing Patriarchy. This week, I watched a series of videos as part of the Migraine World Summit. One of the doctors asked a question that made me sit up and take notice. It was “What is the migraine trying to protect me from?” I wrote it down. I decided I’d think about it, maybe write down some ideas, see what bubbled up in a long contemplative session with my pen. Maybe I’d uncover som

May 4, 2018 • 20:53

Spotify for Good or Ill. For Good and Ill.

Is Spotify evil or amazing? Or both? You can read the blog here: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2018/04/21/spotify-for-good-or-ill-for-good-and-ill/ To support the podcast: Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/ Like the blog/show on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SongsfortheStrugglingArtist/ Support me on Patreon: www.patreon.com/emilyrdavis Or buy me a coffee on Kofi: http://ko-fi.com/emilyrainbowdavis Follow me on Twitter @erainbowd

May 1, 2018 • 21:03

Keith Richards Wouldn't Worry About His Bra

Why I want a guitar and an amp for every woman and girl. You can read the blog here: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2018/04/15/keith-richards-wouldnt-worry-about-his-bra/ Song - 25 or 6 to 4 by Chicago

Apr 24, 2018 • 16:42

Art As Service

Are art and service related? Is art a sales job? You can read the blog here: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2018/03/30/art-as-service/ Song: Designs On You by Old 97s

Apr 19, 2018 • 15:52

What People Click On

Following what people click on - how, why, etc - You can read the blog here: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2018/03/18/what-people-click-on/ Song - I'm Done by Emily Rainbow Davis

Apr 10, 2018 • 13:17

Please Stop Asking For Recommendations

If you're in charge of an arts opportunity, please listen to this. Or read it here: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2018/03/14/please-stop-asking-for-recommendations/ Recommended Podcast: Caught - https://www.npr.org/podcasts/589480586/caught Song: The Letter by the Boxtops/Joe Cocker

Mar 19, 2018 • 12:03

How To Not Be A Creep

Wondering if you're a creep? Or how to not be one? You can listen here or read on the blog: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2018/03/09/how-to-not-be-a-creep/ Song: No by Meghan Trainor

Mar 14, 2018 • 16:53

The Imbalance Of Talent Crushes

Why do girls get so many more talent crushes than boys do? I explore. Read it here: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2018/03/05/the-imbalance-of-talent-crushes/ Podcast Recommendation: Invisibilia Song: Hover by Rhett Miller

Mar 9, 2018 • 14:56

Art, Entertainment And SpongeBob SquarePants

What is the difference between art and entertainment? I investigate. Read it here: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2018/02/26/art-entertainment-and-spongebob-squarepants/ Song: Book of Poems by Old 97s

Mar 3, 2018 • 21:22

The Glamour Of The Grammys

I went to the Grammys and all I got was this blogpost. And some perspective. And social currency. You can read it here: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2018/02/02/the-glamour-of-the-grammys/ Podcast recommendation: Trump, Inc. Song: The Glamorous Life by Sheila E.

Feb 19, 2018 • 22:08

Is It More Than A Thousand?

How many people does it take to make an online group become unpleasant and uncivil? Is it more than a thousand? You can read the blog version here: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2018/01/30/is-it-more-than-a-thousand/ Podcast recommendation: Mouthy Messy Mandatory Song: Now We're Getting Somewhere by Crowded House

Feb 16, 2018 • 16:31

View From The Women's March NYC 2018

What was the Women's March like in NYC in 2018? Listen or read it here: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2018/01/25/view-from-the-womens-march-nyc-2018/ Song: Bread and Roses

Feb 6, 2018 • 16:46

To Sing Is To Survive

Why did I go back to singing this year? Listen here or read it: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2018/01/19/to-sing-is-to-survive/ Song: How Can I Keep from Singing?

Jan 30, 2018 • 14:08

Gen X Part Eight - The Coda - We're Not Gonna Take It

Just this one other thing to say about Gen X and then that's it. I swear. Just this one post, and this paddle board game and this lamp and that's all I need. You can read the blog version here: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2018/01/15/generation-x-part-8-the-coda-were-not-gonna-take-it/ Podcast Recommendation: Employee of the Month Song: We're Not Gonna Take It by Twisted Sister

Jan 27, 2018 • 14:28

How To Congratulate An Artist

My new year's wish is for every artist to get deep support this year. You can read the blog here: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2018/01/09/how-to-congratulate-an-artist/ Recommended Podcast: The Hilarious World of Depression Song: Find My Love by Fairground Attraction

Jan 23, 2018 • 17:07

My Grandmother's Genius

I come from a long line of working women. Here's the story of one of them: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2017/12/19/my-grandmothers-genius/ Book recommendation: Made to Stick by Chip Heath and Dan Heath Song: You Are My Sunshine

Jan 17, 2018 • 15:36

Hello Little Girl Culture And #MeAt14

What do Roy Moore and Into the Woods, the musical have in common? Listen or read the blog here: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2017/12/10/hello-little-girl-culture-and-meat14/ Podcast Recommendation: The Heart Song: Genie in a Bottle by Christina Aguilera

Jan 10, 2018 • 19:30

How I Learned To Be A Savvier Voter

Turns out I'm not as smart a voter as I thought. How did I find out? Listen or you can read it here: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2017/12/03/how-i-learned-to-be-a-savvier-voter/ Podcast recommendation: Politically Reactive Song: There is Power in a Union by Billy Bragg

Jan 4, 2018 • 17:43

You Had One Job, Man

Why did I want to disembowel the air with my chopsticks? Read it here: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2017/11/27/you-had-one-job-man/ Podcast Recommendation: The Bugle Song - Four Eyed Girl by Rhett Miller

Dec 22, 2017 • 16:15

My Respect Was Yours To Lose, Or, Why Radiolab Broke My Heart A Little

I went to see a recording of RadioLab's More Perfect, this is what happened. You can read the blog here: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2017/11/09/my-respect-was-yours-to-lose-or-why-radiolab-broke-my-heart-a-little/ Song: Shout by Tears for Fears

Dec 12, 2017 • 18:15

Why I Am Indebted To Charmed (Yes, The TV Show)

Witches are having a moment. This show is not insignificant in this moment. You can read it here: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2017/11/04/why-i-am-indebted-to-charmed-yes-the-tv-show/ Recommended Podcast: Invisibilia Song: How Soon Is Now? by The Smiths

Nov 22, 2017 • 15:31

Don't Step on my Exit

This guy I’d never met before was being kind of a pretentious dick about the theatre we were standing in. He clearly felt he gained some status and authority from working as an usher at the place. What he didn’t know (because this is a big old organization) was that my friend and I had also worked there for over a decade in the education department so I told him. And it gave him pause, which was the desired effect. I’m not a big fan of the status game shit (Unless it’s an actual status game in a

Nov 14, 2017 • 16:58

The Most Womany Woman Episode Ever

I’ve been watching GLOW – the Netflix series about the women’s wrestling show of the 80s and I’ve been enjoying how many women there are on the show and how different they are from one another. It is refreshing to watch a group of ladies figure out how to make something – even if that something that they’re making is kind of kitschy and weird and also racist and sexist a lot of the time. It has been enjoyable viewing thus far but then I watched an episode that switched my experience from enjoyab

Nov 6, 2017 • 12:30

There Was So Much Less Sexism Then

This wasn't everyone's college experience but I'm pretty grateful it was mine. You can read the blog here: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2017/10/20/there-was-so-much-less-sexism-then/ Recommended Podcast: In the Dark Song: Don't Stand So Close to Me by The Police

Oct 31, 2017 • 15:20

Gen X Part Seven - Born At The Right Time - Episode Sixty Seven

Is it true that Generation X is in a "blood feud" with Millennials? #IdoubtIt You can read the post here: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2017/10/07/generation-x-part-7-born-at-the-right-time/ Recommended Podcast: 2 Dope Queens Song: Born at the Right Time by Paul Simon

Oct 24, 2017 • 19:03

I mean, Me Too, Of Course. But this is it, right?

Sunday evening, after an intensive weekend of teaching – a weekend of showing up in one of my professional guises and remembering – “Oh yeah! I’m pretty accomplished actually. It is gratifying to be able to pass on my expertise!” – I came home, opened up my social media and fell into a river of “Me, too.” My sense of professional accomplishment faded away and suddenly, again, I was in the midst of a conversation about sexual harassment and assault. And I saw women I love who had just opened show

Oct 20, 2017 • 14:23

Feeling American

Never do I feel more American than when I travel abroad. At home, my identity tends to be more specific – the city I was born in, the state I’m from, the city I live in or the borough in that city or even the neighborhood in that borough. I don’t feel American in America – partly because I have always felt so countercultural. Americans are like THIS and I am like THAT. I have tended to identify more with other cultures. I have even (unsuccessfully) tried to emigrate in order to be in places that

Oct 12, 2017 • 17:02

A Remedy for What's-the-Point-itis

Because one of my beloved collaborators loves the work of Monica Bill Barnes, I sought out a performance. As soon as I saw Happy Hour, I, too, was in artistic love. I laughed and cried. I laugh-cried and cry-laughed. It was one of those shows that made me feel as if there might be a reason to go on. I’ve seen it multiple times. I’m not going to lie; there are some days in this artist’s life in which I get a bad case of What’s-the-Point-itis. When the labor and heartbreak of making theatre just d

Oct 2, 2017 • 14:17

Age Is a Feature Not a Bug

She told me her voice wasn’t what it once was. She’d taken time off from singing to raise her kids and was now coming back to it – distressed that she was not as perfect as she once was. There was a sense that her lived-in life had diminished her instrument. I, too, had left aside my singing for a bit. Not entirely, of course, but aside from the occasional song for a friend, I hadn’t really kept at the technical practice of vocal performance. But ever since the election, I have leaned back into

Sep 26, 2017 • 13:06

Apparently, Being a Sexist Jerk Pays Well

Perhaps this isn’t news to you. Probably especially not this year. Not in 2017 when we’ve seen one of the biggest sexist jerks around continue to profit on his sexist jerkholery. But… this isn’t about that. This is about a smaller corner of the sexist landscape. One of my feminist heroes is Anita Sarkeesian who has been making videos at Feminist Frequency since 2009. My personal favorites were her looks at Legos and her explanation of the Bechdel test. (This was before the Bechdel test was commo

Sep 21, 2017 • 21:18

Will You Wish You'd Been There?

Listen you guys. I hate going to protests. They’re loud and shouty and there are crowds there – usually big ones – and that’s sort of the point. But sometimes I make myself go despite my natural inertia – you know, that thing that makes it easier not to go than go. And given that there are protests nearly every day now, it can be hard to figure out whether it’s a time to hit the streets or a time take care of myself. My barometer has become: Will I Wish I’d Been There? To keep reading Will You W

Sep 19, 2017 • 18:09

Generation X - Part 6 - Selling the Drama

Do you remember, before we were Generation X, when we were the Pepsi Generation? Right about that time that Michael Jackson’s hair caught on fire? We were told that Pepsi was the choice of a new generation and there were videos and apparently our generation bought into it hardcore. We were also Peppers. Wouldn’t you like to be a Pepper, too? But that Pepsi Generation technique was actually a marketing campaign for Baby Boomers first and it worked so well for Pepsi when Baby Boomers were kids tha

Sep 14, 2017 • 19:54

Generation X Part 5 - It's the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)

On the Stuff You Should Know podcast about Baby Boomers, the hosts (both Gen X-ers) pointed out that generations are often characterized by events that shake their collective innocence (e.g. 9-11, JFK, Challenger) They then suggested generations might as well be characterized by the technology that unites them. Boomers were the first generation to grow up with TV. Gen X was the first generation to grow up with video and videogames. Computers, too. And Millennials grew up with more ubiquitous com

Sep 7, 2017 • 21:35

(Still) Waiting to Be Discovered

As a child, I wanted to be an actor but I lived in a small city wherein my opportunities were mostly school plays and community theatre. This did not stop me hoping that some director or producer would stumble upon me and whisk me away to Broadway or the movies. I imagined someone like the Hollywood guy in Cold Comfort Farm seeing me somewhere and a light would shine on me the way it does on Rufus Sewell and he’d know I was gonna be a star! To keep reading (Still) Waiting to Be Discovered visit

Sep 3, 2017 • 15:57

The Beginning of Authority in Theatre (and Beyond)

At the end of the evening, the young actors were hanging on his arms, pleading for an audition for whatever he did next. He had just joined a company four months before and directed his first show in the months previous. The last time I’d seen him, a year before, he’d asked me for advice about beginning. Now he was asking if I wanted to be his assistant. I have had a company for 16 years and a Master’s Degree in Directing. But no young actors hang on my arms or tell me they will stalk me until I

Aug 31, 2017 • 13:21

Where I'm From

I’m not from here. New York City is where I live and where I feel at home but where I’m from is a small city in the hills of Virginia. It’s the kind of city that sometimes gets called cosmopolitan – not because it’s a bustling metropolis but because it has a vibrant arts culture and an intellectual fire. This place is as much a part of me as my leg is. My hometown feels like part of my body. Where I’m from is green, green hills, green lawns, trees and trees and trees. It is people gathering unde

Aug 22, 2017 • 19:42

Gen X - Part 4 - I'm the Only One

There was never a real Gen X feminist movement. We were told our mother’s had taken care of that for us. And surely our mothers hoped they had. Some of our mothers (and fathers! There were some feminist fathers then, too!) bought us Free to Be You and Me and from that we learned that mommies were people and daddies were people and William had a doll and that it was alright for all of us to cry. Lego was for all of us and girls were told we could be anything we wanted. To read more of Gen X Part

Aug 20, 2017 • 20:15

Generation X Part 3 - Islands in the Stream

When magazines used to write about Generation X, they were pretty darn concerned about how much time we spent on our own, unsupervised. The Latch Key Generation may not have really stuck to us as a name (I imagine this was partly because, what’s a LATCH key? When does anyone use the word “LATCH KEY”? It’s clearly an old fashioned word. It’s a key, guys.) but, yes, a lot of Gen X kids went home from school by ourselves because our parents were at work. You could see this as a problem. (Oh, those

Aug 7, 2017 • 17:45

Social Media and Discussion

One of the weird things about sharing my writing on Facebook (which is where I collect the bulk of my views on the blog) is that, when it’s shared by others, I can sometimes see how people respond to my work without responding to me directly. On my own page, my friends are generally respectful and look at my work in the context of the person that wrote it, since they (most of them) know me. On other people’s posts of my work, I have seen some rather startling assumptions pop up. The most vivid e

Jul 31, 2017 • 14:14

Gen X Part 2 - We Belong

Generation X has tended to resist being labeled and we also tend to resent being identified with a group. We like to think ourselves as individuals. I have a Gen X friend who finds the concept of a “hive mind” deeply troubling. It strikes him as dangerous conformity to ask the hive mind what it thinks. I get it. I identify as a non-conformist, too. But I also grew up listening to a lot of Steve Martin records. And from an early age, I understood the irony of identifying as a non-conformist along

Jul 28, 2017 • 12:28

Another Kind of Story I Never Want to See Again

Previously, I wrote about a show that inspired me to make a list of stories I never want to see onstage again. I have now seen another show and discovered another story I have had my definitive fill of. Can we please call a moratorium on the fallen woman plot? You get a pass if your name is Jane Austen or Charles Dickens and you were writing social commentary about this shit in the 1800s but if you are a writer in 2017, do us all a favor and leave this tired old horse alone. To read more of Anot

Jul 21, 2017 • 13:39

Why Giving Up Art Is Not an Option

The actors stood up and I started crying. The house lights went down to start the show and moments later I was moved. It took a moment to shake me out of my familiar world. But it wasn’t just the moment, of course. There was a world of history behind the moment. It was the skill and finesse of a lifetime of theatrical practice that knew how to bring that world into a moment. It took extraordinary expertise and sensitivity to make something so simple so powerful. It took mastery. After giving me

Jul 16, 2017 • 14:47

Generation X - Stuck in the Middle with You

While visiting a small town, I found myself at a local restaurant, where a band was playing their Saturday night gig. The band’s leader sang about being a kid in 1992 which helped me place him as a member of the Millennial generation. The audience was mostly represented by the Baby Boomer Generation, with a handful of the band’s Millennial friends in the mix. When the band played a cover of a hit song from the Baby Boomer’s youth, they filled the room with exuberant dance. And the Millennial men

Jul 12, 2017 • 16:07

Health Care and the Struggling Artist

American Health Care Horror Stories are all so abstract until it happens to you. Every time I heard about another failure of American health care, I was horrified anew – but because I was healthy, it was like reading about an atrocity on another continent – terrible but distant. I spent most of my 20s and 30s so healthy that I went without health insurance for the better part of both of those decades and got away with it. A couple of ankle turns and an X-ray or two and I got away with spending a

Jun 12, 2017 • 14:22

No One's Asking for Your Art - Episode Forty Seven

What if no one cares about what you make? What if it doesn't sell? Read it here: https://artiststruggle.wordpress.com/2017/05/21/no-ones-asking-for-your-art/ Song: Cathedral by me, Emily Rainbow Davis Like the blogcast? Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/emilyrdavis

May 31, 2017 • 14:34

Single Gender on a Train

On the Politically Reactive podcast, the guest, Michael Skolnik, described being on the train coming home from the Women’s March in DC. He said he’d never been on a train “where there’s such a disproportionate amount of one gender.” And I said, out loud, in response, “I’m sure that’s not true.” That is, I’m sure he’s been on the train with a single gender before, it just wasn’t women and so he didn’t notice. Why do I feel so sure he’s been on a train or in public somewhere with only men? R

May 23, 2017 • 13:37

“A True Artist – the Perfect Candidate”

Last year, I received an award that was given to another person as well. We were both selected by the committee to receive the residency in question. I’m a white woman in my 40s from NYC and he’s a black man in his 20s from the mid-west. The residency was for emerging artists (see also my post on Can We Find Another Word for Emerging?) and I was surprised and delighted to receive it, even though I was pretty sure I wasn’t what most people meant when they signed up to support this award. Thr

May 18, 2017 • 11:22

Sexism Can Still Surprise Me

I can’t stop thinking about that story about the employees who switched email signatures and how it revealed incredible sexism. (If you haven’t read it, start here to read the woman’s account and click through to the man’s Twitter thread.) I’ve seen a lot of responses to this story that can most easily be summed up as “No, duh.” A lot of people (of all genders) have said, “Not surprising.” But I will confess to being surprised. Not that there’s sexism, I suppose, but that it could be

May 1, 2017 • 13:13

I'm Done Watching Nashville and It's Probably Not Why You Think

No one was more surprised than me when I became a fan of Nashville, the TV show about country music stars. It happened after I read an interview with Callie Khouri, the show’s creator, in which she explained how much her feminism was informing the show. In 2012, there weren’t many folks in show business talking about their feminist work, so I sought the show out immediately. And I loved it. You can keep reading I'm Done Watching Nashville and It's Probably Not Why You Think on the Songs for the

Apr 24, 2017 • 15:06

In the Dark Times There Will Always Be Singing

In my own life it is f*@%ing ESSENTIAL to have music and theatre and dance and art right now. It was nice before but it is essential now. It occurs to me that a sign of our previous freedom was the freedom to think of art as a frill, to think it might not be necessary. We could think that because we could afford to. We can’t afford to anymore. For now. Art is vital right now. For me. For everyone I know. To read more of this post visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. This is Episode 42

Apr 22, 2017 • 16:17

Theatre's Loss: Janelle Monae

From the first time I heard “Tightrope,” I was a fan of Janelle Monaé. I was head over heels for her music and her aesthetic, as well. She was musically exciting and theatrical in her style. Seeing her in concert was an incredible ride. She took the audience on a journey, the likes of which I have rarely experienced at a concert. She is a consummate show-woman and a brilliant connector. I’ve heard her described her as a contemporary female James Brown. This is Episode 41. Image via WikiCommons T

Apr 18, 2017 • 7:34

Sticky Benevolent Sexism

I was at a conference. We were wrapping it up with a reflection session – talking about what had been successful and possibilities for the future. Towards the end, a man stood up to say he’d been to the Women’s March and that he’d been inspired and now wanted to recognize all the women in the room. He asked us all to stand and receive applause and appreciation from the men. We stood, as requested and received the applause. And don’t get me wrong, I love applause. But this felt so so bad. To read

Apr 3, 2017 • 14:33

The Resistance Will Be Handcrafted

Since the digital age really kicked in, I have watched a lot of things that were important to me fade away. In a world that values social media currency and digital art and so many things on screen, my analog skills of theatre-making, performance and presence have felt less and less valued in the world. While I have adapted as well as I can, I have at times felt like an analog girl in a digital world – a handwoven basket in a factory town. To keep reading The Resistance Will Be Handcrafted visit

Mar 29, 2017 • 13:23

If My Pen is Rockin', Don't Come A-Knockin'

The bulk of my writing practice is dedicated to getting myself primed to write with the most focus I can manage. The practice is dedicated to finding a kind of flow. In an ideal session of writing, I will not stop the pen. I just go. And go. I’m sure that I look busy when I’m writing. I’m 100% sure I don’t look like I want to talk with anyone. And yet. And YET. To keep reading If My Pen Is Rockin', Don't Come A-Knockin' go to the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. #writing #CreativeProc

Mar 22, 2017 • 14:04

Devices in Auditions and Rehearsals

My company’s auditions for our project were meticulously planned. I did a group audition because I care about how people work together. I started with drawing, because it’s a script-flipping task that tends to calm jumpy actors down and it tends to signal that we’re doing things differently. I did a bunch of low exposure group acting explorations to get a comfort level going in a room full of strangers and then I had them play with materials to take everyone out of the context of performance and

Mar 21, 2017 • 12:48

Where in the World? - Episode 36

For years, I have been dreaming about emigrating to Europe, where so many of my favorite theatre companies are based. I fell in love with Cheek by Jowel when I saw their (all male) As You Like It. I idolized Improbable and their three man Artistic Directorship. I drooled over Complicite – and the one man genius at the center of it. Oh, how I wanted to move to England so I could make work like my heroes! To read more of Where in the World? visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. #Wo

Mar 13, 2017 • 13:06

The Kind of Story I Never Want to See Again

At a recent festival, the audience favorite was a show that re-told a fairy tale – one that featured a king reckoning with his power. It won an award, people loved it so much. But it made me furious. To keep reading The Kind of Story I Never Want to See Again visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. #king #storytelling #theatre #patriarchy #democracy #resistance #CollectivePower This is episode 35. Song: "The Day Between the Kings" by Bright Red Boots (You'll hear me tell you that it won'

Mar 6, 2017 • 14:16

How to Value a Voice

At the Women’s March on the 21st, I saw a sign that said, “Girls should be told that their voices are valuable.” And it stuck a chord so deep in me that it took me days to unpack it. I don’t disagree. Girls should, of course, be told that their voices are valuable. But it’s not enough. Not even close. Being told your voice is valuable means zero if you’ve never been shown that your voice is valuable. Telling is useless. To read more of How to Value a Voice go to the Songs for the Struggling

Feb 16, 2017 • 10:42

The Guys

In addition to making my own, I listen to a lot of podcasts. In my feed consistently for the last 7 or 8 years has been Marc Maron’s WTF, wherein he talks with people – mostly from the entertainment biz. I’ve learned a lot- but one major thing that I don’t think I would have known without this medium, is the way male entertainers talk to each other. In most of these conversations, at some point Maron will ask his guest “Who were your guys?” He’s asking who inspired his guest…who they idoliz

Feb 7, 2017 • 12:26

My Hagification Has Begun

The patriarchy won big time on November 8th, 2016. Enough voters and enough Russian hackers wanted the patriarchy to win. Enough people were like – “Yeah, the primal expression of the patriarchy is for us!” and voted for it. It’s pretty fucking awful but the patriarchy won. And I hate it. It made me cry big sloppy tears. And I was paralyzed and horrified and ready to hide in a basement for as long as was necessary. To keep reading My Hagification Has Begun go to the Songs for the Struggling Arti

Jan 31, 2017 • 9:49

The Sherlock Fridging

I should have been crying. The music was telling me that’s what I ought to be doing. And I cry at commercials so it is not usually hard to push the tears button in an emotional moment on a TV show. But I was not crying. I was flailing my arms in fury. My boyfriend looked at me and asked, “What?” I explained that I needed a minute to deal with my rage. It didn’t take him long to work out what had made me so mad. It was (WARNING: SPOILERS for Sherlock Season 4 Episode 1 ahead) not just that t

Jan 11, 2017 • 14:50

We Almost Had It. 38 Years to Go Now.

Ever since I read Marge Piercy’s Sex Wars: A Novel of Gilded Age New York, I have been obsessed with Victoria Woodhull, the first woman to run for president. I’ve read numerous biographies of her and her sister, Tennessee Claflin. Despite there being no shortage of plays, stories and movies written about them, I have been unable to resist writing my own version of their story. (It’s either called Public Women or Hamlet, Without the Ghost.) To read the rest of We Almost Had It go to the Songs for

Jan 11, 2017 • 11:54

A Day Without Immigrants

London. 2016. The day after the Brexit vote. The city was in shock. I was visiting and that day I saw multiple friends, coincidentally all of them born in other countries but residents of the UK for well over a decade. One of my friends proposed a response to all the immigration hysteria gripping the UK. She suggested organizing everyone who had emigrated/immigrated to the UK to pick a day to not go to work. The country would inevitably grind to a halt – and everyone would see what a vital

Jan 4, 2017 • 14:07

A Universal Symbol for "That's Racist."

The couple got on the N train and asked in their best English if the train was going to Scent Pearl. I asked them if they meant “Central Park” and if so, yes, it was going there and they settled in. They were from Brazil and delighted that I could understand their English sometimes and occasionally bits of their Portuguese. We had a companionable ride, misunderstanding one another at every turn. (Example: “How long are you here?” “We’ve been married 25 years.”) They told me I was very nice

Jan 3, 2017 • 10:50

"Art Under Fascism Is Good, Actually"

As soon as it became clear that the worst had happened on November 8th, my friends and fellow artists began saying things like, “Well, it’s horrible. But at least we’ll get some great art out of this.” and “Repressive regimes make for great art movements.” Ethan Hawke in a recent Hollywood Reporter interview said, “The Artistic Community thrives when fascists are in charge.” To read more of "Art Under Fascism Is Good Actually" visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. This is Episode 26 So

Dec 29, 2016 • 12:39

The Discomfort of Being Different Part 2

Occasionally, right after I push PUBLISH on my blog, I get a flood of additional ideas on the topic. I start to think of ways I should edit it or concepts I want to add. Sometimes I’ll go back in and edit or add – other times I’ll just let it lie. And sometimes I need to continue the thought in an entirely new blog post. That’s what happened when I opened up the floodgates on sexism in theatre. Thoughts just kept rushing in and I had to write follow-up-post after follow up. Some of those were ba

Dec 14, 2016 • 12:44

The Discomfort of Being Different - Episode 24

I make theatre. For years I tried to make it the way everyone else was making it but I found I was always running into trouble and it never turned out the way I wanted. When I realized that I didn’t have to try and fit in, I felt liberated. I didn’t have to do things the way other people did them. I didn’t have to follow the accepted norm. I could do it my way. I could audition actors my way. I could rehearse my way. I could perform my way. To continue reading The Discomfort of Being D

Nov 30, 2016 • 13:14

No More Muses

Warning: Sweary Feminist Rant Ahead. If you object to swears, hold your ears. F#*! muses. I’m done with reading about f$%*ing muses. Not the Actual Muses, not Terpsichore or Erato. I could read about them all day. But the g&*$damn muses who inspired the Great Painters and Giants of Literature and whatnot. If you want to read more of No More Muses go to the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. This is Episode 23. Song: Interdependent by Emily Rainbow Davis To support the podcast:

Nov 1, 2016 • 14:30

Why I Started Podcasting

You guys. I love podcasts. I can’t call myself a vanguard podcast listener (I wasn’t really in the very first wave of podcast listening) – but I caught on pretty quickly and have been listening for about a decade. And for many of those years, most of the voices in my podcast feed were male. They were the hosts of public radio shows or men interviewing (mostly) men. To read more of Why I Started Podcasting visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. This is Episode 22. Song: T

Oct 27, 2016 • 14:29

If We Knew What We Were Doing - Episode 21

“If we knew what we were doing it wouldn’t be called research.” I walked past the NYU Environmental Fluid Dynamics Lab and saw this quote in their window. It is (probably mis-)attributed to Albert Einstein but the sentiment is useful regardless of who came up with it. You can read more of If We Knew What We Were Doing on the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. This is Episode 21 Song: Wynken, Blynken and Nod by The Simon Sisters To support the podcast: Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainb

Oct 24, 2016 • 10:18

The Danger of Relying on Opinions

My theatre company’s crowdfunding campaign for Research and Development of our show got me thinking about arts funding and the way art gets supported. Generally, arts crowdfunding campaigns live or die based on the response to an idea, that is, the opinions of the people funding it. If a project’s friends and family LIKE the idea of the project, they fund it. If they’re not keen on it, like they think, “I wouldn’t want to go see that,” – they won’t. This is actually, at the gut level, often how

Oct 9, 2016 • 12:19

ID NYC Makes a Difference

I’ve lived in New York City for over a decade and a half. This year, I’ve probably gone to more museums and cultural institutions than I did in all the previous years put together. This is due to the new ID NYC, a program originally conceived to assist undocumented immigrants but that is now making a difference in the lives of all kinds of New Yorkers. To read more of ID NYC Makes a Difference go to the Songs for the Struggling Artist Blog. This is Episode 19 Song: Jackson Song by Patti Smi

Oct 6, 2016 • 13:05

The Panic at the Beginning

For about a week, I was crying at pretty much every opportunity. I got on the train, I’d cry. I’d lie on the floor, I’d cry. I’d go to the bathroom, I’d cry. In the moment, the source was not entirely clear but I finally traced it to the total terror of beginning work on a new show. Read more of The Panic at the Beginning on the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. Song: All Through the Night by Jules Schearer (originally recorded by Cyndi Lauper) This is Episode 18 T

Sep 21, 2016 • 12:12

Why I Shouldn't Work in Schools Anymore

I’ve written before about the changing landscape of Teaching Artistry. I’ve written about how arts education has changed in my years in the business. For the most part, I do most of my teaching outside of school environments these days but every so often, I’m brought back into the Arts in Education world. What the re-encounter highlights for me is how at odds my goals are with the goals of a lot of Arts Education. To read the rest of Why I Shouldn't Work in Schools Anymore, go to the blog.

Sep 15, 2016 • 12:10

Juliet Capulet, Feminist Role Model

While working with some 9th graders on Juliet’s “Gallop Apace” speech in Romeo and Juliet, I opened the door for the students to tell me what was happening. They worked it out faster than most groups do and quickly leapt to interpretation. One girl reported that Juliet was scared to have sex for the first time. I asked her to tell me where she saw that in the text and the line she pointed to means nothing of the sort. You can read the rest of Juliet Capulet, Feminist Role Model on the blog. This

Sep 5, 2016 • 11:57

How to Talk to an Artist

This is one of my favorite blogs: "Congratulations! You’ve made and/or kept a friend who is an artist. That’s great. Your friend is fun and/or serious and you like them. But there will come a moment when you have to deal with their art. Maybe you’ll be invited to their art show or their play. Maybe you’ll read their story in a magazine or see their dance on TV. It’s exciting, yes. But I can understand you might be a little nervous, too. What on earth are you supposed to say to them afterwards? Y

Aug 30, 2016 • 14:14

Ecosystem of a Theatre Scene

I saw a big fancy Broadway show that lots of my friends and colleagues had been raving about. It’s a show that utilizes the skills, ideas, movement vocabularies and motifs of devised and physical theatre. I saw elements of Viewpoints, of Chorus Work, of Dance Theatre. For many Broadway audiences, this piece felt extremely innovative and experimental. I’d wager that 97% of the audience had never seen anything like it before. You can read more of Ecosystem of a Theatre Scene on the blog. This

Aug 25, 2016 • 12:45

Can We Find Another Word for Emerging?

Listen. If you want to help me and give me opportunities, you can call me whatever you want. I’m happy to receive your beneficence as a “young” artist (I’m 42) or as a unicorn (a magical, majestic creature, certainly) or as an “emerging artist.” It’s really, like, all semantics at a certain point – if also inaccurate. Since I can no longer technically be called a “young artist,” I am, most often, called this “emerging artist” thing when I apply or receive artistic opportunities. But what does em

Aug 15, 2016 • 11:57

Ideas and Glitter and Places to Put Them

I have so many ideas, folks. I have ideas for breakfast, ideas for lunch, ideas for afternoon tea, dinner and midnight snack. I am rolling in ideas. And I am grateful for that abundance of ideas. I feel I can never have too many – so I am always happy to be a part of something meant to increase my inspiration. But ideas are never my problem. You can read Ideas and Glitter and Places to Put Them on the blog. Song: Se Potessi Parlare by Emily Rainbow Davis Episode 10 To support the podcast: Join m

Jul 18, 2016 • 11:33

The Best Time to Post

Do you want to maximize your views? You and everyone else! When is the best time to post? I have the (sort of) answer here. You can also read The Best Time to Post on the blog. Song: "Shine On" by Emily Rainbow Davis, created for Messenger Theatre Company's Mythellaneous This is Episode 9 To support the podcast: Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/ Like the blog/show on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SongsfortheStrugglingArtist/ Support me on Patreon: www.patreon.com/emilyr

Jun 8, 2016 • 11:07

Thank You for Your Smile - Episode Eight

Ah ha! I have found it! In my re-posting these old podcast episodes I have finally determined when I started adding a song to the blog and it is with this episode. So - not that far in, after all! Also - this episode is about smiling and change and college and senses of self and so on. You can read Thank You for Your Smile on the blog. Song: "Faith, Grace" by Emily Rainbow Davis To support the podcast: Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/ Like the blog/show on Facebook: https:/

Jun 1, 2016 • 13:07

So Others May Dream - Episode Seven

What did I learn by going to an event for West Point cadets? A lot, as it happens. A lot. And I found some inspiration there too. You can read So Others May Dream on the blog. To support the podcast: Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/ Like the blog/show on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SongsfortheStrugglingArtist/ Support me on Patreon: www.patreon.com/emilyrdavis Or buy me a coffee on Kofi: http://ko-fi.com/emilyrainbowdavis Follow me on Twitter @erainbowd&n

May 30, 2016 • 5:47

Doing One Thing Is a Privilege - Episode Six

All the business blogs and books and consultants say that in order to succeed, you must focus on one thing - but is that actually really possible for most people? Read Doing One Thing Is a Privilege on the blog. Follow me on Twitter @erainbowd Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/ Like the blog/show on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SongsfortheStrugglingArtist/ Support me on Patreon: www.patreon.com/emilyrdavis Or buy me a coffee on Kofi: http://ko-fi.com/e

May 24, 2016 • 6:46

The Selfless Teacher Story - Episode Five

I saw an "inspiring" clip from the Ellen show about a teacher who does extraordinary things for her students. She seems amazing, of course. But the real story here is how dramatically we here in America are failing our students. You can read The Selfless Teacher Story on the blog. Follow me on Twitter @erainbowd Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/ Like the blog/show on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SongsfortheStrugglingArtist/ Support me on Patreon: www.patreo

May 17, 2016 • 6:44

When You're Winning - Episode Four

About the likes and the congratulations you get when you're winning but also the algorithmic weirdness of when you're not. You can read it here on the blog. Follow me on Twitter @erainbowd Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/ Like the blog/show on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SongsfortheStrugglingArtist/ Support me on Patreon: www.patreon.com/emilyrdavis Or buy me a coffee on Kofi: http://ko-fi.com/emilyrainbowdavis

May 3, 2016 • 5:55

Why Going Away for Inspiration Is a Good Idea - Episode Three

The third episode of SFTSA ever! This one is about artistic inspiration and travel and the process of creation. Featuring the #DisneyStrategem and some inner voices. You can read it here. Follow me on Twitter @erainbowd Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/ Like the blog/show on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SongsfortheStrugglingArtist/ Support me on Patreon: www.patreon.com/emilyrdavis Or buy me a coffee on Kofi: http://ko-fi.com/emilyrainbowdavis

Apr 20, 2016 • 9:26

The End of the Show Experience - Episode Two

This was the second episode of the podcast. It came out in April of 2016. And was originally on Soundcloud. Because of Soundcloud's space limitations, I had to delete it and most of the first 70 episodes. I decided to go ahead and upload them again here on Anchor - just in case there are any completists among you. Also - it may be interesting to hear the evolution of the podcast. Along the way, there are changes in the mic, my skills at editing, the vibe, the addition of the songs and so on. The

Apr 4, 2016 • 5:32