Learning as I go.

Travis Bedard has said more than once that when it comes to social media, you can't get away with anything. At all. Ever. Yet I've gotten away with some things on this blog I didn't expect to get away with. I took Mamet to task (sort of). I've blogged about domestic abuse and confessed to being a former schoolyard bully. I expected some kind of backlash from most of these, and instead was mostly met with support and love and gratitude for speaking my mind.

Yet it was this post -- which was meant to be the most love-y, campfire-y, you-can-do-it-y post ever -- which has had unintended negative repercussions. Somehow, I managed to paint an institution that I adore (and which is responsible for me having met a number of amazing people, including the love of my life) in a negative light, all in just a teensy here's-the-context-for-these-emails-that-I'm-copy-and-pasting intro paragraph.

So let's talk about ESPA, where this discussion started.

I found ESPA (which wasn't called ESPA then) because I had responded to a playbill ad for script readers for Primary Stages. I was reading their scripts and developing a little sister-crush on Tessa LaNeve, and I saw that they were offering a class with Lucy Thurber. I'd taken a one-day workshop with Lucy at New Dramatists in which I'd produced a couple of pretty stunning pages, so I signed up.

Lucy rearranged my brain. I'd been rather enamored with myself as a writer since childhood, and she was the first teacher to say to me, "Yes, you're a very good writer, but what are they doing?" I was working on my Wizard of Oz adaptation (The Yellow Brick Road Trip, which I will finish one day), writing very poetic, pretty scenes in which not much was happening, and she was the first one to challenge me to do better than that. And starting with that class, I did.

A guy named Larry Kunofsky was in that class. He had a play up at the time called What to Do When You Hate All Your Friends. I saw it, and liked it, and liked him, and then class ended and he disappeared from my life.

From there, I went on to take a rewriting class with Julia Jordan, where I revamped a script called A Man of His Word. Julia helped me make it better, and more active, and sexier, and more dangerous, and both cleaner and dirtier. I had a damn good, well-attended reading of it at New Dramatists. My director for the reading was a member of LAByrinth and offered to submit it to LAB for me, which made me do a spit-take with glee.

Then there was the one-day workshop with Sarah Ruhl, where I had snot gushing from my nose the whole time and was pretty much miserable, but I ran into Larry Kunofsky and he emailed me after class and, long story short, we've been together for almost two years and are starting a theater company.

Then a class with Michelle Bossy. This time I decided to dig up my senior project from college, The All-American Genderf*ck Cabaret, which had begun as a collectively-conceived ensemble piece but which I wanted to make my own. And with Michelle's guidance, that script became fucking fierce. In a "jam session" with fellow ESPA students, most of whom I didn't know, three young women named Miranda Wilson, Tess Paras, and Yolanda K. Wilkinson blew me away with their cold readings of the script. After class was over, I put together a reading, which a couple friends from the Rapscallion Theatre Collective attended, and they produced the show. Miranda, Tess, and Yolanda (which is now spelled Yeauxlanda) were in it and are still my friends. Most of my classmates from that class still come see my work, and Genderf*ck is about to receive its second production with Purple Rep in April.

Then another rewriting class, this time with Rogelio Martinez. I was working on my modern-lesbian-Romeo-and-Juliet-musical, and his notes were consistently insightful, smart, and helpful. Ampersand: A Romeo & Juliet Story racked up 20 Looking Glass Forum Awards over the course of two workshops at the Looking Glass. At a friend's birthday party, Leta Tremblay, who'd seen both workshops, flat-out offered to produce it. We've submitted to Fringe and, even if they reject us, one way or another that sucker's getting produced.

And then there was Eddie Sanchez, who gets my work and gets me and gives feedback in a way that makes me not want to ever stop taking classes with him. I started work on Magic Trick, which is about a paraplegic girl who leaves her boyfriend and starts doing burlesque. After I finished the class with an incomplete script, I decided (aided by some pressure from fellow classmates) to come back for a second semester of Eddie, in which I am currently enrolled. Five (five!) classmates from the first class are repeating Eddie's class, by the way. And I'm still in touch with those who aren't: we share opportunities with each other, try to see plays together. One of them is in The Un-Marrying Project (which, if you don't know what that is, you should go here and come see it in April). And Magic Trick, when I finish it, is going to fucking rock.

And because I apparently don't want to ever get any sleep ever, I am taking another ESPA class concurrently with Eddie's class, Chris Burney and Don-Scott Cooper's "Marketing and Production for Playwrights," all while working full-time and trying to produce two plays at once. And the lack of sleep? Worth it. Our instructors are nothing if not supportive; they're helping us take real, concrete steps towards making ourselves as marketable and sexy as possible. We've met an agent who's downright dreamy, and we're having provocative conversations about our own personal self-marketing journeys. My classmates are smart and supportive, and I can't wait to get to know their work.

Which brings me to my most recent post: It was in the context of these provocative conversations that I noticed some frustration amongst my classmates. Not with the instructor or the class, but with the difficulty of "breaking in." It's a frustration I think every single playwright who is not Albee or Mamet shares. And as we talked about how to make the most of network-y, shmooze-y events, one classmate asked, "How do we find out about these events in the first place?" And that's where my most recent post was born.

In between the emails Larry and I sent, Chris Burney sent the following to the class. I omitted it in my last post for length, but this post has gone on long enough that a few more paragraphs are just going to be a drop in the bucket, and it's definitely worth sharing:

To all,

Thank you Larry for taking such care to write a thorough, thoughtful and eloquent response to the somewhat commercial notions of networking we discussed in class.

One of the things I said in class, and one of the things I firmly believe, is that there is no inherent reason to create theatre; there is no singular reason to create art. It only exists because we have a belief, a passion, an insistence that we have a story to tell and a belief to share. The moment we lose touch with this incessant need, I think we need to re-evaluate our work (and it is the moment many choose to leave “the business”). It is the vision we have for our work that both fuels our art—and also fuels interest in our art.

Every artist I know who excels at networking shares their unique point of view and passion. From observations, artists who have sustainable careers create a community—one that supports them as well as one they support. This is true of most industries—but it is essential in the arts.

Larry gives a lot of great resources to check—and I would reiterate that the most important thing to do is look, get out, meet as many people as you can. Find those networks that feel right to your life and your art. Of course, people who work in the arts are great resources—but also be sure to spread your network to all areas that interest you—you never know when you will meet someone who can have a positive impact on your life, your career or your art.

Have a great weekend—and try to meet a few new people!

Best,
Chris


So I guess this whole post is just to say:

I don't want one poorly-worded paragraph to negate three amazing years.

My scripts have gotten better and I've seen a fuck-ton of free shows, but more importantly, I have a community. This community comes to my plays, is sometimes IN my plays, writes me letters of recommendation so that other people do my plays, busts my balls until I take a class with them and write more plays, and hugs me a lot. I guess it's been a networking process, but it hasn't felt like that; it's felt like making friends. Which is, like I said, the best kind of networking.

It's not frustrating or frustrated, it's fucking awesome. And they throw a good party.

So there's some context for ya. I wouldn't take the time to write such an extensive post had ESPA not done right by me, time and time again. Like I said in the last post: when you like something someone does, tell them.

So ESPA, in case I haven't told you lately: thanks for the laughs. And if you're in New York (or not, as they now have online classes), take a class there. Who knows, you might walk out with a boyfriend.