ONE: My Harsh & Hilarious Hate Letter to Myself. A friend is becoming a professional coach and she needs to clock in coaching hours. I signed up. She's fantastic. One exercise she gave me was to write a letter to myself spewing all the negativity swimming in my brain. Here it is in full. I laugh every time I read it because it is bullshit. Brilliant bullshit . . . a new monologue for a play?
"Dear Old Aging Pattie -
You are out of time. All of your, “I’m a late bloomer.” “Someday I’ll make good money off my art.” days are not just numbered, they are OVER! It is too late for anything good to happen in your life. No one will ever take you seriously as an artist now. When did they ever? You’ve made all the wrong choices. Why didn’t you go to LA or NY when you had the chance? That’s right. You would have failed there as well. You would have been too shy, not AGGRESSIVE enough, and certainly not castable. And MONEY? How are you going to pull that trick out of a hat? Give up. Stop writing, acting, and directing. Be invisible because that’s exactly what you are to the world and always have been."
TWO: Tanika Gupta’s playwright workshop helps you make your play relevant.
Me on Twitter:
“@Tanika_Gupta Thank you for the wonderful Bruntwood playwright workshop yesterday. Names > Magwitch > story vs. synopsis > the exercises > the big ideas list -- wow! Everything you offered gave me a new perspective on my plays. So impactful! Thank you!”
THREE: Kiddos performing Shakespeare. Consuelo Brennan and her merry troupe of young actors, age 8 – 18, offered up the best staging of A Midsummer’s Night Dream I have ever seen. And right in my backyard. Brennan works with her actors for nine months on Shakespeare. In America?! Unheard of.
FOUR: A weekend of great dance in my neck of the woods. Choreographer Bill Evans has retired to my small community. He held a breathtaking open rehearsal for his upcoming tour. A good friend of mine who left the dance world to run a bakery and raise a family has, at the age of 50, become one of Evans’ proteges. She and her partner are Butoh practitioners and performed beautifully at their own space the same weekend.
FIVE: 70’s Television Icons Who Died – We lost a brilliant comedian and a storied (bordering on divine) performer last month. I wrote about them here: Tim Conway. Peggy Lipton.
SIX: The final season of VEEP – This show is an education in building a joke. I tried to do it myself. Here are 3 adaptations of 3 VEEP jokes. I’m using my favorites to ones in one of my plays.
This is like explaining ice to a hamster.
This is like explaining chairs to assless chaps.
This is like explaining electricity to Donald Trump.
I’d rather drink the urine that exits my body when I cry hard, so that’s a no.
I’d rather bathe in Donald Trump’s urine, so that’s a no.
I’d rather be buried alive without my cell phone, so that’s a no.
Don’t give me that Republican in a Dollar Store look.
Don’t give me that Lindsey Graham at a well-read lesbian orgy look.
Don’t give me that Brett Kavanaugh at Kamala’s inauguration look.
SEVEN: Season two of FLEABAG is a lesson in building a world of flawed and unsavory women who seek truth at all costs. And a hot priest. But not a cool priest.
Confession: When I was in HS in Tacoma I got up early every Sunday for mass, hangover or not, because I had my own hot Irish priest to worship. He later left the priesthood and married a congregant. But she wasn’t me. Sad, right?
EIGHT: FOSSE/VERDON should have been titled Verdon/Fosse.
NINE: Nick Cave's Sage Advice. This week he talked about writer's block.
TEN: Anjelica Huston has been spilling the tea on her years in Hollywood while promoting John Wick 3 - now playing at my local drive-in. These days I don’t have the time to keep up on showbiz dish but my time always stops for AH.