The refusal to acknowledge names – particularly women’s names – runs deep. And hurts, deeply. This poem was written by Lucille Clifton upon her own visit to a plantation. She noticed a cemetery for enslaved people. The dead were unnamed. Inside the plantation house, she was shown documents that enumerated enslaved people, but just men. The women were unnamed. at …
What’s the best motivator of all? Money? Bragging rights? Satisfaction for a job well done? Well… no. If you’re anything like me, none of these hold a candle to the ultimate motivation. It’s humiliation. (Or the threat thereof.) If you can orchestrate events so that the fear of being humiliated by not writing is greater than the fear of having …
Your great mistake is to act the dramaas if you were alone. As if lifewere a progressive and cunning crimewith no witness to the tiny hiddentransgressions. To feel abandoned is to denythe intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,even you, at times, have felt the grand array;the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowdingout your solo voice. You must notethe way the soap …
One way the Enneagram can be useful is in identifying motivations for different characters. Each Enneagram Type has a secret fear, which isn’t true, but which drives their actions and reactions. These underlying false fears can be helpful in choosing characters’ behavior over the course of the play. One: Mistakes are unacceptable. Two: I am not lovable. Three: I am …
I’ve been using the Enneagram to type my characters for nearly a decade. It’s a fantastic way to ensure my characters are believable, and act like real people … while allowing me to identify realistic fears, backstories, and behavior patterns for them. I learned a few years back that Theresa Rebeck uses the Enneagram, too, when she mentioned it on …
My mother loves butter more than I do, more than anyone. She pulls chunks off the stick and eats it plain, explaining cream spun around into butter! Growing up we ate turkey cutlets sauteed in lemon and butter, butter and cheese on green noodles, butter melting in small pools in the hearts of Yorkshire puddings, butter better than gravy staining …
The podcast “Calm Down: Relax and Meditate” is one of my go-to soothers right now. My favorite short audio meditation is called “Halfway There.” It’s a very short (~six minute) listen that can help you restart your day anew, at any time. You can listen to that meditation and several others, or even soundscapes like rainforest sounds or white noise …
I have done a lot of research on domestic (intimate partner) violence. One of the cautions that comes up again and again in these cases is that strangling (use of a chokehold) leaves no marks, yet can do unimaginable damage as it cuts off oxygen to the brain. Very often, a strangulation attempt is that last violent action before murder. …
My latest project is a two-person play called “Flattened.” It can be an audio play, or alternating monologues on Zoom, or even presented live onstage with one actor standing before the audience at a time. It’s designed for pandemic performance. Two characters, Libby and Alan, are being interviewed by unseen authorities, about an accidental death that took place at the …
by Langston Hughes (For a Black Mother) My little dark baby, My little earth-thing, My little love-one, What shall I sing For your lullaby? Stars, Stars, A necklace of stars Winding the night. My little black baby, My dark body’s baby, What shall I sing For your lullaby? Moon, Moon, Great diamond moon, Kissing the night. Oh, little dark baby, …