grants. grants.

woo.

grants.

Today was grant day. i spent like four hundred and nine hours writing a work statement and a cultural statement for to get cash for to make my play.

I am not sure if I'm doing it right... for instance, do grant people appreciate humor? I'm asking for money for my play... which is a farce set in a microbiology lab... so I make a joke about doubting the existence of funny scientists... is humor good for grants?

dunno.

I'm going to go with yes, because, in my opinion, humor is good for life.

Also, i'm still working on squeezing out my play. At this point, i'm trying to reconcile the conventions of farce with the conventions of hospitals and the people that work therein. For instance, would the audience shudder in pain or delight if a stool sample were spilled? And my inner bacteriologist HATES the idea of someone slipping and falling over spilled somethin' or other. I mean, when i was a kid and would go to the lab with my mom, she wouldn't let me touch countertops or sit in certain chairs, for goodness' sake... let alone slip and fall into something spilly! GERMS!

but that could be funny, too, right? a germophobic bacteriologist.

k, more work being done now.

wish luck!

the beat goes on

my brain is full up. my purse is empty.

these are the projects i need money for:

1. ballet company for fatties

2. play that i'm writing about bacteriologists

3. cabaret

and

4. that's all. there isn't a fourth.

this is the amount of money i have for the projects i want to do:

1. $0

the math is bad.

on another note, i was writing the bacteriologist play this week, and i showed a scene to my sister, and she was all, 'wo. that's way too close to home, kid. you gotta switch up some names and adjectives or our mother is going to disown you.'

woops.

so, then i dove into a massive inner thing of, 'why am i just stealing from the stories of my loved ones? is that okay? to just steal stuff and change names? doesn't seem okay.'

i still feel weird about it, but know that my writing's better when it's ripped from the headlines.

i've got to finish the grant applications this week. bottom line. 'cause now i'm actually starting to get excited about the art that i am making, and it would blow to not get it made due to funds.

i need to be wily. like the coyote, but less with the anvils, more with the thinking on how to do things creatively and without easy access to buckets of money.

k, off to plot a way to make water from wine. if anyone out there has clues, lemme know.

peace out.

The Continuing Adventures...

So, theatre can't exist in a vacuum. unless it's a conceptual show and the theatre has been built to look like the inside of a hoover. ba-dum ch!

this last week got away from me. I was concentrating on making money via voice lessons and gosh-a-mighty, it's monday.

did i do any work on the play? nay.

did i feel good about that? nat.

did i build a theatre shaped like a vacuum? noom.

so no theatre was done this week.

poo-y.

BUT! here we are again. back in the saddle.

These were the things i came up against this last week in trying to understand putting on a show in NYC:

1. unless you are independently wealthy, you need to spend a lot of the day working. and, as a result, you have to spend a lot of time physically preparing to do the work: travelling, working, recovering, eating, working, exercising so you can live to be old, recovering, and going to the post office. or the bank. then, when you get home and think about art, you feel more like watching the art that others have made on abc. so the days escape and you haven't done the art.

2. nyc doesn't care if i do a show. it's all land-like and big and apathetic. it allows us to walk all over it. so, you know, that's comforting. i can live here as long as my feet can last, trying or not trying to produce my own work. nyc will still be here. comforting.

3. all i really need is money and a little ingenuity. with money, i can spend less of my day as the girl described in bullet point 1, and with ingenuity, i can get people in the seats and art produced. So, i'm going to finish the grant application this week. i'm going to submit it and get some cash. i'm going to spend one hour each day writing and planning. what venue should i rent for a reading? can i get equity approval for some showcase contracts? i dunno. i'll figure it out.

slow and steady wins the race.

day two and three

we've only just begun to live. white lace and promises.

day two and three, bitches. or, as we sometimes type, "bithes."

day two and three, bithes.

so, i started filling out a few grant applications on nyfa.org yesterday and today. easy but annoying. you can do it all online, saving your work as you go... which is stellar, but whenever i start filling out a grant application, i feel icky. like i start to make the icky face and shudder in my shoulders.

it just feels very wanky. like "give me money 'cause i'm super cool and my art is so deserving and i have such a new take on life and my art expresses the human experience differently and in a new way from all art that has come before it." which is true, i guess, but also, a little not true.

mini treatise on art in america: america should put more energy and cash into art. it's good for the culture, it nurtures non-violent behavior, and it deserves more than just a place in the capitalist marketplace (where revenue determines quality). end of treatise.

so anyway, grant applications: super easy but a little icky.

i'm going to continue to do it right now on nyfa.org. where they let me save my work as i go. bithes.

also, i'm going to try to spend an hour writing today. i'm making myself find time to do it because of you, blog. so word. i feel very Julie and Julia with you in my life.

k, happy day!

happy sukkot, everyone! happy feast of booths!

ok, this is the deal:

i am a human on planet earth, i like most forms of pasta but never eat it, and i want to produce a show that runs in New York City.

this blog is mainly about the third thing... though the first thing is kind of an unavoidable fact that has influence on the third thing... and the second thing may be folded in to the third thing later. maybe. i don't know.

so, here is the challenge:

write, produce, and make successful a show in New York City in two years time.

done.

this is day one. today, i started the blog. and, just for chronicling purposes, i'll tell you that it was a good day. blogs are pretty easy to start except for sometimes they talk to you in html, which is convoluted.

ok, tomorrow, i start writing and planning what needs to be done! what does NYC want to see? what do i want to show them? something that utilizes the 20 years of tap i've taken, obviously, and my middling skill at playing piano. also, how many asses will need to be kissed so i can have money enough to produce this baby? i'm going to figure it out. see you tomorrow.