INTRODUCTION to Double Exposure: Plays of the Jewish and Palestinian Diaspora

It is so strange how one word can have two hauntingly different meanings.  Such is the case with a word like “exposed.”  Do we want really our community, ourselves, and our children to be exposed?

If you see exposure as meaning that you possess a deep understanding of the perspectives of other kinds of people, yes.  But, if you see it as meaning you are unprotected and physically vulnerable, probably not.

You might assume that most “learned” people would say that they don’t mind that their minds are exposed to other ways of seeing the world.  You could argue that it is only our bodies that we are precarious about putting places where others can access.

But, this is a false assumption.  Most of us are deeply, even savagely, invested in preserving our own worldview.  We are taught to insist that our own version of history is the most important story, usually in the blind and instinctual way that we are sure -...

The last performance of the Classical Theatre of Harlem’s production of Fit for a Queen will be Sunday.

Fit for a Queen is the earliest play of mine I still list on my website.  In some ways, it’s my first real play. 

I wrote it at a point when I was profoundly disillusioned with politics in general and the activists I knew in particular, most especially myself. 

I had begun to see everything anyone did as a ploy for power and attention.  The professors and student speakers at rallies for causes I cared about seemed like wanna-demagogues, preaching to the converted for their own aggrandizement.  When I was asked to speak, I too felt like a wannabe-demagogue who cared more about how I came off than what I actually accomplished. 

It seemed myopically cruel to organize conferences about refugees at Ivy League colleges and end them by blowing a ton of our university’s money on fancy meals for  our invited speakers and ourselves.  Yet, how I enjoyed those meals!

I questioned...

Entry Number #3 of Countdown to the Classical Theatre of Harlem Production of FIT FOR A QUEEN

Often, the same word in English is used very differently.

For example, let’s take the word “occupation.”

It means job.

It also means military control of a civilian population by a more powerful foreign  power.

Another example is the word “cast.”

What does it mean to cast a dye?

A spell?

A play?

Does one particular way we use a word 

color

how we view the other seeming unrelated ways also we use it?

Freud would say it did on a subconscious level

(right?).

Elia Kazan definitely said much of his job as a director was casting. 

(I would argue he also did much of what wasn’t his job, which included acting like a scared little lily-livered beyach and naming names for the House on Un-American Activities when he could have instead used like his power and visibility to support the Group Theatre artists who lost their livelihoods and careers due to daring to flirt with radical politics. But, that’s a rant for a differ...

Entry Number #2 of Countdown to the Classical Theatre of Harlem Production of FIT FOR A QUEEN

How do you get to and from the people you love?

What are the modes of how you transport your body through space?

And…

how does HOW

you get around

impact

WHO you are

when you arrive?

If you fight through crowds on a subway and perhaps shove a bit when people standing in the doorway don’t make room for you WHEN THE MIDDLE OF THE SUBWAY CAR IS EMPTY,

what does it do to your soul?

When you hop in a car and exist in a capsule that (mostly) insulates you from facing how you aggressively or gracefully you might act no one makes room for you,

what does it do to your sense of self?

National borders mean so little to me,

but they seem to even mean even less

when I move from city to city in America.

If you are alone with your thoughts as you think about a play,

(and not trying to speak the language of the people populating your space)

Moscow and Paris are more like New York

than New York is like anyplace in America

where yo...

Entry Number #1 of Countdown to the Classical Theatre of Harlem Production of FIT FOR A QUEEN

There is something terrifying about workshopping a play with a great cast act right before you are slated to go into production. 

You’re not in production with a preview audience who have already bought tickets  to see the show your team hasn’t made yet. 

The adrenaline hasn’t kicked in.  

Hysteria must be kept in check (or at least somewhat properly disguised). 

You’re not allowed to let everything else in your life fall away (all the people who need you still have the right to act like they do). 

You’re not yet worried about how incoherent or pompous you might come off in preview press pieces and interviews (or bemoaning the fact that you are not – in fact – getting enough preview press pieces and interviews).

You’re just working.

With a group of truthtellers (also known as actors)

who are trained to make your text work and can,

until the moment they can’t,

because the text you have given the...

There’s nothing like a first, right?  A first kiss, a first love, a first play production.  

A famous and fancy playwright took me aside on the opening night of my first off-Broadway play.  He told me, “Feel this moment.  There is nothing as thrilling as your first professional production.  Every other premiere will just feel like one more.  This is the most exciting time of your career.”

He was right.  Of course, I didn’t know it then.  I couldn’t.   

Perhaps no other blog post I will ever be as exciting as this one is for me to write.  Probably I won’t know it until I’ve been at this for years

Writing a blog feels somewhat like keeping a journal that you intentionally leave lying out, hoping a friend/lover/roommate will read it.   To see you in your vulnerability.  Your grappling.  And to somehow know you better for it.

Note: I did read my first college roommate’s diary.  I’m confessing this not because I am especially proud of my act...