Maureen McGuigan’s Remember, You Must Die: a comedy is back this month as one of two solo plays performed by their author in the Scranton Fringe Festival summer mainstage production Acting Alone. The show will also feature Mandy Pennington’s new work Girl Walks Into A Movie Theater under the direction of Simone Daniel.
Although I’ve been working at Lackawanna College in Scranton for eight years as an adjunct professor in the humanities, the school has not had its own theatre program for a long time. Acting Alone will only be the second time I’ve staged a show in that gorgeous old theater. Fun fact: The first time was the second production of The Vagina Monologues we produced in Scranton (2003) to raise funds for the Women’s Resource Center and Domestic Violence Services Center. I got to act in that one (“My Angry Vagina”) and connecting with that packed house was exhilarating. When I complain about how much I don’t enjoy acting, I try to remember that show because it was a clear exception.
Back to the present.
Performances of Acting Alone are scheduled at 7 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, June 25-27. Masks are required at Thursday’s show. There will also be a 2 p.m. matinee on Saturday.
Tickets can be purchased NOW directly from ScrantonFringe. org.
Hey, my alter ego, Kitty Belle Burbank, was caught chatting with E.W. Conundrum Demure at Radio Free Brooklyn again! On ep. 576 of Troubadours and Raconteurs, we discuss: “Sense of Entitlement, Raising Children, the Creative Economy & Technology, the Sitcoms of Norman Lear, Maude, Civility When Handling Disagreements, the 1970s, Innocence, the Orange Orangutan in the Room, the Darkside of Fear, Being More Empowered, Stolen Focus, the Value of Work, Making Things from Scratch, and the Farm Arts Collective.”
Episode 576 also features a poem by E.W. titled “Innocence” and music by Thelonious Monk, Lena Lovich, Bonny Light Horseman, War, Branford Marsalis and Terence Blanchard.
xo
I’ve been cultivating image ideas to pair with these words for a while … part of the Ferment series or a new one? Maybe the trigger for a spin-off. Maybe the cover of my next volume of poetry? Maybe a sequel to Banger’s Elixir?
But first … does it look like the android/robot is juggling or do I need to mess with the hands? Are they too fisted?
I’ve been teaching so much that I haven’t been writing my own stuff enough but with a little help from Siri (meaning these bits were voice dictated to notes while driving), I managed to squeak out a poem for The Plume. The gorgeous print magazine is an arts and literary journal published by Keystone College. -ag
I’ve turned my attention back to The Ferment. In the last few weeks, I’ve straightened out story arc issues across the full season outline and am in the process of typing up all the paper writing I’ve done over the past many months. Over winter break, I took the time to make a slide show of the characters with listed descriptors and photos of actors who fit the parts. Counts as writing, as they hashtag.
Yes, it’s an audio drama but I need to see the characters in my head. And actors’ voices carry a certain energy and presence. Besides, who says the project ends with audio? I believe in paying talent and a podcast won’t be free to produce but … it can conceivably be done. If I can get it done, it’s ‘Proof of Concept’.
The reality of budgets is enough to trap anyone under writer’s block. I’m not thinking about reality until I’ve got the first three episodes written and revised. If I can keep my spirits up, that could be by summer. I am currently writing multiple episodes simultaneously or the first would already be done. Despite a detailed treatment, I may have to write most of the entire story before I can settle on the beginning. Sometimes, it works that way.
In the meantime, when my brain gets overloaded with words, I turn to visuals. I’ve already made five in a series of Ferment collages. A couple of them have been posted previously on this site. Number six is part of my process to remember what the intoxication of intimacy feels like. Not just physical intimacy, but that sharing, the emotional exposures that move us closer to each other spiritually. This is key to episode four and episode three needs to set it up. -ag
Episode 3 of Season 4 of the Life And … podcast features a conversational story I wrote and recorded last spring. Spring is the time of year these creative things tend to happen in my life and it’s fitting that it should be published this spring. (I am working on a couple of writing projects right now. It’s wild!) The time spaned is notable because I’m shocked how much has changed in 11 months. Life is changing whether we are taking action or not. Even if you feel stuck, the pieces around you are moving. My Dad, who lived upstairs when this story was written, just moved back to his home in Alabama this week. The “boyfriend” I should have known better than to mention left me in July. There’s a poem about that a few posts back.
You can find the episode with links to popular podcast apps here.
My mom and my sister seemed to like it a lot. That’s good because I talk about them both a little bit in the “story.” I feigned not talking about the past or present, but it’s in there. Little slips that hint at trauma talk I’d rather avoid. Mom and Stacy shared many homes with me and can easily picture, for example, the rhubarb that grew under the stairs to our apartment in Northampton. I felt more strongly connected to Mom during our visit this past Sunday than I have felt in a while. It’s not that I have an ego that wants attention. But the occasional glimmers of understanding and connection I’ve felt with people through my poems heal everything that hurts. It’s hard not to want more of that. There is love there. Unfortunately, I’ve always struggled to feel love from other people while my love for others often feels overwhelming and childlike. I can point to evidence that this person or that one must cares about me to some extent, but I can’t always feel the fondness coming in. Is this more normal than I think it is? I know it’s common for people to feel unappreciated, at work, for example, or when it comes to chores and housework … more investigation is in order.
So yeah, it means more than I can explain with words that anyone took the time to listen to me share some silly little avoidant piece about a preferred reality. And it exists, at least in the telling of it. In the sharing of it. In these small moments of storytelling, we give our imaginations to each other. We give and receive stories. It sure makes life better than if we only had our own private stories to listen to.
Thanks to the Lackawanna & Luzerne Medical Societies, Scranton Fringe, & Park Multimedia, Executive Producer & Host: Tonyehn Verkitus, Producer & Audio Engineer Dan Kimbrough, and Co-Producers Elizabeth Bohan & Conor Kelly O’Brien for their work on this program and helping grow connections in the community both old and new.
As I’ve mentioned here before, I’m honored to be a recurring guest on my friend E.W. Conundrum Demure’s weekly program Troubadours and Raconteurs. It airs on Radio Free Brooklyn on Friday nights at 10 p.m.
On episode 562 we talk about Living In the Desert, Gender Roles, Self-love, Local Journalism, Being Alone As a Certain Kind of Freedom, Listening to the Community’s Needs, Public Broadcasting, Mexico Suing U.S. Gun Manufacturers, the Border Problem, Making Up Stories, the Guttenberg Parentheses, Having Heart…
Click below to listen.
Episode 562 also includes an E.W. Poetic Piece titled “We Be Aware,” and music by: Thelonious Monk, Ray LaMontagne, Cassandra Wilson, Laura Marling, Branford Marsalis and Terence Blanchard.
More information and a full-archive list can be found here at Radio Free Brooklyn.
Gregarious Expressions 