encouraging new artists

I went to a conference.

I went to two staged readings of new plays. Each play was the winner for its category, one for adults and one for high school students. The goal of the adult competition was the discovery, development and publicizing of worthy new plays and playwrights. Although a purpose for the high school competition was not given, one might assume similar goals.

For the high school student-playwright, the talk back went like this:

The moderator introduced the playwright after the staged reading. Then, the moderator gave the audience guidelines for response: First, give the playwright feedback about what is working, what you admire and like about the play. Then, give the playwright feedback about questions, what you wanted to know more about in the play. Next, give the playwright feedback about concerns or confusion, areas that you aren't certain about in the play. Finally, the playwright was invited to ask the audience or actors anything she wanted to know about their experiences.

Smart, huh?

Now the adult winner. Note that I said: winner. Award-winning. Selected as the WINNER, right?
The facilitator, also a playwright, first introduced the playwright and quoted a famous playwright (one she quoted frequently, as in "When I was working with Famous Playwright, he said...") as saying: the smartest person in the room is the writer.

Then she said "this is what is working: Good job, actors"

(and, the actors were uneven, but overall okay)

"Great directing"

(A. this was a staged reading- limited directing. B. the directing sucked. It was distracting to say the least about it)

"Now, comments on the play."

And the facilitator went on to state her opinion (liberally sprinkled with "I think we will all agree")- setting the table for the audience- that the play didn't work. That this award- WINNING play had flaws right and left. Mind you, she contradicted herself in her criticisms several times- that the play had no conflict/then the play had a great conflict but it wasn't resolved; that the play didn't tell you enough about something/that the play told you too much about that same something.

Meanwhile, in between belittling the play, she would say, "the play is lovely," "the relationships are lovely."

All while the playwright is sitting ONSTAGE RIGHT NEXT TO THE FACILITATOR, unable to respond to these comments.

When the audience was finally allowed to respond, predictably, they echoed some of the "expert's" opinions.

The WINNING playwright left the session seriously questioning whether or not to continue writing.

This is WRONG, WRONG, WRONG.

I was appalled. Horrified. Angry.

I am grateful that the high school student was not savaged in this way- however, is this any way to treat our best and our brightest? Is this any way to recognize a WINNER?

pout face

There are days when I just want to take all my marbles and go home.

Or maybe go to Australia.

This is one of those days.

to to to DO, to to to DO!

Somehow today I will be:

1. finishing the last little bits of grading
2. prepping for tomorrow's classes
3. emailing my failing students with their last warning
4. applying for a job
5. writing a ten minute play or two

Oh, and at the moment I'm doing laundry. LOVE that multi-tasking.

Later:
grading- done
prepping- mostly done
emailing students- done
applying for job/kicked to tomorrow
writing play/kicked to tomorrow (which is THE DEADLINE)

Oh, and still doing laundry

goodnight, goodnight, before it becomes tomorrow.

Still later- as in, ten days later:
1. I did the grading. Now I have stacks of new grading, as final papers have been turned in and final exams are currently being taken.

2. prepping did get finished, and in time for classes.

3. I have emailed the failing students. Some of them twice. Now I'm done. Failing or passing, their choice.

4. job application: done. Getting the job or not: their choice.

5. ten minute play: written and submitted.

And I am getting back to the blogs. OKAY!

Curses

So I have some titles for a few stories/books:

The Chinese Curse: about my last few years of "living in interesting times" and longing for boredom.

The Mother's Curse: about how I got kids that were just like me- and kids that were just like me.

The Yiddish Curse: So, things could be worse.

The N word

I can't say it. I'm a white woman of a certain age, raised in a certain place, in a certain era, and I can't say that word.

The following incident happened with a group of teens that I'd been working with a couple summers ago. In the teen theater troupe I was directing, we have occasionally had Hispanic or Black youth as participants, but only occasionally. There were no youth of color in our troupe at the time of this incident.

During this particular summer, an incident occurred. Not during rehearsal, thank goodness, but after, when some of the teen boys were hanging out being cool together.

So, imagine three guys, 14 or 15 years old, hanging out.

Chillin'.

Three white, suburban boys, who think they are gangsta.

So, they are hanging out, goofing around, yelling back and forth to each other outdoors in this public park.

Calling one another the N word.

I wasn't there (rehearsal was over, and I had headed home). The boys' moms were around, but not right near them ('cause that wouldn't have been cool).

And I might never have heard about the incident at all, except that-

As it happened, in this public park, there was a Black man and his child.

Who heard the boys- gave them a look- and took his child and got in his car and left.

Enough was observed by one of the moms so that she talked to her son and to the other moms who talked to their sons and then I heard about it.

I tried to talk to the boys.

JE, I said, you aren't Black.

Yeah I am he said.

NO, I said, you're NOT, and that is not your word.

I don't think the boys ever "got" it.

I felt terribly disturbed, though. It still bothers me.

Marching on...

Here it is already March 4, and I have yet to post a blog! I have some topics coming up- Negative Impact is one title, and sharing family stories is another theme- and I would have blogged about my rage against woman-haters like Rush Limbaugh but my daughter of Little Pixie Magic beat me to it.

Instead, I will briefly mention that I am at the midterm for the two classes I am teaching at university.

Once again, most of my students are doing well. And, once again, a few are failing.

In one class, I sent out emails to those who were just not doing the work. I told them what work each was missing and gave them a deadline for turning in late work for partial credit. And then I sent a reminder email a day before the final deadline.* (I have put the other class on alert that a deadline is ahead for them.)

There were 9 out of 20 students in this class who were in this predicament.

Since the emails, 2 students decided to drop the class.

Good, that is fine. Wise choice.

Of the remaining 7, 5 have turned in work by the deadline.

Of the remaining 2, 1 was not actually failing yet, and has room to catch up.

The last 1 is perhaps my favorite in the class. And this particular student did not show up this Friday, which was the deadline day.

I don't understand it. Most of these students are actually the brightest, most eager and passionate in discussion.

Why not just do the work?

It isn't hard to pass my class- even get a good grade.

You have to do the work! Read the texts!

What is particularly ironic is that this student is the one who asked the class (admitting to as much guilt as anyone else) Let's stay on topic in discussion, okay? Because we are paying for this class, let's get the most out of it!

* Honestly, how many teachers send individual emails alerting students to the danger of failing? Should I even do this?

I was bullied

I was watching the news and I saw that one of the cute blonde news anchors is coming forward with her dark secret:

"Believe it or not, I was bullied."

Well, honey, join the club.

I am not saying that bullying is no big deal, not a problem.

I am just saying it isn't *new*.

When I was a kid, I had to ride a bus to school. There were these girls that would wait until I was exiting the bus and rush to push me down.

This is when I was about 6 or 7 years old. I was a small child, and not only were these girls in superior numbers, they each also had a size advantage.

The bus driver knew about it; she basically told my mom there was nothing she could do about it.

Apparently, the grown-ups- those in power- felt I should stop whining and just suck it up.

Then, and now, if I retaliated, *I* would have gotten the worst of it: either beaten up by the girls AND/OR written up at school for fighting.

Interesting note: when I told my mom we were going to homeschool our kids, one of her worries is that my kids wouldn't be exposed to bullies and so wouldn't learn how to toughen up-

If anything, that would have been a further argument for homeschooling, in my book!

I think if you ignore situations where the less powerful are preyed upon by the bigger and stronger, you are tacitly agreeing that "might makes right."

I think if you ignore your child's situation in these cases, you are not teaching them to "toughen up" you are teaching them that the "authorities" don't care.

(I'm totally over it, though. TOTALLY. )