MONDAY NEWS

Here is some fun stuff that's new and exciting.

We received a grant from Lower Manhattan Cultural Council for Aliens, this new play about immigration that we are creating with Saviana Stanescu.

We are signing on to work with SCAMP at this year's Edinburgh International Fringe Festival. These ladies are definitely rockstars. They always represent amazing shows and we are so excited to be working with them.

Joey and Gary and I went to Victor Villar-Hauser's bar last night and I got pretty drunk. Off a beer and a half. And we hung out with Victor for a while. He's friendly and has an accent and that's pretty much all it takes for me...thanks for the drinks Victor!

We have decided to take on two production interns. I will post the ad in a few days and please forward it around!

And the biggest news of all. A few days late, I know, but please let's all bow our heads and say a little prayer for an amazing icon of camp. Good-bye Anna Nicole.

Alien Invasion

The showing last night went really well...to our surprise. (We were a little nervous about the work...) Three ESL teachers brought their classes so we ended up with an audience of 75 international students. They were a very live audience, amped up, really interested in the subject matter, for obvious reasons.




In the talk back a Colombian girl spoke up about what a different life you live in America, that in your home country you may live in a big apartment with a great career and here you will have a tiny apartment and a menial job.



A Sudanese man thought it was important to work on a plot about credit cards for immigrants, how they don't understand the rules of credit when they first arrive. Then between student loans and buying overpriced junk and not really understanding it all, they end up in unmanageable debt.


One Albanian woman insisted that we should not present immigrants as depressed and having no options. She was worried that we were painting these characters in a hopeless light.She wanted to make sure the four characters would have more joy and optimism in the second half of the play




Overwhelmingly though the audience really enjoyed it. They paid attention and they laughed and someone in the front row took a picture with his phone of Kim in her stripper outfit. I'm sure she's already all over the internet and YOU CAN'T BUY THAT PUBLICITY.



I took these pictures, so they are shit, but they'll give an idea of what we're making. Photos of the epic journey to Rudys to follow soon. Stay tuned...



And it's a good thing those classes were there. Otherwise we would had an audience of seven. So I must shout out to Allison, Gwen, Marcy, May, Ben, Gary, and Serge for making the trip in the freezing weather. Gold star. All the rest of you...shame.

too thirty on toos day

Husband and I are too broke to leave the house so we are spending the day on our asses on the futon. He's reading OK! I'm reading Gawker. We're eating butterscotch pie. It's a pretty high-brow day.

I'm heading to Queens soon for the showing of ALIENS the big front-burner project this month. If you can brave the cold and the questionable 7 Train please join us. All the gliterrati will be there. And there will be Brooklyn Brewery beer. Per always.

And if you're too lazy to travel for theater, don't worry, we won't judge you. I'll post some pictures tomorrow that you can peruse from the comfort of your couch. Expect brilliance. Or at least the efforts of theater artists who got up the energy to leave the house.

I had a great Edinburgh meeting yesterday. Things are looking up for that leg of the tour. And we have a bunch of grant applications swimming around as well as some residency possibilities. 2007 will be big big big baby!

Oh and I think we're going to this party tonight at Jesse Hooker's after the show. I'm sure everyone is welcome...

work-in-progress

Shalimar Productions is totally psyched to present a work-in-progress showing of

ALIENS

a new play by Saviana Stanescu
directed by Shoshona Currier

Tuesday, February 6
8pm
at THE LITTLE THEATER
at Laguardia Performing Arts Center

LaGuardia Community College/CUNY

31-10 Thomson Ave. Long Island City
(7 Train to 33rd St or E, V, R to Queens Plaza or check here for more directions)

ABSOLUTELY FREE! NO RESERVATIONS REQUIRED!

Please join us for a few scenes of this new work and a discussion after.

featuring: Brandon Bales, Matt Bridges, Kim Gainer*, Christopher Illing*, Jen Taher*, Joey Williamson*
stage manager: Shani Murfin

ALIENS is a play about cross-cultural love and greencard-marriage that explores the subtle and complex sides of the immigrant experience, challenging and using the stereotypes about love and marriage in New York. Does a marriage with an American citizen solve every problem? Is a greencard a strong enough reason for a marriage? ALIENS is a story about the American dream and its everyday nightmare.

ALIENS is based on true stories of immigration explored collaboratively by Shalimar Productions and fictionalized by a playwright who is trying to understand her own story.

Made possible by a LaGuardia Performing Arts Center Space Residency

The Making of the Play

We're in "the room" right now, as it were, working on this new play about immigration and cross-cultural relationships. I mean, we're in a few rooms at the moment, since we're remounting stirring AND Joey and I are starting to rework LA FEMME EST MORTE or Why I Should Not F!%@ My Son. But most pressing for the next week is the immigration play, being written by the remarkable Saviana Stanescu...so we are generating lots of work in typical hippie collaborative style, trying desparately to avoid viewpoints, to add tools to the toolbox, to take a step away from the masses. Isaac talked me through some Joint Stock excercises a few weeks ago and we've been using some of those for development, as well as some other random planes, trains, and automobiles.

We conducted interviews a few days ago, with friends, loved ones, and partners...all people who are currently or have been involved in an international relationship (real or...phony). Here are some of my favorite things that have been blurted out...

"It's hard for me to have a relationship. I'm always gone."

"It's just married life. It's not that different."

"Around Thanksgiving we called up Mom. Drove to Vegas."

"What I actually did was help a felon get his citizenship."

"Correspondence was fierce."

"I can't work here. My life has come to a screeching halt."

"I don't regret that. I belive in marriage."

"I don't care about marriage."

"If it doesn't work out we'll get divorced. No big deal."

"We are something that exists on land, not just on the water."

"Christmas was hard. I miss you guys."

"She works at Starbucks. She's got a masters. We're waiting to get her papers."

"I know why tigers eat their young."

"I'm in New York because of you."

"Am I going to father a child for the price of a greencard? Is that the cost of being with you?"

"You're saying it's worth it, but you're not the one doing it."

time is of the essence...

We received a space grant from the Laguardia Performing Arts Center for the play we are workshopping with Saviana Stanescu. Basically they give us 40 hours or so of space in their theater and we show whatever we have piddled out in that time.

Oh the space residency. A blessing and a curse really. A blessing because it makes you make work. A curse because it makes you make work. On a time-line.

Because what is the ideal? The ideal is that we have our own space. Something we can rehearse in and perform in and have an office in. Something a bit convertible. Edgy but with comfortable seating. Working toilet. Heat in the winter. Sprung floors would be nice, but we have fared well on concrete before...And with the space we have money. Not a lot of money but enough to get us all in the room at the same time without too much fight. Just something to make acting more worthwhile than catering, which of course it is, but there is the necessary evil of paying rent. So...

So in this fantasy we have all the time and space in the world. So we can create plays on our time, at our leisure, when inspiration strikes, we are there. We had a whisper of that this summer thanks to the Women's Interart Annex. We had 24 hour access to that space for a month at a VERY low price. During the day I would pop in to write. The actors would come a few hours before rehearsal to warm up. We could leave our growing collection of musical instruments there. And at 11pm when rehearsal was over but Joey and I were just getting inspired, we would blast the sound system and stay until 3am, creating the musical numbers for the show. It was freeing to be able to work at our own pace.

This space grant is great because it lights a fire under our asses. We have 3 other shows coming up in the next 8 months, a remount, a ten-minute play extravaganza, and a re-workshopped re-created re-mount that will go overseas. Starting a new play from scratch was getting continually pushed to the back burner. But then we got this grant. And we had three weeks to organize ourselves, do our research, make a schedule, and get our asses out to Queens so we could make some fucking theater.

But it's still hard. The space is great, but there is no money involved and we are still renting some space in Manhattan to rehearse so we are putting money out there. The space is great but it is in Queens, so rehearsing on weeknights is all but futile with everyone commuting from their temp jobs. Basically your will to live DISAPPEARS somewhere on the 7 Train. The space is great, but we have to provide our own audience, which is challenging already. Work in a scenic ride on the 7 and you've got yourself a problem.

But again, the space is GREAT. It's a 220 seat black box/proscenium. It is incredible to be able to rehearse on a stage. Somehow that always makes everything better. Everything looks like a show when it is on a stage. And the fact that we have it for free is so...luxurious. When we are there it is amazing to get caught up in making work. To be able to break for lunch and not worry about losing money on a $20/hr rehearsal room. It is heart-breaking that these are the factors that go into making theater, but this is the reality for a small theater company with no trust funds. We keep ourselves ready and available for when someone calls and says, "Want something for free?" And when they make that call, we make theater.

An American girl, an Australian girl, and a Polish woman walk into a sauna...

Setting: The locker room at Crunch.
Time: Last night. 7pm.

When the following symbol is used ---- it signifies silence on the part of the speaker, combined with a look that means I have no idea what you are talking about, you American fool.
____________________________________________________________________

After a particularly rough hip-hop class on a particularly cold day, Shoni decides to step into the sauna at Crunch. She towels up and walks into the brightly lit wooden box. Just as she relaxes on the top bench, for maximum heat, a girl walks in.

Girl: There's something wrong with this. The heat is actually going down, not up.
Shoni: Fuck.


Shoni and Girl step out of the sauna and fiddle with the buttons until the temperature begins to rise. They step back into the sauna and lay down on adjescent benches. Shoni closes her eyes. Girl begins to breath deeply. Silence. Silence. Then.

Girl: Have you ever used the pool here? The Crunch pool?
Shoni: Yeah. It's small.

Silence. Silence. Then.

Girl: (In an unmistakeably Australian accent) Are the spinning classes here any good?
Shoni: They're ok.

Shoni thinks to herself, SERIOUSLY? Will this stranger talk to me the entire time I'm in here? Then she remembers her New Years resolution, shich was to have more joy. And this girl might be fun and nice and interesting and good to know. Sometimes it's good to know Australians. So.

Me: What are you doing here in the states?
Australian Girl: I came to study. I'm an actress.
Me: Ah! Where did you study?

And thus begins a rather lengthy conversation on the arts in Australia versus America. The Cate Blanchett Hedda Gabler comes up. Australian dance comes up. Shoni mentions Japanese dance she plans to see this weekend. More harmless artistic chatter. Then.

Shoni: Why leave Australia?
Australian Girl: There's just no culture there. Because it's so far away. The stuff that comes there, it's like Madonna, and tickets are like $200. Just the things there are to do and see in America, in New York. It's really. But you have to be so ruthless, such a survivor.
Shoni: As an immigrant?
Australian Girl: No, as an American.

An American girl walks in. She is clearly horrified that the two naked girls in the sauna are chatting away. She sits on a low bench and stretches her feet out in front of her. She glances quickly at Shoni and the Australian girl looking vaguely nervous.

Shoni: What do you mean?
Australian Girl: Just not having insurance is so scary. You know to come from a country with a health system and then when I got here, I mean I have a green card now, but the first time I got sick, it was before I had insurance, and I went to the doctor and it was, like, $500. And I was like, you're kidding, that's my savings, and the doctor was like, yup, that's what it costs. And I realized I had to be careful, I had to be aware of my health. I mean it's ridiculous. How does a single mother or something like that, how do people afford it?
Shoni: They don't get sick.

A well-preserved Polish woman in her 50s enters. She is wearing just a thong. She stands right in front of the stones, fanning the hot air up into her face.

Australian Girl: And appearances here are more important. It's way dressier than Australia.
Shoni: No way! We're the slobbiest country in the world!
Australian Girl: Australia is like really casual.
Polish Woman: (with thick Polish accent). Maybe you think that but no. When I move here, I live in Brighton Beach now, this is Russian neighborhood. When I move here, very sloppy, yes. But now, thirteen years later, very dressy.
Australian Girl: It's all about shoes. And bags.
Polish Woman: And getting nails done and hair done.

The silent American girl wiggles her perfectly manicured toenails. Her make-up is perfect. She appears to not be sweating. The Polish woman sits on the corner of the box the stones are in.

Australian Girl: It's totally different here. Adjusting to the culture is hard. Living hand to mouth, like being a cocktail waitress when I was in school, it's different.
Shoni: I wish I had had my tape recorder. I am doing a play about immigration and we're interviewing immigrants. This would have been great to record.

An Asian woman walks in naked. She lays down on the lower bench, her head next to the American girl's ass. The American girl sits very still.

Australian Girl: What is your play about?
Shoni: Well, immigration and love. Like green card marriages.
Australian Girl: Oh! I'm one of those. I mean, not really, it was a REAL marriage, but you know.
Polish Woman: YOU are doing play about immigrants? You are American! What do you know about immigrants?


Every fiber of Shoni's being shudders with fear of being an utter fraud and making a huge mistake.

Shoni: Well my husband is an immigrant. He's Scottish.
Polish Woman: What do you know about it.
Shoni: Well we have a Romanian playwright writing the play.
Polish Woman: ---
Shoni: She's really good.
Polish Woman: It is like this guy Borat. He knows nothing about it. He make fun of these immigrants and makes money off of them and laughs at them and he knows nothing about it.

Oh fuck, Shoni thinks to herself, are you really bringing up Borat?

Polish Woman: Why does he not make this film in Britain? No he makes it in poor country and pays them five dollars a day, seven dollars a day.
Australian Girl: I know, he's awful, it's not funny.

The Asian Woman begins rubbing her temples, aggressively.

Polish Woman: I mean, I have not seen it, but what I read about it, he makes fun of these people, and pays them nothing. They think oh, I want to make movie, but it will be so expensive in England, so let's go to different country and pay nothing. And he makes fun of them.
Shoni: Well, I think he's really making fun of Americans. And there are elements of the comedy that's really subversive, more so than, say, Employee of the Month or something, which is really just an example of Americans being willing to settle for something completely sub-par and facile and laugh at it anyway.
Polish Woman: ----

Silence. Silence. Then.

Australian Girl: Wow. We've been in here 40 minutes. Are you hot?
Shoni: Yeah, I'm pretty hot.
Australian Girl: I'm going to get out.
Shoni: Can I get your email? I'd love to interview you for our play.
Australian Girl: Sure!

Shoni and Australian Girl leave the sauna, followed by Polish Woman. Shoni gets Australian Girl's email and leaves the gym, with the Polish Woman's words echoeing in her ears.

YOU ARE AMERICAN. WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT IMMIGRATION?