These Shoes

Apparently Kraft runs some kind of video competition and one of the entries is Leah's monologue from Like Dreaming, Backwards. I'm pretty sure the actor changed some words around. And, she chose to emphasize Leah's anger at her dead daughter, which is not a choice I'd recommend. I wonder why people make the acting decisions they do.

If you are interested in listening to some of my plays, as performed on WHRW, there should be new content every week at:

http://notmyshoes.mypodcast.com

Supposedly you can subscribe with iTunes and it will automatically download new things for you as they are posted. Enjoy!

Heartland has announced the ten-minute play competition theme for this year: "Inns & Outs" - by which they mean, this year, all the plays will take place in a hotel lobby. The only ideas I have are (predictably) ones from real-life experience:

One night when I was working at the Courtyard, a woman came downstairs at 3am and proceeded to talk to me about nothing for an hour and a half. I kept politely asking if there was something I could do for her, and she continued babbling. I think she was an insomniac. So, what I'm asking is, if I wrote a play in which a strange woman talked a night staff's ear off for ten minutes, and then went back to her room and set the hotel on fire... is that something you'd want to read?

The other idea is, a night staff calls the police and claims that there has been a robbery. The play starts as the cops and the hotel manager are arriving, around 4am. They eventually, somehow, discover that the night staff is lying and that there was no robbery, in fact, the night staff worker had stolen the money in the register. This is, believe it or not, what happened to Courtney, the guy who trained me to work at the Courtyard. I didn't personally witness this incident, so I don't have that many details.

What would you guys prefer to read?

Dig this guy's tattoo...

Like Dreaming, Backwards

My review of Portland Noir was published today over at The Feminist Review. It was a fun read, it made me want to buy a copy of Chicago Noir. If you want to read all of my Feminist Reviews, you can visit the site and just search for "Kellie Powell."

The sound quality is a little unfortunate. I think this is one of the best Amy monologues I've seen. She seems very committed to what she's saying, and I think she's got just the right mix of anger and sadness. I even kind of like the lost expression on her face just before she walks away - and I'm not even sure that's supposed to be part of the "performance." A lot of actors just yell their guts out during the whole monologue, I really appreciate this more subtle, realistic approach.

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The radio version of my play, Bargaining is now available on the Art International Radio website. To listen, visit: http://www.artonair.org/archives/j/content/view/2707/160/

This version stars Amanda White and Ross Iosefson, with narration by Ava Rosenblatt and original music composed by Shane Thorn. I hope you will all listen and enjoy, and let me know what you think.

Hi Kellie,

I'm performing a monologue from Bargaining (as my friend Megan may have mentioned) and I'm having a hard time finding enough info on it. If you could help that would be great.

Can you please tell me a bit about yourself? Like where and when you where born, what schools and courses you attended, and why you decided to become a playwright etc...

Why did you write Bargaining? What significance does it have for you, and what significance do you want the audience to take away with them?

What do you think the most important themes and intended meanings of the play are?
How do you picture it being performed? On an elaborate set, with different lighting and sound effects, or in an open space, with nothing but the two actors and a few props?

Any other info would be really good too.

Thank you very much, in advance.
Kate

* * *

Dear Kate,

I'm very flattered that you chose a monologue from "Bargaining." I'm happy to answer your questions, I hope you find it helpful.

I was born on Halloween 1983, in Bloomington, Illinois. I attended Metcalf Laboratory School, University High School, and Illinois State University in Normal, Illinois. I have also taken courses at Binghamton University in Binghamton, New York. I majored in Theatre in college, with a directing emphasis. I took all the standard courses for Theatre, plus advanced directing, and the school's only Play Writing course.

I have always been a writer. As a small child, I wrote poems and short stories and adapted stories from R.L. Stein's "Goosebumps" series and chapters from the book "Dealing With Dragons" into short plays and coaxed my brother and my cousins to performing in them in our backyard. When I was sixteen, I wrote And Turning, Stay, which I usually think of as my first "real" play. By the end of high school, I had moved from prose and poetry to almost exclusively writing plays. I love theatre, and I love writing dialogue. I have a far easier time writing a conversation than I do when trying to describe something. Mine is an aural, verbal mind, not a visual one, so the choice to be a playwright seemed obvious.

"Bargaining" was written in the summer of 2006, during a difficult time in my life. It was how I processed the loss of my first love, and the suicidal depression that I went through after that loss. The idea to include a supernatural element - immortality - in the story is probably the result of my enduring love for a writer/director named Joss Whedon. In his series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" he uses supernatural and fantasy elements to tell stories that are very emotionally real. By making Hannah and Ryan immortal, I could raise the stakes for the characters, isolating them from the rest of the world, and, I could explore Hannah's suffering in a new way. If Hannah were an average woman, it would probably seem unreasonable for her to want to end her life after Ryan decides to leave her. But, as an immortal being, the idea of surrendering her immortality is more understandable - but still ultimately not the right decision.

To me, the play is about the intersection of two themes: devotion and impermanence. The play asks the question of whether the fleeting, temporary nature of human life makes it more or less significant. Is human experience irrelevant because it is so brief, so small when viewed objectively in the history of time and space? Or is every individual human life more precious because our time is so limited? It also asks less esoteric questions: Is it reasonable to promise to love someone forever? Do people change too much over the course of a lifetime to be expected to make lifelong commitments?

As for production concerns, I am a minimalist. It is my belief that elaborate set pieces, too many costume changes, and all the other "spectacle" that goes into theatre distracts the audience from what is important: the characters and the story. I think this piece works best when performed with a table, two chairs, and whatever props the actors feel comfortable with. The most important thing is that production design elements not be allowed to interfere with the pacing and flow of the work. I'm sort of Aristotelian in that way.

Break a leg,
Kellie Powell

I like that she sounds fairly natural, but I would like to see more intensity. I'm also not sure she made a decision about who she was talking to. Not that you have to do that, but it's something I'd suggest to actors.

Dear Kellie,

My name is Megan and I am currently doing your monologue for Joan in Spilled Milk as my theatre studies monologue. I need to do some research on you and why you wrote Spilled Milk. If you could please respond to this email with the answers to the following questions, that would be great!

Why did you write Spilled Milk? and What are the intended meanings of Joan's confrontation to Helen?

Your monologues are really good, another 2 people in my class are doing monologues of yours from other plays. Thanks heaps :)

* * *

Dear Megan,

I think the meaning of Joan's monologue is pretty straightforward. She says exactly what she means. She feels betrayed because Helen didn't warn her and because she sent a dangerous person to her. She is also angry because of Helen's assumption that Joan wouldn't say no. There is an idea in our culture, less prominent now but still present, that a woman who is "easy" or "sleeps around" will always consent to sex, and cannot be a victim of rape. Helen judges Joan to be easy, and assumes that Joan will have sex with the guy in question, therefore, she doesn't worry about Joan being assaulted - even though the guy has no qualms about non-consensual sexual contact. This "you can't rape a slut" mentality is something I have always found disgusting, and hopefully this play will make people think about how wrong that assumption is.

Even though Joan does consent to sex, she will go through the rest of her life wondering if she slept with a rapist. She will be disgusted with herself, because even though she did not know at the time, she slept with someone who assaulted her best friend. She will hate him, of course - but she will also be hurt by her friend - who had an opportunity to protect her, and didn't.

I hope this helps.

An amazing night, full of surprises. My show surprised me greatly. I was impressed with all of the actors, most of all with the one who played Nell. Her performance was so perfect, she really committed and dug in. Also, the woman who performed the mother's monologue was phenomenal. I actually started to cry during her monologue. Sitting next to my actual mother during that very intense performance was just too much. I was just amazed at how Marty was able to take a play about the tedium and horror of chronic depression and constant suicidal ideation and actually use it to make people laugh out loud. I did not see that coming. I mean, it's a play about a college student who kills herself - it's not exactly a beach read.

Despite the actors willingness to play, and Marty's willingness to explore the play's wit and humor, which I'm sure made the play a lot more enjoyable to watch than it might have otherwise been, the darkness was still very present - and I think it made people feel, and maybe even think. The comments at the talk-back were overwhelmingly positive. A few people mentioned that they had also suffered from depression or had family or friends who have, and they appreciated the play on a very personal level. I hope that this play makes people talk. Because sometimes that is the worst thing about being depressed - lying, pretending to be fine, not wanting to burden other people, feeling guilty about feeling sad. If the play encourages people to talk about their suffering, then I consider it a worthwhile project.

For those who could not be there last night, there is another showing at 8pm on Sunday, July 19. The Playwrights' Festival is taking place at the Know Theatre, 74 Carroll Street, Binghamton NY. There is a $10 admission charge. If you attend, you will also get to see me in a staged reading of Tony Yajko's dark psychological drama Leather Bound Concrete. For more information, visit the 6th Annual Playwrights' Festival event page.

This morning, Google Alerts let me know that Kurt Roediger mentions his role in "Rage Is Loud" in his online biography.

Too bad the actual production doesn't have a site of its own. I should have taken some production photos of my own. It was my first NYC production, after all. I should write to the director and ask her if there are any souvenir photos she can e-mail me.

My friend and Muse and fellow depression survivor has started a blog about the mental health system. In this post, she explains the origin of her blog's title, and gives me a nice plug:

"To the poorly concealed astonishment of her therapists, [Kellie Powell] makes a decent living as a playwright and after a particularly rough patch in her life, she turned to a therapist called Mary Spilde in Binghamton, NY. Her experience with this person led her to write what I consider to be her best work... It was a ten minute play that demonstrated exactly how absurd and frustrating therapy can be, and it ends with the therapist screaming at and physically shaking the patient followed by an abrupt request for money.

"She didn't know what to call it, and I suggested "Your Money's Worth." When I started this blog, my intent was sort of to pick up where the play left off... showing people what really happens to many of us who put ourselves into the system and giving those who share my frustration the message that they are not alone. So I took the title of the play and made the title of my blog.

"If you'd like to read this piece, it's available at www.notmyshoes.net, as are some other really good plays including Like Dreaming, Backwards which deals with the tragedy of suicide. A real beach read."

I'm really excited about Amanda's blog. I definitely recommend you start with the first post, an analogy that touches on a lot of the obstacles to receiving mental health treatment.

This is the actor's description: "My theatre class required for us to learn a monologue. After three days to prepare, he threw a loop at us... change the monologue into words we would say." And in comments, she added: "We were asked to step away from the original format and make it our own. My original setting for it was much calmer than this." Which I guess sort of explains why my darkly funny monologue is so full of RAGE... (is loud)...

This monologue doesn't get done very often, perhaps because it is from a play-within-a-play. (It's hard to explain if you haven't read Just Looking.) I asked the actor how she arrived at her interpretation, and she said she would post a video of her original monologue performance - before the improv and the anger. I'm excited to see that.

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The event was Monday, and went really well. I was exhausted from not sleeping the night before, or on my four-hour bus ride into the city, but I met up with Amanda - whose hair is very adorable right now - and Lindsay, and we got some Chipotle before heading to the Cornelia Street Cafe. We arrived plenty early, so we sat at the bar drinking iced tea until it was time to head downstairs. Ava arrived before it started, so we had a chance to talk a little before the show. Nick, sadly, came in after Amanda's performance.

Amanda was faced with a situation that I personally dread. The monologues before her were all humor pieces - no one was expecting her to go up to the microphone and talk about wanting to kill herself. During her performance, it was very quiet. A couple of people chuckled at the line, "It has some nerve," but during most of it, the entire room was in an almost embarrassed silence. Not always the reaction one looks for, but perfect for this piece. I think people took it very seriously, and the topic made them genuinely uncomfortable. Lindsay even cried a little. During the act break, lots of people came over to tell her what a good job she did, and one fellow said, "You scared the Hell out of me." In a monologue about suicide, I think that's a good thing.

I was asked to submit a few monologues for the August festival, and if anyone is interested in performing one of my pieces - or one of your own, do let me know. Or, get in touch with Tulis McCall. More information is available at the Monologues & Madness site.

A young actor performs Jessie's monologue from Your Money's Worth...



And then also performs Carla's monologue from the same play. You get to see one actor play both the evil therapist and the suicidal patient. Interesting.



More Monologue Videos on YouTube.

I am primarily a playwright, a director, and sometimes a techie. I usually act once a year or every two years. So I'm not sure how I ended up acting in two plays and a staged reading simultaneously, but that's what's going on. If you are interested in seeing me act, here is the information.

The Lisle J. Fiato Fundamental Follies Theatre Company Presents:
The Curious Case of the Baffled Butler

Tuesday, July 14 at 7pm
Wednesday, July 15 at 2pm
Thursday, July 16 at 7pm
Friday, July 17 at 7pm

Hosted by TriCities Opera House - 315 Clinton Street, Binghamton NY
Suggested Donation: $10. Call (607) 771-8888 for more information.

I have a medium-sized part, as Bethany the butler's assistant. The show is a spoof musical mystery that deals with the stigmatization of mental illness. The songs are Weird-Al style re-writes of pop songs. I only sing in the finale, as part of the group. No solo, thank God.

I will also be reading at the Playwrights' Festival, and performing in EPAC's The Merry Wives of Windsor in August.

A young girl with an accent performs 44 seconds of Joan's monologue from Spilled Milk. The first 44 seconds is only about 1/6 of the total piece... and by itself, it's not very interesting.



She does a fine enough job - but without knowing the whole story of what happens next, we have no idea why she is so upset. She says, "It happened right here," but we can only guess about what happened, or why she's so angry about it.

The lesson? If you're going to do one minute of a six minute monologue... it's probably better to do the last minute than the first.