But when I walked into the theatre, I was greeted by a voiceless director who was exhausted from the last minute tech-insanity, but who also seemed really happy with the work… so I settled in, took a breath, and let go.

And it was wonderful!

The play began with an entirely different interpretation of the first scene than I’d imagined (there was dancing and shadow play!) and it completely surprised me – but in a really great way. You see, I’d written this play to be interpreted and designed – The text is the text is the text, but the staging and design of the play are not strongly indicated, so a director/design team can (and should) have fun manifesting the metaphorical nature of the events of the play… which of course runs the risk of someone getting a little too auteurish with the script, which in turn might make me cringe someday, but the fact is that I like writing for designers and directors and actors. I like giving them a jumping off point – dialogue, plot, a lot of visual challenges, and room to stretch their creative wings.

And I really loved the design that CAKE Productions and their director, Paul Urcioli, created.

The set was all white, the back wall moved as we dove deeper and deeper into Jane’s nightmare, the many doors provided funny and poignant entrances and exits, and the lighting was really cool.

And the actors were amazing.

Having seen the show twice before in LA, I was prepared for the embraced wackiness of the play, but the actors and direction in this production actually grounded the play more than I’d seen before and it brought a wonderfully genuine gravity to the play. The play leans to the absurd, but Jane’s crisis is a very real problem… the humor and pathos was really well-balanced in this production, and it drove the plays meaning all the way home – at least I thought so.

And I enjoyed the surprises – having worked on the play for so long, I’m very familiar with the text, but hearing it aloud again after the 4 years since the last production was a treat because I had done some rewrites. There were a few places I had honestly forgotten that I’d rewritten, so I found myself leaning in a bit more and being surprised by my own work. Then there were a few places where the director’s choices changed the way a scene or moment played and I thought “Wow – that was totally not how I’d imagined it/seen it done before!” but in a really interesting and purposeful way that served the play well.

I walked out of the theatre feeling like a proud and honored playwright, like I’d just been to the interior of my play – past my own expectations and further into the world of Jane Doe.

And I can’t wait to see it again tonight.

• If you are going to be flying – on a plane – with OTHER PEOPLE – you should NOT dip yourself in Eau de Whatever pre-flight.   No one will like you.  In fact, everyone within smelling distance on that plane will hate you – passionately – and secretly plot ways to open the hatch and throw you down into the hold/open the hatch and throw you to the clouds/invent a hermedic-scent-seal out of vomit bags and in-flight-magazines to ensconce you in lest your crap-cologne give anyone else in the vicinity even a fraction of the headache you’ve already caused them/wish you evilness for your selfish smelly ways…  When in doubt, remember that when flying, you should always go SCENT FREE!
• NY… ahh, NY.  So busy, so loud, so jam-packed with everything.  I’m glad to be here
• Red-eye flights are rough
• Naps are awesome
• Thank goodness for generous friends who let you crash on their couch!
• My play opens tomorrow night… I’m a nervous ball of anticipation and freaked-outed-ness
• I love Jet Blue – checked bag and in-flight snacks/drinks/sleep masks/hot towels are included in your ticket price, along with Direct TV.  I’m so tired of getting nickle and dimed all the time – it’s refreshing to deal with a company that says upfront “Here’s what it’s going to cost you to get where you want to go.  Period.”
• More than ever, I wish I could call writing my full-time job.  And not in an “I’m unemployed, so writing is my full-time gig” kind of way.  Like, in an actual “This is how I make my living!” way… which I could supplement with teaching.  So basically, more than ever I wish writing and teaching were my full-time WELL PAYING gig.  Do you hear me universe?  Can we make this happen pretty please?  :-)

More later…

About 7 years ago I began a little play called In the Company of Jane Doe.  It was my first graduate school play and only my second full-length play ever.  I was in the throws of “How am I ever going to get everything done?”ness and I had a wacky dream about a mad scientist and a woman who clones herself, only the clone comes out looking like she would sans all the plastic surgery and etc. she’d had done to herself over the years.  I woke up enthralled – I’d found my play!

The writing of the thing was another matter – all too aware of my newbie status as a writer, I allowed my un-baked babe to prance around before my peers for dissection at quite the price:  they didn’t get it, and I began to think I didn’t know how to write.  I spent the summer after that first year of grad school convinced I’d made a horrible mistake, but I kept working at the play because even if it wasn’t there yet, and even if they didn’t yet get it, I knew where I wanted it to go and I really believed I could get it there if everyone would just stop asking me so many dang questions…  See, I’d started to realize that the people who’d been challenging me along the way weren’t to be blamed for all that I hadn’t yet gotten onto the pages - I was the one writing the thing, it was time for me to stop worrying about everyone else for a little bit and just write the damn thing!

So I did.  I took the notes I thought helpful, and I ignored the ones based on the play’s absence of “Finished-ness”.  I worked hard to take the play where I knew it needed it go and go there it did!

And, as a result, I learned that all that strife and stress I’d been fighting was the result of showing my work too early/allowing too many notes to land on my big-sensitive heart.  I learned that I shouldn’t ask for opinions until I have gotten a thing as far as I can on my own, lest I get feedback on something I already know is undercooked.  I learned that I don’t need to take every note/comment/or question.

I learned to trust my own inner muse.

That that summer the play was selected by the Playwrights Center for their New Plays on Campus project and was a finalist for the Princess Grace Awards.  Those little victories were just what I needed – I redoubled my efforts and the play has had several other cool awards and opportunities tacked on to it since.  It even got a production in LA in 2008.

This week In the Company of Jane Doe opens in New York.

It’s been a long journey and a lot has happened to me since I met Jane Doe and the wild clone-making Dr. SNAFU – I graduated, I’ve written a number of other plays that have had cool things happen to them, I’ve been unemployed, I’ve taught, I’ve created playwriting opportunities for other female playwrights, and I’ve gotten a little less precious and a whole lot tougher about all of it along the way.

Which is all to say, I’m excited about NY – so very much so.  And I’m also dreaming about what comes next…

I am trying to get things in order before I head to the Big Apple, and I spent mother’s day weekend with my lovely lovely WONDERFUL mom, so I didn’t do any blogging.  I apologize… but I gosh-darn-gaurantee there will be lotsa posts this week or shortly thereafter as I fill you in on all the excitement

Thanks for hanging in there with me, and I hope you did something special for your mamma’ this weekend!

It’s alright that I’m not coming down hard and definitive on some topics.

It’s alright that I’m letting myself ask complicated questions that I may never find the answers to.

It’s alright that I can see both sides of this stew, and that I’m more interested in the “What we learned from this” than hanging on to the ingredients themselves.

I’m also doing a lot of yoga.  And writing.  And I’m enjoying the Spring sun (before it turns into the scorching Summer sun – ah, Arizona!)

So, what I’m saying is, I’m not an expert on all this “healing” business, but I’m definitely happy that I am healing bit by bit out here in the gray, instead of trying to rush some sort of “black and white” scar that only hides something festery.

Because what we tend to forget as we rush through our lives is that we’re clumsy, imperfect, struggling creatures… We aim to be happy.  We aim, but sometimes we miss.  We stumble and collide and reach, and reach again.  The thing is, those of us who refocus and grow and keep trying?  We get closer to being happy as a result.  Even when our knees get bloodied along the way.

The trick is trying to surround yourself with like-efforting people, and you kind of can’t know if you’ve done so until they stumble, tumble, and lift themselves back up in front of you…  And when that happens, if you’ve adopted a Black and White world view, you’re going to miss the beautiful healing that can happen in the Gray.

These are the kinds of things I’m worried about this week – milkshakes and wooden chairs.

I suppose those aren’t bad things to be anxious over – much better than worrying about my pathetic checking account and annoying credit card bills.  (Good thing milkshakes are cheap.)  It’s reminding me why so many people sign up for theatrical insanity in the first place: theatre is a place to escape.  Which is something you can kind of forget when that theatrical insanity becomes your job and you no longer see it as fancy.

At any rate, I’m having fun.  It’s tough, it’s a lot of sweat and “Oh crap!” right now, but it’s fun.  And I’m super excited to see the finished project.   I’m also reminded why it’s so good for any theatre practitioner to wear multiple hats – this bevy of tasks I find myself juggling would have sent a younger Tiffany into a tizzy.  It’s only after my accumulated experiences thus far that I’m able to juggle them without too many nerves at my back… so says I… today.  I suppose the real test will be to see what condition my sanity is in for opening week

And sorry to be so lax on the blogging – I’m just running around like a crazy person with work and rehearsal and all the other things I get myself involved with.  I’ll try to come up with something interesting to post about soon!

Because the grieving process was mine – about me and my hurt.  I wasn’t interested in anyone else’s pain  - I didn’t have room for it.  My heart had shattered into a thousand too-large pieces that threatened to burst from my skin and flood my field of vision and drown me.  I had to try and make sense of it.

So I shared parts of that with you, and some of you sent me very heartfult and loving messages/phone calls/booze baskets in support.  And it helped me so very, very much.

But then the dust started to clear, and Cason was standing next to the hole he’d blasted between us, asking me to let him try and fix it… asking me to wade into the debris with him and see if anything could be salvaged.

Which I did.

And I decided to stop writing about every blessed inch of that pile of debris I crept into because it felt too uncertain and scary and raw and I didn’t understand why I was doing any of it or what I was hoping to find - Grief, I understood; Heartbreak, I’d been there before;  Ruination of the life you anticipated, yep – seen that show a few times.  But this?  No… no this was something new.

I’d always thought that if anyone ever cheated on my, I’d be outta there at such super-sonic-speed (fueled by unquenchable, unforgivable wrath) that there’d be one hell of a fire trail in my wake burning down any and all remaining vestiges of a bridge between us – but my opinion on the matter was founded on the very general observation that “Cheating is lowly dismal awful behavior carried out by selfish assholes and I don’t like selfish assholes, so there.”

The reality is that there are a lot of reasons people cheat – too many, in fact, for me to presume to be an expert on the subject – and my heart was not going to let me barrel out of there without first trying to understand why it had happened here.

So I kept inching into the debris.

And as I did so, a number of people I love and respect opened up to me about the their loves/lives.  Some of them had cheated on their spouses, some had been cheated on – all had such varied and personal experiences that it became abundantly clear that Cason and I were the only two people who were ever going to be able to understand exactly what had happened, and we were the only two who were going to be able to decide what should happen next.  But even though we were moving forward with what felt like healthy steps, I see now that sharing the bomb blast with you and then not sharing what followed, left some of you uneasy.   And I am sorry for that.

It is why I am writing this post – so you can understand what’s happening now.

Because I’m still inching into the debris.

And Cason keeps talking to me about them – about what little burnt piece he’s discovered here or there, about how this or that chunk of the past matters and why – he keeps digging and sifting and sharing… we’ve set up a little excavation site and it’s good.  There are still questions and fears and moments in which we uncover something ugly… but we look at it, we talk about it, and we put it in the pile of rubble that we will not reuse.

Neither of us knows what will come of all this sifting and clearing and yes, even rebuilding, but it lightens us both to be able to work at it together.

Someone I love a great deal told me the other day that they didn’t think they’d ever be able to forgive someone who cheated on them – inferring of course that I’m either crazy, too damaged myself, weak, or (conversely) some kind of super-brave Forgivness Genie, to be sticking around.  I told them that the heart is usually a much better appraiser of its ability to forgive than our nervous little egos think.   There are a lot of reasons people hurt one another – most of the time it’s the surfacing of a person’s internal cracks that damage the relationship.  I’ve met some really messy people along my path, and those worth knowing were always the ones who were willing to look into those cracks and try to repair them.

I want to close with this:  Not long after Cason and I started digging through the debris, I found a beautifully written piece about infedelity on The Rumpus.  I hadn’t yet heard of the site or its “Dear Sugar” column, but a friend directed me to it, claiming that “When life is bringing me down, I take comfort in the wisdom here”.  I read, re-read, wept, blew my nose and read again, this entry titled “A Bit of Sully in Your Sweet” in which Sugar talks (much more eloquently than I) on the matter of infidelity and our preconceived idealizations of “Perfect” partnerships.   If you’ve read this far and still aren’t sure why I’m digging around in the muck and yuck and feeling good about it, I suggest you check out that link.  If you’ve read this far and do understand why I’m digging around in the muck and yuck and feeling good about it, I suggest you check out that link.  Because at the heart of the heart of this post (and the Sugar column) is that “This is not a spotless life.”  People are messy.  We make mistakes all the time, big and small, and whether we perpetuate them or learn from them, we do ourselves no favor by pretending any of us are perfect denizens of the heart.

I probably won’t write too personally about this again for a while – you don’t need me to – but I wanted to touch base with you all about what’s happened since, and give you a chance to try to understand some of the answers/beginnings of answers I’ve found out here in the debris.  Thank you for reading, for continuing to care (those that do) and for spending time here on this blog.  I appreciate you so!

With Gratitude,
Tiffany

I’m having one of those days… inspired by all the previous versions of such a day where I realized that my compass must be off or something, because damnit, how the hell did I wind up here when I just know that I’m supposed to be over there?

I am tired of not being able to earn enough money to pay off any of my bills.

I am tired of scraping by here and there with odd gigs to augment my under-houred primary gig.

And I am tired of feeling like I don’t know what to do about any of it anyway.

So I’m grumpy.  I just spent an hour staring at yahoo news stories about how fucked up the world is, and now I’m even grumpier than I was when I started that foolish “distraction”.

I’M GRUMPY.

And somehow, shouting about it in ALL CAPS on my blog felt like the obvious course of action to take.

(sigh)

I need to get refocused and find some clarity, lest I completely melt into angsty-anguished-inarticulate bubble blowing mess of “Why ME?”

But seriously, when am I going to be able to live like a grown up again?  Did you know that the most recent statistics on unemployment put 2012 college grads at 1/2 odds of finding a job?  That means 50% of BA holders entering the workforce right now will either not find a job or wind up working at a job seriously below their education level.

Gag.

I have an MFA.

An MFA in Playwriting.

WHINE!

But it’s a scary, scary world out there and it really doesn’t seem to be getting better – it’s so scary, in fact, that having a job has become the new “raise.”  You may not be working in your field/at your pay grade/to your liking, but by golly, you don’t want to complain too much because at least you have a job…

I keep telling myself that line every time I start to whine.  Then I whine anyway and stomp my feet and try not to let anyone else see me acting like a toddler.

(sigh)

May your day be sunnier than mine… and mine be sunnier soon.

(Which is right about when Calm Tiffany reminds Nutso Tiffany that this is what rehearsal is for.)

And really, it’s fun- Fun to be in a room full of excited people who have all agreed to meet up every night in order to memorize songs/dances/lines, all in preparation to meet together at a specific date and time and present our hard work for people who will actually pay to watch us do so.

It’s dizzying, really – and miraculous.  Theatre is a miracle.

So, while I felt myself go a little weak at the weight of it all tonight, I have to say that the thrill of being on stage again is quite a treat for this writer gal – I’ve been hiding a bit too long behind my computer.