In Community Struggling Onward
with ongoing assaults against all of our freedoms
For many of us, life in the US has quickly become a daily assault on our sense of agency, our sense of justice, our sense of possibilities. For more than some, it’s a daily assault on our job, our livelihood, our future and our safety. And it’s awful, hard, and terrifying. I don’t know how to manage it aside from what I’ve offered (here, here, and here). I don’t know what we should do beyond finding regular times to come together in community. I hope you will join me.
Brave Space is a community. If you’re trying to make meaning out of this moment, or if you’re already working on a project, and you want to maintain your commitment in the face of challenging times, come to Brave Space. We meet Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 12pm ET and Sundays at 6pm ET. It’s $5-25/session depending on your means.
Brave Group Coaching happens Thursday at 7pm ET via Zoom. We are grounding, learning ways to regulate our nervous system, and doing parts work which is a kind of creative visualization that helps us create more inner understanding and space. It’s $25/session, but if that’s an issue, you can pay what you can manage.
To seek freedom for Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University student who has been unjustly detained, stripped of his green card and taken from his home and his pregnant wife without charges or due process and sent to a private prison in Louisiana, click this link.
Upcoming Classes!
Good News! The Dramatists Guild Institute is teaming up with PlayPenn to offer a roster of Spring Classes with Roland Tec, Pandora Scooter, James Anthony Tyler and me! I’ll be teaching Structure is Not a Dirty Word starting Tuesdays, April 1st through June 3rd, 6pm - 9pm ET via Zoom.
Structure creates the building blocks for our work. Like the abutments (or columns or piles) under a bridge, we need structure to hold everything up. But how do we construct those structures? Do we do it first or after we’ve written our play? How can we tell if it’s working or not? You can bring in your work to share for feedback. Whether you are working traditionally or not, we will be learning how to use structure to hold the risks we want to take.
The Prompt:
PICK an image https://mymodernmet.com/photographer-samantha-goss-dreams/ (cw: some of these are scary in the fantastical mode) OR try these portraits https://mymodernmet.com/pigeon-photos-andrew-garn/ for new ideas in terms of characters. Or you can use the characters you are already working with. Or find other images online.
PICK a character who wants something. Give them a reason to speak. Only you know they need something deeper than what they want on the surface. They use particular diction to try to get it, strategize, aware or unaware of themselves. And they go on an emotional journey from wherever they begin to wherever they end.
USE a particular rhythm that feels to you indicative of the character and the place in that situation with that desire. Allow rhythm to influence the way you write the piece.
EXERCISE your sense of attention by listening inside to your character. Find a new entry point, a new possibility, another reason for this character to speak based on a picture you hold in your mind, some visual moment or image.
SPLIT the page in half, and only write on half the page letting the short lines create a breathlessness, or a slowness, or a deliberate plodding, or a flow or an erratic style. Whatever you are creating, let the shorter lines help you establish a rhythm and a music for the character.
WRITE for 5 or 15 minutes in character in the rhythm of the shorter line based on an image or a picture you chose.
REPEAT with a different character from a different picture and perspective down the other side of the page. WRITE for 5 or 15 minutes down the other side of the page in a different, contrasting rhythm.
Make a Scene between these two with what you wrote or beyond it. Think about the rhythm and music of each character comes from the need itself. This creates the force you need for tension and interest, what pulls an audience into your work. Each character wants something that spurs them into action. There should be a want on the surface, to get to the ball appropriately dressed… and there should be a need, to leave my evil stepsisters and stepmom once and for all. And there must be a deeper need, to finally get the love and affection I deserve.
Cecilia Vicuña said, "A poem only becomes poetry when its structure / is made not of words but forces." Those forces, if you’re writing a play/screenplay or a novel or story, come from character.
artwork by Scott Sherman at ScottShermanStudio on instagram
Brave Space Schedule:
3/21 Friday 12pm ET Brave Space w/fast feedback
3/23 Sunday 6pm ET All Human Brave Space
3/24 Monday 12pm ET Brave Space
3/26 Wednesday 12pm ET Brave Space
3/27 Thursday 7pm ET Brave Group Coaching
3/28 Friday 12pm ET Brave Space w/fast feedback
3/30 Sunday 6pm ET All Human Brave Space
3/31 Monday 12pm ET Brave Space
4/2 Wednesday 12pm ET Brave Space
4/3 Thursday 7pm ET Brave Group Coaching
4/4 Friday 12pm ET Brave Space w/fast feedback
4/6 Sunday 6pm ET All Human Brave Space
4/7 Monday 12pm ET Brave Space
4/9 Wednesday 12pm ET Brave Space
4/10 Thursday 7pm ET Brave Group Coaching
4/11 Friday 12pm ET Brave Space w/fast feedback
4/13 Sunday 6pm ET All Human Brave Space
Sunday 730pm ET Brave Sharing Salon
4/14 Monday 12pm ET Brave Space
I will be traveling the rest of this week to the Inge Festival
Each week Fridays include fast feedback for up to 1 page (@300 words) of writing or to discuss a craft issue/get help on your project.
Each month there is a Sharing Salon on the Second Sunday (730pm ET) for sharing up to 10 minutes of work (up to 1500 words).With prompts, grounding practices, & discussions, Brave Space invites playwrights, poets, painters, potters, novelists, memoirists, musicians & artists working in any medium to make meaning in a safe community. Begin and/or bring your projects to completion. Or use Brave Space as a body-doubling space to get other things done in community. $5-25 suggested per session. 4+x/week! On or off camera. No commitment, drop-ins welcome. Try it!
Opportunities:
April 1: The Democracy Cycle 2025 Open Call
Due April 1st, T. Schreiber Studios wants short plays on the theme “It Happened to Me.” There is a $5 submission fee, but if selected, they pay a small stipend and your work is produced in NYC in June. (I did this a few years ago with them, and they produced the plays at Theatre Row. This year I think it’s at ART/NY.)
Pittsburgh New Works seeks one-act plays for their 2025 season of world premieres. 15 to 20 plays will be selected as full productions or readings. Read their guidelines (they have changed somewhat) and if your play qualifies, submit it no later than Sunday, April 6!
Breath of Fire is offering free evenings online to write your play with the amazing Diana Burbano on Wednesdays 630 - 830pm PST. Diana is the Artistic Literary Leader of Breath of Fire, an award-winning playwright, Equity Actor and Teaching Artist for South Coast Rep. From 2/26 - 10/22/25.
Play the game of Telephone for all kinds of writers and artists, a global community of responses. (I’m loving it!)
Women in the Arts & Media have a list of opps you can sign up to get monthly.
For poets looking for UK opps, sign up for Angela T. Carr’s Wordbox with monthly opps & more!
For 10-30 min plays for The ReOrient Festival (about the Middle East Or by Middle Eastern writers) til April 30th more info / submit
The Barn’s residencies take place in Lee, Massachusetts -- we offer one residency in the spring (roughly the first full week of June) and one in the fall (roughly the second full week of October). Residents are provided with room, board, working space, and a stipend of $600 for the duration of their stay. These residencies support emerging artists in the performing arts. Reach out to info@thebarnatlee.org with any questions or for more information.
Amazing People Doing Amazing Things:
If you want to be listed here, please let me know what you’re up to and include your links!
For, example, I had a poem published in Ink in Thirds this week. And I’m doing a little one-act in a festival at New Circle Theatre Company in the theatre district (NYC) 3/26 - 4/6. My work’s in Program B but you can also check out Program A.
Gina Femia is offering her Novel Writing 101 class! April 12th - May 24th, Saturdays from 4-630pm ET via Zoom.
Nikaury Rodriguez is in the cast of Bread of Life by Frank Pagliaro, directed by Leslie Kincaid Burby, produced by Up Theatre uptown running March 26 - April 12th. Tickets here. Sit with me 4/10!
SUR: The Trojan Women Project Sat. 3/29 to 4/6 in New York @ LA MAMA'S ELLEN STEWART THEATRE. https://www.lamama.org/sur/ or more info here
JOIN 100 Days of Creative Resistance! free email of encouragement, opposition, and commiseration — a reminder of why we write and create — from 100 iconoclastic contemporary voices on each of the first 100 days of the 47th president’s regime.
Audrey Cephaly has written a great Substack on How to Write the 10 Minute Play - I highly recommend her Substack every day, but especially this one.
Take a Poetry Workshop with Only Poems.
If you’re not already subscribed to Mark Ravenhill’s free newsletter for his 101 exercises for playwrights, you might want to click here to do that. If you’ve missed them til now, reach out and I’ll send you a pdf of the 1st 53, and a pdf of 54 - now. That way you don’t have to search through the endless Twitter-verse (where they are out of order).