Staged Readings a Tremendous Success for Writers
The winning entries are appearing on WAC website now.
First Place
We Saw the Sea, by Katharine Weber
Second Place
Learning to Lie, by Margaret Rumford
Third-Place-Tie
Loving Lydia, by Marcelle M. Soviero
Crosswords, by Leslie Chess Feller
Honored Writers (alphabetical)
Connecticut Sopranos, by Liz Beeby
The Prom Dress and the Kugel, by Carol Boas
Tending Beauty, by Linda Clearwater
Pimp My Kitchen, by Ivy Eisenberg
On the Road Again, by Gayle Gleckler
Christmas 1944, by Sumner Glimcher
The Princess, by Susie Bedsow Horgan
Affirmative Action, by Elise Meyer
Kerplunkle: A Musical Memoir of My Greatest Worst Achievement, by Chad Rabinovitz
The Lobsters, by Christine Shaffer
The American Cocktail, by Ruth Sutcliffe-Heagney
The American Son, by Alan Swerdlowe
Learner’s Permit, by Linda Urbach Howard
Vocational Training, by Cathy Von Berkem
Holmes Street, Priscilla Whitley-Mathews
Away, by Teresa Yokoi
Writers of Promise Award
True Struggle, by Kayce Gillespie
Exile, by Zahary Wheat
Okay, so last night at the Garden Cinema where I dragged myself after an exhausting day, and later from a rather large martini at Meigas restaurant on Wall Street in Norwalk (always great food!), I had an artist's epiphany. The art of short film-making is highly specific, and I am not a fan of that genre.
Meanwhile, I am happy to say "take heart" at how others were completely involved in each of what I thought were agenda-driven films. The short film series is presented by the dazzlingly successful lunchtime producers of "Play with Your Food." The gold dust twins, Nancy Diamond and Carole Schweid, who run the series in several venues and are sold out, must be onto something with their migration to night time shows and into another medium. While not my cup of tea, these shorts are definitely thought provoking, entertaining momentarily, and valuable for others.
The five movies, each produced by a different country, were all nominated for Academy Awards and that kind of banner advertising regarding quality is enough to interest movie-goers. After-all, with YouTube, any one of us can make a movie, (Oh, no!) and with film programs installed in every worthwhile school, and not for profit arts orgs., there is an abundance of choices to put up on the silver screen. These were the creme de la creme.
After the third short film (We are talking 6 minutes, 18 minutes etc. ), I ducked out to the ladies room, running into neighbors who were leaving because they had already seen this series at the Avon theater. It was raining hard, so they wanted to get home. They were totally rhapsodic about the presentation, and especially about the film that to me seemed as if it were two hours long, but two-hours tiring. There, in front of the Ladies Room on Isaac Street in Norwalk, I got it! I understood what they were saying and how they felt about the entry from India, 18 minutes of "Kavi."
This was the ideal audience for the series. Most of the them grew up in another era, and not in the continuous news bombardment generation from the internet era, and they react deeply—from afar—to human rights violations. They were the original activists. They mourn any political ennui surrounding us. "Kavi" deals with slavery from a child's point of view, which is not so tortuous in Kavi's bright, hopeful desire to please his masters. Small consolation for what we know will be a terrible life in the class system, there. The film is affecting as the camera follows the naive and joyous little kid living in squalor. It's vaguely akin to the kids' lives in Slumdog Millionaire.
I wanted more. I wanted an arc where I can get into the drama first—be thrust into a situation, and then watch the character (s) struggle against their fates and environments. Will they win, will they lose? For me that takes time to develop, and perfect timing. Short films don't allow me to travel that arc. I think I'm slow.
However, if you are moved by sensitive cinematic work, original metaphor, zippy and winkingly-smart irony, a hint of muckraking for certain kinds of political statements, but indeed enough animation with good humor, and art too, then take a short break from a long day next month. November 11, 2010. Check out Play with Your Food's website for the next showings.
Writers Artists Collaborative
Wednesdays from 12:30-1:30pm
Wednesday, April 15
Free & Open to the Public
RSVP here
Hemingway and Fitzgerald and all of the expat writers living in Paris had one unifying force besides liquor and deadlines, they met regularly at cafes and just talked, either about themselves, or the process of writing, or the terrors of not writing, and maybe they talked about the art all around them in those halcyon years. Come join other writers together for a cup of espresso, some tidbits, (but no absinthe, for sure) one Wednesday a month in the WAC gallery lounge.
Bring your successes, favorite rejection note, memory of your first byline, or maybe a line from a book that set your creative juices flowing. Show up.
Whether you've been writing forever, or are new to it, whether you're published or hope to be, join us at the Writer's Cafe at the Westport Arts center. Sympathy, support, new ideas and time to connect with other writers. We'll bring the coffee, you bring your sandwich. For more details, please visit www.westportartscenter.org and www.mousemuse.com.
The mouse goes out and nibbles around in the theater. Latest post to westportnow.com.
If you are headed to the Westport Country Playhouse at any time in the near future, not just for the stellar new production of “The Diary of Anne Frank,” but for any production, I advise you to sit far away from me, if you know me by sight.
Why? I am an eavesdropper, especially in our town’s homey, pretty fabulous looking theater. I am always a writer and reporter, trying to listen in on “everyman’s” thoughts to take the pulse of the Zeitgeist, you might say.
I like to write down people’s comments, just like that! Just as I heard them. Don’t worry, you may be shamed but you won’t be named.
I am not in the theater to critique the show, but rather to incorporate relevant social opinion as it pertains to the arts in this era—a snapshot of how as a town we relate to art, to culture, to each other. Your dialogues make me think. Make me react.
I have overheard praise of canned, lighthearted revivals done by deft directors with innovative sets, and with highly professional actors. I have heard the comments on great scoring and triumphant performances for musicals, and, whether I like the play in its totality, I could agree.
I, however, am a big fan of hard-hitting plays that make me think or make me cry. I like to ponder. I like to see the good in everything. Even a bad play has a reason for being and I try to figure out what went right or wrong, but more than anything I try to see why it got into the Playhouse mix.
The man who sat behind me on preview opening night for “The Diary of Anne Frank” was a most non-felicitous fellow who certainly deserves to have his opinion heard. I was appalled at his pre-curtain judgment that the Playhouse was making a mistake to “to dwell on these subjects from so long ago—to include such a downer in the season.”
Wow. That was a shallow arrow in my heart, and from someone who had probably just had a lovely dinner in Fairfield County and who wanted to continue the evening in complete harmony with his own sense of himself.
He was unaware, and skeptical, when I informed him that the Westport Arts Center and the Westport Country Playhouse were conjoined in a thematic exploration of “Memory.”
I didn’t get a chance to tell him that a Holocaust survivor’s daughter, the visionary artistic curator at WAC who put together a remarkable exhibition with a good deal of Holocaust art, Helen Klisser During, is one of the most upbeat people that I know and her demeanor belies the gravity of her ancestor’s lives. “Not dwell on these subjects?”
I informed him, whether he wanted to hear it or not, that I was very lucky because, as far as I know, I had no relatives exterminated in Germany, or trapped in Holland before being sent to the camps. My relatives came here around 1898, all of them.
But my luck doesn’t prevent me from reflecting on horrifying events. Doesn’t introspection guard us from vanity? From arrogance? Didn’t denial or the lack of desire to know about these things create the worst sort of horror for the Jews in those countries that were not so lucky as we were?
“The Diary of Anne Frank” is indeed a play that leaves you with a somber thought. But it is a play about the amazing ways humanity “hopes” despite human unimaginable suffering. It is about everything we need to dwell on forever.
Anne Frank was on a real life journey into womanhood while in hiding from the Nazis. She told herself the truth with humor and pathos. She was one of the rare beings who survive to inspire others despite her physical death during the liberation of the camps. “Not dwell on these subjects?”
At the end of the first act, during the black out, there was an overwhelming, reverent silence. “Deathly still” would be an accurate term. No one was running to the bathroom as they did in “Happy Days.” No one was gleefully checking out the orchestra pit as they did for “I Do I Do!”
The woman sitting in front of me sighed when the lights came up, “I couldn’t applaud,” she said. “I didn’t want to interrupt what was happening almost in real life and in my heart.” Anne Frank lives today because we should dwell on atrocities. They happen over and over, and it’s artists who are left to tell the tale.
We must dwell on things that make that man sad, or make him uncomfortable, or better yet, remove him from his privileged reality. We shall applaud the existence of hope instead of avoiding what makes us despair. We shall certainly applaud the selection of this play, because it’s life affirming.
If we don’t pay attention to Anne Frank’s memoir, or to “Memory” as it has been captured visually in the exhibit at WAC, if we are only willing to watch rousing musicals or hear Noel Coward’s flippant scripts, we will be consigned to our own narcissism.
That’s a place where all art will be the same. Where art will no longer have a purpose. A smiley face will do just fine above the mantle, and the dialogue we hear everyday will only be, “Have a nice day!”
Awake After Dark (but home early enough in the suburbs).
(Read "recent posts" for more info)
Doors open at 7:00.
Bar and Small Plates
Show starts at 7:30.
Run time 80 minutes with intermission.
Turn off the six-o-clock news! Treat yourself to a weeknight evening that doesn’t end by falling asleep before 9 p.m. There is life here in the suburbs after dark! Hear it! Be part of it! Experience it!
Be in the audience or be at the microphone. Or be both!
Tuesdays: January 25, February 15, March 22, April 26, 2011.
How to become a storyteller? Try not to write out your story. If you have already written it, then fold it up and put it in your back pocket. You wrote it. You know it. You can tell it by heart. If you watch a politician reading a speech, you can feel it. Same with an actor who has memorized lines but not gotten "in" to the heart of the character. You are the character! It's your story.
Doors open at 7 PM. Show starts 7:30 PROMPT.
If you're a member of the Westport Arts Center, $15 gets you a ticket. If you're not, $20 buys you the same. Some of the storytellers from last season's pilot at FTC.
Themes announced in advance:
Check back at MouseMuse.com, our Facebook page, or follow us on Twitter.
Contact ina@mousemuse.com if you have a story to share. Contact Westport Arts Center for tickets.
Congratulations to the winners of the Writers Artists Collaborative Memoir Contest!
The winning entries will appear on WAC website on November 1, 2010
First Place
We Saw the Sea, by Katharine Weber
Second Place
Learning to Lie, by Margaret Rumford
Third-Place-Tie
Loving Lydia, by Marcelle M. Soviero
Crosswords, by Leslie Chess Feller
Honored Writers (alphabetical)
Connecticut Sopranos, by Liz Beeby
The Prom Dress and the Kugel, by Carol Boas
Tending Beauty, by Linda Clearwater
Pimp My Kitchen, by Ivy Eisenberg
On the Road Again, by Gayle Gleckler
Christmas 1944, by Sumner Glimcher
The Princess, by Susie Bedsow Horgan
Affirmative Action, by Elise Meyer
Kerplunkle: A Musical Memoir of My Greatest Worst Achievement, by Chad Rabinovitz
The Lobsters, by Christine Shaffer
The American Cocktail, by Ruth Sutcliffe-Heagney
The American Son, by Alan Swerdlowe
Learner’s Permit, by Linda Urbach Howard
Vocational Training, by Cathy Von Berkem
Holmes Street, Priscilla Whitley-Mathews
Away, by Teresa Yokoi
Writers of Promise Award
True Struggle, by Kayce Gillespie
Exile, by Zahary Wheat
Come see the Staged Readings of Winning Works from WAC Memoir Contest at the Westport Arts Center on October 17!
Come listen to the touching readings from "Out of War," a submission to the Writers Artists Collaborative memoir contest.
Actors readings from essays, poems and memoir sharing personal experiences on the front lines or home fronts during several wars.
Directed by Ina Chadwick, co-produced by Westport Arts Center.
Westport Arts Center
51 Riverside Avenue
Westport, CT 06880
(203) 222-7070
AUTHOR’S ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION at the Westport Arts Center
Reception open to all
FREE
Reservations recommended. RSVP here.
Join Christina Thompson, editor of the Harvard Review, for a lively discussion of how to mix what critics are calling "travel essays," and "anthropology." Her highly praised memoir, "Come On Shore: We Will Kill and Eat You All" achieves an objectivity about her husband’s Maori culture as it integrates with hers—the combination of essay and personal memoir.
Westport Arts Center
51 Riverside Avenue
Westport, CT 06880
(203) 222-7070
Join us for a lively performance of the winning entries from the MouseMuse/Writers-Artists Collaborative 2010 memoir-writing competition. The afternoon’s festivities are meant to celebrate the efforts of writers who submitted their personal stories (up to 1500 words), inspired by the themes of Westport Arts Center's upcoming exhibition, "Memory." Professional actors will read from the works in a theatrical style, and cash awards will be presented to the winning authors.
This event is free and open to the public. Due to limited space, we ask that you RSVP here with your name and the number of people attending.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
WHAT TIME: 4 PM
Staged Readings of Winning Works from "Memory" memoir contest
Readers: Gabi Coatsworth, Megan Smith Harris, Susan Terry, Eileen Winnick
Reception open to all
FREE Admission
Reservations recommended
Westport Arts Center
51 Riverside Avenue
Westport, CT 06880
(203) 222-7070
See the names of the contest winners!
