 The World Theatre Day, which is a new organization based in New England, promoting new works by emerging writers. Yeah, and we're particularly interested in young emerging female writers. We are very excited to have our first production in collaboration with 365 Women a Year, an international playwriting coalition involving over 200 writers who wrote over the course of this year hundreds of plays, each featuring at least one of 365 historical women who changed the world. We're also very excited to be hosting this event at Bennington, featuring works from four Bennington playwrights, two alum, and two current students. The playwrights are Sheldon Lubin, who is unfortunately not with us in person, but certainly in spirit. A special thank you to Matt Scott, two media relations for helping us get the equipment to the Bennington drama department. And afterwards, we invite you to stay. We're going to have a quick, after the readings, we're going to have a reception, and you have the chance to mingle with actors and playwrights and learn more about the project. You can follow 365 Women a Year on Twitter and Facebook, and we encourage you to do so as well as no plays. And if you're interested in signing up for a mailing list, it's right over there. And thank you all for coming, and also all the plays you're going to see performed tonight are going to be available for purchase on Indeed Theatre Now. So if you like what you see and you want to have a copy of it on your computer, you can do that. Those will be available soon. Thank you all so much for coming, and please enjoy the show. I've been lonely by Catherine Weingarten. It's directed by Natalie Osborn, and the historical woman is Elizabeth Bishop. We are in John's office. John is sitting at his desk. Elizabeth enters. Hey, thanks for meeting me. No problem. I hope my essay was, like, okay. I was fine. Well, that's good to hear. Actually, I was kidding. It was awful. You sit down. What do you mean it was awful? I wrote for, like, ten hours last night. My roommate almost threw a bed lamp at me because I kept writing. Probably should have gone to the library and not sat on her bed in retrospect. Your hair looks very nice today, Lizzie. Forgot to mention that. Thanks. I kind of think it looks like a hot mess. Like a hamster ran through my hair. Correction, a drunk hamster ran through my hair. Well, I disagree. I've been looking through your transcripts. Oh, no. You're serious? I don't test well. Well, I can see that, Miss Bishop. It says here that you want to study music. Yeah. Yeah, I did. I wasn't good, though, so no, well. Oh, I'm sure you were good. Listen, re-write my essay. I promise it will be better. You're talking a lot, and all I hear is blah, blah, blah. That sounds bad. I usually am pretty shy. I don't know why I'm talking so much, maybe because I'm nervous, but I'm happy to be here. School rocks. I love Vassar. Your tie is looking really good. Thanks, Elizabeth. I do love compliments. You're welcome. Do you want to be in this class, Elizabeth, because Ad Drop hasn't officially ended? I do. I love that all we do is look at poets no one's heard of before. That's fascinating and perfect and just super-duper interesting. You know, it's not too late to switch back to music. I really think I'd make an awful music student. I threw a float at one of my classmates one time because he was pissing me off. That sounds really aggressive. Yeah, it was. Kind of out of character. I'm a really nice chick. I'll take your word for it. No, I really am. If you could date one of the poets in our curriculum, who would it be? You're an odd question. Just pick one and tell me why I might let you write your paper again if I like your answer. We're only reading male poets. And your answer? I have to pee. Hold it. Okay. Why are you having so much trouble picking a poet? Is it because you never really read any of the reading? Maybe because you don't really care about this class at all. I'm getting pretty nervous. Can you stop looking at me like that? I'm a classical freaky and intense and like a fat evil spider or something. I take it you can't think of someone. Fine. No, I can. I guess I find Johnston a bit intriguing because he wrote a bunch of A Lot About the Sea, which I find pretty turbulent. So if he asked you on a date, you would say yes. Yeah, I think I would. Also, I like how he didn't really talk to anyone. He lived on a sailboat his whole life just traveling and listening and watching and living and traveling. Can you imagine how beautiful that is? Well, that's a nice answer. I think I might let you rewrite your paper. Yay! You know, it's pretty lonely being a faculty member here. There's not too many of us and we really stick to ourselves. I've noticed. Although to tell you the truth, that sounds kind of fun. I wish less random chicks talked to me. Well, it's not nice. It's just lonely. Okay, sorry. It's okay. Sure? You're easy to talk to? I don't know. You're a woman. Don't women like hearing people's issues because they're kinder than men? That's simplistic. Well, I'm sorry to hear that you feel lonely. It's okay. I guess sometimes because I feel lonely too. Because like, I feel like I think so much, you know, and others don't as much and I have all these thoughts and I just see everything and I wish I didn't notice everything. I'm sorry to hear that. It's okay. I'm glad you're gonna let me make up my paper. Might. Do you think I have big hands? My colleagues say that they're small. I hate that. No wonder I'm lonely, God. Yeah. They don't look small to me. Well, why don't you feel them and you can see? Sure. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. You know, this is nice. Huh? School is fun. So happy to be learning. Baster's a great school. Yeah. Totally. End of play. It's written and directed by Maya Villa about Gloria and Zelduia. It's a note from the playwright. Joanna is a Portuguese and Ada is a New Yorker of Puerto Rican descent. And Maya would like to thank both of them for playing Chicano, Chicanos at this play reading tonight. Two Chicano, Chicanos, Ria and Glove sit across from one another far enough apart that if they stretched out their arms their fingers would not touch. They lift their arms. They then move back and forth slowly until they are each on one opposite end of seesaw. The rules of breath. When a Chicano, Chicano moves up, Zee inhales. When Zee moves back down, Zee exhales. They sit, stand up. They begin with their tongues stretched out at their mouths. Usted. Familiar. Tu. Tu long. Gloria. No. Gloria. Back to feminine. La. I don't want to start over. This chair. This chair is feminine. The feminine. La. Por favor. La. Good. Bueno. Right. La. Transition. They are children. If I were a snake, I'd twist and turn around your body in the middle of your body around your panza. If I were a body wrapped by a snake I would laugh out all the air in my body. If I were a snake wrapped around your body around your panza, then you can't laugh because my body will push out all the air in your body. But if I were a body and you were a snake then I would be able to get my hands, my fingers and my hands and grab them around your body, your snake body and pull you off my body. But if I were a snake I'd be a really strong snake. But if I were a body I'd be a really strong body. So you wouldn't be able to grab me with your hands and your fingers because I'll be wrapped around your body and your panza and your hands and your fingers. What if my tongue were a snake? Huh? What if my body were a body but my tongue were a snake? That would be weird. And I would stretch out my tongue but it's not really a tongue. It would be one really long snake that lived inside my body coming out from inside my throat, from inside my lungs and my tummy and my liver. If I still have a liver and from my poop intestines. Oh no! My teacher said that my poop intestine is 20 feet long so I've had something else be hiding inside my body. It's a snake, one big large 20 hundred foot long snake. Wow, that's a lot. When he tries to get me to eat lengua and I say, oh no, that's the tongue. I know it's the tongue. Papa told me. He's not going to eat me. No, my snake is really nice. That's good because my snake is probably going to eat you. My snake wants to come out of my mouth and wiggle around and dance and let out its tongue. Oh, yes, my snake will ssssss and my snake will tickle. I love tickles, tickle that. Go like this. Rio walks two fingers up their arms. Yeah, up my arm and my neck. My snake will do that and my snake will lick your cheek and your armpits. How'd you move your tongue like that? Oh my god, how? What was that? Were you humming? Papa, me like you were really enjoying it. I love that. Rio kisses Glo. Are you sure you don't want me to? No, it's fine. I've never been turned on by boyfriends, I've tried it. But it's never been a thing for me. Can I just look at you then? Oh, sure, yeah. Glo moves in between Rio's legs. Your vagina, it's really beautiful. Do you know that? Why? The lips and the shape and the hair. I really like your hair and your clit. You don't mind the stretch marks? Let me show my thighs and the scars. No. I've looked with a mirror. I've seen the weird round spots in the whole region. It's just big, round and puffy. Puffy like it's swollen. No, it's beautiful. I think it's scary. I put a mirror to it to see it and it's so brown. It's dirty and I stretch the puffy lips to the side to try to see the pink inside of it. There must be pink, pink trapped inside the brown. But there's no pink, just red. It feels like red, like a light red. You shouldn't be embarrassed about it. I don't know if I'm embarrassed. Any of it, just be proud of it. I think it's beautiful and you're beautiful. I think you're beautiful. Chica. What do you hit the globe like? Shut up, Jew boy. What? I'm not Jewish. Really? You're not? No. I thought, I mean, you're circumcised. I mean, I guess a lot of Americans are circumcised. Sorry. It's just that I've only slept with uncircumcised people. Oh, and those people were definitely Americans, like they were, you know, like me, like definitely Americanized people. But, yeah, I don't know why they weren't circumcised. Shh, don't worry about it. I'm not a fan. I'm just not Jewish. No, I called you that. I said, don't worry. They make out a little. Could you not call me Chica though? Oh, yeah, totally. That was just a joke. Thanks. I don't think of you that way. Glow kisses Rhea. Rhea doesn't kiss glow. Your vagina, brown on the outside but pink on the inside. Rhea softly pushes glow away from her. Rhea gets louder. Transition. Glow is back to a female voice. An older female voice than Rhea's female voice. Why didn't you teach me Spanish? Why? Why? Why didn't you teach Mom Spanish? Why did you make Grandpa speak Spanish? He knows it. He just thinks he's not good enough at it, right? But at least he can speak it. He would have been better. Both spoke it with their kids. Then he could have practiced. And then Mom would speak Spanish. And I would speak Spanish. Real Spanish. Home Spanish. Our Spanish. Chicano Spanish. Don't you know? Job applications. Job qualifications. They say bilingual now. Did you know that? They look at our name. People. Bray. Group. And I can't even help younger kids, younger generations who need the education that I've had because I can't speak Spanish to their parents. What good is a college education and a degree and all that money, all the money that we've had that we didn't have that we spent on me, for us? If I... Do you understand? If I don't, then I can't represent and they won't have a job. And if I don't have a job, then I just look like another round, lazy Mexican. You're American, Mijo. My goodness, did I say Mijo again? You know what I meant. Transition. Ria is speaking to the audience. Lo is speaking to Ria. Cut off my tongue. Cut off my tongue, Gloria. What good is it if I... Don't give in, mi pretita. Tighten your belt, injure. Cut off my tongue and pull out whatever's behind it. Your vintage is ancient. Your roots, like those of the Mesquite, firmly plan to digging underground toward that current, the soul of Tierra Madre. Your origin. Origin. Yes, mijita. Your people were raised in los ranchos here in the Valinir de Rio Grande. You descended from the first cowboy, the vaquero. Right smack in the border in the age before the gringo when Texas was in Mexico. I've never been to Texas. I've never been to Mexico. Over in Los Ranchos, Los Vergeles, Jesús Maria de Vilaland. Strong woman reared you. My sister, your mom, my mother and I. I love my grandma, but my vuela's tongue is poison, so I've been told. And yes, they've taken our vans, not even the cemeteries. I jog around every green cemetery sometimes. Where they bury Don Urbano, your great-great-grandfather. My great-great-grandfather was born here. He makes me fifth generation. Hard times like father we carry with curved backs, we walk. Walk on which land can only be taken twice. But they will never take that pride of being Mexicana, Chicana, Tejana, nor our Indian women's spirit. I don't know where my anger and my pride come from. Can a Chicana be machismo? And when the gringos are gone, my employers and my coworkers and my teachers and my friends see how they kill one another. Here will still be like the horn, toad, and the lizard, relics of an earlier age, survivors of the first fire age and quinto salt. Perhaps we'll be dying of hunger as usual. But we'll be members of a new species, skin tone between black and bronze, second eyelid under the first with the power to look at the sun through naked eyes and be very much alive. I want to be full, but I don't want them to see the size of my tummy, my panza. If only I could get a Victorian corset and wrap it around my panza to teach it to be shaped like a woman is supposed to be shaped. But the cloth and the leather and the boning would break off as soon as I laugh. Yes, in a few years or centuries la raza will rise up, tongue intact, brain serpent, rebellion, revolution will spring up. Like old skin will fall, the slave ways of obedience, acceptance, silence. Like serpent lightening will move, little woman. You'll see. Ria inhales. When they run out of breath, the chicanos leave their tongues hanging out of their mouths. End of. End of. End of the play. So this is making Frankenstein. It was written and directed by Natalie Osborn. It is inspired by Mary Shelley, who you probably all know as the writer of Frankenstein and stars Sarah Jack as Mary Shelley, Marshall McGraw as Percy and Frankenstein and Maya Villa as Claire. And I'm reading some directions. Making Frankenstein. Mary's nightmare. Mary. She stands next to a table that has a dead frog and an electric prong on it. She's in the middle of the stage. Our nervous systems, like those of this frogs, are made of electric currents. Once dead, the currents can still be reactivated by a pulse of electricity through the body. Reverb. This gentleman is the greatest achievement in modern science. Nature. We can push the limits of the natural world and as the march of progress continues, abuse. We might at some point be able to reanimate the dead completely to create life. I will now demonstrate. Mary shocks the frog with the electric prong. Instead of its lights moving, the frog wails like an infant. Lights out. Scene one. Lights up on Dr. Frankenstein working on his monster. He's almost finished. Yes, that's it. Well, it's alive. No, absolutely not. Lights up on Mary Shelley. She's sitting at a typewriter in a situation. She leaves the typewriter and walks over to Frankenstein. What? That line you just used. What about it? It was dreadful. I thought it was working very well on the scene. No, it wasn't working at all. It was completely stupid. But it really captured the moment. What moment? What are you talking about? No, it's all wrong. I don't understand. Why? Dr. Frankenstein would never say that. With all due respect, madame, I think I understand what Frankenstein would say or wouldn't say because considering I am Frankenstein. Mary glares at him. Frankenstein realizes he's made a big mistake. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I shouldn't have. I am your writer, sir. I look aside what lines you will or will not say. I made you. I am your master. Yes, Miss Mary. Good boy. Now shall we take it from the top? You know what? I'm sorry. But no, I cannot work under these conditions. I just need a moment to step out. Where do you think you're going? You get back here and finish the story. We are on a limited schedule. The contest is tomorrow evening and we're not even halfway through the story. Frankenstein, she takes a deep breath and tries to go back to writing. Percy enters the stage. Is something frustrating you love? Do you mind? No, not at all. You know that is not what I meant. I'm planning on coming to bed tonight, I see. Can't. At a nightmare. What about? Frogs legs and dead children. Mary. Never mind. I'm tired and I'm a spoke. Mary, do you want to talk? Percy, I'm really not in the mood right now. Dear. Why frogs legs? I am trying to concentrate. If I did this to you while you were composing a poem, I would never fear the end of it and give me those. You must have overheard us talking about the galvanism experiments. The one where scientists use electricity to re-animate frogs legs. Byron and I certainly didn't mean to give you any nightmares. That's fine. I didn't think you were so easily startled. I'm not. Don't distract me, please. I only have a limited time to get it down before it slips away. What slips away? The nightmare. Oh, so you're using the monster as your muse now. Not the monster, the man. Well, I guess he also is the monster. They're the same person. Stop distracting me and give those back. I was only trying to have a conversation. It seemed more like a blatant act of sabotage. Do you really think that I would... Are you calling me a cheater? No, but you just called yourself one. Very amusing. I'll have you know that I do not need to cheat. I have already written my story. It is terrifying. And I am without a doubt going to be both you and Byron. And so there... You sound confident. I'm always confident. I can't help being a genius. What was that? Oh, nothing. I like hearing you laugh. When I'm not busy chasing down madmen or bad memories. We are talking. I meant about her. Her is vague. You know who I mean. Who? Go, I need to write. Is her Percy enough? Stop trying to destroy my nightmares. Wait, no, I didn't... You know what I meant. No, I don't. Do you want to be left alone with your monsters and nightmares? Yes. Well, fine. Percy starts to leave. Wait. That's how I'm able to deal with this. With her being gone. Her is vague. Yes. Well, then what do you need me for? Percy goes to make coffee. Mary writes. Percy re-enters. Yes. It's good. Brilliant, actually. This? Yes, I'm sure you'll win. What about your terrifying story? I didn't write it. I couldn't think of a damn thing. I'm sorry. Mary smiles. Percy smiles back. Percy leaves. Mary writes. Frankenstein re-enters. He reads over Mary's shoulder until she turns around and stares at him. Have a jolly holiday? Um, well... Hurry up. We haven't got all night. Yes, Miss Mary. They cross over to the laboratory side of the stage. Now where were we? Lights out. Epilogue. Mary's dream. Lights up on Mary and another woman. She's a beautiful, but in a natural sort of way. Like an angel. Death. Life. Grief. Joy. Loss. Game. Story. Science. Science fiction. Daughter. Mother. I love you. I love you too, Claire. We will be reading After the Thin Man by Shellen Lubin. Directed by Maya Villa. Historical women are Stella Adler and Sylvia Gassel. Sylvia Gassel played by Victoria Nation and Stella Adler played by Singer Joy. Well, Adler is around 40 years old. She is dramatic, aristocratic from a theatrical family. Yiddish theater royalty. So there is definitely a lower east side Jewish girl in there as well. Sylvia Gassel is 19 years old. Also a lower east side Jewish girl. Also well studied and accomplished in the theater and acting. She admires and looks up to Stella but is not odd by her as others are. Sylvia is extremely down to earth. When lights come up it is a bare studio space with scattered chairs. Stella is sitting in one bowed over as if weeping. Sylvia enters, throws her coat over a chair, sees Stella, is surprised, is about to speak, stops herself a few times, is afraid to speak, is angry, is afraid again, then finally says something. What are you doing here? What kind of a way is that to greet me? What are you doing here? Morning. No, that's what I'm calling them. Him? You mean Lee? I can't stand to even hear his name. Well, the whole big live man himself will be here in ten minutes. God, come outside with me before he gets here. I need to talk to you. About what? I can't tell you in here, not in this room. Come. No, I have to prepare. Pork, I thought you lived in L.A. now. I don't live anywhere now. You're homeless too? Yes, I'm homeless and in mourning. Did someone really die? Me. Right, not too dramatic, are you? Isn't that our profession? To be dramatic? For Ibsen, Chekov, Streinberg, to be dramatic with the lives they created, not our petty little lives, remember? Did I say that? That our lives aren't important? Yes, you did. Mine is. Oh, so that petty little thing is just for the rest of us. Right. Not the Empress Adler. How did you die? The thin man killed me. I thought he was going to make you a star. It was a ruse. He lured me into his lair just to turn on me and murder me. I thought the thin man was the one who solved the crimes, not commits them. Actually, the thin man was the suspect in that first film, but the name caught on, so they just keep using it. So Hollywood. What does it matter if it makes sense as long as it sells? Okay, but you did say you weren't coming back until you were a movie star. Something akin to that. And you said you weren't never walking back into this room. One way or another, they all destroy you. Here, they call it creating a family. There, they chew you up and spit you out. Oh, please. That's what they do. Maybe to star-struck hopefuls. Pretty little waves. Everyone. I was excited to see your first major role on film as a swanky society sweetheart. Isn't that how you describe her? The shadow of the thin man, that's... Sylvia, you do not want to see it. It's garbage. Harry turned Dashiell's story into phony, gimmicky garbage. And the director had everyone pretending everything. Even Asta, the dog, overacted. So, you think you can just come back? It's a long, long shadow. Your thin man? Both. Mine and yours. Mine? Lee Strasburg is not mine! You're still in his class. I come once a week, four on Thursdays to work with the best. Well, at 4.30 to prepare. It was always 4.30. They start earlier now, more of us in shows. Meet time to get to the theater for half an hour. Half an hour is never enough. I didn't say that I'd get to the theater for half an hour. You know how much time I need to prepare before going on stage. Everyone needs that much time to prepare. You're just one of the few who actually take it. Which is why I'm here now, to prepare. And you're not letting me. I'll help you. What are you working on? Juliet. I came right from work. Sylvia, Sylvia. You cannot begin to feel like Juliet in a woollen A-line skirt and loafers. Don't you remember anything I showed you? Yes, you do need me to save you. Don't you have a rehearsal skirt and character shoes? Don't turn this on me. It sounds like you're the one who needs to be saved. I can save myself. But you couldn't in L.A.? I'm not a magician. But I can save myself from being destroyed by a fantasy once I know that it is one. And L.A. is a fantasy. Our little lives may be pedestrian, but they have the artifice without the art. And there's no place for us. You know what the name of the maid was. In the film, Nick and Nora's maid. The character or the actress? The character. Go ahead, guess. Balula. Jemima. Stella. You are anything but the maid. Here, I was Yiddish theater royalty. The daughter of the great Adler, taking her rightful place on the throne. Holding out her hand as if she held a precious object. I held the whole world in my hand from a stage. And when I can get the audience to see what is in my hand and trust me that I believe it and feel it, and that they are safe to believe it and feel it as well, then I can go anywhere. Anywhere at all and take them right along with me. But not in Hollywood. There's nothing to grab hold of. I can't get deep enough. Grab hold of the roles, the world of the play. We thought in the world of the film... They just wanted me to look glamorous and say the lines mysteriously. They just wanted the camera to love me. I'm sure it did. It's a cold, unfeeling audience, a hunk of metal. Even when it's loving you, it gives you nothing. Well, if you're here five minutes from now, you're going to see a whole lot of people who will give you less than nothing. Then come with me. Now, please tell me why. Not here. Please. We need to go. You're right. I need to get you somewhere else. I'll make it worth your while, I promise. Sitting down. I'm not going anywhere until you're straight with me. Becoming Claire Porter, the character she played in the thin man film. Isn't she sweet? Me? If I could hold my own in, this gang's sweet is not a word I'd use. I found it a bit too brutal. Gave me a headache. Society sweetheart, innit? Swanky society sweetheart who is really a trashy ex-convict. That one scene was almost... almost something. When she got so infuriated, she lost her pretentious upscale manners and accent and revealed her true colors. Even Bill Powell started to get good in that scene. I teased it right out of him. You can get anything out of any actor. So why are you working with Lee? I'm not. I just come for the... And he doesn't intimidate me. That must drive him crazy. You're my beacon. Remember? I was planning to follow you. You were gonna take Los Angeles by storm and then I was gonna follow it. They won't let us. Your dear beau, he can, maybe. Joel? Joel, you really think so? Maybe he has too much of an ethnic look to him, like Sandy Meisner. Your brothers can? No, they can't. But for different reasons? Right, for different reasons. Life... I live, breathe and die for the theater because it is the only place in the world where I get all used and only in the theater can we see the world so clearly. Feel it so deeply. The theater shows all truth. The truth of every society of each generation. The truth of humanity never completely recognized until it is brought to life and set before us on a stage. There is nothing else for us. Gesturing to the empty room. For any of us. Don't include them. Most of them don't even understand. Lee doesn't understand. Understand what? The method? I know that's what you were always fighting about. It's not a method, Sylvia. We were always fighting because Lee has it all wrong. All that emotional memory is garbage. Not at all what Konstantin intended. When I ran into him in Paris, we wrote it all down. Stanislavski couldn't believe that Lee was teaching his first exercises as a whole acting technique. They were intended as a possible first step in an actor's development. One step if necessary. The theater is not about our own emotional memories. We must create these marvelous, unique characters. Find their reality, their voice, their truth. How can we possibly find any emotional memory in our lives that replicates what Oedipus has to contend with when he realizes he has killed his own father and married his mother? Or Hamlet, when he realizes that he alone can save Denmark from his treacherous uncle? Countries at stake? Generations of kings and kingdoms on the line. Okay, the method definitely has limitations. Look, Sylvia, I found this quote from Lord Byron in a little bookshop in London, and I've been carrying it around ever since. Taking out a torn piece of paper from her coat pocket. Know thyself. Long enough has that poor self of thine tormented me. Thou wilt never get to know it, I believe. Thou art an unknowable individual. Know what thou canst work at, and work at it like a Hercules. That will be thy better plan. Putting it back in her pocket. It's a journey, and I am an explorer. I need to go into and through jungles where no human has yet been. To plant my flag, stake my claim on as yet unseen, unknown, untouched earth. The first woman in theatre. The first woman to play a woman on stage. That would have been something. The first international theatre star. Our divine Sarah. Our mother, the Bernhardt of the Yiddish theatre. The first silent movie star. The first talking movie star. All happened. And I have no more interesting movies anyway. What is left? I feel like your big sister. But the truth is, I could almost be your mama to save you from my fate. I want to keep you from the devastating disappointment. Are you going to start a theatre? Make it different? No. I just need to work, to act. I need characters to love them. Even the lost and the miserable. Do they ever let you play the lost and the miserable? Juliet is lost and miserable. Jill helped me find that. She's not usually played that way, but she is. She is. Not a romantic fantasy. A lost and miserable child. I love hiding how they're all lost, miserable. Damaged in some way. I'm never as alive as I am when I am in a character on stage. And I'm never as exhilaratingly happy as when they call half hour and I'm sitting backstage in my dressing room restless and nervous, putting on my makeup in some cracked, frameless mirror and getting into the skin of some marvelous character far more interesting and eloquent than me. I wanted to do that in movies. To follow you. And do that in movies. They're a carnival. Like an old fashioned melodrama. The worst of commercial garbage that passes for theater and evening's pleasant entertainment. But we thought you said that movies are the future, that they will swallow up the theater whole. And they probably will, but not with me. Not with me. No, no, no, no, no, no. You can't do this to me. We had an intention to be on a plan. You were going to be a first of the first real character actors in Hollywood. Don't. What are you talking about? You were going to create the first true, renowned and revered character actress in film. So I could be second. Not so that we could do carnivals, melodramas, musicals, singing, dancing, swimming, extravaganza, so we could do great plays on film. Shakespeare. They're not doing Shakespeare. They're doing cartoons. Well, if the movies swallow the theater whole, then they will do Shakespeare on film. Then they will do Shakespeare as cartoon. Oh, Neil. Oh, Dad. They will turn them all into cartoons. Or worse, they will do to stories what Lee has done to acting and make it all small and puny. Instead of uplifting, it will diminish, cultivating some futile notion of reality over vision and imagination, the act of creation, that is the key. That is the journey. I don't want to study. I want to work. What will you study? No, Sylvia, you misunderstand. They will study me. Be a journeyman. I will go wherever I have to. I want to be one of those journeyman character actors who get to play all kinds of juicy roles, large and small, old and young, playful and dark and bawdy and insane all the time. Hi, Jerry, what? Listening to me. I need you by my side. You understand me. Don't say that. Don't give up. You're too good. Have babies. No babies. Shutting us out. I can see it. The roles are not being written, and if they are, they're not being produced. Whatever parts they give me, I will do. Table scraps. That is what they will give you. I refuse. So you... I said it. Didn't you hear anything I said? I will be a teacher. You've got to be kidding. How will you be an Empress Stella if you're a teacher, a lowly teacher? And it's my job to see that they don't stay unknown. What is that? What do you say? One of the lines in the film. The police chief. He had to do so many takes because there was a problem with the camera angle. And I kept hearing him say it over and over again. It got to me. It's my job to see that they don't stay unknown. That line kept running through my head by the end all the time. Yes. Yes, yes, my job to see that they do not stay unknown. The words. No. More important than the words, the ideas. The theatre itself. It's my job to see that they are not misunderstood, destroyed, that they do not stay unknown. So you'll make them famous. No. Don't you see? I will reveal them. I will make them known and felt and brilliant. And I will make myself famous. That sounds more like my Stella. I will be a teacher of acting. The most celebrated, most admired acting teacher. The burned heart of the classroom. No, no. Of the classroom as stage. I will, in each class, in each session, make theatre in order for each and every actor there to truly understand, truly feel what it means to draw the audience into the journey and to the grandest truths of the world. The truths that are greater than reality. Those that are revealed in all their glory through art. So you really are deserting me? You are deserting me. I came to take you with me. I'm asking no one else. And do what? Assist? Demonstrate? Show them how it is done. You can perform all the time, create all the characters for students who will appreciate it. No. What do you want with them? To get to Broadway? At best, they will put you into some meaningless ingenue role that any pretty girl could play. And that will only last a few years. I was counting on you. I was going to follow you. You don't have to follow me. Come with me now. I want to act. We cannot act the way we want. We will teach the men who will get to do it how to do it. Your way. The right way. What about the women? How can you dismiss them like that? How can you dismiss me like that? Go home, Sylvia. Angry, pushing her away. Marry your Joel Friedman. Cook dinners, make babies, let them spit up all over you and take your love and life and grow up to hate you anyway. You are gone. You're gone already. I am not gone. From a teacher I... How can you do anything of value? If you have no value, why bother doing anything at all? Why are you doing this? You're a little Russian Jewish girl and all you will ever be is a little Russian Jewish girl. You're a little Russian Jewish girl, too. I am abroad. I'm a Jewish broad from Odessa. That makes you less gone. As a teacher I will not be gone. I will not be pushed aside. Not now, not ever. As a teacher. Hear how ridiculous that sounds? You will make as a teacher. Get out of here, Stella, or the rest of them get here. You don't want to be here when they come and I am not going with you. Not ever. I'm staying and I'm working. In the theater, whatever I have to do, whatever they let me do. Stella leaves without Sylvia. Coming down left as the lights fade out in the room she just left. She is standing in one light that becomes more focused as she speaks. I don't care how it sounds. You will see. That is where I will make my stand. I will make my entrance onto the stage every day and they will know what it means to command attention. My ideas will be treated as they deserve, like pearls of wisdom, pearls of insight. I will sit on a throne, a majestic velvet throne and rule with a staff, a jewel staff and an iron fist befitting a warrior queen. And so they will know, the place of exaltation, not diminishment. Through my rigorous and unrelenting requirements, my students will understand everything there is to know about text and subtext and character and objectives and actions and ideas and most important of all about imagination. They will hear me so deeply with their blood that I will get them to hear that deeply in character on stage every time they go on stage. And so they will come to understand the things that you make theater, how you create a world on stage and live in it. I will be the empress of acting technique here in America and I will never, never, never be gone. Light fades out slowly on Stella. The end. Actors come. There's an open bar. You can get some drinks and mingle with all these wonderful people who have put on this amazing performance in supporting the project.