 Everyone, to the third week of the Latinx Super Friends Playwriting Zoom with Cristina Quintana, otherwise known as CQ, welcome. Thank you so much. And let us, I'm Tlalo Carivas, I'm the producer curator and on the moderator is Thea Rogers and you're Thea, Thea, Thea, right? You're in LA. Yeah, that's right. And I'm in Pittsburgh. I go by he, him, his. And I just wanna welcome you all to the third week. Before we get started with CQ, I just wanted to say thank you again for those of you who have been coming week after week and I'd like to welcome those who are coming for the first time. I wanna just send a shout out to everyone on the front lines of the COVID crisis. And if you have family or members of your family who work in any of the essential industries, shout out to them, I pray for their health and their security. And I just wanted to send out love and light to all of you and to all those affected by this pandemic. That being said, I started this with the idea that we could get together and connect and share with each other things that can inspire us to continue to do our work during and beyond, hopefully after this crisis is over. But for now, I'm really, really thrilled to CQ here. And I'm gonna hand it off to you and welcome. Thank you so much. Oh my gosh. Thank you to Taluk and to Thea and to everyone who's here. I'm just like, it's so incredible to see just folks that I know, folks that I don't know from around the United States and the world who are all gathered here today. I know that it's been a really hard last month and a half for a lot of us. And I just wanna second what Taluk just said and just really add for all who've lost anyone and just really thinking about sort of the amazing figures in our communities that we've lost. I feel like I've been thinking a lot, especially about the women of color who we've lost during this time. So the purpose for me, I was so humbled to be asked to do this whole thing. For me, I've just really been thinking about so much of, as a writer, we have these ideas of productivity and a productivity mindset. And it's such a capitalistic, American kind of idea. And I think what I've been really also centering on is how healing and powerful writing can be and art making can be and how we can kind of focus on that. So today I'm going to share my screen to start and I'm just gonna share this. And this actually, this whole document is gonna be available to everyone. It's actually gonna be in the chat and Thea is gonna provide it for everyone as well. So you can have this material and I just really wanna start out today by saying that, so first of all, this idea of medicinal playwriting, I've kind of invented it, right? Not that these types of things don't exist, but the idea is really, as I'm saying, for this process to be about healing. It's about, it's your space and whether you write one page or one word today, that's fine. And I really think today it's about embracing where you are right now in this moment. So the first thing we're gonna actually do today is we're gonna talk about the inner critic. So I really, here's a fun drawing, actually the first one I really enjoyed and this is actually a bell hooks quote that I thought was really wonderful. When we drop fear, we can draw near to people, we can draw near to the earth, we can draw near to all the heavenly creatures that surround us. So bell hooks is with us today. So let's start out talking about an inner critic. And I really wanna ask the class. I know this is a kind of harder format to sort of do that, but the is gonna help us out. So I know what it says here as per Wikipedia, but I would really love just anyone in the space who wants to raise their hand and tell us to them what is an inner critic. Do we have anybody who's down for that? Don't be scared. I don't see any hands yet, but do we have? Fuck, I'm gonna go ahead and unmute you. Oh, great. I see Sean's hand is up. Yay. So I'm gonna go ahead and unmute Sean. Yes. You should be unmuted. Thank you. Hey, Sean. Do we have Sean? Sean, do we have him? I had to connect. Yeah, I had to connect my head, so I forgot. Oh, that's okay. Can you hear me okay? Yeah, I can hear you great. Yeah. Yeah, the inner critic is usually a bad thing, but I also think can sometimes be a positive thing. That's great. Because yeah, I think it's both inspiration, but also discouragement. So yeah. That's amazing. That's a perfect idea for where we are right now. That's totally where we're going. Does anybody else wanna say something about the inner critic? Well, that's a great place to start off, Sean. I see Sofia Palmetto's hand. Sofia, go ahead. Yeah, you are unmuted. Hey. Hey, Sofia, welcome. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here. Thanks for being here. To me, the inner critic feels like the amalgamation of voices that you, I guess, pick up through your life, whether it be like your teachers, or your friends, or your family, and eventually, I think yourself too, that just have something to say about absolutely everything that you're doing. Yeah. And sometimes it's good, and sometimes it's bad, and often it's bad. But I think it depends very much on the voices that we're speaking to you in the first place. Yeah, and I think that's sort of what it is. Yeah, that's great. Thank you both. Thank you, Sean and Sofia. Those were really great responses and are really getting us going toward where we're going. So keep those things in mind, your own ideas of what an inner critic is, and then we're actually next. We're gonna look at, you can see right here, we have some great poems for reference. So we're only gonna look at one of these in the current moment, but I really encourage you to look at all of these. And in my mind, I really think of poetry. For those of you who know me, you know that for me, poetry and playwriting are really intertwined. So I'm always sort of looking at poetry, a sort of inspiration for my playwriting and vice versa. And I think that the two forms really speak to each other. So we're gonna look first at, we're off to only gonna today because of our limited time. We're gonna look at Triple Sonnet for my aggressive forehead by Dorothy Chan. And I'm wondering if we have anybody, any actors in the room who would like to give us a little bit of a reading. I don't mind reading it, but I would love to have someone else read it. Bea, could you help us out? You could use it. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. Renee, you are unmuted. Oh, nice. Hey, Renee, how are you? Good, good, thanks for having me. Yeah, thank you for being here. Are you down to read Triple Sonnet for my aggressive forehead? Absolutely, yeah. Okay, great. Now, if I'm scrolling not fast enough or just let me know, okay? Sure, sure. Dad thinks my forehead is too Godzilla, too Tarzan, too Wonder Woman. Tells me not to tie my hair back, exposing it like it's the Frankenstein monster from beneath my childhood bed or the mollusk that changed the world, that challenged the world rather. And dad, I love you, but you should know that I am a nightmare as a woman who can make the earth stand still, calling all UFOs from planets beyond to paint me on canvas just as I am. A Chinese girl nicknamed yellow fever, chowing down on all the pork buns and chicken biscuits and shrimp bonn me at the buffet and of course all the men. As I star in my own B movie, gave it an XXX. Every girl's dream of playing opposite King Kong and you know I'm not some Fey Ray type who screams at the sight of a hand. And dad, I think about all the ape toys you bought me when I was a child because you never wanted me to be alone. Never wanted me to go a day without laughing or plotting. And did I mention that you were born on Halloween which makes me half evil? I'm joking. But dad, you've got to let me keep my forehead despite your old school Chinese beliefs of girls hiding their warrior brains. And I know you're just looking out for me. But my forehead has its own life like an invisible screen. One way glass where the admin are watching the women try on lipstick. But in my forehead it's the other way around because let the boys play and the girls watch for once because every lip could use a bit more rouge, purple, crimson, burnt orange, hot pink. How at once I want to dress up as a flight attendant in a county. Someone at the front of the class holding a ruler and yes, if I fill out a survey from a sex magazine I'm checking off forehead as my favorite body part. Isn't that great? Thank you Renee. That was a great reading. Thank you. Thank you. Snaps for Renee. All right. So I love that poem so much to me. It's like such a monologue. And in my mind, Dorothy Chan is speaking to her dad as her inner critic, right? So now this is gonna bring us to our first exercise. We're getting to the juice, to the fun stuff. And part one is going to be you naming your inner critic. So now I really want you to think about this. So it can be a good name or a goofy name. Oh, get out, yes. Please get out your whatever form of writing you would like, your utensils, if you're using your laptop or if you're using pen and paper, whatever your preferred method of writing is. And so this first exercise, I just want you to think about it. It can be a good name or a goofy name. It can be the name of a real person from your own life or it can be entirely made up. Your inner critic might not be a person. It could be an object or it could be an animal. But the one thing that I ask for you to choose is that for it to make it personal, even if it's an object, let's say you have a mouse who hasn't been able to leave your fucking house and you're just like going crazy, then maybe that's your inner critic. For me, I'm just gonna get real personal here and just say that I decided to name my inner critic after a generic white man's name. And so I chose the name Bill. That is my own, obviously my own personal issue. And that was how I decided to name my inner critic and it was based on something that I was dealing with. So I really, really encourage you to think about what is, it could be a first name and a last name. It could just be a first name. But whenever you hear that voice in your head, as Sean and Sophia were sort of saying to us, what is the name that you hear associated with that? And actually Virginia Woolf, which I thought was so cool as I was looking, as I was sort of investigating this. Virginia Woolf apparently did this very thing and she would name her these voices in her head, which I think is pretty amazing. So you're in good company. So we're just gonna take, I really want you to think about this. So please take like the next two minutes, two to three minutes and write down your inner critic's name. So we're just gonna take a few minutes for that. I'm gonna put a little timer on. We'll hear the chime. Okay, we got about a minute left. I'm really hoping people wanna share these later. About 30 seconds. Okay, how is everybody feeling about that? Got thumbs up, feeling pretty good, feeling pretty good. Awesome, okay. So the next, I included all these fun little cartoons just for fun, because you know. So the next part of this is going to be write a character sketch for this person. Now, I really want, I said here it can be as simple as a name and a description or slightly more involved paragraph, but I really want you to like dig deep here. Really like think about this person. So really imagine the character that is this inner critic. Who is this person? If they're not an actual person in the world, imagine them as one. If they are, feel free to borrow some things from their life or things that you know, things that you don't know, feel free to imagine other things. Really think about like sort of your writing out a character sketch for this person, your inner critic for Bill. Right now, what do I think about Bill's life? What is their family life? Where did they grow up? How old are they? I just, I wrote this Tina Howe quote, which I really love, because I think it's, it really is guiding for me, which is all the events are true, but none of them ever happened. And I had this really great professor in grad school named Frank Pugliesi. And he used to tell us that actually he would base all of his characters on real people, which not everyone does. I think for me, I sort of love the idea of a mix of a lot of people. So I think with your inner critic, maybe as Sophia said, it's a lot of different voices. So what are some things of these different voices? What are characteristics of all of these different voices that you're hearing that you can pull into this character? So we're gonna take about five minutes here to write out a little bit of a character sketch. And then if we're feeling like we need more time, we can always give a little bit more time and also know that you can always come back to this. So we're gonna, I'm gonna put a timer on for five minutes and go forward. I wish I had background music for y'all. Got about two and a half minutes left. I really encourage you to get to know this person or thing. Just got a little bit under a minute left. Everybody in a good place. I'm excited to hear what everyone's, everyone's inner critics are like. Okay, so the next part, this is probably, you know, to me, I think the most important part of this exercise. And this is part four, which is making a list of things that you love about your inner critic. Now, I really think that like the most important part of this exercise is actually something that Sean was saying earlier, which is what are the good things actually about this person? Like really imagining this person, this thing, this critic, having compassion for them. You're gonna like invite them into the room. Like imagine they're walking into your room right now or maybe they're Skyping with them because it is we're in shelter in place. But imagine yourself being in a room with them and rather than avoiding them, embracing them. I really want you to think about like, what do you love about this person? Maybe, maybe, you know, Bill is a total curmudgeon. Maybe he's a snappy dresser. Maybe he's incredibly intelligent or observant despite himself. But really like think about a list of, and I don't think it's actually gonna take us this long, but really think about a list of 10 things that you love about this person. So we'll start, I'm gonna give us about, I don't think we're probably gonna need more than five minutes. I'm gonna give us five minutes and we'll see how everyone's doing. For about three minutes, we're gonna give us a little bit more time. I'm trying to look around the Zoom, see how everybody's doing. So nice to see so many familiar faces and names. I'll take a little bit more time. How's everybody feeling? People feeling like they need a little bit more time? Give me a thumbs up if you're thinking you need a little bit more time. Looks like people are pretty good to go on. Okay, great. All right, so the next part, after now that we have our list, I want you to think about free writing, a scene, a monologue, a journal entry in conversation with this character. Now, the other character could be you or it could be another invented character, perhaps a character or voice you've written before or that you enjoy. There's, the thing about this is that it's totally for you and there's no pressure for how this comes out or what it looks like. The main point of this is just to get some words down on paper. But really think about this person that you have created for yourself who is your inner critic and or many of your inner critics and really put them into a piece of writing in this moment. So we're gonna take about, let's take about five minutes. We'll take about five minutes and start thinking about a scene. And then if we need a little more time we can take a little bit more time. Does anybody have any questions? You guys feeling, feeling good? I realize it's hard. Luckily I have Tylok over here, just like nodding. Great. Okay, let's take another, let's take five minutes and write out these scenes slash monologue slash journal entry slash whatever you want them to be. I'm just gonna add one thing while we're in the midst of working on these we have about a little over a minute. We can keep going, but I always think about whenever I'm writing a new scene or just writing something blank from scratch that I often think about Fornes and how she used to say that a scene can really just be two people existing in a space. So not trying to think about what is dramatic about this but just what is, who are these people and how are they talking to each other? So we're coming up on five minutes. How's everybody doing? Are we thinking we want a little bit more time? Maybe a little bit? No, we're good. It's not like everybody's like, we're good, we're good. Well, this is obviously something that I hope that you will continue working on or that the tools that are involved in this that you will take with you long after this are used if it's helpful for you. Really sort of the next part of this personally is I just would love to talk to all of y'all to anyone who's open to discussing like how are these exercises for you? Is this helpful? What elements of it are working for you? Did you feel like you were able to kind of connect with this inner critic? Do you wanna share with us the name of your inner critic or anything that you've written today? I would really love to hear from y'all for the next five to 10 minutes or so. If Theo wants to help us out, we can use our... Yeah, I see one hand up. Seth, you are unmuted. Hello. Hello, Seth. Welcome. Hi, CQ. I've been loving this class. Thank you. Oh, good. I'm so glad. Yeah, you know, it's interesting. I haven't thought of my inner critic too much, but writing him, he instantly took form. My inner critic's name is Charles and he's a fabulous gay man who is somehow both older and wiser and younger and more hip than I am. I can see him. I feel like I can see him. I know. It was funny. The hardest thing for me was writing the things that we're supposed to love about him. I felt such... I had this powerful, emotional reaction. I was so afraid of him that I couldn't... I was just afraid he was gonna say something that would just absolutely cut me to the quick. And so, finally, I was right. Well, you know, Charles is very thoughtful and observant and occasionally can be compassionate with his amazing powers. But normally, Charles just, you know, slices you to bits with his razor sharp wit. So, yeah, it was interesting. I love that. That was sort of, yeah. So, and that seems like a great character to write for you. Yeah, I just... I'm already like... I just had something like my heart's pounding and I'm like, oh, God, why do my fingers feel thick and clumsy? So, there you go. That's amazing. Thank you for sharing, Seth. Did you want to say anything else? No, I'm all good. Now I'll listen. Thank you for sharing. That's amazing. I think we have a couple other raised hands. That's great. Renee, you are unmuted. Oh, awesome. I think this is wonderful. Hey, how are you? You doing okay? Yeah, it's good. Thank you for reading our poem earlier. Oh, thank you. It was wonderful and it really affected me reading it. I didn't think it was. I thought I was just gonna read something and be able to participate, but reading it really... I could feel the pain, and I could associate it with, I'm obviously not a Chinese girl, but so much empathy. Going back to the exercise, I think this is a great exercise. Speaking as a straight Latino male, I think this is an exercise that should have been done very, very long time ago for me. For all of us. For all of us. For all of us. So my inner critic, I think, again, this is obviously just me, but my father comes into mind. My father comes into mind. He's a very positive person, very positive role model, and shaped me for the man that I am today, but at the same time, he was always very protective of me. Always trying to look out for the best. So yeah, my inner critic was very protective. He was always looking out for my best interests. Doesn't want me to get hurt. Doesn't want me to get injured, ridiculed. And everything that is occurring at the moment, he has experienced it already, and he knows best. Was it easier for you? No, sorry, keep going, Renee, sorry. He wants me to take the same, the safe route. And this is, I found this very interesting. Again, I'm speaking about my inner critic, who resembles my father, not my father. He never wants me to be in a place of vulnerability or more importantly, perceived vulnerability. So where anybody else thinks that I look weak, even though that could not be the case. I could be making that up, but he is so protective of me. My inner critic is so protective of me that he wants to protect me from any possible angle. And I found that to be very revealing and I appreciate the exercise. I'm so glad that it was helpful for you. I was actually gonna ask if, I think that's so interesting. Like I feel like facing sometimes, if you base a character or like really thinking about your inner critic as such a personal, that's why I picked that poem. So I love that you kind of based yours on your father as well. Because I think there's something about that voice that I wondered if it was almost, if it was harder to think of the bad things or harder to think of the 10 things that you love about the person. I almost wondered if there should be a part of the exercise that's like, what are 10 things you hate about the person and 10 things that you love about the person, you know? Because that's like, yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, I love it. Well, please feel free to take it and, you know, and morph it however is helpful for you. But thank you so much for sharing today. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Becca Chapman, you are unmuted. Hi everyone. Becca Chapman, hello. From New Orleans. All the way from New Orleans. It's my hometown, I love Becca. She's an amazing actress. Thank you. Thank you for all of this. Yeah, this exercise is very, very, very... Oh, thank you. Sorry, I started my video now. Sorry if you're backlighting. Anyway, yes, this exercise is very interesting because I at first was like, oh, it's my dad or it's my first grade teacher. But then it allowed me to create a character that allowed a mixture of all of the things. Cool. Which was so much more freeing. And I needed that to stop blaming. Personally. All my quests have stopped blaming. But her name is Little One. And she, which I'm sitting, but I'm actually four foot 11. So most of my life, I've been called Little One. I love that. And she's this little girl with big, wearing big heels and like a big, big hat that thinks she owns everything and is telling me everything I should be doing all the time. And it's like she's gossipy, she's demanding, she's judgy, super hot-tempered. She's a little brat that never gets her way but gets everything she wants at the same time. So it's like a mixture. What do you love about her? Cause she's adorable and as angry as she gets, the funnier she gets, I think. And because I think she's just, she's sad. Like it makes me kind of be a little more compassionate. It's like, oh, this person just wants to be nurtured in a way that they don't know how. Yeah. Possibly. Yeah, no, I mean, honestly, I first thought about this because literally in a therapy session, I had this inner critic that I named and my therapist was like, invite Bill into the room. Why is Bill hurting? And I literally couldn't stop thinking about that idea of like, what does it mean to actually invite that person and what, and I love what you're saying about. It's true, like, you know, people who are usually that angry or that angry for a reason, right? So a lot to mind there. I love that you combined a bunch of different people too. I think that's such, there's something so freeing about that too because then nobody can be like, oh, you based this off of like whoever. And it's like, nope, I based it off of people. No. That's how people, I could base this off of it. I love it. So thank you for sharing, Becca. I appreciate it. Thank you, no problem. Thanks for this. Next up, we have Sean from You're Unmuted. Hey, Sean. Hi. Hey, CQ. How are you? This is amazing. Thank you for joining us. Yeah, I'm not a playwright. So, and I decided to, why not give it a shot and... I love it. We can all replace. So this was, yeah, this was definitely very helpful naming my inner critic. My inner critic's name is Jim, which is based on somebody that I know. Here in my community here in Allentown. Yeah, and it's, he's just your average guy who has enjoyed being a gatekeeper for way too long. And I feel like, I feel like the what I love section was really, really helpful just because on the outside, there are a lot of things that I'm just like, I could see me being friends with this guy and I could see myself getting along with him if it wasn't for the fact that he was holding onto this exclusionary model of making art. And I started feeling sympathy for him just because, I mean, I don't wanna say sympathy, but like, I'm just like, he feels like he, I feel like he's scared. I think he is seeing his way of life going away, not to say that that's not a good thing. And I really hope that his way of thinking does go away, but it really made me understand what he's dealing with. And I mean, I wrote my scene and like the first thing of the first line of the scene I wrote with him is like, basically a conversation I've wanted to have with him for a long time. It's basically like, why don't you like me? Like, why can't we have a conversation? Why do you shut down? Why do you shut down all of my ideas right away? Why can't- Oh, I love that you just went there. That's awesome. Yeah. And I mean, who knows? Maybe I'll have the courage to just shoot him a message and just say, like, can we just talk? But- That's really cool. I'm glad that it could be a healing exercise. It's just really helpful. That's awesome. Keep going. Keep writing it too. Thanks for coming, Shawn. Oh my gosh. Yeah, I'm scribbling away. This is gonna be on for, I'm gonna keep going with this for a while. Good. That's awesome. That's awesome. Thanks, Shawn. Appreciate it. Next up, we have Alec. Alec, you're unmuted. What? Alice? Or Alex? I couldn't hear. Oh, it's Alex. Alex. Hi. Hi, how are you? Welcome. We're so glad you're here. I can't hear you for some reason for a minute. Oh, really? A little bit better. All right. It's just quiet. It's a little quiet. If I speak closer to the microphone, can you hear me? We can hear you a little bit better. Better. Give it a little bit, yeah. You can also type in the chat if that's helpful. Maybe we can- Alec, why don't you go ahead and get headphones while you do that? I'll come back. Yeah. So you are unmuted, and I'll just come back to you. Okay. Love this look. It's so good to see so many wonderful faces that I have not seen in so long, and so many new faces. CQ, this was dope. I did not expect, I didn't know what to expect. We're in that period of life, right? Where we're just flowing, so. Yeah. So this was really dope I'm glad it was good for you. Yeah, like other people have mentioned, it was a really scary, really scary process, but I think so powerful to name it. Yeah. To identify, that's like the first thing that you're taught when you have panic attacks or like heavy feelings is like, okay, name the feeling. So this is dope. So my inner critic is Gladys. And she calls to consume. Her hair is most likely in rollers. I don't know how to say that in English. Rollers, yeah. She wears hand class and she smacks gum really loudly. And she's just like. How old is Gladys? She's like in her fifties. Okay, yeah. You know, been there, done that. She's a very nosy Thea, she's like one of those nosy aunts that's all up in your business, but never actually offers you a good solution for your shit. I'm actually happy for you. What do you love about her? What I love about her is that she loves who she is, like period without a doubt. She has no qualms about who she is. Sometimes her tough love for me is like, you need to also love who you are. You know? That's cool. So she like gives you, she's like that friend who's real with you. Like she's like. You're like, no, no, no, no. But anyway, here's what I'm talking about. A moment on the lips is a lifetime on the hips. That's what she said to me as I reached for another Oreo cookie, which is kind of funny because Gladys is fat. We call her la gordis. Her body shape is round and everything jiggles. You don't want to end up like me. Camera adds 10 pounds, Saul. You don't need that Oreo cookie. Fine, I say, but now I'm mad. Oh, now you're mad? Yes. What? Because I told you not to have another Oreo cookie? Yes. And you do everything that other people tell you to do? I guess so. Ay, Nena, tú no aprendes. You don't learn anything? So. And then you said time was up and I was like, thank God. Keep going girl, yes. That was great. Yeah. But what I want to say is that this is really helpful because the next time I sit down to write, the next time I, you know, before an audition and whenever I feel Gladys come up, I can be like, cool. We can. Yeah. You were saying like invite Bill into the space. I legit have this post post it note on my wall. It says, ask Bill why he's here. Have compassion for him. Be besties with Bill. It's good. Every time, every time you go down to write, I love that, you know. Now you can talk to her or him or them or whoever it is. So that's awesome. Thanks for sharing. So that was great. Great. Wonderful. All right. I think Alice, are you ready to go again? You are. Hey Alice, do we hear you now? Unfortunately, I can't hear you. Alice, feel free to write to me. If you like, I put my email in the document. So feel free to write to me. I'm unfortunately, I can't hear you at all right now. Yeah. Go ahead and through messages. Yeah. Go ahead and type stuff in the chat. Really beautiful. All right. So I'm so sorry, Alice, next time. I'm sorry, Alice. Thank you so much. If you do feel, if you do figure it out, go ahead and DM me in the chat here. And we are going to go to Irene Villes, senior, you're unmuted. Okay. Hi, everybody. Hi, CQ. Hey, how are you doing? Good. I'm here in Harlem and I really love this. As you know, like I'm not a playwright. You know me from poetry through Sarah. Iran is an amazing poet. Amazing. Okay. Thank you. Usually I write business like emails and academic essays. So it was really fun to like get like, you know, be eased into like playwriting and all that sort of stuff. Cause I usually don't even do anything with fiction either. And so like my inner critic, I was trying, I was struggling to come up with like a name and a concept. So I came up with the name Vidalia, like the onion because she seems sweet, but she actually is stinky. And so she reminds me of a friend that I'm taking a break from. And oh, I also wanted to say that I really enjoyed the poem that was read earlier because I'm also part Chinese. And so my character is kind of like mixed race, Asian, you know, indigenous, Latin X type of person. However, she tries really hard to fit into the mainstream. She loves to wear matching sweater sets and pearls like a grown up prep school girl. She's boring, but it's actually- I like grown up prep school girl as a description. I didn't know I had these deep seated issues still. Well, we all have our issues. That's what this is about, embrace, embrace. Like Vidalia looks boring, but actually is capable of being incredibly vicious. She tries to offer caring advice, but sometimes turns out to actually be manipulative and undermining. So what do you love about her, Ren? I love that she's a savvy observer of life and knows a lot of people and gains wisdom from talking to everyone. Even though she looks like a snob, she's actually not. She's actually like radical in certain ways and is very generous to others and is open to intuitive and like, you know, extra perceptual experiences. So it's kind of like this mix bad, but you know, it's kind of like you feel safe usually around her, except when she suddenly attacks you. Sounds like souls too. That sounds awesome. Thank you for sharing your- Thank you. I really appreciate it. I'm glad it was helpful for you. Yeah. That was great. I think we have like four more people and then I know, yeah, I would love to hear from everyone before. I don't know how interested people are in hearing from me, but we'll try to have maybe a couple of questions at the end if people want that. Roxanne, you are unmuted. Thank you. We wanna try Alice again or are we gonna- No. I'm sorry, Alice. Okay, sorry. I just wanted to make sure we did- I know. Thank you for that, Roxanne. How are you? Hi, CQ. This is awesome. I'm really- I'm so glad you liked it. And yeah, this is just super innovative. And so I had one of my playwriting teachers, Susan Zeter, once said, you can't be both critic and artist at the same time. And I'm like, right. But I never went into that and really moved into it. So this was pretty cathartic. And I'm really excited about it. So my inner critic's name is Mrs. Box. And she's pretty perfect. She's all about the comma. And she, you know, everything is perfect. Oxford commas. Yeah, yep. She knows it all there. And she, everything, like her hair is perfect. And even in the wind, she's, you know, it doesn't blow in the wind and she's just perfect. And her, the bottoms of the soles of her shoes are like clean all the time. And she's just perfect. And what do you love about her? Yeah, that's the part that I was really surprised by. So what I realized about Mrs. Box is that she just wants to help. She really desperately wants to help. And she gets, like, I'm feeling this right now in my life. So like, I was like, oh, that's what's going on. She just gets paralyzed when she can't. And she feels like there's nothing she can do or that she's not given an opportunity to help. So that was pretty, pretty deep for me. So thank you for that. I'm so glad. And were you able to write any of what was like the, like a scene or a monologue or anything? Did anything come out of it? Yeah, she was, she came to the door and she kept knocking and it was pretty perfect. And I was hiding and she, and then she just, finally I opened the door and I was like, I'm busy. And she just came in anyway. And, and then, yeah. And then she, she, I was like, I'm really busy. And she's like, you don't want me. I'm just here to help. Like, so. That's amazing. Well, thank you for sharing that, Roxanne. I'm really glad it was helpful for you. Thank you. I'm enjoying it so much. Thank you. Yeah. Keep going. I hope you keep going. Next up, we have Sophia Pomero, you're unmuted. Hi, Sophia. Hey. Sorry, I was muted. How are you? Oh, no, that's okay. I actually didn't see you for a moment. I'm good. This was, I, I loved your whole like medicinal playwriting. Like that speaks so deeply to me. Cause I, you know, I, I've been feeling really recently like a lot of art is almost like retraumatizing is sort of what it feels like. Like there's a lot of exploitation of trauma for the sake of like shock. And I think that it's good to bring light to some things. And I think that it's important, but I have been very interested recently in how we can use art to heal and imagine a better world for ourselves and for each other. So this spoke a lot to me. My, my inner critic is me and Becca must live in the same mental space. Cause mine is, her name is Itty Bitty and she's a tiny, almost like it came from the idea of like the Lizzie McGuire drawing, you know, how it flashes over to her. It feels like that. So she's this tiny five year old, but she doesn't have an actual voice. She can only speak in snippets and recordings of other people's voices and splice them together. However, it expresses her feelings, but sometimes she likes to just use direct quotes for people. And I think one of the reasons why that really spoke to me was because I find that my inner critic has no ill intention and it's not trying to like, you know, like Itty Bitty is very naive. She's very, you know, she'll occasionally throw a temper tantrum and like those temper tantrums are when she really throws out the really, really, you know, poisonous kind of thing that she says, but then she'll take a nap and then when she wakes up, it's like nothing ever happened. And what do you love about her? What do I love about her? She, she is very passionate in either in her criticism or in her praise. She's always going 110 for that. And she's very innocent and naive. And because of that, I find that she's always honest to what she feels, even if it's not always the truth. But sometimes, even if she's very harsh under there, you can find something that has a little negative truth that you can take and morph to help you move forward. So. That's cool. Thank you so much for sharing that. I'm actually curious if when you wrote, did you write her in the section that you wrote during our time together? Did you write her as just like speaking in quotations? Where is it like a scene that way? That's so cool. I love that. It's really neat. Cool. Thank you for sharing, Sophia. Thank you. Yeah. That's been so great. Hi, Ika. Hi, Ika. Hi, hi everyone. Well, thank you for being here. Thanks. I'm an actor and a filmmaker. Love it. I need a lot of theater though, but I wanted to show my little drawing. Oh my God. What an amazing drawing. And this is purple. That's her name. And I was really surprised because I think it's, when you were saying the, your inner critic, I was thinking about something really ugly and scary and all that kind of stuff. And this lady is very elegant. Yeah. And she doesn't have legs because she just lies around. She doesn't need any legs. And I like the fact that she doesn't have to look at me. Oh, I love it. You see? She talks a lot. I love that detail that she doesn't have legs. I love that so much. Yeah, she likes to talk a lot. And the other thing that I like is they has two faces. She has to face herself and is coming from the past. So that's like the main things that I, the highlights about her. And the monologue that came out, you know, more or less. Yeah, yeah. The part that I like is that it is very simple and she wants me to talk about simple things and not be too complicated, too intellectual, go to the basics. Well, then she, even though she's sophisticated and elegant, she came to me talking about the basics. So the monologue more or less says like, I wrote everything in regards to the basics. Oh my dear, finally you call me. What's for dinner? Oh, she's mirrored, you know. So she says, oh, I know that you are a great cook, but who cares about these pasta quarantines that you are doing? And what about your rice? Oh my God, your rice is amazing. And if you can make something so good about something so simple as rice, just please forget about cooking. And then, I think you have some magic and you see these light, blue light that I have here. Oh yeah, I see that. In my hands, do you know why? Cause now your hands, in my hands, my alien hands are together. Can I just ask before, that was amazing. Thank you for sharing with us, Ika. What do you love about her? I like that she takes time to tell me what I need to hear and then she elaborates a lot. Hmm, I love that. Yes, and also, yeah, the fact, also I like that she loves money. I love that. Yes. Would do great. Yes, she really loves money and she has that in one of her leaves here, you see. Oh, I see that. I got the dollars on there, that's so funny. So I found that interesting, I like that. Does that feel very different from you? Does it, was it just something that came up? It's, no, it's a little bit similar but the fact that she comes from the past is kind of different from me because I do not, I live very much in the present. I think so. That's really cool. Thank you Ika and everyone, this was amazing. I love, that was like my favorite part was just hearing everyone share. This has been so, this has been so special and thank you. Do we have one more hand up, Amy, or do we have another one? I put my hand down because I want to hear CQ, I want people to be able to ask CQ questions if they have. Amy, you can obviously always please write to me. But I do want to know your, I want to know who your critic is if you want to. I'll say the name of my critic, which is a stained mattress in an abandoned building full with, filled with mousetrapings. Does your mattress have a name, Amy? No, doesn't even, doesn't even have a name. Whoa, no name. That's deep, that's dark. Come into it. CQ, I have a question for you. Yes. I wonder how much this exercise, did you, how much is this is tied into, and I'm going to, I'm just going to generalize. Of course, please. This idea of, in the case of growing up Latino, Latina, Latinx, the idea of shame, the idea of, you know, like the kind of pressures that, that kind of exists within our community. I'm curious how was there, was there sort of like a, oh, I felt this because of my own cultural background or where I grew up, or did this inner critic kind of come into play in a different way for you? No, it's a great question. I mean, I think for a lot of us who are Latinx or immigrants or children of immigrants, like I am, I think there's so much pressure that a lot of us sort of face to kind of be, you know, the greatest, you know, in whatever capacity. And I think like sort of compounded with, you know, I grew up in the South and, you know, our family at the time was a very small Latinx community in New Orleans. And so we were sort of othered that way. And then I was queer in a very Catholic kind of family and community. And so I think all of those things and all of those voices that I actually find are, you know, in conversations I've had in a long time of therapy are sort of what kind of actually both are, you know, it's like the, it's the bad and the good because I think, which is why I like this exercise I think is so substantial because it's like, those voices are also what keep us going. They're also, you know, biting at our heels and having us continuing typing and writing these stories and filling these pages, you know, as much as sort of that hurt, you know, is also there. So I think like absolutely, you know, those critics. I mean, I think a lot, I think a lot about those things. And I think that's definitely played a part. Interestingly enough, I mean, I think in some of my plays, definitely like more directly sort of play with shame and the idea of shame, but in sort of how we combat that and combat those voices. I mean, scissoring is so that conversation. But, and then it's definitely something I think about in poetry a lot. Excellent, thank you. Yeah, thank you. And if anybody else wants to ask questions, this is the time. I take them all, I take any. And this is water in case you were wondering, not that exciting at 4 p.m. Do we have any other questions? I think, oh, Tupor just made his hands, I see now. Oh, yeah, here we are. Amy, you are unmuted. I was just going to ask how this isolation and as writers, which is a isolating experience to begin with, but how is this isolation and this quarantine and the trauma that's existing from all of what's going on? How has that changed or affected your writing? That's a great question, Amy. Thank you for being here also. I think that I am a person who I'm a mover and I always have been and I'm really bad and I've gotten better at it as I've gotten older, but I think I usually like in the face of drastic change or grief, I usually just keep going, keep it going, keep going until suddenly I really have, I'm standing in neck high water, like holy shit, this is going on. So I have gotten a bit better at it and I think I am just also trying to really acknowledge that and check in with myself and where I am. And I just actually fell up, posted this amazing thing today that was all about talking about productivity and I think just like all of us just sort of take in everything going on in different ways. And for me, actually writing has always been healing. Like when I, the first, I grew up in New Orleans, rent Hurricane Katrina was happening and had to evacuate and all, et cetera, et cetera. And like when I think about, for me, like sort of the, I was always writing, but like when my art making really began was sort of in the wake of that crisis. And I think that I actually kind of just really respond to it. But at the same time, like I feel like there's been days, I've had good days and bad days. I've been lucky that I've still had some work, but it's been like, and I've been really in a way that I've been trying to discipline myself. I'm usually good at writing anywhere, anytime, whenever, but especially with one project I've been working on, I've been like every morning trying to, before 12 noon, make sure that I'm absolutely like trying to get these things on paper just because I think I've kind of needed that discipline. And then I found when I didn't discipline myself, actually the next day I had like this very, I was feeling very anxious in a way that was really interesting. I think I just kind of like needed to set up that routine for myself. But I think that, yeah, I think that it's hard. And I think it's like a day to day thing. And I think like acknowledging that we're all struggling. I mean, I had a day, a couple of days ago where I just like read this article, I posted about it, but I read this article that was just sort of talking about a lot of those lost. And I just like cried. Like I just was like, wow, oh my God, like it was just like suddenly like seeing the faces of all of these people and hearing the sirens every day. And it's just how that kind of gets inside of your body, even if you are just like in your house. Anyway, that's a long-winded answer, but I hope it's helpful. Okay, and we have one more question from Vane. You are unmuted. Hi, Vane. Vane, it's nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Also, what an amazing microphone, I love this. Thank you. So my question, I'm not gonna presume this is the same for everybody, but being that it's our inner critic, chances are it's most likely just ourselves. So as writers, I think, as creatives, I think it all comes from ourselves in one way or another. May we separate our personalities or not? So when dealing with your inner critic or whoever that voice is that you're experiencing at the time of your creativity, how concerned are you that you are telling the same story over and over and over again? And what is your experience with that? It's like, oh, it would all be separate, just writing the same play over and over again, you know? I think it's, you know, it's such a good question. I almost feel like at this point in my life, there was a time when I was so concerned with, when I was in grad school, I was in grad school pretty young, and I remember just being so concerned with like, what was gonna be my thing as a playwright? Like, what were people gonna remember as me as a writer? Like, what is that thing? And it's so funny is that I think as I have gotten older, to me it's just like, it's just mining deeper, you know? Like it's just, it's actually like kind of beautiful that like sort of we are obsessed with these questions and we are the people who are gonna keep revisiting those things, you know? And like, I think it's our jobs as artists also to then like sort of police ourselves a little bit and see, I mean, there are definitely times when I've been like, oh, you know, this play, like I feel like I'm, you know, kind of even formatting it, like a similar, like not formatting, but like, a lot of people say my plays are like poems. So like, you know, if sometimes I have a couple of plays where I was like, wow, that's really interesting, even though I wrote these plays at totally different times, they sort of are similar to each other in the way that they're mapped out, you know? And I didn't do that necessarily on purpose. So I think it's like partially like on us to be like, how can I push myself a little further? And it's like, I'm gonna still, I know myself, I'm always gonna be investigating ideas of home of otherness, of in between, because those are the things that I'm obsessed with. But like, how can I actually sort of, I don't think that those conversations ever get old. And I think as of now, I've written over 10 plays and, you know, a lot of different things. And I like to think that, you know, they each are different, you know? So I think it's like, you can't get in your head too much about that concern because it'll just stop you, you know? Is that helpful? Absolutely, yeah. Good, thank you so much for being here and for your microphone, that was great. We had one more question come in from Alice over the chat. Oh, great. What is the first thing you think about when you begin writing a play? The first thing I think about, hmm, you know, it's so funny because it's sort of, I feel like it's just like, it sounds so annoying, but like, it's just like a spark. Like I hear, I often hear a voice. Like I hear a line of dialogue or sometimes I'll actually like see, like I'll have like almost like a log line. Like my play Asuul, like I literally, actually it came to me as like the main kind of idea of what the, like I knew. I was like, I want it to be about three women and it's about this woman who her mother is, you know, never taught her Spanish and leaves her and she left her tiannana in Cuba at the time of the revolution and like her daughter, she recognizes her daughter as her tiannana and like, so it was just like that very basic kind of the basic world of it. So I think that for me, it's like, it's usually like a person starts, I tend, I think I write for people. So I think usually a person or a character kind of starts talking to me and that's like kind of how it sort of begins for me. I think that I really admire people who are like super structure and plot oriented because I find, I'm at a place in my life for sure where I have gotten, learned a lot about structure. And I think that I appreciate that structure is sort of, structure is not plot and structures can exist in a lot of different ways. But I'm definitely more of a character, dialogue, writer type of writer. Thank you, Alice. I'm sorry I didn't work out with your headset. What the thing? What the thing? I think Linda, do we have time? Do we have time for another question guys? We can do one more. I think this is the last question, Linda. You are unmuted. Okay. Hey, Linda. Hi, I just, you seem like a very positive person. I'm really enjoying your sense of humor and just your you in general. Thank you, Linda. I just wanted to know how do you feel about, I mean, have you always felt comfortable speaking about your work? And did it just, have you always felt comfortable about speaking about your work? Or is it something that you've had to evolve? Because I tend to find it's difficult for me to actually put together my thoughts to try to explain my work to people or, you know. Totally, I, yeah. No, Linda, was there more to the question besides that? Oh, I think I, Well, I had another question as well. The other question was, it seems to me like, you know, a lot of time and what you just said about being character driven with your work, do you also think about? Oh, I just lost you for a minute there, Linda. I didn't hear that in, unfortunately, Linda would- All your playwrights, they speak about their work and they, a lot of times they talk about it in terms of, you know, the psychological nature of it or the political nature of it. And so bridging those two gaps together of like describing your work and also figuring out what it means and says to some kind of theme. You know, I think like, you know, years ago, I took this directing class and I still think about it, but this, the professor would always say to us, like when you're describing, he was talking about directing a play because he was referring to it as directing, but I think about it in terms of writing where he would say like, think about describing your play like to somebody at a bar. Like if you're in a bar with your friend and you tell them, you know, a couple of lines about it, what is their response? Because that's gonna tell you so much, you know what I mean? And if somebody is like, it's so interesting for me because like I've started to get to know like, what do the plays think that people are gonna be really excited about? If like, just like when I just, if I just say like, you know, oh yeah, it's like about these two people who face a loss and then like a planet starts talking to the one person and whatever, you know, like that's a bad description. But I think that like, that's actually a really great way. Funnily enough, I find like television working, working a little bit in the television world and going on pitch meetings has like really changed my life as far as all this is concerned because you just kind of have to be able to sort of describe yourself and your project. And I actually have, I just actually, one of my consulting clients who's this really great guy named Chris was we talked about this in terms of his website. And like, I actually think for writers, we're not always great at talking about our plays. It's hard. We're so deeply involved in them. Like we're not copywriters usually. I mean, not to say that. And even if we are copywriters, we're probably not great necessarily often at doing it about our own work. So I actually did this with my client and I think I've done it with myself. And I think sometimes just like forcing yourself to like bottle down, you know what I mean? Like let's say you're going into a revision of the play. Like you already, because I think that first draft is sacred and you should just push through and try as hard as you can to get out of your head and just lay it all out. But once you've got your next draft is just really like thinking about bottling it up into like a few sentences that you can just even memorize and just have to yourself. And not, you know, that you have to feel like you have to like line by line know it exactly. But just so that way you feel more confident and you're like, oh, okay, right. I have this description that sort of is going to help me and be a tool. And that way you don't feel like, you know, I feel always uncomfortable when at parties and stuff people are like, oh, what kind of stuff do you write? Like tell me about that play. But I find if you have a little like cheat sheet in your head, it can be helpful. Is that helpful in this? Good. I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you very well at the end, but I'm glad I think I don't know if we're muted. Oh, I can't. Oh, I got you. Oh, that was absolutely. Yes. Thank you so much. I tend, it's hard to talk about work when if you feel like story is just enough, but, you know, a lot of times I want you to put so much more to it than just the story itself or the characters. And sometimes can help you. Yeah. And it sometimes can help you. I find like when I'm doing applications and stuff, like it's so helpful. It actually, as hard as it is sometimes to get into that head space, it can actually really help you sometimes when you're going back into the work to understand it better because you're the one who's been trying to sort of, you know, and sometimes when you can't actually, but I find personally, if I can't bottle it up, I'm like, oh, something's wrong that I can't just describe this in a couple sentences. Like why, why can't I, it's actually just happened to me recently with this piece I've been developing. I was like, why when I talk about this it turns into like an hour long monologue. Like I can't, like I'm trying to figure out how to make it a couple sentences. So it's a struggle for sure. We're all, you know, it takes time. I hear, I saw the, I saw the hands. They were there. I think we have to wrap up. Yes. Thank you. CQ, this was awesome. Thank you so much for. Thank you guys so much. For doing this. Of course, is it okay if people reach out to you via your website? Please, yes, yes. And I sent the, I sent the, if you guys want the page, feel free to, you can, it's in the, the link should be in the chat. Right. And do you want to tell anybody, like what you have any upcoming things? I know you have a, you were part of the writer's room for the beauty and the baker. Is that right? Oh yeah. The baker and the beauty. The baker and the beauty. Sorry. It's okay. It's totally okay. It's totally okay. It's actually on, it's running on ABC. Actually tonight is the third episode. If you have cable, if not, it's on Hulu on Tuesdays. So that and yeah. And I also run this, if you're looking for this kind of space too, I run this all genre, all queer reading series with a couple of two really amazing guys. And we have been doing it online and we're doing a big, a big fundraiser for Lambda Literary Foundation because they're really struggling right now. And we've got some amazing people that are on board and include, including Carmen Maria Machados, which is pretty amazing. So. Oh my God. Yeah. So that's, I know right. May 6th at 8pm. It's totally free. We asked to, if you can to try to donate at least $10 if you're attending, but it's totally free on zoom bespoke reading series. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. And for everyone, please join us next week for Georgina Escobar. There'll be like a little adjustment on the time. We're starting a little bit later in order to accommodate her teaching schedule. And also next week, I'm going to announce that we're kind of going to move forward with an expansion of some new writers and you'll be, you know, I'm still confirming folks and dates. So I'll let people know when those dates will be coming, but we want to keep this going. So continue to spread the word and share and CQ, please come back. Yes. Georgina is amazing also. Just put in that out there. Yes. Leonard is so, he is beside himself. I can see him. I love Georgina. But if you're really into like Latinidad and science fiction and speculative, you know, like playwriting, this is going to be like, it's going to be fun. But Georgina, thank you. Thank you so much. All right, Thea, take us out. Thank you all so much. We'll see you next week. Okay.