 Hi, SLP. How are you doing? Hope you're on mute. Oh, just kidding. There we go. You should be able to now. Yes, thanks. Thank you. It's five o'clock like magic, but I know it's not like magic. It's great here because of the generosity and kindness of the public theater and howl around. It's watch me work. I'm SLP get together most Mondays and we work together and we talk about your work and your creative process. And we've been doing this for, I know I have my notes here because I can't remember for a long time. Like over 10 years we've been doing this. It can't be that long, but it is more than 10 years. We were doing it every day in a row during the lockdown in 2020. And now we're back to like once a week. It's easy. All we do is work together. And Lolly can tell you if you have a question after our specific work time, which is going to be 20 minutes, Lolly will have a some answers to how you can get in touch with us and ask me a question about your creative process. Go Lolly. Yes, if you'd like to ask a question, if you're in Zoom with us, you can ask questions by clicking on the raise your hand button, which could either be in the participants tab on the bottom of your screen or in the reactions tab. If you have any trouble finding it, please send me a message in the chat and I can do my best to help you. If you're watching the stream live on HowlRound with us, feel free to send us your questions via the public feeders Instagram or Twitter account or via watch me works Twitter account, which is at watch me work SLP with the hashtag HowlRound that's hashtag H-O-W-L-R-O-U-N-D. So that's how you can ask a question. All right. Thank you, Lolly. And so we are going to get to work. I got my timer set for 20 minutes. Here we go. We're back. We are back indeed. We are back indeed. Here's the moment when I take questions from you. You don't make me rhyme anymore. It looks like we already have folks on deck to answer questions. Okay, you can call them, Lolly. You can call them. Okay, Kimmy, I'm asking you to unmute. Can I do it? Hi, I've got, I miss you so much. I miss everybody. Thank you so much for having me and I'm well. I got hypnotized for depression and it is a game changer. I didn't know you could feel this way. It's good. It's a good feeling. So good. So did they, did you, did they snap their fingers and bring you out of it? Are you still under hypnosis? I'm not humping anybody's leg, but I'm feeling happy. It was amazing. Congratulations. Good for you. Thank you. It was, it was, it got so bad. I called Suicide Hotline. They asked me to call back. They go, do you have a gun? And I went, no, but I have a rope. So I thought, wow, they're really overwhelmed. And I said, I got to use this for my comedy, but also, fuck now what? So yeah. And I wasn't, I wasn't happy about medication. So this is just, it's been a whole different world for me. And now all of that, all of that angst and childhood trauma is out of my way. And I'm just now writing like I've never written before. Amazing. And how did you find your hypnosis? My friend had to quit smoking for dental implants and he turned into a whole completely different person. And I thought, well, God, if they can get you to stop doing something addictive, they got to be able to help stop you from being sad. So I figured, what the hell? I've tried everything else. And yeah, I'm out. Anybody needs a little help? Just let me know and I'll send you the link. Could you, could you put the, would you mind putting the link in the chat? Because, you know, it might be a hard question to ask, you know what I mean? It might be a hard question to ask. That is so generous. Yeah. Oh my goodness. Yeah, it was, it was amazing. It's only $150. It was over the phone. Yeah. You don't have to look at them. Oh my goodness gracious. Yeah, it was, it was great. And if you ever have any problems again, you only pay $150 once and you can call again for free for the rest of your life. Religious experience. It was religious experience. It was. I'm walking on water and everything. I'm so happy for you. Thank you. It gives me, it gives me the, the strength to dig into some really deep, deep shit to be honest with you. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm working on some really powerful things that are not going to go over well with people. And it, that makes me like art, you know, Duke Ellington said that art is really outrageous and it's tough and it's hard. And when it's not those things and you don't want to have anything to do with it, like that's a paraphrase of his quote, but you know, it's the stuff that I, I don't want to talk about my childhood trauma, but it certainly has informed me. So I'm digging into deep stuff. And one of the things that I wanted to, to, to ask you about is I picked up this book that was copyrighted in 1997 by Dorothy E. Roberts called Killing of the Black Body. And it is a very, I mean, as, as a woman who's had sexual trauma, it's, it just both speaks to you as, oh my gosh, I can't believe this happens and it's been happening and it's perpetuated since slavery. And the first thing I thought was as I'm reading her text, it's a, it's an intellectual book of, of how Black women have been blamed for reproducing racism as per the white man. And, and I see this as a play, but is this something, even though I'm a woman of color, but I'm not a Black woman, is this something that would be offensive if I took on the material? And also, even though it's, I'm using her book as reference, is it a, is it something that I have to option? And if I do, how do I go about that? And yeah, so that's all that. All right. Great questions again. Congratulations. Did you put the link in the chat? I'm going to get it. I'm going to, I'm going to do it right now. Yeah. Awesome songs. Okay, great. I would very strongly suggest if, you know, unless something is in the public domain, which in many cases, but not all cases, in many cases, that means it was written over 100 years ago, I believe, but you check with you, you know, okay, okay. But, but not all cases because there's some operas that were written in the 1800s that are still copyrighted. So be mindful. But if you're ever working with someone else's work, you need to get their legal permission. Okay. Okay. You, you, that, that, that is, you know, you just got to do that. It's, it's not only, it's not only because we want to be, you know, lawyered up and all that ridiculousness. It's not about that. It's just doing what's, what's the right thing to do. Okay. It's got to do the right thing. Okay. So, so, so we credit that person. We, we might option, like you said, that, that, that material and yeah, it's an amazing book and you would want to definitely credit, especially she practically pretty much kind of sort of just wrote it. 97, right. Also, would it be offensive to people? It depends on the person and the, the, the, instead of would it be offensive to people? I think you should ask yourself, is, is this a story that you feel that is yours to write? It's like, it's more like that. So you, you know, if you take a survey of people, everybody's going to have a different opinion about what you should be doing. That's less important. The most important thing is that if it's a story that you feel you need to write, then, then that's, you know, it's between you and, and yourself. Yes. Thank you. Cause it's speaking to me. You know, it's, it's a compilation of history from her research and also she cites so many different, you know, buck versus bell and loving versus Virginia, you know, those kinds of things. And I think it's, I know for my own research, Skinner versus Oklahoma, where they're talking about the sterilization of black men, I believe it was, you know, just truck drivers driving through town. So I just wanted to, these stories need to be told. I have such a passion for them. But again, I didn't want it to seem like I was mining someone else's life for my own art. If that, I'm trying to be respectful. That's great. That's great, Kimmy. It's so important that we even just acknowledge, it's so important that we acknowledge that because there's a lot of, there's a lot of work out there that does exactly what we're talking about. And you know, really great though. But yeah, you guys, that's between you and you, you know. Okay. If you, if you feel like this is something that you need to talk about, then that's the kind of thing you have to do yourself, you know. Thank you for your time. It's good to see everybody's faces. That's amazing. The hypnosis is, put it in the chat. I am good. I'm going to go get it right now. We're all going to call them and get hypnotized and we're going to feel so great. We're going to be dancing, dancing like, and I'll put my information in case anybody wants to reach out and ask a bunch of questions. So again, so if people feel uncomfortable just in the chat, you can talk to me personally and I'd be very happy to answer any questions. I'm a little open book at 60 years old. I don't really give a shit. I have no secrets at this point. I'm glad the writing is going well also. It is. Thank you so much. Bye everybody. Thank you. Thank you, Kimmy. Okay, Melania, you're up next. Oh, Melania. How you doing? Hello, Susan. How you doing, girl? How you doing? Fine. I'm here. Happy we are on vacation. Oh, nice. That's nice. Yes. And we went some days, a few days to New York City and I passed by the public theater and they were all so kind, so nice. And I saw the mezzanine where you did. Why didn't you, why didn't you send a text to me? I would have met you there and we could have done a reenactment. I didn't know how to reach you and I didn't want to bother you. Oh, bless your heart. Oh, so glad. You had fun in New York? Yes, it was very, very nice. It was beautiful and what I want to thank the public theater, had around everybody. When I went there and I said, yes, because I love watching me work and everybody loves you and they said, yes, please come. I presented my, you know, my vaccination and then they allowed me to take pictures so I was there trying to imagine how it was. Oh, that's so great. Yes, so it was beautiful. And another thing that I would like to share is that after all your help and from this community, I presented, you remember I was working on a novel that I had to present the idea and talk about the flashcards because I was a little, I did. So my, I don't know the results because I have to wait four months, but I presented the work. I did it. I show up and if I could do that, it's because of you. Congratulations. Congratulations. That's fantastic. I was when I, I did the click. Yes, it was. We are right. So thank you. So great. So great. All right. All right. That's a lot. That's a big hurdle you got over, right? Big nine. Yes, because to me what was important at the end, I have this situation with perfectionism, you know, that I need to be perfect. And I am working on that, trying, you know, to change it, but at the same time to embrace what happens to me when I, and all of this, when I try to be perfect, that is something that is not human and I am a human being, so it's impossible. I get stuck and I can't create because I don't give me the permission to do it. Right. Right. I did, I did my flashcards. I said I have permission, talk to the hand. It was all this loss they think with this loss. I run away when all the techniques and I could do it. So I am so thankful to you Susan, because and all this community, because I feel inspired. I can, that it's okay not to be okay. And at the same time we can create together. And it's okay because it's what we have in our hearts, you know, so presented. Be, be proud of who we are. Yeah. Yeah. Right on. Yes. That's so great. Thank you. Thank you. Oh my goodness. How are you doing? My goodness. What a day we're having. Such joy can come from just doing your thing, you know. Such joy. Anybody else have questions? Feel free to raise your hand. How's your work going, Rebecca? Just curious. Can she, Rebecca, answer? I just wanted, I just was. Yeah, I think it should be able to unmute. I'm unmuted now. How's it going? Hi, Susan. I have been doing a walk and read towards the edit of the third draft. Right on. And I realized I'm really happy with the first, let's see, the first 80 pages. Okay. And I decided I'm just going to go ahead and do some pitching of it to some agents because they only want 10 pages. So and I'm, I'm trying to figure out. And I think the section, there's a section that is a transition piece between 1937 white press reports and 1937 Negro press reports of the events. And I can't remember the name of the book. There was this, it was a fictionalized account of a murder in South Africa where the a young white woman was murdered. And the mother of the young man accused of the murder, who's a black man. And there's like this conversation of perspectives. Right. And that's what I'm using the newspapers for. And in the middle is frankly, the, the, in my memoir, and I guess it's kind of a who done it, is the person who's accused of the murder. And who's my uncle. I never knew him, but he would have been my uncle. And I'm, that part, that part, half of it just like does not work. So that's where I sort of have stopped. And I, and I think I've got a chunk of stuff that I either need to lose completely, that I worked on really hard, or, or just need to move. And, you know, my, my writing style is kind of, let's start out here, like with, you know, an example is like the era before the, the Ice Age in North America, and then kind of move into how do you get to the Ohio River. So that, that's kind of the way I work. So, and I think I talked about this section on cotton and the cotton gin. And, and so it starts out here, and it's, it's to get at one idea. But it's either in the wrong place or it's got to go. So I, I'm trying not to get stuck there again. Right, I hear you. Yeah. And so, but, you know, I'm tired of being tormented by the ancestors. So I have to get this done. They are insistent. And so that's just kind of the place I'm at. But I'm, I've been happy with the walk and read. I do about 20 minutes at a time. And it gets me, you know, about, you know, 600 steps in. So I get to meet that goal too. So that's, that's kind of where things are at. That sounds fantastic. So are you, it sounds like you're ready to send it off to an age? I am. Yeah. I think, again, I recognize it doesn't have to be perfect or even finished from the perspective of nonfiction. And it feels like, you know, I've always felt like, oh, I'm going to miss my moment. I'm going to miss my moment. And of course, I'm never going to miss my moment with this particular subject, sadly, in this country. So so I, I feel like starting to pitch it and see if there's any interest would be helpful. And even someone saying, wow, this is really interesting. No, we're not going to, you know, pick it up is helpful. So I'm, I'm willing to sort of let that happen, or whatever happened with doing it. This year, I had a fellowship at Columbia. It's basically on kind of reparations and and I was applying for different things that I realized, oh, I guess I can apply for things and we'll, we'll take a long time to get there. So so I think that's where I am with with the manuscript as well. Yeah, sounds like you're in a really good place. It feels it feels pretty good right now. I I'm just trying to keep up a daily engagement with it, sort of one way or another, either the walk and read or are making the edits. And I think I'm going to extract the cotton piece and kind of set it aside and see if it ends up fitting somewhere else. Right, right. Or, you know, even if even if you're sometimes, if you're open to moving it or something, then you don't have to do it right away, you know, and allowing, yeah, allowing a new a new place to put it to suggest itself, you know. Yeah. It's, yeah, and I'm not even quite sure why it ended up where it ended up. So you mean in the placement of the in the placement. Yeah. Is that I write one of I had a friend read one and a half to draft. And she was really clear that I needed to get to the point sooner. And that's really worked. Okay. But it's, it's not strictly a memoir and it's not strictly a who done it. It's also how did we get to this place? And cotton really figures in for my family and for for black people in you know, the Jim Crow period and early Jim Crow and and the there is something that happens to a cotton worker that mirrors what happens to my uncle. And sort of that's to me the the conceit I'm getting at is there's some things that redemptious redemptiveness use against black bodies. So and so that's so so it may just be too long, but I also think cotton is beautiful. The flower is so pretty. So there's all that. There's this and then there's this. But that's also you know, when you you know, find you know your agent, your editor and all those kinds of things. Hopefully they'll also be able to give you specific and very helpful, you know, things to think about when you continue to focus it down. You know, but the great thing is is that you've done the work, you know, you have a beautiful thing and congratulations because I know you've been working very beautifully and purposefully on this, you know, for a while. So we're really cool to hear about it. Yeah, very, very cool. Cannot wait. Me too. Yeah, really, really great, really great. Thanks. Thank you so much, Rebecca. Looks like Nancy would like to ask a question. Thank you. Can you hear me? Yes. Yeah, it's not exactly a writing question, but it's a business of writing question. A number of years ago I wrote a screenplay and it's okay. It's okay. It's a it's commercial, but it's fun. And I had given it to an actor, an older actor, well-known actor, and he said he would do it, but he he did write a note of intention, but he didn't help raise money and everything kind of fell apart, as these things do. And then I'm sitting in front of Mogador and this woman walks by another famous actress whose work is and she's not acting so much now, but she's so political and wonderful. And I jumped up and I don't, you know, she was surprised because mostly the young people wouldn't have noticed her. And I had rewritten a version of the script with a woman in the main character. She plays a town mayor in Scotland. And because I thought, oh, Joan Darling, not Joan, Joan Rivers, for sure she died. And and then I was like, I didn't say, I talked to her about her show, she did a show at Town Hall. And then I let her go off to have her dinner. And then it occurred to me, wow, she could be great. So I found out her manager's name for my friend who lives in LA who subscribes to this thing. And I wrote notes. And because we knew someone in common, they responded. And of course, they asked me, well, who's directing? Who's, what's the budget, blah, blah, blah, all those horrible questions that I had no answer for. And, and I kind of worked it out with a friend who used to teach, you know, in film school. And I said, well, if I could have a note of intention and blah, blah, blah. Okay, I probably won't hear from them because I don't have an agent. And I've, I've really been trying with this film for a long time. And it has a new life, I think, because of what's going on here politically, even though it's a rom, it's sort of rom-com, but it's, it's got an edge. And, and I live across the street from somebody who happens to be the right, he's Scottish. And he was always in mind. And I never, ever approached him because they all, I never meet him. He's famous. He's never around, but his partner is. I wonder, is it too gauche to leave a note at their door? Because if, if he were interested, and then I could go back to the manager and say, blah, blah, blah, blah. And maybe from that point, I could start cobbling a team together because I make these small little documentaries that take years and don't make any money. I don't, I'm not in film school. I don't have a team. I really don't know anybody. I'm out of the loop. And I, but I don't want to completely embarrass myself since I live on the street. And I wouldn't want them to have to avoid me. Oh, there she is. That's, I think all those are great questions. And I would, would suggest, I mean, and I know embarrassment is a real thing. And I, I'm not inviting you to, you know, bring shame upon yourself or your family. But I, two things. One, I think make the move. Leave the note. Ask. Because I'm, I'm assuming this, this person who is, you know, well known and well respected is a grown up and knows how to politely decline a generous and serious offer from somebody. You know what I mean? Yeah. I mean, just imagine if someone really wanted you to do something and they asked, and you said, you, oh, well, sure. Or, oh, well, no. Or, oh, let me read the script or let my, my spouse read the script. And there's so many ways of, of, so that's one. Make the ask. Okay. Okay. Keep your note, you know, professional and to the point and reference. Maybe, you know, just give a little synopsis, you know, something like that. Keep it short because, because you don't want them to go, oh, I don't have time to read the cover letter, you know, reference. If you said, you know, somebody in common, I got, Oh, well, I, I know his partner, his husband. Great. Great. Okay. Okay. Great. Okay. So, reference the fact that you know his husband. You're not just some stalker weirdo, right? Okay. Right. So that's weirdo, but not stalker. There you go. I love it. Love it. You're welcome to the, welcome to the club or I'm welcoming myself to your club. But the other thing, two, other things, Nancy, make sure it's copy, write it or written or whatever. Make sure you have it registered with whatever entity one should have. Fantastic. That's number two. One more thing, which is really a small thing. Because you're, you're a writer and you're a director and you do all this. Be mindful of your language when you talk about how you don't have the connections, don't know the people, hear yourself. Don't talk yourself out of any possibility that might come your way. You know, when we say things like, I don't have, I don't have the connections. I don't know anybody. I don't have a team. You know, you have a team. You know what I mean? You have connections. It was, you know, just, just I got what I need to get this off the ground. Just it's, it's a form of who was it? Kimmy was talking about hypnosis, right? She went to a professional or she, she called up a professional, right? Okay. That's a professional thing that you go to school for you learn, but we have a non professional lay persons form of hypnosis that we do on ourselves every day. And it's called self talk. And you've got to, we all got to catch that. You've got to catch that self talk and do your part in hypnotizing. I'm using air quotes because it's not real hypnosis, just the daily track that you're running in your head. We all need to need to just catch when we're talking ourselves down or small in ourselves up or, you know, I'm too tall. I'm too, you know, my feet are too big. Oh, no one will ever, whatever, whatever, we know. Okay. And we all do it. Yeah. And, and so, so just be mindful of that. Because I think that will actually increase your chances for success. I hear that. Right. Love and clear. It feels good. And it doesn't cost you anything. We love, I love things that feel good and don't cost you anything like watch me work. Hey. Okay, but it sounds a great Nancy. You've got someone who lives on your block. You know their spouse. Oh my God, write a little query letter, whatever you call it, you know, my little letter intro, you look it under the door or whatever, boom and start, you know, start cheering yourself on your head. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, my astrologer said I should pay more attention to my intuition and that's yeah. We're talking about yes, and you've got the Aurora Borealis in the background girl. What more do you need? Yeah, I'm here in the Yukon on Ninth Street. Yeah. Hey, got the Northern Lights. Beautiful. Thank you very much. Thank you, Nancy. Thank you, Nancy. So we have time for another question or two. Does anybody have one? Are you doing, Jim? I don't mean to call you out. I'm just curious. It's good to see you, bro. Hey, will Lolly unmute? I just want to say hi. If Lolly won't unmute you. Will you unmute Jim? There you go. Can I say something then? Sure. But I don't want to sound too fawning, but I just wanted to thank you because I started coming to watch me work after Donald Trump won the election because I knew I needed something and I knew I was about to, I had just turned 65 and I was about to leave the career I made in doing AIDS work to go back to the career in theater that I had been deflected from when I got to New York and all of a sudden we're in the middle of that epidemic. I cannot regret doing that work because it's become famous and it actually saved a lot of lives by changing AIDS research and regulation. So when I came to your class, watch me work because it's really a joint project and that's why it's so wonderful. I had been taking at least smart enough, even when I was doing other work, to be taking notes, three plays I knew I wanted to write before I died. And I just wanted to say thank you so much because the first one I wrote in person under, absorbing the aura of watch me work and then the next two I actually drafted during the lockdown and not only that because I was so you know and they're not perfect but I knew I had to write them, had to get them down on paper and write them and I was so happy with them that I thought, well the Greeks when they had a trilogy they wrote a satyr play with it and so I've even written in the last year a draft of kind of a burlesque spoof because the three plays are social or very or as close to tragedy as modern writing can get because they are deal with three just social justice issues that I have been involved in in my lifetime and I have to tell you at 70 now it's hard, it's good to look back and be happy for what I've done but it's also hard to look back to see where our society is right now but in some ways the thing that has gotten me through has been a being able to get on paper the plays that I would have written had my career not been diverted so I will not go to my grave being having any regrets that I didn't write them and the first one had a wonderful reading and all that COVID has others have possibilities for reading with a director I know over Zoom but I'm sorry for all of this but I was privileged enough to see the death of the last black man back in Brooklyn in 1990 was 89, 90 and that changed my idea of what theater could do so this is in some ways just to thank you not just for that but very specifically these last five years for kind of being even if it's in a distance the muse that allowed me to have the career that in some ways was taken from me because I went into AIDS work so I'm sorry for all that but thank you oh Jim that's so beautiful oh thank you what a blessing you are to me really really every week you're here and doing the such beautiful work and like I said this is this is why um this is why I love this class I'm now crying I'm my mascara gonna run uh oh but no because we we inspire each other and we encourage each other and on the days we feel like I don't have a team to show up and even when it's not a Monday at five you show up anyway because you know that I know the gym's showing up somewhere I know the Lou's showing up I know the Milani's showing up Rebecca's been showing up you know what I mean I know that you guys are showing up um somewhere out there we're each taking a step or two or or 600 steps forward um toward this and Jim you're right even if we look back when we're very very old and and happy to to uh let go and transition into the next realm we look back and say at least I did my work did I did my work you know and that's the the the thing that we are encouraging in each other because there's something beautiful and deep about that and I do this it's funny I do this this is um when my my son was uh whatever before he could talk now he talked to my element but before he he began to speak when he was little you know they teach you um as mom or dad food when you know so the kid says in Milani's laughing like food food and are you hungry you want food but it is food the the work we do is is food we're feeding ourselves and I don't know how we're I don't know how it all works out I didn't go to grad school I don't have a higher degree in this but I do have um a lot of you know time on the track or on the path and so do you guys and we and we each get better you know it's cool right and it's like an experiment like I don't know what we're doing let's show up and see who's there you know um and Jim you you know in the lobby or Milani online online on the in the lobby remember and we would show up when there was like sometimes it was only like me and Jim in the lobby and Milani would call in we were like yay you know or crystal would come or whatever Rebecca was there you know or um you know or Lynn and um anyway blah blah blah thank you Jim thank you thank you appreciate that thank you so much for sharing Jim um thank you all what a lovely session today was very like heartwarming to be a part of I feel very honored to be in the space um it is six o'clock I think that's a beautiful note to end on um and we will be here every Monday at five p.m eastern now through august 22nd um we're getting those signups up on the web very soon so you can count on seeing us weekly if you like um thank you all very much yeah thank you blessings kisses hugs blessings see you next