City Spaces

One of the biggest challenges facing Indie Theatre artists, is space!

Our good friends at the League of Independent Theatre continue to tackle this issue and are supporting new legislation to help address it. Check out their website for more information.

 

Honesty: Not the Best Policy, But the Clearest

By Natalie Zutter

One of the best compliments I’ve gotten is that my work is very honest. It was also, the first time it was given, a backhanded compliment—a suggestion that maybe I would be wise to scale things back, to not quite “say it like it is.” This is ironic, considering that much of my work is couched in layers of sci-fi and speculative fiction metaphor, that it explores the far reaches of outer space, the space between comic-book panels, the cracks in time.

I don’t like to bullshit; I’m good at it, but when given the opportunity, I discard that shield. Speaking directly and articulating the weird, uncomfortable stuff—especially the weird, uncomfortable stuff—helps. It’s something I do when I’m hit with anxiety; I say my irrational fears out loud because then we’ll all agree how ridiculous they actually sound. It’s the same with my writing, especially when it comes to the power dynamics I can’t help but see in almost every interaction: Let’s shine a spotlight on the difficult dichotomy of wanting to tear down other women and build them up; let’s examine the push-and-pull of a “friends with benefits” relationship when one person treats the other like more of an object than a human.

Sex With Robots. Photo by Kacey Stamats.

I’ve long struggled with my own power imbalance—the desire to tell out-of-this-dimension stories with the obligation to aim more for naturalism. My first playwriting class, I wrote a dystopian thriller set in a world where marriage was outlawed. It probably should have been a screenplay, but instead of telling me that, my professor firmly said, “I don’t get this,” as if that were the final word. For years it was, and I struggled to find interesting stories.



In the New York indie theater community, I rediscovered that sci-fi/speculative lens, through the work of Mac Rogers and Gideon Productions; through involvement with Caps Lock Theatre’s Sex With Robots Festival and The Brick’s Comic Book Theater Festival. Those uncomfortable power dynamics I highlighted found their stories in (respectively) A Real Boy, about a woman sharing her list of sexual partners with her sex robot FWB; and RETCONtroversy, one superhero’s journey through four bodies and various comic-book identities.

RETCONtroversy. Photo by Anton Nickel.

Also, the guys at Law & Order were on to something; I’ve ripped several stories from the headlines and written short plays about Twitter stalkers, Leonard Nimoy’s nude photography, the celebrity nude photos leak, and even the CIA’s secretive Starbucks. These are stories about body image, confusing and unconsciously predatory sexuality, obsession, and the simple desire to know the name of someone you see every day. They’re dark, and sad, and funny; I hope they make people laugh but then give a soft “ohh” of recognition.

The writer friend who chastised me for being too honest never saw any of my plays, and therefore never saw me as an artist. The indie theater community has.
                              __________________________________________


Natalie Zutter’s plays include A Real Boy, RETCONtroversy, Drinks/The Sincerest Form, and Stealthy Starbucks. Her work has been developed/performed at The Brick’s Comic Book Theater Festival, The Tank, The Secret Theatre, True False Theatre, and TinyRhino. Her play Drinks/The Sincerest Form was further developed during True False Theatre’s inaugural The Polygraph Tests residency, and her play A Real Boy was commissioned for Caps Lock Theatre’s The Sex With Robots Festival. She is a graduate of NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study (with a concentration in Serialized Storytelling and Internet Culture) and current member of the EMG Playwriting Workshop. By day, she is a staff writer for the sci-fi/fantasy website Tor.com. You can find her online @nataliezutter and zutsuitriot.tumblr.com, and on the New Play Exchange.

NYIT April: Women in Theater

We at NYIT are thrilled to present this month's theme, Women in Theater. We want to celebrate artists who are consistently making theater in NY. We have an eclectic array of amazing women who will be writing about their art on this blog, just a small sample of those on stage and behind the scenes who put their skills to work in making innovative, creative theater year-round.

In asking the people you'll be reading this month, our approach was to encourage contributors to speak about their art and chosen disciplines in a way that was meaningful to them. I often feel grateful for the great number of wonderfully talented people I know in this city who are passionate and dedicated to their work, and this is an opportunity for you to hear from some of those artists. I'm excited for them and for you.


Ken Simon
NYIT Communications Manager

Hurricane Preparedness for the average Indie Theatre Artist

Contributed by Shay Gines

I would like to give some tips for preparing for the Hurricane.  I usually send out preparedness advice only to friends, but someone said that I should post it on our blog and so... I am.

"Shay, what qualifies you to give any tips for hurricane preparedness?" You may be asking yourself. And that my friend is a fair question.

The real answer is nothing. I am not an expert. However, for six years I worked for a national disaster preparedness organization and while I was only the office manager and certainly do NOT have any degrees or credentials in disaster preparations, I was instrumental in creating a number of preparedness guides and did tons of research. And you know, I picked up a few things. So this is what I've learned, take it for what it is worth.

First off, the hurricane will probably not be as scary as the news makes it out to be and for most of us will more likely be an interesting and exciting day that will end up in stories and plays for the next couple of seasons. However, it currently looks like it will hit NYC as a category 2 hurricane, which is stronger than was originally thought, so you do need to be cautious.

There will probably be some power outages and depending on the extent of the outages, it could take several hours to get it back up.

The MTA has already said that it will be halting all service and expects that there will be some damage due to flooding. So... it may be some time before it is all up and running again.

The real danger is from flying objects (such as lawn furniture or wind chimes) that the wind picks up and whips around. So of course you should stay indoors.


For those folks outside of the evacuation zones, here are some preparations that you can make:

• Have a working flashlight and batteries. You might also want to buy an extra candle or two.
• Charge your cell phone and any spare batteries in advance. Same thing for laptops.
• Back up any important data in advance and turn off desktop computers during the brunt of the storm.
• Make sure you have some clean water available (fill a pitcher before you go to bed Saturday).
• Make sure you have 3 days worth of snacks and food that can be prepared without the use of electricity. (also take a look in your refrigerator and think about perishable items should the power go out)
  
• After the 2003 blackout you couldn't use any of the ATMs or buy things from stores that used electronic cash registers so get some extra cash in advance, including some small bills.
• Bring in any objects on your stoop, balcony or fire escape - this includes window air-conditioners.
• If you have a car, park it on the highest ground you can find and away from trees.
• Make sure someone knows where you will be.
• If you have theatre tickets, call the theatre in advance and find out if they are planning to provide refunds or a rain date.

Here are some tips from people who actually do have degrees and credentials at the Red Cross. 

You can track the storm on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration website and they provide news about the storm without all the hype.

And here is a pretty funny article to help keep it all in perspective: Brooklyn's Guide to Hurricane Preparedness by Choire Sicha.

Be safe!

Awards Day: A Timeline

By Shay Gines

Monday, September 22, 2008

8:00am Time to get up. The sun is way too bright. We really need to buy some new blinds for our bedroom windows. Nick and I were at the office until 3am the night before finishing up last minute details. I didn't get into bed until 4am. 4 hours is not a lot of sleep, but it is enough to get me through the day.

8:00am - 8:30am Check emails to see if anything went down in the last 4 hours. Akia emailed a final schedule for today. There is a Google Calendar Alert reminding me that the awards ceremony is today….. Katie Rosin will be dropping lighters for gift bags at the FIT and apparently I missed a previous email from a sponsor asking how many gift bags there would be. I've got to take care of that right away.

8:30am Patrick leaves for work. My brother (who flew from SLC to come to the ceremony) requests waffles with strawberry syrup for breakfast.

8:30am - 8:45am I make waffles. He'll have to make do with maple syrup. I mean really who am I, Martha Stewart?

8:45am - 9:00am We eat breakfast, watch the Today Show and debate politics.

9:00am - 9:15am I take a shower and feel slightly guilty that Nick, Jason and Akia are already hard at work.

9:15am - 9:30am I put rollers in my hair. I look like the next door neighbor from Bewitched.

9:30am - 10:30am I hem my dress. It has been hanging on the back of my bedroom door for 2 weeks. I can't believe it has taken me until today to hem the damn thing. I don't have a sewing machine so I have to do it by hand. It has a slip so I have to hem both the slip and the dress. It takes way way too long.

10:30am - 10:45am Debate whether or not to wear a girdle tonight.

PROS: It holds me in in all the right places. It gives me a nice shape in a rather tight and unforgiving dress.

CONS: After 30 minutes it begins to pinch and ride up and cuts off the circulation to my legs. It's tight. It's uncomfortable. It's a one-piece so if I have to go to the bathroom I will have to completely disrobe.

There are going to be photos tonight. I decide to wear the girdle.

10:45am - 11:00am I put on the girdle. (Yes, it takes a full 15 minutes for me to wiggle into it) It is a lot tighter than I remember. My brother makes fun of me.

11:00am - 11:15am I'm running really late. I take the rollers out of my hair, get dressed, brush my teeth and pack my bag for tonight.

11:15am - 11:45am Travel to FIT. Luckily we caught an express train.

11:45am - 2:00pm Settle in, unpack my supply boxes, organize everything into categories, answer questions, look for things, tape signs up on the walls, give directions, make a sign for the front of the podium, "Clockwise? Counter-clockwise?" the Blue Man crew offers suggestions from the audience, return telephone calls, return emails, print out 2 new sections of the script, give them to the director, advise Nick on last minute ceremony visuals, lose stuff, find it again, "why don't I have a pen," pull tickets for last minute guests, decide which banners should be hung where, give petty cash to this person, give petty cash to that person….

2:00pm - 2:15pm Lunch - pizza and salad. I grab a slice of hot gooey, cheesy pizza. I want to make a plate of salad, but Jason comes back from his errands and I have stuff for him.

2:15pm - 2:30pm Caucus with Jason about gift bags and priority of remaining things to get done.

2:30pm - 2:35pm Realize that the gift bag stuffing is already well underway and there are 12 boxes of stuff that were not included in the already stuffed bags (300 or so).

2:35pm - 2:45pm Stop everything. Organize crew of people to move additional boxes into the bag stuffing area.

2:45pm - 2:48pm Trip over a box of inflatable balls. Cut my shin and nearly break my neck on the marble floor. Maybe if I hadn't been wearing that damn tight girdle I would have been able to more nimbly catch myself and in front of all the volunteers too. Classy.

2:48pm - 2:50pm I walk it off.

2:50pm - 4:00pm Stuff all the already stuffed bags with the previously neglected bag stuffers.

3:00pm - 5:30pm Blue Man Group has exclusive access to the stage for their tech.

4:00pm - 4:15pm Status meeting with Nick, Jason, Akia and Jose. We need an additional lighting cue. We need to buy some bottles of champagne. We need more ice. We need a push broom. FIT may not have one. We may have to go buy one. We need a small table. It was not requested originally in the FIT contract. They may not be able to provide one. Do we have anything else that could work? The awards table needs to be moved to clear a walk way back stage. We decide is should live behind the second curtain leg stage right. Everyone agrees. We move the table. The meeting is adjourned.

4:15pm - 4:30pm Watch the Blue Man Group rehearsal. I start to cry. I am so proud of how far we've come in the last 4 years. I can not believe that there are 50 volunteers here right now working their hearts out for us. I am humbled and feel very very proud.

4:30pm - 4:40pm Hand over box office materials to Morgan.

4:40pm - 4:50pm Break down and just have to use the rest room. While I am making use of the facilities, I realize that mine, Nick's and Jason's portions of the script still need to be written. The whole disrobing thing is so much more incontinent (I mean inconvenient) than it is worth.

4:50pm - 4:53pm Find paper and "why don't I have a pen?" Work on Executive Director's (ED) script.

4:53pm - 5:10pm Hillary (the awards coordinator) arrives. Time to handover the confidential materials.

5:10pm - 5:20pm Leslie (the beautiful lady who is helping me with my hair and make-up) arrives and begins to set up while the awards, and recipient gift bags are officially moved to the awards table. I notice Nick notice Leslie.

5:20pm - 6:00pm Leslie tries to do my hair and make-up while I try to write our script. The 2 activities are not conducive to one another.

5:55pm 5 minute call to photographs. I'm not dressed yet and my hair is not yet done. Thank god I already have on my girdle. I take off my shoes and realize that I only put on one sock this morning.

6:00pm Everyone is waiting for me.

6:03pm I run out of the dressing room. My hair and make up looks great. But I am still not completely dressed. Too bad they take the first photo anyway.

6:00pm - 6:15pm Photo shoot with volunteers, host and the Blue Men.

6:15pm - 6:30pm Interview with the EDs and the Blue Men.

6:30pm House Opens

6:30pm - 6:40pm Interview with Broadway Bullet. In the middle of the interview I realize that the photo backdrops are slowly but surely sliding down the wall.

6:40pm - 6:45pm Nick's brother helps me re-duct tape the backdrops to the wall.

6:45pm - 6:50pm Check in with Judith Malina. She's great. She would like some water.

6:50pm - 7:00pm Do final check of shop, house, etc. Greet guests. 3 people tell me how great I look. The girdle was totally worth it.

7:00pm - 7:05pm Hand over final speech notes to Nick and Jason. They are less than enthusiastic about my less than legible handwriting and bullet pointed notes.

7:05pm - 7:10pm The house is filling up and we are late getting started.

7:10pm The show starts.

7:10pm - 7:20pm Blue Man Group performs. I watch from the monitor back stage. It looks amazing and the cheers from the audience makes me so happy.

7:20pm - 7:25pm Lisa Kron welcomes the audience. They love her. She is great.

7:25pm Lisa introduces us. I remind Nick and Jason to introduce themselves and say their names.

7:25pm - 7:28pm We're on. Nick is charming. Jason is a crowd pleaser. I get a few laughs. Jason is the only one who actually introduces himself.

7:28pm - 9:40pm The awards ceremony is a whirl wind. I remember… holding Olympia Dukakis' stuff while she participated in interviews and had her photo taken with Judith Malina, greeting Qui Nguyen when he walked back stage after receiving his award, having Desiree Burch tell me I smell like home, listening to Kirk Wood Bromley as he presented Martin Denton and Rochelle Denton with the Stewardship Award, finding a bottle of water for Louis Zorich, having my photo taken with Edward Albee, panicking when Akia and Leonard missed their entrance, holding my breath as the entire audience threw Frisbees at Michael Dahlen and Bill Irwin, getting a little teary-eyed when Michael Mitchell thanked Nick, Jason and myself, hearing Edward Albee say "There are two kinds of theatre, commercial theatre and theatre that matters. You do theatre that matters."

9:38pm - 9:43pm I change into my party clothes. Finally I get to take off the girdle and go to the bathroom. I am in charge of getting to the party space first and making sure everything is right. I stuff everything into my bag and as Jason is pushing me out the door I tell him to make sure to tell Patrick where I am. He assures me he will.

9:46pm I arrive at Mustang Harry's. The staff is waiting for us. Some people are there already.

10:00pm The crowd begins to arrive. No Patrick. I greet guests.

10:10pm Jason arrives. He didn't tell Patrick. I go back to FIT to find Patrick.

10:10pm - 10:15pm I find Patrick.

10:15pm - 12:15am Return to Mustang Harry's. I'm not even sure what I did then. I ate. I had a couple of drinks. I talked to some people.

12:15am - 12:30am I take photos with Patrick in front of Mustang Harry's.

12:30am - 1:00am We catch a cab home.

1:00am - 1:30am My brother showers and gets ready to go to the airport.

1:30am - 1:40am My brother leaves and we say good bye.

1:40am - 2:00am I watch Home Movies on Cartoon Network and fall asleep.