Tag: writing

Crooked Fool: Haunted

Cydney Marie Leave a comment

I went to an audition the day I turned 21. The callback involved a series of writing prompts for ultra-short plays lasting around 2 minutes. They could be many things, but they had to be true.

I ended up turning in a couple of plays about how I’d grown up in a strange old house that I’d always thought was haunted. Those callback pieces ended up turning into a series of close to 100 ultra-short plays, mixed and matched in various combinations during performance, where I tried to understand what ghosts were and whether they were real.

From Ghosts: Vol. 8 –

Do you hear the sighs, the groans

The songs

The cries

The footsteps

You can imagine them if you need to

It shouldn’t make a difference

I never did come up with any kind of concrete answer. Instead, I came to a place where I was more comfortable living in the gray. Odds are, no one will ever be able to definitively prove that ghosts exist, but what difference does that really make when we’re experiencing their effects? When something is haunting us, does it really matter whether we can prove to the world that it fits some kind of socially constructed definition of what counts as real, or does it matter that, for one reason or another, something is crying out for us to hear?

Vol. 8 –

You can try ignoring them

Good luck

You can close your ears and your mind

But the voices will shine through

In your empathy

Your convictions

Your hesitations

Looking ahead at what may be a dark, heavy time in my life and in our collective story, I’ve been thinking a lot about what ghosts may be haunting us right now. What unfinished business and half-learned lessons are we being forced to pay attention to? What stories from the past are looping back around with renewed urgency and vitality?

I don’t know the answer yet. We’ll have to wait and see. But whether we’re talking about spirits, stories, or something else difficult to grasp, we’re staring down a very charged, very haunted time. And even more so than listening to the haunting voices already there, I think we need to start figuring out what makes it worth it for us to cry out in the night. I feel this especially keenly as an artist.

From Ghosts: Vol. 4 –

What if the inspiration gnawing at us is really ghosts trying to get us to use their stories—now our stories—to try and fix things.  The only problem is, if we fail, their unfinished business becomes ours.

We are entirely made up of stories. Everything up to this point has collided, combined, grown, and evolved to make us, and this is true of everything from our DNA to the life stories that ensured our existence. The ghosts screaming at us in the night are reminding us not to forget that their stories have become our stories, and that these stories are not over. They continue with us. And sometimes we have to change them.

Stories hold immense power. They are not some frivolous thing that we use to entertain kids. They govern our lives. The stories we tell ourselves determine how we live our lives – what roles do I fill? What kind of person am I? Where am I going? Where did I begin? Where do I think I’ll end?

From Ghosts: Vol. 9 –

I am truly starting to wonder if I don’t exist and I’m just a bunch of ghosts trying to coexist in one broken body.

And the thing is, no one person owns these stories. We are all keepers, and there’s a constant push and pull of narratives happening. Stories are shared. The collective narratives a society has exerts more control over it than any government or police state. And because we are born into stories that have lived much longer than we have, there are plot points present that may not serve us. So how can we harness the power of the stories that govern our lives?

How will the story change with us?

Vol. 8 –

The odds are high

That your job will also be unfinished

It is likely that you will be

The creak, the groan, the hum, the sigh, the cry, the singer

The maker of footsteps in the night

You will be the noise

That jolts children out of their bed saying

“Something is not right”

If the story we tell ourselves is that everything is fine, everything will stay exactly as it is. For better or worse. Nothing will be rectified. But if we tell ourselves that the current story is an injustice, that it’s harmful, that it’s wrong, there’s at least a chance that it will change. Changing the story is step one for justice.

And this is the reason they’re so afraid of artists. We challenge stories. We take them, embody them, make things beautiful that were not meant to be so that they can’t look away. We can look on a stage, or in a book, or see a movie, or take in a painting, and we see ourselves. We see what we do and don’t want to be and the kind of life we want to have. And divinity is having the power to change your path. That’s the power we have.

From Ghosts: Vol. 9 –

The purpose of light is not to banish and conquer demons, to burn them with holy water, to send them to a place of eternal torture… Light walks face first into literal hell holes and tears open portals to the other side so that no one is silenced. Light sets fires in the middle of the night to make absolutely fucking sure that nobody misses the dangerous, spectacular burning flames…Light is fucking pissed right now. 

So as we step into what may well be a dark, heavy, and uncertain time, how do we honor the ghosts that keep us up at night? How do we hear the beauty in their howls and take on their unfinished business as our own? There is power here. How do we claim it?

Vol. 9 –

We are creatures of light. But that doesn’t mean we live in the light.

If we are headed for a revolution, it will start and end with us. No one will fight a war they don’t believe in, but they’ll risk it all if they think it’s worth it. People are powerful like that. And wars start and end with stories.

Artists were not put on this Earth as a fun addendum to the important stuff. We were put here to ensure that everyone stands a chance. It is our job to make sure that every screaming ghost is heard.

From Ghosts: The Final Volume –

I am sending you forth into the darkness. To be witnesses, to be storytellers, be burning flames in the pitch black. Walk in darkness always.

So no matter what happens next, we haunt. And we will not be silenced.

From Vol. 8 and Vol. 9 –

Are you angry yet?

Capturing Campus: the Forest

EKArts Leave a comment

the Forest

there are whispers in these woods

they call 

to me Breathing 

sweet nothings

born from blackberries

and figs The promise of purpose 

pomegranate seeds 

mashed by molars

mystifying It’s alive 

and breathing

though the exhale doesn’t 

stop

and the air has runs

and the lungs don’t 

e x p a n d

between trees 

the metallic clicking 

a painful 

gurgling The mouth of the forest 

opens wide

stealing air  

blood 

body 

from my soul

o u t s t r e t c h e d am I

doomed to the final moment

a death rattle

Crooked Fool: Theatre is grind culture is ableism.

Cydney Marie 1 Comment

I have an old, faded bumper sticker on my car that reads, “I can’t. I have rehearsal.” I’m sure it was given to me as a gift, though I can’t remember when or by whom. I do remember laughing when I first held it in my hands, mostly out of genuine mirth, understanding the joke, but partially also out of ruefulness.

Though there were a few earlier experiences with middle school classes and the like, I first became involved in theatre “for real” when I was 14 and attending Interlochen Arts Academy. On top of a 9-hour school day, I was expected to complete multiple large projects each semester, complete a certain number of community service hours, attend mandatory performances, rehearse for my own performances, and practice classical guitar on a regular basis, all in addition to the typical high school homework. I can’t remember for sure if this was ever explicitly said, but it very much seemed like we were being prepared to work at this level indefinitely “out in the real world.” And I have. My work ethic changed as a result of my time there, and even some grad students I know marvel at the kind of schedule I often keep.

In part because the arts are so undervalued and underfunded in the US, many of us cannot fund our lives through our hard-earned creative skills alone. Perhaps Interlochen was preparing me for the reality that I’d likely have to hold down a fulltime survival job in addition to any creative work that I wanted to do. If that was the case, they’re unfortunately probably right. Having dipped my toe into the world of professional theatre, that is in fact what I and just about everyone I know has had to do.

But the failings of late-stage American capitalism aside, we need to take a breath when it comes to the emphasis placed on work ethic. It’s not healthy for anybody, but when it’s also slamming the door in the faces of Disabled artists.

In theatre, I was taught to accept a 3-hour rehearsal after an 8-hour workday for weeks on end. I was conditioned never to consider adding a conflict after the rehearsal schedule had been posted, whether the reason was an unexpected family obligation or a debilitating migraine. I was taught to ignore bodily needs, pain, and exhaustion if they were going to in any way alter the flow of rehearsal.

I can remember a show I did when I was 16 where I was asked to stand at attention onstage for a large portion of the show, which set off days of back pain. I finally gave in and asked the director if I could kneel down during rehearsal. He agreed, but no mention was ever made of altering the blocking so that I wouldn’t be in pain, and I didn’t dare ask. At the time, I accepted pain as something I would have to put up with in order to put on a good show. “The show must go on” and I would have to “leave my baggage at the door.”

A solid decade later, my perspective has changed, and I’m gonna call it: that shit is ableist.

When we demand this level of grind from artists, on top of reducing their bodies to value-making cogs in a capitalist machine (even if the machine is gloriously creative), we are making tacit assumptions that all bodies have the same capabilities and use energy the same way. We assume that if something is hard, but doable for me, and doesn’t cause too much damage to my body, then it must be true for someone else. And by refusing to make accommodations, we’re basically saying that if a body can’t get with this overwhelming program, they don’t deserve a spot in the room. Their point of view is eliminated from the crucial discourse we take part in through the arts, ensuring that dominant and often oppressive perspectives are never challenged. And if we assert that making rehearsal and performance spaces more accessible in some way erodes excellence, we’re not only laying bare our own lack of creativity and vision in coming up with solutions, we’re also asserting that disability-friendly theatre, and thereby Disabled perspectives, will always be less than.

Some years after that back pain-ridden production, I ended up going through major spinal surgery in the hopes of correcting the pain and visible spinal deformity that I’d dealt with for my first decade in theatre. Less than a year later, I began an intensive program in physical theatre at Dell’arte International. With class 9-5 every day, nightly rehearsals, and attendance policies that made it nearly impossible to take even a day to care for one’s body, I can see where some might question if that’s really the place for myself as a Disabled performer to be. But this, again, is actually a question of my right to make art, to make my perspective heard, and to use my body, Disabled or no, in the ways that I choose. If you’re saying that this space should not have accommodated me, what you’re actually saying is that I should not have the right to make theatre.

I ended up not only completing the program with flying colors, but being voted ensemble director by my peers. I was one of seven graduates that year. But by the end of the program, I was also reckoning with a difficult truth: the culture of theatre, as it stands now, is inherently ableist and would make no space for me. I spent a solid year after leaving the program genuinely thinking that I was going to have to throw in the towel on over a decade of work and stop performing. If I couldn’t push through pain and fatigue and beat my body into performing in ways that were convenient and desirable for able-bodied educators and directors, what hope was there?

Capitalism only values bodies if they can produce, and for this reason, bodies like mine are not valued. Sacred and ancient though it may be, theatre culture has, on the whole, also adopted this thinking. And in addition to denying Disabled artists a place at the table, this thinking reduces all bodies to their production capacity. An actor is not valued as a human being until they can get cast in a large production, satisfy their director, and bring in audience. And if I’m being honest, I’ve felt that dehumanization keenly even when disability was not the main issue I was experiencing during a show.

But what if we took accessibility as a creative challenge? And what if we decided to value the human beings in the room beyond their ability to keep a convenient rehearsal room and sell tickets? Doing these things does not erode the quality of theatre; in fact, taking on these new, innovative, creative challenges may serve to elevate the artform further. What possibilities have we stubbornly refused to explore?

I will be the first to say that theatre is sacred. But so am I. And you can’t make theatre without people.