And We Shall March

Molly Prather Is So Bad Ass They Need To Invent A Word To Describe Her. You Have Several Chances To See Her Perform! DO IT.

Once the editing is done and ready to go out,* the Kickstarter backers who chose either dvd or download option of the full ! Death 40-Feet Tall ! will see, at the end, a bit where I call a stunning white woman up on stage, introduce her, and then literally shove her off the stage before I started crying. Happily, she didn't turn around and punch me for flinging her off my stage!

That woman is Molly Prather. She is the one who taught me how to put together not just a solo show, but an honest solo show (there's a difference). I learned of her when I started training at iO West,** and if there is one thing among many I am most grateful for about iO, it's meeting Molly. She not only gave me the tools I needed to begin serious pursuit of V.2 of the life I truly want, but the confidence to believe it's possible.

Secret Fact 1: My original plan with D40FT was to write it and hire someone else to perform it. When I told Molly, she said No. Actually, she said Hell No. Secret Fact 2: There are items in the 2010 first version of D40FT - and more in the (award-nominated) 2011 second version - that I put in only because of Molly's subtle, relentless pursuit of dragging you past your ego, through the dark to the truth, for the benefit of the the work. Secret Fact 3: It is because of all that, because of Molly's fearless example, that I am trying to go one more step toward honesty and truth for my second show, tenatively titled My Suicide Year.***  I am terrified, but I got Molly. I can do it.

Molly is a fearless, award-winning writer and actress. She is vicious smart, wicked with insight, and deadly hilarious. Check out the anecdote I shared about her last year, where you will also find my fave picture of her. Her teaching goes beyond the classroom; by watching how she's out there doing the #HustleHard; listening to her keen advice when I go to her with OMG WHAT DO I DO; and observing her direct efforts to support other women performers in a Not For Yourself Alone sense, she's giving me a template. Just by going through her life in the way she does, and sharing real-world facts about this alien world I'm entering, she's teaching me How To Do It Without Compromise Or Being A Dick.

Molly is amazing. I owe her. The only way I can truly pay her back is by working my ass off, hustling hard and putting my work out there to the best of my ability. For me, Molly is like Kathleen Goonan, so in a way I've got two mentors. Fuck am I lucky!

This month and next Molly is performing a solo show, an improv show, and two storytelling shows at venues throughout Los Angeles, which means you have several chances to see how awesome she is as a performer. Here's where you can find Molly on stage in the near future:

• Sept. 17 (tomorrow) @ iO West, 10:30 p.m.: Host of Dr. God Revival, where Molly will tell true tales from her life, and then a bunch of people will improvise off of them.
• Sept. 22 @ iO West, F*ck Marry Kill, 8 p.m.: One of her amazing solo shows, which I have seen a few times and will see again, cuz it's that' good.
• Oct. 1 @ the Improv Lab, 10:30 p.m.: At the CREEPSHOW, where she will share a story about being stalked.
• Oct. 2 @Bar Lubitsch, 8 p.m.: Where she will share a story at the Ladies Only Sunday Night Sex Stories.

She was recently interviewed at Comediva. The answer she gave to the first question still has me giggling. Check her out at her Tumblr as well!

 * Man o man what's involved after the fundraising is done ... but it could be because of my particular incentive set. Will add these lessons to the What I Learned Using Kickstarter post to come.

** Which I have not yet completed because I'm broke, but I swear I will finish. I really, really, really love and want to do live improv, to the point that I don't care that I'm starting late with all of this, and don't care about all that comes with dealing with being far older than most of the people in my classes / that theater / bar culture. I also want to obtain my iO West certificate of completion for personal reasons. Actually, I don't know what they give you once you finish. I just want to finish.

*** Yeah. That's the title. Don't be alarmed! If I pull this off, it won't be depressing. However, it's kind of a mess right now, so I will be returning to Molly's classroom in the future for her unique guidance. I'm aiming for #HFF12 with this one, but we'll see...

Please Help Abie Philbin Bowman Get To DVD

I met Abie Philbin Bowman two years ago when I went to see his show, Jesus: The Guantanamo Years, at the first Hollywood Fringe Festival. I was very eager to see it because had learned of him well before then via the internet(s), when the link to an interview he conducted with the head of a KKK outfit on the night of Obama's election landed in my inbox. That interview was astonishing. Abie, it turned out, even more so!

Abie is not only hilarious and wicked politically astute, he's also extremely generous with his time and insight; when I asked him for a few notes on a thing I did? He dropped a giant analysis that was critically useful, and he did this even though he was in the middle of a tour in Europe. I was all !!!

He's using the European version of Kickstarter to raise funds to turn three of his shows into DVDs. Here's the pitch. Please support him!

"When will people understand that it is useless for a man to read his Bible unless he also reads everybody else's Bible?" - Father Brown / G.K. Chesterton

Oral histories from that day, fact based. A play informed by that day, fiction based. An interesting selection of stories curated by WNYC.

#Peacealujah

I'm Cheating With This Post In The Interest Of Available Time

Since once I started work today at the awesome temp gig at 10:30 a.m. I would not be able to leave until my backup arrived at 8 p.m., it was important to have a hearty breakfast on site. Breakfast of Champions!

Lemonade in the special cup, spicy seafood cocktail in the clear cup. I got halfway through the mountain of chili curly fries before I had to give up.

Many hours later, dinner was three-cheese pizza, a deep fried pickle, a dipped strawberry and more coffee.

I'll tell you about the awesome garlic later.

Also, I don't think the event organizers meant for the special cups to look like an engorged penis ... but I'm not entirely sure.

Reading This Reminds Me Of Our Trying to Decide if We Should Institute A "No John Cusack" Rule. Ultimately We Decided No To, For Obvious Reasons..

We called it Talking In Movie, something I've written about around here sometime in the past, but I don't feel like searching my own blog right now. Update! Here it is. Though I don't do TiM anymore, I do miss it. This fab essay reminds me just how glorious this trilogy is.

Say Anything opens with a conversation about love, followed by a high school graduation, while Grosse Pointe Blank concludes with a 10-year high school reunion that ushers Martin into an existential crisis and emotional rebirth. The two films are also linked by two key speeches that serve as character arcs as well as social commentaries. Lloyd’s heartbroken admission on Diane’s answering machine that: “Maybe I didn’t really know you. Maybe you were just a mirage. Maybe the world is full of food and sex and spectacle and we’re all just hurling towards an apocalypse, in which case it’s not your fault” returns in Grosse Pointe Blank (when Martin tells Debi’s father what his life has consisted of the past ten years) as: “Six figures. Doing business with lead-pipe cruelty. Mercenary sensibility. Sports. Sex. No real relationships with anybody.” The speeches also articulate the horror Debi feels when she discovers Martin’s true identity, for Martin personifies Lloyd’s elegiac description of late 20th century life.