Songs for the Struggling Artist

As my theatre company approaches its 25th birthday , I’ve been struggling with how to celebrate it. I have it on goodauthority that a 25th anniversary is a golden opportunity to have a gala, to throw a fundraising extravaganza and generally make a large to-do. To keep reading ⁠25 Years of Messenger Theatre Co⁠ , visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.  Episode 518 Song: Survivor Image from...

It was Gen X dance night & the DJ was spinning the hits that made the crowd go crazy. But he was younger than us & it was clear he didn't have a sense of what we were responding to. He did not really know these songs. He played little bits of them without getting to the good part. He did not know there was a good part. To keep reading Hang the DJ , visit the Songs for the Struggling Ar...

I have seen many different styles of rejection for a wide variety of opportunities but I think I have finally seen the most ridiculous one ever. If there were awards for the most outrageous, most insulting, most infuriating, I think this one would sweep the rejection awards. To keep reading The Most Ridiculous Rejection Thus Far , visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.  Episode 516 Song:...

Someone in the migraine subreddit made a post about curing herself of migraines by spending a month in a cottage by herself. This kind of post usually generates a wide split of responses. There are those have the flavor of that meme of the school picture of the little boy frowning, with “Happy for you” written over it. To keep reading A Month in a Cottage Won’t Do It , visit the Songs for the Stru...

Are you still in the arts? Do you just sit in a theatre all day? Do you love it? To read the answers to these questions, visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.  Episode 514 Song: Questionnaire Image by JJ Grandville via Old Book Illustrations Give this podcast 5 stars. Write a nice review! Rate it:   ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠...

The high of having won the award in Los Angeles began to wear off after a few weeks. I was honestly surprised it lasted that long! Most highs I’ve experienced before were a fewdays max. The chief advantage of this extended high was that it gave me a lot of energy for things that normally feel like a chore. To keep reading When the Wind Is With You , visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. ...

Depending on the circumstances, I can tend to be fairly circumspect in talking about my work. The Dragoning , for example, can be fairly challenging for men. I’ve had men tell me that they tried to listen but they just couldn’t hack it. Many women find this hilarious. I have found it prudent to choose my audiences carefully. To keep reading ⁠Circumspection Around My Work⁠ ⁠, visit the Songs for th...

those resources, opportunities and such are not actuallyfor people like me and my friends. They’re not supports for underfunded, life-long artists, they are for dabblers, for aspiring artists, for the banker who has always wanted to write a novel. These are structures designed to extract money from moneyed individuals who want to give art a try. To keep reading The Dabbler Economy ⁠, visit the Son...

Because of our big win in LA, I recently bid goodbye to something that I’d had with me for a while. It’s something I never wanted. No one ever wants it but sometimes itjust shows up and it’s hard to get rid of once it does. No one will ever mention its presence but most people know it’s there when you’ve got the Stink. To keep reading The Stink and The Sparkle⁠, visit the Songs for the Struggling...

At some point, I just said “You guys are special ed. Does anyone ever give you a hard time about that?” And they conceded that they did. We made list of feelings about those experiences and one student said, “Sometimes I get so mad, I feel like a dog on a roof!” To keep reading Like a Dog on a Roof⁠, visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.  Episode 509 Song: The Dog Is on the Roof Image by...

In the dream, someone had stolen my award, thetrophy itself, and I had to go through a kind of caper to retrieve it. Once I had it back, I became kind of hypervigilant about protecting it. When I woke up, I realized how silly it all was. No one would want to steal my award and even if they took the physical object, that wouldn’t take the fact of it away. To keep reading They Can’t Take It from Me...

I would have given up on watching Ladies First but after seeingthat both Fiona Shaw and Kathryn Hunter were in it, I felt I had to see if maybe this time they’d have a scene together. And hot dog, they did! It was two lines long and it went like this: FS: Men. KH: Tell me about it. And that is all we got to see of two of the great actors of Britaintogether. This kind of disappointment sort of summ...

In certain sections of the internet, you’ll find many pronouncements about Substack. I’ve seen peopledeclare that they will not read anything on Substack, no matter how much they like the author. In case you don’t hang out in these corners of the internet, the reason for this is that Substack has some writers putting out Nazi content and the owners have not done anything about it. I agree this is...

So many people asked me if I’d seen Hamnet yet and I hadn’t and somehow didn’t want to. But I was on a plane and it was available there, when other choices weren’t that exciting. I did think to myself “Do I feel like crying on the plane today?” and answered eventually with, “Not particularly, but, what the hell?” So I watched it and I cried on the plane, of course, but Iresented it and I felt I ne...

At LA WebFest, one of the directors told an anecdote about being captivated by an artist’s work early in their career and getting to watch them grow and succeed. He was invested in this artist’s ascension and he recommended the practice of investing in young artists, in order to have the pleasure of watching them make it. It was a sweet plea to get on board with artists before it’s fashionable. To...

Rebroadcast of my first Gen X episode back in 2017 since I was at my high school reunion, hanging with all the X-ers last weekend! From the blog: Where was the rest of Gen X in this town? Were they all home with their kids or had the town been vacated by Gen X years ago? If this party was for Boomers and Millennials, where was the Gen X party? And nationwide, maybe even worldwide, where IS the Gen...

I’m at the airport on my way to an award ceremony in Los Angeles. Next to me, in a garment bag, I have the gown Ipurchased for the red carpet that will be a part of this event. It wasn’t easy to find this gown and the process made me think a lot about the way these kinds of clothes are categorized. I learned about a category I’d never encountered before: The Mother of the Bride dress. To read ⁠⁠⁠⁠...

There was an article in the Hollywood Reporter about the Best Actor and Best Actress Oscars and how they get distributed. In it, I learned that there has only ever been ONE Best Actor winner under 30. One! And there have been 33 Best Actress winners under 30. To read ⁠⁠⁠⁠Best Actor/Actress Ratios at the Oscars ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. Episode 501 Song: One ⁠⁠Image of C...

As I saw the 500th episode of the Songs for the Struggling Artist podcast approaching, I wondered how I should honor it. 500 is a lot of episodes and such a nice round number. It is a big milestone! Then I got a notification that the blog had just surpassed 100,000 views. To read ⁠⁠⁠A Spaghetti Junction of Milestones ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. Episode 500 Song: 500 Miles...

While watching this German mini-series about the Bauhaus School, I got curious about historical accuracy so I did a little googling. I ended up at an interview with the creator, who explained how he came to write it. He was saying he was interested in the period and the art and the school and was trying to find the right angle for approaching it and then he had his eureka moment. “The women!” To r...

I found myself in tears looking at the signatures on the paintings of Helene Schjerfbeck at her show at The Met. There was one where her name loomed very large in the corner. It was "H. Schjerfbeck" but still, it was bold and it was her name on the painting. Most of her work was signed with a discrete "HS" or not at all. So I was moved to see this a woman sign her name with ver...

At the café, two young women were having an animated meeting about something they were making. I realized very quickly that I’d made a mistake in sitting at the table next to them, despite my affection for people doing creative things together, because they seemed to be working on a piece about Medusa. To read Why I Got Weird About Medusa ⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠ visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. Epis...

I almost didn’t go. If the wind had blown just a little harder in any direction, I would not have been there. But I went. And for the first time in a long time, it was worth the effort because I won big. Like biggest font at the end of the award list big. And it was an extraordinary change of pace. To read ⁠⁠⁠⁠ Inside a Big Win⁠ ⁠⁠⁠ visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. Episode 496 Song:...

I'm in Los Angeles for LA WebFest so this is a re-broadcast of Episode 347. I'm posting this now so I don't say any of this out loud this week! Well – I paid $175 to be considered for an Ambie award for The Dragoning (in the DIY category for low budget productions). The Ambies are the podcast awards that the entertainment business seem to take seriously. They’re discussed in publicatio...

Two old podcast episodes were missing. In my search for them, I started to realize that I’d recorded them in 2016. Which means they were almost a decade old. I looked up the date of my first episode and discovered it was EXACTLY ten years ago. To the day. What kind of date magic is that? I recorded my first episode on March 20th 2016. And there we were ten years later. To read ⁠⁠⁠ A Decade of Podc...