Even during the covid-19 pandemic, theater finds a way! Kudos to Phoenix Tears Productions for celebrating PRIDE in 2020. Here’s a link to my play! Enjoy!
"Leaving Cremona" opens this week!
My one-act play, “Leaving Cremona,” opens this week at the Analogio International Festival 2022!
Jozef (Nikos Vatikiotis) and Helena (Filippa Koutoupa), survivors of the holocaust and left with no home, struggle to figure out how to leave the displaced persons camp in Cremona in order to start a new life. Directed by Konstantina Nikolaidi. Translated by Smaro Kotsia.
A PRIOI Theatrical Productions: www.a-priori.gr
"Leaving Cremona" - what I learned from working with director Konstantina Nikolaidi
1. Director Konstantina Nikolaidi - founder of A PRIORI Theatrical Productions - makes it easy to collaborate from across the ocean by email! Our shared passion for doing theater permeates all and any boundaries. I’m also so fortunate that Konstantina is fluent in English.
2. Konstantina asked for my script interpretation. This is the first time I’ve been asked this question. It makes me wonder whether a playwright’s script interpretation is common practice in some countries. I haven’t come across it in the US. I’m reluctant to give my interpretation because I like complete freedom to be given to the director, actors, and designers to instill their interpretations - this is the phase where I let go the script and that the collaboration with other theater artists begins. So, instead, I provided Konstantina with my motivation for writing this play:
I can say what inspired me to write this play. I know a wonderful woman who has a very kind husband and three great daughters. When we met, her parents had already passed away. Her father, in particular, was very old when he had her and her brother. One year we had a holocaust memorial in Pittsburgh and she asked me to go with her. She said, "It suddenly occurred to me that my father had a whole family before he had us. His first family perished in the holocaust." She had never given it much thought. Her comment struck me: How did her father create a whole new family and spare them from the pain of his past? How did he manage to raise them as if they were his "only" family? In other words, my friend's family is so kind, funny, and well-adjusted that I would have never known her father had a family before this one. Many people I know who are children of holocaust survivors live with their parents' pain & anxiety and idiosyncracies.
I modeled Jozef and Helena as a couple who survived trauma and want to give a "healthy" family life to their children. I explored through them how they negotiated such a feat.
3. Directors interpret symbolism in the script - be it the characters’ names or objects in stories told within the story of the script. As a playwright, I need to keep the symbolism clear.
Filippa Koutoupa (Helena) and Nikos Vatikiotis (Jozef) star in “Leaving Cremona” at the Analogio International Festival 2022 in Athens, Greece.
4. Directors piece together characters’ motivations with various actions that happen in the play like a puzzle, so as a playwright I’ve got to keep checking back on what I wrote to ensure I keep the motivations clear.
5. Resources! While directors do their own research to understand the background and context of the script, it helps if I also provide some key resources I’ve used in my research for the play. I provide a page of props. I’ve decided now to also provide a page of a few key resources.
#analogio2022 #crossingborders #kambanellis #greekdrama
A PRIORI Theatrical Productions: www.a-priori.gr
"Leaving Cremona" - shortlisted for the Analogio Prize for Playwriting!
I’m thrilled that my one-act play, “Leaving Cremona,” is among the plays being produced this week at the Analogio International Festival 2022 in Athen, Greece! It’s included in a spectacular lineup of plays addressing the theme of Crossing Borders.
Text: Judy Meiksin
Translation: Smaro Kotsia
Direction: Konstantina Nikolaidou
Performers: Nikos Vatikiotis, Philippa Koutoupa
How a trip changes my script
In my play about Clara Brown, I have a character JORDAN, who is an African American Union soldier, and his 10-year-old daughter GRACE. JORDAN escaped slavery and enlisted in the Union army at Camp Nelson in Kentucky. His wife and daughter followed afterwards, as did many families of the black men who enlisted. The families lived at the camp as refugees, fending for themselves. Camp Nelson was established during the Civil War as a fortified base and supply depot where recruitment and training took place.
When I found out that Camp Nelson had been made into a National Monument adjacent to a National Cemetery where black soldiers have been buried, I made a weekend trip. It was over a 6-hour drive from Pittsburgh to Nicholasville, KY.
Jordan
1. I learned that the Union army, in its hypocrisy, hired enslaved men to help set up Camp Nelson. The men did the labor but pay went to the people who hired them out.
I had wondered how JORDAN and other men learned about the recruitment camp and how to get there. Now I have more backstory for JORDAN: He had been hired out, marked the way there, and told his family and probably other men about the camp and how to get there. It boggles my mind why the men were hired out since, even though Kentucky stayed with the Union, the state allowed slavery. Wouldn’t hiring men out to help the Union army contribute to the demise of slavery? Lots of contradictions in this part of the history.
Camp Nelson 1863-1866
2. Camp Nelson developed a system to rehabilitate horses so that they could be returned to the war effort. The system included a combination of a special diet, exercise, rest, and grooming. Most of the mules stayed at Camp Nelson.
After the Civil War, JORDAN’s lieutenant colonel wants him to re-enlist and join his cavalry out West. I wondered how JORDAN would transition from foot soldier to the cavalry. While stationed at Camp Nelson, before going into combat, JORDAN’s training included rehabilitating the horses. Because he was excellent at this job as well as combat, his lieutenant colonel wants him to now train and serve in the cavalry.
This area marks the location of the horse stables
3. While Camp Nelson recruited and trained soldiers, some stayed in the camp and others were sent out of camp to contribute to the war effort.
This information helps me understand the mission and culture of the Camp. It helps me understand various tasks for which JORDAN received training & expertise along with combat training.
A replica of the barracks
Actual weapons used during the Civil War, now housed in a museum
4. The cemetery shows evidence that black soldiers during the Civil War served as troops, in the cavalry, and with artillery and heavy artillery, and that they had been promoted as officers.
This information fortifies my belief that JORDAN’s lieutenant colonel—a Caucasian man—respects JORDAN and wants him to re-enlist. I’m accustomed to hearing about the segregated nature of the US military from the Second World War, and how the military consciously held African American soldiers back from combat duty and promotion to the rank of officer. From other various resources (letters) during the Civil War, I understand that many Caucasian Northerners supported the end of slavery but did not believe in equality. The grave markers at the cemetery, however, provides evidence that soldiers and officers who fought side by side, and relied on one another for their lives, respected one another as soldiers and officers, and lobbied the government for equality in terms of military service.
Here lies buried Henry Mitchell, who served in the Calvary and died on March 6, 1865
Here lies William Wall, who served in Heavy Artillery and died on September 3, 1865
Grace
1. The only body of water accessible to the camp was a water spring which only the officers were allowed to use.
Originally, I wrote that GRACE fished and taught the other children of the refugee families how to fish. During the tour of Camp Nelson, I saw there was no body of water on the property except for the spring. Even though the camp was established near the Kentucky River, the river itself was beyond the borders (and safety) of the camp; I was also told that they wouldn’t have been able to reach the river due to the palisades. I’m still unsure what “palisades” means in this case. The Union army built an enormous water pump system to feed water from the river to the camp. Certainly that area was inaccessible for fishing.
This is the site of the water spring that only the officers were allowed to use
2. The refugees set up camp near the bakery.
The tour guide pointed out where the bakery was, and how the refugees set up their home beside it. Based on excavations, it’s known that people in the camp ate cows and pigs. It’s presumed that the refugees also ate this meat and had bread from the bakery. I’m skeptical about what was given willingly by civilians and soldiers who worked in the camp because the head of the camp was known to randomly kick out the refugees. On the other hand, people usually make a “home” where they can get food and water, so maybe the refugees did benefit from the bakery. Before coming to Camp Nelson, GRACE learned from her father how to hunt small game: rabbits, squirrels, raccoons, opossums. She would have continued hunting at the Camp.
Down this way was the site of the bakery where the refugees set up camp
3. The officer in charge of the camp randomly evicted the African American refugees, who then returned afterwards. This continued until another officer leaned on the Union army to accept responsibility of the families of the black soldiers just as it provided for the other soldiers. Even at Camp Nelson, many Caucasian refugees fled to the camp to escape Confederate occupation of Tennessee.
Before visiting Camp Nelson, I knew about this eviction in November of 1864, but I didn’t know he did this several times. I originally wrote in the backstory that GRACE’s mom died in the camp from disease. I thought about the winter eviction, where 100 of the 400 women, children, and old men died of exposure (and malnutrition and disease) and I thought GRACE and her mother would be among them. On the other hand, I learned that it was determined in July 1864 that women who were officially hired by the army to do laundry and cook were not kicked out. I’m still weighing this, but now that I learned about opportunities her mom had to secure their place in the camp, I’m leaning toward that. Would the army have “officially” or “unofficially” hired her soon after she arrived in 1863 even though the army still couldn’t decide how to reckon with “refugees” who were actually “property” and should be returned?
Families of the black soldiers were frequently evicted from Camp Nelson
4. The wives and children of the black soldiers who escaped to Camp Nelson were considered refugees—by the summer of 1865, 3,000 refugees lived in a space where cottages were built for a little over 2300 people. The army then provided 50 tents and the remaining refugees built their own huts with whatever materials they could find.
This helps me get a handle on the refugees’ living situation. I also read information about how black soldiers and their families built their own cabins prior to 1865. Before visiting Camp Nelson, I’ve seen photos of the refugees’ “housing.” Having walked the grounds and read more information on site, I now better understand what is happening in the photos. While I knew of the resiliency of GRACE, these details will help me flesh out what she did to survive and how she led other children to survive.
Photo of the refugee camp where the families of African American Union soldiers lived in Camp Nelson
Replica of a cabin for the refugees
Replica of a cabin for the refugees
A close-up of how the walls were built - replica of a cabin built for the refugees
5. A monument has been placed on the property where refugees had been buried. I think their bodies have been moved to the National Cemetery, but I didn’t find the markers.
Here, I learned that all the soldiers were buried together on either end of the cemetery (marked at Graveyard 1), regardless of race. And that their families were buried between them. A number of the bodies have been moved to the National Cemetery adjacent to the camp. I felt humbled to be standing on hallowed ground where a great number of the refugees still were buried. This makes the “stories” very real. I feel like the camp and the cemetery does great honor to the black soldiers and their families who fought for freedom and helped lead this country to build up to its potential.
This monument marks Graveyard 1 where the soldiers and refugees had been buried
This side of the monument acknowledges the refugees. Note how it references Caucasian refugees first…
…but the monument devotes one side honoring African American refugees.
Script reading: "Glimpses" - at Just Write! Lakeland - January 31, 2022 7:00-9:00 pm (EST)
I'll have a zoom reading & development of my full-length play GLIMPSES, produced by Just Write! Lakeland, of Lakeland, FL. The reading will be on Monday, January 31, at 7 p.m. If you can attend, pls PM me and I'll provide an email for the zoom link - which will be available on the weekend! Whoo-hoo! I'm excited!!!
How to locate words that were used when writing a period piece
I accidentally discovered that Google charts the popularity of terms by year!
For example, in Google, type: Sweat define
You’ll see this:
My period piece takes place in the 1850s. The word “sweat” was not commonly used. So I look at the synonyms listed in that google search:
I try “perspire”:
Much better!
I feel like I found a gold mine! Well, a “word mine!”
covid-19: Did a reading for City Theatre - In Their Own Voices!
At the end of last year, I made a commitment to say “Yes” to every theater opportunity I saw in 2020. Then COVID-19 hit, and anything we say “yes” to has to be done in a new way to ensure social distancing. One of the results of this commitment was the opp to participate in Pittsburgh’s City Theatre’s collaboration with the regional Dramatist Guild for the program, “In Their Own Voices.” Because of COVID-19, we have to video-record our reading. So, I found myself practicing the script reading as well as doing a number of “takes” to get the angle of the camera, the lighting, and the background decent!
The most difficult part with the video was angling the camera away from the reflection in my eyeglasses. I even tried to make the text on my laptop large enough to read without glasses.
With the help of my wonderful fiancee, we pulled this off!
I’m grateful & honored to be a part of “In Their Own Voices”:
covid-19: Writing a Zoom play
When Alleyway Theatre put out a call for a digital play, I was gamed. During COVID-19, many theaters are putting out calls for scripts about the pandemic, and have migrated to plays that can be performed by 1 actor or by 2 or 3 who live in the same household and can perform on Zoom with no special lighting, etc.
Alleyway Theatre, though, is re-imagining another form of art—one that can be performed during this or any such situation where stages are closed and no one can go out. I imagine a health pandemic or wartime or the streets are on fire and curfew is at 8:00 pm.
Going digital, Alleyway asks: What “magic” can you employ to use technology to help tell your story in the most successful way? Is it Zoom? Skype? FaceTime? An app? Something else? Is it live? Live to tape? Filmed previously and heavily edited?
In terms of audience, Alleyway provides questions: Is it interactive? Passive? Zoom fatigue is real.
The best example I've seen in using Zoom as a medium is SNL where a pastor takes us to church but is constantly interrupted by the congregants. However, when he mutes them, he loses call-and-response: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYP1mXqiwqc
For my new play, When women travel, they take a song, I decided to use the Zoom format. My sense is that in the world of social media such as tiktok, an audience is likely to click through numerous pages until something catches their attention, then they click through many more again. For my play, I create a collage of six stories that encourages the audience to switch their attention throughout the show. The two main characters who open the play are on Zoom, and a futuristic search engine named Athena places other characters in Zoom for the teenage girls to study for their year-end project.
This is an all-female cast, across generations, ethnicity, time-periods, and sexual orientation. These characters are chosen as they relate to the theme of “women traveling.” The irony, of course, is the lack of traveling as people are stuck in Zoom.
The way I came about this idea, is I first thought about a monologue I had just completed. I have 2 monologues ready for performance, and a 3rd one that I call a “monologue collage” which gives it more texture. As monologues can be performed on stage, I thought about what would drive these to be performed digitally?
Each of the 3 monologues is spoken by a woman over 60. They are of different ethnicities and time periods.
I looked across my other plays for women characters, and found a theme of traveling & song.
Nikki Giovanni’s poem, “Quilting the black-eyed pea” popped into my head: “To successfully go to Mars and back you will need a song…take some Billie Holiday for the sad days and some Charlie Parker for the happy ones but always keep at least one good Spiritual for comfort—”
I took 2 of my teenage characters—a lesbian couple—and placed them at the opening of the play where they’re working on their capstone project based on Giovanni’s poem to finish out their senior year. They’re musicians and have gotten into trouble because they turn all of their school assignments into a concert and have been told “no concert, or they’ll fail the capstone project and won’t graduate.”
Stuck at home during a pandemic, exploring seven traveling women in Zoom for their final high-school assignment, lesbian lovers BHAGYA and CHIUNG-WEI clash over their own plans for the future.
On the way to Mali Street. April 7, 2019
A street sign in Jerusalem: changing the title of a play
I changed the title of Home Economics to A street sign in Jerusalem.
While I thought a major theme in the play was about making a home, during revision after the Zoom reading, I realized the script was about not forgetting Gabriel - not forgetting family. Naming a street after someone is certainly a sign about not forgetting the person - in this case, my aunt Mali Spighel who founded AKIM.
With the title Home Economics, I thought I was very clever. That’s the name of a course in school where women learned about cooking and being a homemaker in the old days whereas Doda Mali went to medical school - the only woman in the class - and “economics” meant she constructed her tiny living space into a home & physician’s office with her husband.
"Economics” also meant navigating the move from a hostile country to a new home (Nazi Germany to pre-State Israel), and then finding the means to establish a home for cognitively challenged adults (AKIM).
MALI SPIGHEL
Seven thousand keys for 7000 individuals to live with dignity. This is home economics. If someone were to ask Gabriel why was AKIM founded, he would say, “Because of me.”
The key to the play, however, is “don’t forget”:
MALI SPIGHEL
I instruct my family to not forget Gabi when I’m gone. Sie lieb zum Gabriel. Sie relt zum Gabriel. Be loving to Gabriel. Be nice to Gabriel.
With the title A street sign in Jerusalem we have an object, a place, and curiosity. What sign? Why is it important? What’s the story?
I learned from playwright William F. Mayfield that the title of a play should tell what it’s about, like his play, Harriet Tubman Loved Somebody. With the title, I couldn’t wait to see the production. I met Mr. Mayfield only a few times at a playwrights gathering at Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company. At one of these gatherings, he talked about how to title a play. It’s the only conversation I remember from that day. He must’ve been an incredible mentor. He passed away very young, 62, in 2012.
Thank you, Mr. Mayfield.
Playwright Judy Meiksin standing beneath the street sign in Jerusalem named after Malka (Mali) Spighel. January 30, 2018.
COVID-19: The Show Must Go On!
Here is how plays are produced during quarantine - on Zoom! Livestreamed on Facebook!
10 Minute Tuesdays produced a special show for Pride 2020. My play, “Pennies, Powder & Pussy” starts at the 43:34 mark.
My fiancée Edie & me on our way to the Show!
Opening scene of “Pennies, Powder & Pussy,” at 10 Minute Tuesdays - June 2, 2020, 8:00 pm (ET), produced by Phoenix Tears Productions in Orlando, FL. Begins at the 43:34 mark.
LYNNE, played by Michelle (left) and DANIELLE, played by Tasha. “Pennies, Powder & Pussy,” 10 Minute Tuesdays - June 2, 2020, 8:00 pm (ET), produced by Phoenix Tears Productions in Orlando, FL.
Curtain call! Three plays, 1 singer, 1 comedian, for 10 Minute Tuesdays special Pride show, June 2, 2020, 8:00 pm (ET), produced by Phoenix Tears Productions in Orlando, FL!
My play is part of Pride celebration tonight! 8 pm (ET)
“Pennies, Powder & Pussy” will be livestreamed tonight on facebook, Ten-Minute Tuesdays by Phoenix Tears Productions.
covid-19: 24-24-24
When folks ask how long it takes me to write a play, I get stumped for an answer. It took me 7 years to write Jonathan, I say. While writing Jonathan, I worked on numerous other scripts & poetry and had a FT job, and a family. So it’s not like I wrote 9-5, 5 days a week, 2-week vacation, for 7 years.
With my covid-19 routine, I now know it took me 24 hours to write the treatment for the one-act play “Lookin’ for Liza Jane.” I wrote 6:30-7:30 am, M-F, beginning on March 24. I finished the treatment on April 24.
Treatment excerpt for “Lookin’ for Liza Jane”
covid-19: Script reading of “Find the Miracle” on zoom
We’re starting to get the hang of this Zoom deal.
This script-reading brought together 7 actors and a stage manager – no easy feat! Across a few nights, with some availability and bandwidth problems, actors and the stage manager jumped around quite a bit, picking up the lines for different roles. They are so fantastic and I’ll link to their names.
The big take-aways from this reading:
1. Is Helena Jozef’s 1st wife? 2nd? Does she die and he gets married a 3rd time?
2. Abby comes from no where. Need to develop the relationship between Abby & Jodi; they should be more buddies than the script currently shows
What’s working:
“Gold star” goes to the story with Jozef & Helena: Theirs is an epic love story
“Need to see” goes to the story of the prisoners in the Nazi death camp: This story is adventurous, intense, compelling; it’s very visual, so some of the confusion in the reading may be cleared up on stage
“The jury’s still out” goes to the current day story: some love the teenagers/some don’t see enough distinctions between the characters
My concerns:
a. How do I make the current day story as compelling as the prisoner story?
b. How do I weave the 3 stories as one play, showing 3 generations of 1 family?
This is 1 of 3 collage plays I’m developing. I have no blueprint, which makes this writing very exciting. The scenes are not flashbacks. Rather, the past informs the present as it unravels and forges ahead.
Great THANK YOU’s go to Star Banks, Jonathan Berry, Christian Carter, Jasmine Leonard, Tonya Lynn, Faye Miller, Nik Nemec, Shakira Stephens, Shakara Wright
The prisoner story and the love story from “Find the Miracle,” a script in progress.
“AIM” script-reading!
Thank you to Kaitlin Marie Cliber and Hannah Brizzi for bringing Eidel and Henda to life in "Aim"! and thank you to Lynnelle Goins for giving three-dimensions to the longest set of stage directions in one-act play history! This is at Pittsburgh New Work's New Play Reading Series.
March 2, 2020
(Left to right): Kaitlin Marie Cliber (Eidel) and Hannah Brizzi (Henda) with Lynnelle Goins (Stage Manager)
(Left to right): Hannah Brizzi (Henda), Judy Meiksin (playwright), and Kaitlin Marie Cliber (Eidel).
covid-19: Back to playwrighting
After watching the Pro Bull Riding Global Cup with my fiancee, Edie, I’m back to work.
covid-19: Script reading of “Home Economics” on video call using facebook
The first script reading we set up on video call during the covid-19 quarantine was Home Economics, a biographical play about my great aunt Mali Spighel who founded AKIM in Jerusalem, an independent-living organization for intellectually-challenged adults. In one part of the play, Aunt Mali’s family is scattered, running away from Nazi Germany. This scene takes a special meaning during this time of “sheltering-in-place” – whether we’re miles away or just in the next block, we’re unable to get together with family.
Unlike Aunt Mali’s time, though, we have video calls on zoom, What’s App, Skype, fb….
Even so, when deaths from the virus began climbing in China, then Italy, and theaters were shutting down in London & nyc to promote social distancing, I found myself calling my daughter several times a day. She lives in the UK.
More take-aways from the script reading:
1. How does the history connect with Mali’s desire that her family remember her son Gabriel when she’s gone?
2. What segues from the present to the past will make the transitions important to the audience?
3. What is the purpose of the interaction between Gabriel and his cousin?
4. What do I want the audience to know when they leave the play?
Kudos to Kim El – playwright | actor | director – for taking the lead with these questions after the reading.
Great THANK YOU’s go to Kim El and Cheryl El-Walker for splitting the roles of Mali Spighel and Ilana, to Jonathan Berry for reading Gabriel, Nik Nemec for reading Cousin, and playwright Faye Miller for reading Stage Manager.
covid-19: Frankie's line about Newton from "Seeking Transparency" - a script in progress
FRANKIE: It’s frustrating because it’s impossible to finish by deadline. I mean, I can try every metal in the periodic table, but then there’s every possible configuration. How much of it, for how long. Like baking it, you know? If I grow it at different temperatures, they do different things. If I try out the combination of materials in different amounts, they do different things. I need to have all the time in the world, then I could get somewhere. The best part for Newton was when they had a plague and he had to leave school. He got to go away and work for like two years straight and came up with his greatest discoveries.
covid-19: writing plays during quarantine!
covid-19: Writing M-F @ 6:30 am
Sister playwright Faye Miller and I establish a writing schedule, Monday through Friday, 6:30-7:30 am, on video call using Facebook. I’m using this time to write the treatment for a one-act play about Clara Brown, called “Lookin’ for Liza Jane.”
