Interview with Shairi Engle: Award-winning Playwright & Freelance writer. Shairi won the 2019 Bridge Award with her play: TAMPONS, DEAD DOGS, AND OTHER DISPOSABLE THINGS. (http://shairiengle.com/)
This podcast series is hosted by Patricia Kathleen and Wilde Agency Media. The series interviews women (& women-identified & non-binary) entrepreneurs, founders, and gurus across all industries to investigate those voices in business today. Both the platform and discussion are designed to further the global conversation in regards to the changing climate in entrepreneurial and founding roles.
TRANSCRIPTION
*Please note, this is an automated transcription please excuse any typos or errors
[00:00:07] Hi, my name is Patricia Kathleen, and this podcast series will contain interviews I conduct with female and female identified entrepreneurs, founders, co-founders, business owners and industry gurus. These podcasts speak with women and women, identified individuals across all industries in order to shed light for those just getting into the entrepreneurial game, as well as those deeply embedded within it histories, current companies and lessons learned are explored in the conversations I have with these insightful and talented powerhouses. The series is designed to investigate a female and female identified perspective in what has largely been a male dominated industry in the USA to date. I look forward to contributing to the national dialog about the long overdue change of women in American business arenas and in particular, entrepreneurial roles. You can contact me via my media company website Wild Dot Agency. That's w i l d dot agency or my personal website. Patricia Kathleen, dot com. Thanks for listening. Now let's start the conversation. [00:01:25][77.9]
[00:01:29] Hi, everyone, and welcome back, this is your host, Patricia, and today I am sitting down with Shairi Engle. Shairi is a playwright, freelance writer and teaching artist with a literary nonprofit. So say we all welcome Shairi. [00:01:44][14.7]
[00:01:45] Hi, how are you? [00:01:46][0.8]
[00:01:46] I am so excited to have you on today. For those of you listening, I attended a reading of Shari's play that we will get into today entitled Tampons, Dead Dogs and Other Disposable Things at La Hoya Playhouse in October. Twenty fifth of this year, twenty nineteen. And I reached out and convinced her to speak with us today. I'm so excited to get into everything with you. Shairi for everyone listening, I'm going to give you a quick buy a roadmap of today's podcast which follows our traditional roadmap for this series. And then I will give you a quick bio of Shairi and then we will start with peppering her with questions. The roadmap of today's podcast will be an academic background and early professional life of Shairi. And then we'll turn to unpacking some of her professional and personal story, which is a really diversified and dynamic story. Then we'll turn to discussing specifically her play tampons, dead dogs and other disposable things, which I attended a reading to. And I have a myriad of questions for her about. And then we will shift our focus towards goals that she may have for more plays, books, freelance writing, brand expansion, all of those things over the next three years. And then we'll wrap everything up with advice that she has for those who are looking to get involved with Shairi, kind of mirror what she's done with her history and all of that good stuff. So a quick bio on Shairi herself. Shairi Angle is a teaching artist with the literary nonprofit. So Say We are an organization helping individuals tell their true stories. Shairi tells her own stories while providing while provided any variation of seasonal coffee drink. She's also a member of La Hoya Playhouse's Gang of veteran playwrights, a group of writers fuzed by their shared love of cheese and crackers. Shery won the twenty nineteen bridge award with her interestingly titled Play Tampon, Dead Dogs and Other Disposable Things Afraid. This makes her sound as though she hates canines. You can find her awkwardly stopping strangers on the street to pet their dogs. Shairi also created the Fingerprint Project, a community art project addressing the science surrounding sexual violence. This project inspired her new podcast, the loudest, softest sound and outlet for the secrets that need to be heard or told while providing the option of hiding storytellers identities coming out in January 20. Twenty. Having discovered her own voice through the arts, Shari's work is driven by her deep personal understanding that storytelling can save lives. For more information on her podcast stories or events, visit Shairi and Gold dot com. [00:04:30][163.4]
[00:04:30] That is s h a i. R i e n g l e dot com. [00:04:36][6.0]
[00:04:37] So sorry. I am so excited to kind of get into everything. I look forward to listening in as much as you're providing them with the loudest, softest sound. I know that's a line from your play, which I really like. Your podcast series sounds amazing. I'll be looking for that in January. Twenty twenty. But before we get into all of that, can you drop us into your academic background and early professional life? [00:05:00][23.4]
[00:05:02] Oh, what a twisted road this has been. I don't think so. I, I have never I've never followed a traditional academic path. I grew up in a household that didn't necessarily support my continued education. And but I always kind of had this thing inside of me that knew that I was searching for something I didn't know. So I have a lot of classes under my belt and I only just received my bachelor's degree about five years ago. And regulations. Yeah, thank you. But even even that wasn't really the destination. [00:05:41][38.9]
[00:05:43] What really happened? My real education, I think, came through just a series of experiences. I dropped out of college when I was 18. I had my son Treston, and after I worked at a factory in the south, I worked at a subway making sandwiches. And after a while I just started to see my future kind of closing in on me and not really knowing where I was headed. I decided to join the Air Force and specifically become the air traffic controller and the thing that that provided. [00:06:18][35.4]
[00:06:20] Was this idea that I was very capable of challenging environment, of doing things that scared me, and so I spent six years in the Air Force and the night I separated honorably and came back to San Diego and. I took an office job and I was working in a cubicle, and that's very, very unsatisfying work. [00:06:50][29.7]
[00:06:51] And then. [00:06:51][0.2]
[00:06:53] I kind of just one of those moments that you hear about, like the cliche midlife crisis where you realize that. Where you're headed is just straight to your grave, and I was at a dinner party. [00:07:09][15.6]
[00:07:09] I think that I'm going to be turning thirty seven that year and I've been replaying in my head all of these different things that I was missing out of my life. And somebody mentioned that I was actually turning thirty six, not turning thirty seven. And I've got my hands underneath the dinner table using my fingers to count all of the years that I've been alive. And it dawned on me that I had a whole extra year. And so I decided to quit my job and go back to school for something that was a little bit more interesting. And I dubbed it my ghimire. So I like that. So I went back to it's a small private arts college here in San Diego. And it wasn't necessarily the work that inspired me so much as the people that I was introduced to. And the dean, I got the chance to know her pretty well, that she actually asked me to apply for an internship at the San Diego Repertory Theater as a graphic designer. And so I applied and the first day of my internship was on my birthday. [00:08:21][71.5]
[00:08:22] And so I decided to give a year had been such a successful year for me. I was going to continue this pattern for the rest of my life. [00:08:28][5.5]
[00:08:29] So I decided there that I would start thinning my years and I would come up with a series of tests to kind of challenge myself to grow and whatever specific area was the theme that year. And so that first year, it was the year of my voice. And this was in the year. Yeah. And and so I started at San Diego Repertory Theater, and it was the first time that I had read a play and had a chance to see how they are developed. [00:09:00][31.3]
[00:09:01] And my eyes were just wide open and I fell in love instantly. I love the collaboration and the just. [00:09:13][11.3]
[00:09:15] The amazing ability to tell powerful stories, so I went through the year of my voice, but during that year. [00:09:25][9.5]
[00:09:26] I think the biggest moment in terms of education was that I had stumbled upon a storytelling event here in San Diego, so say we all. [00:09:37][10.3]
[00:09:38] Yeah, it's a little dove bar in South Park, a small neighborhood and cash only and go in and they select. [00:09:46][8.7]
[00:09:49] About seven or 10 people to tell their stories on the last Thursday of every month. And if your story is selected, they provide you writing coaches and performance coaches to help you build your story and tell the what you need to tell. [00:10:03][14.8]
[00:10:05] And so I am. [00:10:05][1.0]
[00:10:07] I decided that one of my tasks for the year of my voice was to tell my very first difficult story. And so I, I wrote it and it was selected. And then for a month, I worked on my voice and prepared myself to stand in front of a microphone in front of strangers to tell a very difficult truth. [00:10:33][25.1]
[00:10:34] And while this was considered a short story by you, what kind of a format was it written in a monologue? [00:10:41][6.7]
[00:10:43] They're all true stories, kind of a requirement, although even that sometimes of a coach is to help you in order to prepare for the reading of the story. [00:10:56][13.0]
[00:10:56] Right. And so, yeah. So I was actually serendipitously assigns a writing coach who's an amazing director and performer here in San Diego, who heads up Intermission Productions and. She she was the perfect person to help me tell this story. It was a story about me confronting my abuser when I was in my early 20s, a man who had tormented me from the age of eight until I was 15. And it was the first time that I had ever said the words out loud to anybody other than very close friends and family. [00:11:38][41.9]
[00:11:40] And it was terrifying. Terrified. And what happened after that? [00:11:49][8.1]
[00:11:52] Was pretty phenomenal. As soon as I left the stage, I felt completely numb. And. Didn't really process what had happened for me, it was the next morning. [00:12:04][12.4]
[00:12:06] It it just I just sensed it in my body, it wasn't that a weight had been lifted or anything like that, it was more of a sense of self and. And in the following weeks, I became more and more interested in this feeling that I had that was just kind of starting to blossom and so. [00:12:29][23.3]
[00:12:31] That was when I started the fingerprint project. I had been in my garage painting and maybe had a couple of glasses of wine that I had been leaving my fingerprint on a canvas. And I noticed how the first fingerprint was this bright red print. [00:12:50][18.9]
[00:12:50] And then as it as I kept marking my finger on the canvas, it just dissipated the paint. [00:12:57][7.2]
[00:12:59] And in the way that I first saw it, it looked almost like a sound wave with that first initial print thing, very strong and angry and loud. [00:13:08][8.9]
[00:13:08] And it just kind of echoed out from there and. [00:13:11][2.8]
[00:13:13] To me, it looks like what had been going on as soon as I was chosen for the story and started talking to people about this performance that I had ahead of me, people started telling me their own stories. [00:13:25][11.3]
[00:13:26] And it surprised me how many how many of us have experienced silence in a way where you are in a bubble and you don't feel like. Any other person has ever experienced. [00:13:43][16.7]
[00:13:46] This form of trauma and that you are alone and. [00:13:52][5.4]
[00:13:54] An oddball and your symptoms, your your fears, all of the things that kind of surface as a result of this need to stay hidden because you feel shame around them. [00:14:05][11.3]
[00:14:07] And. [00:14:07][0.0]
[00:14:10] Just understanding how many men and women are out there that have similar experiences. [00:14:16][6.3]
[00:14:18] It was very upsetting. But at the same time, I didn't understand why I had been so quiet for so long when there was this. The sense of relief of having been heard and. [00:14:35][16.5]
[00:14:38] And I just wanted to kind of continue that, so I quickly posted this event on Facebook where I decided that I was going to set this canvas up in a public spot and just invite anybody that had experienced. [00:14:53][15.1]
[00:14:56] Any type of violence to come and just leave a print on the board and I just stayed there all day at first time and a lot of people came up to ask what it was about. I had a chance to share my own story, but a lot of times. [00:15:13][17.3]
[00:15:16] People. [00:15:16][0.0]
[00:15:19] It seemed like they. They really. Needed something simple to break their own silence. And. So it was just really. A powerful, powerful thing to watch. [00:15:37][17.6]
[00:15:39] Absolutely. [00:15:39][0.0]
[00:15:40] And as you're saying this, it's interesting and I know that this is kind of the trajectory and the road that is is leading us towards your play, but kind of discussing this abusive silence that prevents self truth, that heals victims from entering into the dialog is reminiscent for me of how your main character repeatedly is what we'll get into the structure of the play, but repeatedly silencing herself from actually getting into the story. [00:16:16][36.4]
[00:16:17] I mean, the majority of the play is with her therapist talking about how, oh, I know you want me to get into it, but I don't even know I need to. It's just this constant diatribes and this is a play kind of unfolds under this avoiding of talking about the final the final point or the final action of the play. But it's interesting because it seems like a point of silence, too, that she's silencing herself or silencing moving back away. [00:16:44][27.1]
[00:16:44] And so you having this earlier prewriting the play experience of having a silence and then finally putting voice to what you had and then living in that reality, that truth that comes about when you actually put it out there in your voice in the universe, it sounds like it was kind of the birth place for some of the dialog that you wrote into tampons, dead dogs and other disposable things. Did you find your. [00:17:13][29.0]
[00:17:14] Well, first of all, did the story in the monologue format that you had at the cash only pub did that turn into tampons, which it's been shortened by the La Hoya Playhouse's tampons with tampons, dead dogs and other disposable things. Did that turn into that or was it a story from within that personal monologue that turned into tampons? [00:17:35][20.1]
[00:17:36] So what's really interesting is that I am in my path as a writer, and I think that this story is also it's not just talking about therapy. It's also talking about the journey that I've had to walk to get to myself as. As a more realized person, that story, the one that I told many years ago, and so Sabil, I actually just reread it not too long ago and it still gets to me. [00:18:11][35.2]
[00:18:13] It's not that is not the tampons and duduk story. [00:18:16][2.8]
[00:18:17] However, um, about a year ago, I had a table read and it was one of those table reads that I know a lot of writers go through where you walk away and you just question life itself and it. [00:18:34][16.8]
[00:18:36] It wasn't the story that I was trying to tell. There was there was, I think, a little bit too much dishonesty in it still. [00:18:43][6.8]
[00:18:44] And so I went home and I started pulling out my own therapy notebooks and all of my, you know, my work that I've done kind of processing my own personal history. [00:19:00][15.9]
[00:19:01] And I started pulling out details, the most difficult details and injecting them into. [00:19:08][7.5]
[00:19:10] The memory of the character in this play and an even still, when I when I hear or see certain gestures as we're working on this play, it's. [00:19:25][14.3]
[00:19:26] They're intense. Yeah, so it's. [00:19:30][4.1]
[00:19:32] But, you know, as I mentioned to you before, after after the reading, it's. It's not about trying to conquer my demons, it's about trying to kind of find. A realistic and honest way of residing alongside them and and keeping that the power dynamics where they should be. So, yeah, it's a. My own personal history is in there, but it's it's hidden where I don't think you can really see it. [00:20:07][34.6]
[00:20:08] However, if I may, the whole premise of the story came after the year of my voice was the year of my strength, and I went on a solo backpacking trip and it was some. [00:20:23][14.6]
[00:20:25] Again, just kind of going off of my gut instincts that I needed to do something and it. [00:20:34][8.6]
[00:20:35] That was inspired by a moment after a very intense period of therapy where I was sitting in my shower bawling my eyes out, it was that kind of cry where it just comes through, you know, it's like you're just throwing up and just feeling exhausted in my body and my spirit, my mind. [00:20:56][20.2]
[00:20:57] And I all of a sudden just remembered this moment when I had been a little girl. [00:21:06][8.1]
[00:21:07] I I grew up on the East Coast with my mother and my stepfather, who happens to be a Baptist preacher who was my abuser, and my father lived out here on the West Coast and we would spend our summers with my father. And it was just great break from all of the chaos that was going on at home. [00:21:27][20.1]
[00:21:28] Yeah, and. [00:21:29][0.9]
[00:21:31] My father really loved the outdoors, and so we were up in Yosemite hiking and I have this very vivid memory of hiking up the trail ahead of my dad and yelling after me saying, look at that girl, go look how strong she is. [00:21:48][17.1]
[00:21:49] And I remember that feeling that I had this that little girl and. That day in the shower, I was thinking about that, and it had occurred to me that she kept going with the trail and I had veered off into the woods and I was suddenly overcome with this great urge to go catch up to her. [00:22:11][22.2]
[00:22:12] And I needed to physically close that metaphor. So that's when I decided that I was going to go on my solo backpacking trip. And and I did and and as I was driving up the three ninety five, I didn't go to Alaska, I went to a just outside of Bishop Lake Sabrina and we can hike up into the mountains from there. [00:22:38][25.3]
[00:22:39] But on the way up, I was listening to this podcast and I don't remember what the story was about, but it was this older gentleman that said in order to get anything, you have to give something up. And for whatever reason, the whole time I was hiking up a steep climb, it just kept repeating over and over. They had to get something up. [00:23:01][21.8]
[00:23:01] Do you agree with it? I do, and I don't. [00:23:04][3.1]
[00:23:05] I think that sometimes there are things that pop into our head and stick with us and they serve a purpose. And, you know, but I don't necessarily think that that's always the case. [00:23:17][11.9]
[00:23:19] Yeah, I think it's actually and I think I could spend some time with it and massage it and make it pretty and make it something that I agreed with. [00:23:26][7.5]
[00:23:26] But the first my first impulse when I heard that was that's what I've been told as a woman since the day I could leave the house was that I had to give something if I was to get anything in this world and preferably give more than I get. That was the consensus of the world that I walked into. And so part of me, you describing an old man on the podcast, kind of proffering that up. I'm like an old man, have been telling me that for the past forty two years and moment there. But I think I could also make it pretty. I just think it's an interesting thing to use as a mantra as you're hiking up a trail. Yeah. Yeah. What's your relationship with that statement as it was going through your head? [00:24:05][38.6]
[00:24:07] I felt like I was I was carrying something with me that I've had this thing inside of me that I've wanted to purge. And at that time, I had this idea that I could purge it because I think a lot of my therapy was based around, you know, getting rid of my symptoms, getting rid of my pain as if it's somehow not a part of me. And and that's been my journey over the last few years, is trying to figure out what really is the deal with. With the part of me that exists with this experience and the part of me that this idea of myself without that experience and you know, it's funny, can I digress just a little bit? Yeah, please. You said something. So just as last year, speaking of men kind of having conversations with you and giving you advice. [00:25:02][55.3]
[00:25:04] Yeah. [00:25:04][0.0]
[00:25:05] So after I won this award was you know, I had a lot of people in my ear about what I should or should not do now that I'm officially a playwright of. [00:25:18][13.0]
[00:25:20] This one particular person. A gentleman whose intentions, I think were very, very good. [00:25:28][7.5]
[00:25:28] I know that they're very good, but he sat down and sat me down and wanted to hear my whole story because he has this idea that I have this, you know, a powerful story that needs to be heard, yadda, yadda, yadda. And so I tell him I tell him my experience growing up and just how I come to myself as I know myself right now. [00:25:52][23.7]
[00:25:53] And, um, and after I get done telling this story. He says that's that's a really powerful and amazing tale. [00:26:03][10.3]
[00:26:05] But the thing I think you need to work on is telling your story from a place of power, you're still telling your story coming from a place of something broken. [00:26:15][9.9]
[00:26:18] And at the time, I just sat there just listening to him, and that one sat with me for quite a few days and. [00:26:25][7.7]
[00:26:27] And I could sense in my gut that it just didn't fit what he said, well, I just thought I mean, it's remarkable that you met the owner of power and he got to show you exactly how you could use it and employ it, like who deemed this individual the decider of what power was or is and that you are not yourself in your own existence exhibiting power. [00:26:50][23.5]
[00:26:52] So definitely fantastic. [00:26:54][2.0]
[00:26:56] And the more I thought about it, the more I started to think I really think that it has to do with the fact that I was crying when I was telling my story, that I was showing my pain. And then just that week, I had been coaching a woman who is going to be telling her own personal story of pain. And she kept apologizing about crying or getting upset. And I stopped her. And you know why? [00:27:24][28.4]
[00:27:24] Why would you apologize for that? And this is a part of your story and this is a part of your truth and that right there. And and so that's how I kind of answered my own question. [00:27:36][11.5]
[00:27:38] And I think that, you know, fairly recently I have discovered that. [00:27:42][4.5]
[00:27:45] My vulnerability and my pain and my hurt over my experiences, sharing and being able to express that is is definitely a powerful act. [00:27:59][14.8]
[00:28:00] I find it to be the ultimate power, you know, having the courage and stamina to exhibit and then stand in the face of your own exhibition of any painful account that you've had is unnervingly hard for me to comprehend. [00:28:19][18.3]
[00:28:19] And I'm big on physical and emotional displays of power that are anything but that. So I'm very clear on the pillars that describe what power is on a very traditional masculine sense. And you kind of just captured what we were talking about prior in our pre production of this podcast. I told you that tampons, dead dogs and other disposable things were it was by far and I'm an avid theatergoer and I come from a family of writers and playwrights. And so I read a great deal in that area as well. But this is by far the most difficult production for me to. It was a reading. I can't imagine if it had been a play, but because I think my comfort level, I would have held my breath through some of it. But I am very rarely confronted with something that is both artistically moving and on a literature scale, enthusiastic and creative. And then also incredibly difficult to the point that I think about leaving and think I couldn't possibly and I just don't believe I told you before we started that I'm not sure that line even exists anymore. I think it's what made old writers so great sometimes with that that difficulty. And that's what it did for me. And what you just described, ultimate power or the power that you were receiving at that moment was being able to describe it and to honor it with the accompanying emotions that it had and then sit in the face of that. And I think that that's what we should immediately call up that gentleman and tell him that we've just discovered the true definition of power. And so he can now go forward and evangelize and really share the message that you are the one exhibiting the proper form of power, because it was it was incredibly powerful and daunting for me to. Sit through your reading. Not it's not the subject matter, it's not all of those things as women like we would be fools to be our friends, our sisters, our mothers, our cousins have all had trauma in that area. It's I think it was the truth. I think it was sitting with your character's truth was and this was kind of enumerated ironically by it's not, is it, Jack? Who's the male character? [00:30:40][140.6]
[00:30:42] Sorry, Jack is the character of Joe, that particular reader, that actor. He said afterwards that part of his his difficulty with the character was the evolution of that character. And what it eventually became and how he is a person was like, this is going to be a hard read because of where he had to go and how he had to take the audience with him through this disguise and and that kind of sitting. So I feel like your characters had their own honesty. That's, I think, what shocked me about the play. I think most of the time I'm looking at the narrative of a play. I'm looking at the overarching lessons, the artistic angles, the the theoretical backgrounds. Who are what people are they pulling from? Where are they developing these characters from? But the characters had like a genuine sense of honesty to me that I just found kind of daunting. Even the play the stage instructions, I just really believed them. It was like this authentic voice without pretense. It was really designed. I couldn't figure out how you had done it or how you had imparted that with me after hearing it. But I did feel like the characters themselves were being honest about their role. And that's a very complex and dynamic relationship to unpack. As as a viewer, I do want to climb into. Writing your trajectory, so I want to get into some of the logistics before we climb into the meat of the story. When did you start writing it and what was the kind of timeline with between that as to when you did your first read, who was the group you were working with? Like, let's just do all those little details really quickly? [00:32:29][106.9]
[00:32:30] Well, yeah, it's been a little over two years. [00:32:32][2.3]
[00:32:33] The play's actually started off with me trying to have a conversation between somebody that had assaulted a woman and coming to apologize to her. I could not write that story because I don't know that story. And there was no way that I could ever be honest about that story, not knowing anything about that story. So who tasked you with that? [00:32:58][24.5]
[00:32:58] Was that just something an exercise you put on yourself? [00:33:00][1.8]
[00:33:01] Yeah, yeah. [00:33:01][0.7]
[00:33:02] It was a, um, you know, I started going to a lawyer play playhouse as part of a writing group for veterans. [00:33:12][9.9]
[00:33:13] And really, that's. [00:33:14][1.5]
[00:33:16] That's where I started to become very brave with my work, because it was we'd sit around and we share stories and they were very difficult stories, but. There is a sense of honesty at that table. That is really. [00:33:36][19.8]
[00:33:39] It was it was like a responsibility that we had to be honest at that table and and I feel so very fortunate, I was very intimidated the first time I sat at that table. Everybody else, they're all writers. I did not consider myself a writer at all. [00:33:56][16.9]
[00:33:57] I definitely felt like I didn't belong. And they'd figure it out pretty quickly, but. [00:34:04][6.3]
[00:34:05] We all showed up with pages and we got to work, and they had no time for my insecure bullshit, so. So yeah. So I started writing that story. [00:34:16][11.0]
[00:34:18] And. [00:34:18][0.0]
[00:34:20] And then abandoned it pretty quickly and then I decided that I was going to start writing a little bit closer to what I was experiencing and what I was experiencing was after I'd gone into the mountain on my solo backpacking trip, I decided that it was time for me to go to the VA and start following through on PTSD treatment program that I had started and stopped many times over. [00:34:53][33.3]
[00:34:55] So while I was going to that, I was also attending these writing groups at my house. And so as I was uncovering and dealing with a lot of ugly things, I was able to start processing that very honestly on the pages and. [00:35:16][20.6]
[00:35:18] So the first the first iteration of this play was. [00:35:23][5.1]
[00:35:25] Pretty far removed from where it is right now, but. My desire and what I was trying to say. Was very clear early on that I wanted to speak honestly about what it means to be a survivor of trauma. [00:35:40][15.3]
[00:35:41] Yeah, and I wanted to be honest about. [00:35:43][2.3]
[00:35:46] My experience, and because as I've worked with other people telling their stories and have worked on telling my own stories, you know, it's. [00:35:56][10.6]
[00:35:57] They all vary, but when we can be really honest about the things that scare us most, I think we find common ground. And it brings us to. [00:36:08][10.7]
[00:36:10] To share and expose some of these ugly things, yeah, kind of hiding was it was it two years from writing the first draft until winning the twenty nineteen bridge award? [00:36:22][12.5]
[00:36:24] I would say it was a little bit more than two years. You know, just because those first few months, I don't remember the exact day that I had started, but maybe two and a half years at most. [00:36:37][13.7]
[00:36:41] Can you tell us a little bit about I want to kind of cover, I want to drop in to the player, your synopsis of it, after kind of looking at the award. Can you tell us about receiving the bridge award or how you applied for that? The reception of it? You flew out to New York to receive it or no. [00:37:00][19.0]
[00:37:01] Yeah, the idea is actually quite an amazing gift. [00:37:05][4.0]
[00:37:06] I so November 4th of last year is when I had a, um, a reading, a very small reading at a play house of this play. [00:37:17][10.8]
[00:37:19] And I didn't even tell any of my friends or family to come and I didn't. [00:37:25][6.0]
[00:37:26] I just wanted to experience it for myself. And and that was my accomplishment. That was it. But I continue to work on it after that, it was actually one of my veteran writing cohorts, Franscisco, that. [00:37:42][16.3]
[00:37:44] Told me that I needed to start getting my work out there because I have been sitting on a lot of writing for a very long time and. [00:37:54][9.7]
[00:37:56] So he's a retired Marine and we listen to retired Marines. [00:38:01][4.8]
[00:38:01] Yeah, yeah. [00:38:02][0.5]
[00:38:03] So I, I submitted my play just a handful of hours before the deadline. And and, you know, but I will say that November 4th of last year, after that reading of I took my notes and the cover page of that play from that day, I had framed in my house immediately because I understood that I had overcome something really amazing and and it was a very private thing. So I'm submitting this play for the bridge. I'm looking at that little framed picture. [00:38:37][34.3]
[00:38:38] And I just think it's amazing that I have a close to finish work. [00:38:44][5.9]
[00:38:45] And so I went out of my mind because I did not think for a million years that that what I had written would. Get any attention, and so, yes, I received a phone call telling me that I was a finalist and then I found out who the judges were and and that was just amazing to know that it was being read by people that I did not know. [00:39:12][27.6]
[00:39:13] Absolutely. [00:39:13][0.0]
[00:39:15] And then the day that they called the winner, I. I took the day off from work and I went to the San Diego Public Library and I was in the elevator on the way up and I had to get off on the fourth floor. [00:39:29][14.2]
[00:39:30] And, um, it was a really beautiful moment. [00:39:34][4.0]
[00:39:35] Erica, you house the founder of the bridge, a word. [00:39:38][3.3]
[00:39:40] She spoke to me for some time on the phone, but Tony Kushner was the final judge and he had written something about it and she read it to me over the phone. And it was a really beautiful moment because people had told me that they. Loved it and they said other things, but what he what he. Said It made me feel seen in a way that I had never felt before, and it was just a really beautiful moment, and then I called my dad right away. [00:40:20][40.2]
[00:40:21] But part of their part of that award was to put me in touch with amazing prolific artist, playwrights, writers, people that I think. [00:40:33][12.3]
[00:40:36] Would have intimidated the hell out of me had I met them just a short while before. [00:40:43][6.7]
[00:40:47] And I know a lot of times I was meeting with people and I didn't know who they were and which was nice. Yeah, absolutely. And you just start talking about your process as a writer and your challenges and you find out that these are these are problems that we all kind of suffer from. And at the end of the day, these amazing and prolific artists are suffering from the same ailments that I am and the same struggles. And so that was that was an amazing gift. [00:41:18][31.4]
[00:41:19] Absolutely. When did you decide to have a rereading of it? Was that done for you? [00:41:25][6.2]
[00:41:27] The second one that I attended just this past October at La Hoya Playhouse asked if they could do a reading after the award, the Bridgeboro Charcoal Kitchen, the artistic director at Luhya Playhouse actually flew out to New York. [00:41:44][17.0]
[00:41:44] I had a reading of it at the public, and so she was there. [00:41:48][3.7]
[00:41:48] And so what would what would be the next step like? I'm not even certain how it goes from reading to production. Are you introduced? Are you interested in pushing it through to production? [00:42:00][11.8]
[00:42:02] Absolutely I am. [00:42:04][2.2]
[00:42:05] The reason why I want it to go to production is because of the conversations that I get to have with people after the story. [00:42:11][6.2]
[00:42:14] I think my two favorite moments out of all the moments have been women coming up to me and just saying the words I felt seen them and. [00:42:26][11.9]
[00:42:29] That. [00:42:29][0.0]
[00:42:31] It's just incredible, but I don't know, much like everything else, I don't know what I'm doing until I get there. [00:42:39][8.1]
[00:42:40] And, you know, I'm fortunate to have an amazing group of people that are very supportive of my work and this play. [00:42:51][11.3]
[00:42:52] And so I have two directors that are interested in it and are looking to shape it. And I actually just sent my latest draft out yesterday and I got really good. [00:43:07][15.2]
[00:43:08] Will you start work on other writing? Will you start on your next project, on your next play or your next book while you're kind of looking at putting this in production? Or will you do one thing at a time? [00:43:18][10.2]
[00:43:19] No, I have already started as soon as I. [00:43:22][3.4]
[00:43:23] I constantly have a thousand different stories going on in my head and I just don't have enough time in the day. So I've already started working on my next few projects. But the so I have my my second play that I think my first round, my first draft will be done in a couple of months and we'll be ready for a reading by the end of December. And, and then this this year I'm going to be a. Working on my very first screenplay, and I'm incredibly excited about it, and this last year, I was commissioned to write a 10 minute play for Those Without Walls Festival here in San Diego. And through that story, I was able to start unpacking a lot of my experience in the Air Force. So I'm looking forward to sharing those experiences and telling the story of a female combat vet, which is a story I don't think we get to hear enough of hardly ever, hardly, particularly in the theater arts and I think on screen as well. [00:44:35][72.1]
[00:44:36] And it needs to be told, you know, honoring our service members can not be done enough. I'll let everyone know when we've done it too much. It's never going to happen. But female service members just see the unspoken heroes. I mean, it's it's I think it's a story that is wildly untapped. And I can't wait for your analysis of it and for your words to reach it. [00:44:59][23.5]
[00:45:01] I'm wondering, do you want to give a synopsis of tampons, dead dogs and other disposable things? Do you have one? Do you have, like, this kind of sentiment regarding the storyline that you can give the audience listening today? [00:45:13][12.2]
[00:45:15] You know, I've been really struggling with that because, you know, the way that this place works, it works best when we don't really understand what we're going through. [00:45:25][10.6]
[00:45:27] And, you know, and I think. [00:45:30][2.6]
[00:45:32] I still have yet to really land on exactly the right words for it. [00:45:36][3.6]
[00:45:37] I sense that. And I didn't want to kind of get too much into the characters because it is part, at least for me. [00:45:44][7.2]
[00:45:44] I went in blind. I read a review that said nothing about the storyline, which gave an idea that you were not meant to. And and I don't know I don't know if my personal reception was because I went in blind. That could be argued for every artistic endeavor, someone I don't know anything about it, but we can't all do that because we got to know a little bit. But with this particular thing, I kind of think like, no, you just have to kind of go into you know, you can know a little bit about you and the inspiration that we've kind of uncovered here today. But I think it's just it's kind of imperative that people look at it. You know that they go in a little bit more under red than not, and that's never my advice. I'm I'm a big researcher and to that end, I wonder if, you know, whatever happens with production and things of that nature, if you would ever consider doing a reading either on YouTube or as a podcast of the play, would you ever consider putting it out on any other medium other than the stage? [00:46:48][63.3]
[00:46:49] Yeah, actually, I've considered that. And I have a group of friends here in San Diego, filmmakers that are also interested in that particular conversation. [00:46:58][8.9]
[00:47:00] So I am. And I think. [00:47:04][3.4]
[00:47:05] Again, the thing that drives me is just being able to reach people and tell a story that I think needs to be told and so that other people can tell theirs. [00:47:14][8.6]
[00:47:16] But, yeah, I, I even have this insane idea of making it a site specific play. That sounds fantastic. What what do you mean by that. You mean a Yeah. [00:47:27][10.9]
[00:47:27] Like an actual going on a little bit of a hike, not, not an insane hike but am an easy short hike through nature to kind of experience the snippets of the play as you walk along. [00:47:42][14.7]
[00:47:43] That'll be amazing. [00:47:43][0.4]
[00:47:44] I endorse that. That's you. No, I think it's it spans genres, to be honest. [00:47:52][7.4]
[00:47:52] You're taking theater and pushing it into, like, living art. Like, I think you're really questioning the lines between the two different genres of performance art and theater. [00:48:04][11.5]
[00:48:04] I fully support that. Fantastic. As an art historian, like, I think that sounds like something that needs to be done, particularly with this play, because it does work. Obviously, it almost begs it now that you've said it, I'm like asking for it. That would be fantastic. [00:48:21][17.0]
[00:48:23] So looking forward, you've mentioned kind of in our talk that you're looking at production of tampons, dead dogs and other disposable things. You're starting work on your next play. It sounds like the reading should be coming out in December or something through the house, I'm assuming. And you're working on your first screenplay. [00:48:41][18.5]
[00:48:43] Do you have like when you look at your life as a writer and all of the projects that you're doing, do you look forward? I mean, you have the year. What year are we? And we have the year of what is this year. Do you have an idea of what next year will be? A will that drive your goals? [00:48:59][15.6]
[00:49:00] Yeah, actually. So I'm I'm in the year of bravery. And my task was to actually agree to do a lot of things that terrify me. And the the bridge award opens up on December 1st, which is actually my birthday. So I am that was my first act of bravery this last year. So I'm coming to a close of a very successful year in bravery. And yeah. [00:49:28][27.9]
[00:49:30] And it was right after I got back from New York the first round, I sat with Adam Driver and and Tucker and Steven Balbir and a few other amazing artists for a reading of this play at Juilliard. [00:49:45][15.1]
[00:49:46] And I was just high on all of this artistic energy. [00:49:49][2.8]
[00:49:49] And as soon as I got home and went camping with a family and I took a little run through the woods and sat down and next year's theme came to me, next year is going to be the year of the screen. [00:50:05][15.4]
[00:50:08] And that coming. That's excellent. [00:50:09][1.4]
[00:50:10] Yeah. And you you saw the play or listen to it. And so you probably have a better understanding than your listeners might of what that actually means. [00:50:21][11.1]
[00:50:22] I do. [00:50:23][0.2]
[00:50:24] And so the first task is to to see tampons that dogs and other disposable things stage somewhere. [00:50:33][8.8]
[00:50:34] Somehow I will make it happen. And another part is working on this podcast, the loudest, softest sound so that I can help other people use their voices. [00:50:46][12.3]
[00:50:47] Yeah. And and then the screenplay. [00:50:51][3.5]
[00:50:53] It's I'm I'm in love with this character, like I was in love with the main character of tampons and dead dogs, and I cannot wait to share her with the world. [00:51:03][10.1]
[00:51:05] Absolutely. I'll be at the first reading. I can't reference center with me as well. [00:51:11][6.4]
[00:51:12] Well, as we wrap up today, I want to ask you, I always kind of draw a little picture for those who maybe don't know how I've received the past hour or so. If you were walking down the street tomorrow and a woman or a female identified individual or non binary individual, essentially anyone other than a white man, if someone like that walked up to you and said, listen, I I've I've I've had kind of a diversified past. I left college early. I did a bunch of interesting kind of odd jobs. I had a child. I returned to school. Then I turned back and I served in the armed services. I did a bunch of things. And I think it's time for me to start like this creative writing endeavor. And I know there's something in me and I need to get it onto paper. What would do to the three top pieces of advice that you would give me on? [00:52:07][55.2]
[00:52:09] To open up a Google doc immediately and start writing the very first thing that comes to your mind and don't stop to allow everything to come out, everything to never second guess how shitty something might be and just really understand that any self-doubt that's going to arise is perfectly normal. [00:52:32][23.0]
[00:52:34] And another thing. [00:52:35][0.5]
[00:52:37] I think would be to look at your writing as kind of going into a rabbit hole. We're no bottom to it. And. [00:52:46][9.7]
[00:52:48] Trust yourself to go in as deep as you possibly can and know that through your writing, they're going to be questions that are unanswerable questions, but. [00:53:00][11.5]
[00:53:01] They're so worth exploring. [00:53:02][0.6]
[00:53:05] And then. [00:53:05][0.2]
[00:53:07] Put yourself in the way of luck. I think that I. [00:53:12][4.9]
[00:53:14] I was hiking with my kids one day and this swarm of ladybugs kind of came across this field and we were standing just like a million ladybugs all over the place. [00:53:27][12.8]
[00:53:27] And we're just standing trying to get them to land on us because we know that that means you're going to have something like is going to happen. But they weren't landing on us. And so I kind of looked far up in the distance and I saw that it was really there was just a little bit of a gully and they had kind of centralized in this one area. So is grabbing the kids. And it's like one over here because sometimes you just have to put yourself in the way of luck. [00:53:55][27.8]
[00:53:56] And and so I really I really think that. Going into spaces that scare you, going into the spaces that you feel that you don't belong, talking to people that you feel are more educated than you, more than just come from a deeper understanding of the world than you don't ever. Make those assumptions. Because you will always be surprised by other people and ultimately yourself. And I think those are the three things that. I have made so much of a difference for me, absolutely, I have put everything onto the page, leave nothing off, do it immediately. [00:54:40][44.3]
[00:54:41] Number two, never second guess how wonderful or shitty what you're writing is. Look at your writing as a rabbit hole and trust the journey and put yourself in the way of luck. [00:54:52][11.0]
[00:54:54] I love that. I love that those takeaways, those are really genuine. That last one in particular, clever. [00:55:01][7.1]
[00:55:02] And you can I think that the idea of waiting for something wonderful to happen while we all slave away is sometimes kind of silly, like go find one stand in front of you so much as the power is so reversed there with the idea itself kind of controlling it is absolutely awesome. [00:55:22][20.1]
[00:55:24] I want to thank you so much for your time today. I know you're busy and we all are, but I know that your schedule is sensitive and I really appreciate you taking the time, inviting me out to see the reading of tampons, dead dogs and other disposable things. And, yeah, just you kind of going down this journey with me and all of your candor regarding your work. [00:55:49][24.7]
[00:55:49] I know it's difficult even when your work is based on being candid, but I do appreciate your time today and speaking with us. [00:55:58][9.0]
[00:55:59] Thank you so very much for the joy. [00:56:01][1.4]
[00:56:01] Absolutely. For everyone listening, you can reach out to Shairi and learn a little bit more about everything we talked about today. Again, Shairi Angle, dotcom h a i r i n g e dot com. And thank you for giving us your time for the past hour. I appreciate it. And until we speak again, remember to always bet on yourself. Slainte. [00:56:01][0.0]
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