…to get back to work!!!

November: usually a time to talk about gratitude.

I’m grateful to friends, family, and the Seattle theatre community for the support over this difficult week. I had high expectations for the election: I expected joy and the result was decidedly not what I had hoped for.

A wise board member told the rest of us “Time to get angry about shit and make loud art about it, same as yesterday and tomorrow.” Which reminded me that even if we had the joy of breaking the highest, hardest glass ceiling in the United States, there would still have been a lot of work to do. We don’t get that joy now, but we can still do the work.

I had the privilege of participating on a post-show discussion panel on women in plays for Mrs. Loman Is Leaving at ACT Theatre in October, just before the opening of A Lonely Realization. I was in the company of the playwright and director Katie Forgette and Julie Beckman, as well as Associate AD Shana Bestock, and I am grateful to have learned that the experience of women in theatre at all budget levels is very similar to mine.

Thinking back on that conversation clarified and reinforced a couple things for me:

It’s incredibly important to have a diversity of people writing our plays: women or non-binary or transgender writers can see and articulate a perception of how other people behave which is completely different than what a person socialized as male will see. They can provide the viewer an empathetic “aha” moment which they will not experience in plays written from the “mainstream” perspective.
We need to redefine and challenge the term “mainstream”. Why should we allow the plays which silence non-male, non-white characters, writers, directors and designers to be described as “the mainstream narrative”? There are more non-white, non-male people in the world than white male people, so by definition white/male centered stories are not the mainstream, they are simply one current in the larger stream.
We must engage in this work in community and on the stage. If I have learned anything from the late unjoyful election results, listening to the people we disagree with is the only way to change anything. Where better to engage in thoroughly unpleasant conversations between people who disagree with one another than on the stage? We can examine the consequences of all our actions in a thoughtful and detailed manner and invite the sibling, cousin or auntie we disagree with most to watch how the game plays out in community with us.
We cannot be afraid to ask for what we need. Even if we think the answer might be No.

So yes, it’s time to get back to work.

This is where I ask you to help us do our work. You’ve been asked for so many months to give money. Every text message from every campaign under the sun has asked you to give and give and give.

We are asking you to give, so that we can continue to provide career-development opportunities for directors and playwrights; produce new plays; pay designers and actors; and get back to the work of amplifying underheard voices. Giving Tuesday is coming on December 3rd. We welcome your gift of any size to help us reach our Giving Tuesday goal of $5000. You can donate here: https://www.wagives.org/organization/Shatteredglassproject.

In joy and with gratitude,

Rebecca O’Neil

Post-Mortem: A Lonely Realization

A note of gratitude for the cast, crew, and playwrights for A Lonely Realization from Rebecca:

It was amazing walking in with a vision for this script and being able to work with the beautiful three-human cast of Lexi, Darby, and Emily from tablework to closing night to achieve that vision. It was so interesting to see how that vision changed as each design element impacted what we were creating. I am incredibly grateful for the resilience of our team as we struggled with a COVID infection in the midst of attempting to run a COVID Safer production for our immunocompromised team members. Thank you for bringing your creativity and imagination and your ability to cope with difficult subject matter while we told this important story.

A few responses from our audience:

“It was an incredibly poignant and beautiful piece and we were grateful to be able to experience it.”

“Heartbreaking, heartwarming, heartfelt…”

“I cared for all the pieces of your story. Mort and Hattie and their rotting corpse in their 50’s room. Your athletic frog who just wants the show to go on without acknowledging the pain in the stage room. Legs who writes to save herself. Nadezhda. The stories with the happy endings. The stories with the bad ones. You gave us so much to think about.”

An impactful critical comment:

“There are plenty of examples of plays that deal with this particular and heavy subject matter. I find it hard to believe that there are many that do it as creatively as A Lonely Realization does.”

Emily Stone, Lexi Warden & Darby Sherwood in *A Lonely Realization.* Photography by Kirk Hostetter.

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What’s Coming Down the Pipes in 2025!

Helpful Resources

After the election results came in, a fresh crop of help resources also showed up on social media. We consolidated a few of them all in one place, if they might be useful to have on hand as a means of arming yourself with knowledge. Please share others, if you’re aware of them!

What’s Happening for the Holidays!

We’re lucky the Puget Sound region is absolutely RIFE with entertainment all year, and holiday time is no exception! Lots of higher profile things going on, but we thought we’d highlight the holiday panto opening at Centerstage in Federal Way at the end of the month, since not only is it a different offering from the usual Nutcrackers and Christmas Carols, but includes several SGP Associate Artists: Jasmine Flora (Carmilla, Plays in Progress), Meghan Ames, Brad Cerenzia, Mia McGlinn (Carmilla, 2024 New Works Festival) & Carolynne Wilcox (SGP Social Media Coordinator; Various projects).

What is a holiday panto, you ask? It’s a well-loved tradition in the UK with roots in Commedia Dell’Arte. Click here for more extensive information on the form. Generally to be expected are outlandish costumes, broad comedy & song/dance and LOTS of audience participation. It’s definitely an all-ages event the entire family can enjoy. Go check ‘em out!