Songs For The Struggling Artist

One thing I’ve always been mildly obsessed with has been creating a body of work. It’s an odd thing for a theatre person – given that the art form is so deeply enmeshed in the present and is mostly ephemeral – but I’ve been concerned with it for as long as I can remember. I think I only started to understand how unusual it was in recent years, while looking at other theatre company’s websites. They will often only feature their current show – with no information or photos or descriptions of shows past. This is usually what I’m interested in seeing so I notice its absence – but I think I may be alone in this interest in a theatre’s (or artist’s) history. To read more of A Body of Work visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. This is Episode 271 Song: Walk Around - Bright Red Boots Image - my company's Body of Work To support this podcast: Give it 5 stars in Apple Podcasts. Write a nice review! Rate it wherever you listen or via: https://ratethispodcast.com/strugglingartist Join my mailing list: www.emil

In response to my post about the $5k arts grant, several sweet well-meaning people offered some suggestions for stuff I could do to take advantage of it. There were project suggestions and ideas for ways to game the system. But the parts I can’t stop thinking about are the suggestions that featured “making something” because that “something” is exactly the thing that’s at issue. The art happens in the “something.” That’s the place where the idea happens. Deciding what the “something” will be is the hard part. If you have a good something – a lot of things can start to fall into place. But finding a good “something” is not easy. To keep reading Making "Something" visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. This is Episode 270 Song: Something in the Way She Moves Image by 41330 via Pixabay To support this podcast: Give it 5 stars in Apple Podcasts. Write a nice review! Rate it wherever you listen or via: https://ratethispodcast.com/strugglingartist Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/ Like the b

All day, it had been threatening to rain but we decided to risk it and go to the park to see the opera performance. Neither of us had seen a show in person since the shut down so it felt like a big event. We showed our vaccine passports at the vaccine entrance of the Bryant Park lawn and were directed to the folding chairs and tables we could take and place anywhere in the area. There was a cordoned off section way at the back for the socially distanced chairs set up for the non-vaccinated. (This event, btw, was the first time I got to show my vaccine passport. I was so excited.) We found a table and settled in. Almost immediately, we were reminded of what New York audiences for free stuff are like. (Very annoying – there’s always some intense rule enforcer who’ll enforce rules that don’t even exist.) Several people asked if we were using our table and were miffed when we said yes, despite the fact that were many freely available scattered around the edges of the lawn. There was a family in a line in front of

We had a hopeful politician come to our door, campaigning, and so we asked her about what she’d do for the arts. She said she understood the value of the arts, that they kept kids out of trouble, the way sports had for her as a kid so she supports them. It’s a sweet story, really. I enjoyed that story and I like this politician a lot but I hate this reasoning. First, supporting arts programs for kids is not supporting the Arts. It’s great and I spent many years in those trenches but Arts Education is not the entirely of The Arts. This is a common conflation, though – and artists do it as much as anyone, usually when they’re trying to raise money for an arts program. To keep reading The Arts Save the Children visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.  This is Episode 268 Song: Pie in the Sky by Joe Hill Image: The Startled Swarm by Peter Newell via Old Book Illustrations To support this podcast: Give it 5 stars in Apple Podcasts. Write a nice review! Rate it wherever you listen or via: https://rate

You know how certain roads just seem to be extra dangerous? At some intersections, you see heaps of flowers and other tributes to people who were lost there. Governments attempt to put up traffic lights or stop signs but some of those intersections are just relentlessly dangerous. The places where patriarchy meets capitalism are like that, metaphorically speaking and they seem particularly dangerous for Gen X men. The day I watched the memorial service for my Gen X actor friend, I also saw an obituary for a Gen X visual artist. Both of these tributes paid homage to the generosity of their artistry, the dedication to their crafts and both seemed to suggest that these men just never really figured out a way to effectively make decent money. To keep reading The Intersection of Capitalism and Patriarchy Is a Killer visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.  This is Episode 267 Song: Joni Mitchell's Trouble Child  Image by Paultristis via Wikicommons To support this podcast: Give it 5 stars in App

During my first post-vaccine trip away, I heard a few people talking about their positive experiences of the pandemic. One said, joyously, “There’s really a silver lining to all this!” I think she was talking about having time in her garden or space to be with her family but I can’t remember because my brain melted down in that moment. I don’t mean to imply that someone couldn’t have positive experiences of the pandemic or experience things as a silver lining. I don’t even mean to suggest that one can’t talk about the positive aspects one might have enjoyed. But it might be important to keep in mind that everyone has had every different pandemics and there are a lot of people for whom there was no silver lining or there is no silver lining and there is unlikely to be a silver lining before this is over over over. If you would like to keep reading I'm Going to Have to Ask You to Not Silver Lining This visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.  This is Episode 266  Song: Tori Amos' A Sorta Fairy

Look – I know I’m the kind of person that the guys who make Mythic Quest like to piss off. They’re out here making things, hoping they’ll do something to make me angry. I don’t know if they’ve ever said this out loud but it feels like their ethos is, “If I’m not making feminists mad, I’m not doing my job.” I know the type. I can tell when I’m being baited. So good job, dudes. You did it. Bait taken. I started watching Mythic Quest after I read several heartfelt reviews of it and I realized that my complimentary subscription to Apple TV was about to expire. I figured I’d see what all the fuss was about, having been assured that one needn’t be a hard core gamer to enjoy it. Season One was a delight. The quarantine episode was touching. The stand alone episode about an entirely different game than the one the series about was innovative and like a short story in the middle of a wacky TV novel. They got me to like these people in Season 1 and then they started throwing punches. To keep reading "Trying to Help Wom

A day after applications opened, the email notifications of the grant’s existence came out. After a lot of hype, the City Corp Arts Grants applications were live! I waited until midnight to look at the tab I’d left open all day. I confess I didn’t have high hopes for it. But around midnight, I finally got the will to check it out. When I finally understood what its parameters were, I cursed and shut it all down again. There was no way I could do what it was asking. Another opportunity that I was just too uninspired to take on. Sigh. I’ve been here before. Ah well. But then we started talking about this “opportunity” and I started to realize what a mess it was. It’s not that I’m uninspired. It’s that this grant is ridiculous. First – it’s been billed as a way to support artists after a devastating year with no support and, for performing artists, having our entire field shut down. It’s been pitched as a parcel of funds to help counteract the losses we endured. It is $5000 for 3000 individual artists. That’s ni

We were watching the 4th Season of The Expanse – a show that takes place in the future where a lot of stuff happens in space. (We call it Space Stress – as in “You up for watching some Space Stress?”) The woman in charge of Earth was on a space shuttle talking with a man who seemed to be an advisor of some sort – maybe a vice president or secretary of education? “Who’s that guy?” we asked, since we’d never seen him before. Then the woman in charge of Earth (Chrisjen Avasarala is the character’s name.) introduced him to someone as her husband and we were, like, “What happened to her previous husband? Did he die? Have we taken a dramatic jump forward in time? Has so much time passed that her sweet husband died and she had time to remarry a younger busybody one?” If you'd like to keep reading Actors Are Not So Replaceable visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.  This is Episode 263 Song: Who's That Girl?  Image by qimono via Pixabay - though the text overlay is mine To support this podcast: Giv

When I was in grad school, I brought the guest director from England to see a Moliere piece made by Theatre de la Jeune Lune, on tour from Minneapolis. I’d seen Jeune Lune’s work in their home when I was on tour and fell in love with their production of The Kitchen. If you saw this production you’ll know why. (Plates!) So I knew this visiting director would find something of interest in their Moliere piece. She was very impressed and we talked about that production a lot, even later that year, when I came to assist her on a production in London. Not long after that, Jeune Lune, after thirty years of innovative work, had to close. Word on the street was that financial troubles had sunk them and they had to disband. Every time I saw this director I’d brought to the show after that, she’d ask me, “Darling, how could this happen? How could they let this wonderful company die? What is wrong in your country that they don’t know they need to take care of extraordinary artists like that?” She was greatly troubled by

In college, we made a show called Roar! The Women’s Thing! Live Girls On Stage! which I started thinking about after reading Fleishman Is in Trouble. I was just going to write a quick little review of Fleishman Is in Trouble for Goodreads but then I started thinking of that show and what we were trying to do with it, which was going to need some explaining, and then I started thinking more about the novel, which began to make me mad and voila! – blog post. To keep reading Tricksy Feminists, visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. This is Episode 261 Song: Famous Last Words of a Fool  To support this podcast: Give it 5 stars in Apple Podcasts. Write a nice review! Rate it wherever you listen or via: https://ratethispodcast.com/strugglingartist Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/ Like the blog/show on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SongsfortheStrugglingArtist/ Support me on Patreon: www.patreon.com/emilyrdavis Or buy me a coffee on Kofi: http://ko-fi.com/emilyrainbowdavis or PayPal

When I started watching the Mexican TV show, House of Flowers, I was immediately struck by this one character’s way of speaking. She spoke so slowly and strangely, I thought maybe the actor was a non-native speaker – which would have been odd for a show about a family. I was so curious about this actor’s voice, I looked her up and discovered that, no, in fact, she is Mexican – though she trained in the US and worked at Steppenwolf, no less. I had no explanation for this voice but I was still intrigued. Then a few episodes in, I had another question about this show, so I looked it up on Wikipedia and suddenly discovered that this character’s voice was a phenomenon. It had captivated people around the world and even become a social media viral sensation. To read more of Paulina Forgot to Cancel the Mariachi visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.  This is Episode 260 Song: La Gata Bajo la Lluvia (The Cat in the Rain)  La Casa de las Flores (House of Flowers) lines featuring Cecilia Suarez' Pau

While she attempted to scrape the anti-theft sticker off my shampoo, the cashier at my pharmacy told me that there’d been a big shampoo heist. She figured they were selling the expensive stuff for double the price out on the street. Got to watch out for that hot shampoo! But I get it – the expensive stuff is very expensive and worth it, unfortunately. I asked her if they’d also had a toothpaste heist because I’d noticed that they’d locked up all the toothpastes. “Oh yeah,” she said, “They hit it hard.” To keep reading They Locked Up the Toothpaste visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. This is Episode 259 Song: Big Rock Candy Mountains  Image from the Federal Art Project via Library of Congress To support this podcast: Give it 5 stars in Apple Podcasts. Write a nice review! Rate it wherever you listen or via: https://ratethispodcast.com/strugglingartist Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/ Like the blog/show on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SongsfortheStrugglingArtist/ Support m

There’s a Reddit question I can’t stop thinking about in which someone wanted to know what life was like in the 20th Century because they were born at the top of the 21st and couldn’t imagine it. They particularly couldn’t imagine life without the internet. They asked those of us who’d been around for the previous century if we would go back to the way things were before. Would I? Would I give up the internet and my mobile phone? Would I surrender my laptop? Sometimes I think I would. I started writing this outdoors at my local coffee shop. Just as I was finding my groove, the woman nearby got on her phone and started talking about her family life very loudly. I would give that up. I really would. People have always talked to one another in coffee shops – but there’s something about the private phone calls in public spaces that I still find jarring, even though they’ve been around for a couple of decades. Would I give up my phone? My text messages? My personal voice mail? To just have a clearer distinction be

Since joining the acting subreddit, I’ve been seeing a lot of posts with a similar theme. They boil down to, “Will X prevent me from having an acting career?” or maybe more accurately, “I’m X or have X or did X. Should I quit acting?” In this equation, let X be a quality or physical attribute or life history. I have such complicated feelings about these posts, mostly from young actors looking ahead at a possible professional life in acting. Because on one hand, yes. You should absolutely quit acting and do something else if that’s an option for you. Absolutely you should, if you’re looking for conventional success, run in the opposite direction of an actor’s life. No question. To keep reading Should I Quit Acting Because of X? visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.  This is Episode 257 Song: Reasons to Quit (Merle Haggard)  Image via Pixabay  To support this podcast: Give it 5 stars in Apple Podcasts. Write a nice review! Rate it wherever you listen or via: https://ratethispodcast.com

In 1997, I was touring the country with a Shakespeare company. There were 8 men and 4 women in our troupe and because of that gender imbalance, it felt a little like living in a fraternity. For a life-long feminist like myself, it was a pretty big challenge. I mostly stayed quiet and kept my feminist killjoy thoughts to myself. I’m thinking about this today after reading Lindy West’s essay about the South Park guys. She’s a bit younger than I am so South Park was a thing she grew up with and a show that had a particular kind of impact on her generation. I was introduced to South Park while I was on tour with the fellas in 1997. It was a video cassette of a short cartoon that somebody had gotten from somebody and we watched it on the company VCR. It was this underground, almost contraband, video. To keep reading South Park World visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.  This is Episode 256 Song: Ani DiFranco's Not a Pretty Girl Image by CoasterLover1994 via Wikicommons To support this podcast: Give

As you may remember, a short while ago, I was real mad about Kiss Me, Kate when I found out it had been written by a woman but not credited to her as a sole author, even though she was the sole author. Then I learned about the authorship of Curious George. Curious freakin’ George, the kid’s book about the curious monkey. You know you read it as a child. It is one of the most popular children’s books in history. Classic! (Also, problematic and possibly racist – sorry!) And now tell me who wrote it. Your answers will vary according to when you read it. If you read it before or when I did then, like me, you will say, H.A. Rey. Were there photos of him on the back flap to suggest he was like the man in the yellow hat from the book? If there weren’t, I made some some up – because I definitely knew that the author of Curious George was a man. Surprise! It was a couple. To keep reading And Now I'm Mad About Curious George, visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. This is Episode 255 Image by Susan Sterner via

Listening to Laraine Newman talking about her pre-SNL days made me think about all the stars that had to align to give her the extraordinary life and career she’s had. The one that popped out for me was this quality in her youth of just messing around – just trying stuff out. She never took aim at something and strapped herself onto a rocket, she just tried stuff out, followed what she liked. Her sister was a folk singer. She followed her into the arts. Her sister did improv which Newman found that she liked so she stumbled into co-founding The Groundlings – a company that is now foundational for American comedy. Lorne Michaels came to see The Groundlings so then she stumbled into Lily Tomlin’s show, then Saturday Night Live Stuff just happened for her. And surely it still might work that way for some people but these days, for most – just stumbling into things is entirely beyond reach. This is because a) the bar is so high b) the competition is so fierce and c) everything is so expensive. To keep reading The

It started when A texted me to tell me about the National Theatre’s production of Jane Eyre that was available on the internet for the week. “LOL,” I said, “I’m in the middle of watching it RIGHT NOW.” And we had a fun little text exchange about our favorite moments in the show. We decided to watch the next one “together” via text and before we knew it, we had a tradition of watching some kind of performance once a week. It has been one of the few things I’ve found genuinely sustaining in these Covid times. To keep reading A Performance Once a Week visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.  This is Episode 253 Song: Patty Griffin's Mad Mission Image via the NYPL Digital Collection To support this podcast: Give it 5 stars in Apple Podcasts. Write a nice review! Rate it wherever you listen or via: https://ratethispodcast.com/strugglingartist Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/ Like the blog/show on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SongsfortheStrugglingArtist/ Support me on Patreon: www

Hey artists of New York! Have you had a rough year? Did the pandemic kick your ass all the way down the road? Well – have no fear, the city of New York tweeted out that the Arts Are Coming Back Strong so whatever you’re feeling about things, forget about it because the city of New York thinks we’re doing great! This tweet also linked to an article about a Broadway vaccine center run by a stage manager so…I guess we’re supposed to think that having a theatre-specific vaccine center is supposed to mean the Arts are doing great? They’re not. The Arts are coming back limping, maimed, much diminished, ill and incredibly demoralized. To say The Arts are coming back strong is to say a thing we might wish were true but is not, by any stretch of the imagination. In order for the Arts to come back strong now, someone would have needed to have done something in the past. We would have needed a bit more support than a few ad hoc emergency fund grants. To keep reading Arts "Coming Back Strong" visit the Songs for the Stru