Yeah, no. My conversation with Don was the opposite of that. It’s not that Don speaks in complete sentences. He speaks in complete paragraphs. Complete, incisive, well-thought-out paragraphs. We talked for over two hours. During that time, he might have said “like” and “you know” once each. Tops.

Oh, and in the interest of full disclosure—

Yes, that is a phrase I have wanted to use for many years. This is my first opportunity to employ it in print. Proving, once again, that it is never too late…

So, full disclosure: Don is a relatively new and, in short order, treasured friend of mine. I met him at a reading. It was rapidly clear that he is smart and warm and funny. I subsequently read and reviewed his memoir, Bent But Not Broken. As you can see, I loved it:

https://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/book-review/bent-not-broken

From reading Don’s work, I knew that he is tremendously talented. And so I’d like to take this opportunity to officially announce my candidacy for president of the Don Cummings: The Man and The Man’s Writing Fan Club.

Y’all better vote for me after you read this essay. Because, seriously, who’s gonna do a better job?

The catalyst for this particular lunch Don and I had was the world premiere of Don’s play, The Water Tribe, a joint production of VS. Theatre Company and Ensemble Studio Theatre/LA at VS. Theatre, 5453 West Pico Blvd. in Los Angeles. Previews are on January 10, 11, 12, and it opens Friday, January 17, with performances Fridays and Saturdays at 8, Sundays at 2, through February 9, 2020.

I’ve read the play. Are you surprised to hear that I loved it? I can’t wait to see it performed. And if you’re in the L.A. area, you shouldn’t miss it. Tickets are available at: https://dime.io/events/the-water-tribe.

A bit of background on Don before I get to the substance of our discussion. He was born in Bronxville and grew up in Suffern, both in the Great State of New York. He attended Tufts University and spent a semester in college studying in Paris. Right after college, Don went to the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre in New York City for two years to study acting with Sanford Meisner.

Don and his husband Adam Waring, a TV writer and entertainment exec, are “annoying Francophiles.” With their poodle/bichon Maude, they live “on the edge of Hollywood, just south of the border; we can see Hollywood from our window.”

Before I met with Don, I asked our mutual friend Carole Real, a truly wonderful writer, to send me a list of questions she would want to ask a fellow playwright. Her list, as with all her creations, is lovely and inspiring, and it formed the basis, along with my observations from reading The Water Tribe, of my discussion with Don. I am joyously indebted to her. In a word, Carole ROCKS.

Yes, she is so sublimely fabulous, she deserves all caps.

Don and I got together at a restaurant in the Los Feliz section of Los Angeles. The first place we went to had a line out the door for counter service, and we were, like, yeah, fuck this standing around waiting for maybe, what, half an hour bullshit, so we walked across Hillhurst to a place Don knew that I had passed many times but had yet to try, and it’s now one of my favorite restaurants. Lots of vegetarian options. Yay for that.

Other than pausing to tell the charming server that the potato salad was the best I have ever tasted, and that was not hyperbole, we spent just about all our time talking about writing and creating as it pertained to Don’s new play and about writing and creating in general. I recorded Don’s answers, of course, and about halfway through, I told him that the transcript of his words should be the foundation of a book or the outline for a master class on plays, writing, and storytelling.

That was not hyperbole. I typed his answers and I sent them to Don as is. I hope he takes my suggestion and shares them with the world in some fuller form. If he does, I expect my name to be listed first in the Acknowledgements section.

Don told me what his impetus was for writing The Water Tribe. As you can imagine, water and tribes figure prominently in the story. Each of those words is significant for Don as the conjurer of this tale. A big part of the motivation began on a trip with Adam:

“When we were in Africa, I was really moved by the pain of this woman in this Maasai tribe, and she really kept staring at me and it was more than just interest. I decided, I don’t know if it’s true, but I decided that she wanted out of there and it was really very upsetting.

And I don’t know if I’m exactly an atheist and I’m also against a lot of organized groups in general, so I really wanted to write the play that was almost like a Bernard Shaw play, to prove that tribes are terrible, and how everything about them is oppressive and horrible.

And then I read about it, and if people are not in tribes, they will die.”

As a side note: I’m a very social person, and I also need lots of chances to be alone. I think that puts me into the category of “extroverted introvert,” no? I share Don’s skepticism about group thinking. And I found myself wide-eyed and nodding with recognition when Don spoke of the vital need to be part of a community. It’s one of the reasons I’m a proud Democrat (well, specifically a Femocrat); I believe we rise and fall together.

Regarding the significance of water in this story:

“The water actually came from the Flint, Michigan thing. Did you know that Flint, Michigan is the tip of the iceberg?

There are hundreds and hundreds of municipalities in the United States that do not have drinking water; Newark, tons of places in western Pennsylvania, everywhere.

Obviously the people in Africa have a lot of problems with that. And the women. They get raped because they’re on their way five kilometers back to their place when they go to get water and it’s very unsafe.”

Because virtually every activity has its hard parts and its easier parts, Don discussed the easiest aspects and the hardest challenges of writing The Water Tribe:

“The easiest thing was knowing who the characters were. That came to me effortlessly. I knew the number of characters. I knew I wanted a young couple and then there needed to be some foils, and that all came to me and it was pretty easy.

The hardest part about writing this play, and it’s the hardest part I have with every play, is not knowing when it’s done. I don’t mind editing and killing my darlings, that’s fine, but it was knowing which things to kill. And there was some stuff in this play, about four or five items that were going on, that are just gone. And I would say the hardest part wasn’t removing them, the hardest part was gaining awareness that they needed to be removed. And without the help of others, I would not have known it.”

Don spoke of where he would like to see the play go after the premiere at VS. Theatre, and that included the play staying in southern California “at the Taper or the Geffen or South Coast Rep,” and a regional theater life with other companies performing it.

And then he got me teary when he told me what he would like audiences to take away from his play, and so I want to quote his response in full:

“I’m not going to answer this with a particular response to what the story is, not about what people think happens.

This is so general, but that’s okay; I hope that people will listen to each other, in general listen to other people, with a more compassionate understanding that everyone struggles. That’s what I want. That’s it.”

May I echo Don’s lovely wish; now more than ever…compassion, understanding, kindness.

I told Don that among the many things that struck me in reading The Water Tribe are his creation and expression of the protagonist, a woman. I confessed that I didn’t think I could do an honorable job of giving voice to a male protagonist in my comedic novels. Don explained his process in creating Claudia, the character who is the focus of his play:

“I have a lot of strong, amazing women that I grew up with, so I’m used to having that around me. Part of the reason why I became a playwright was because I was an actor. And part of being an actor is that you’re constantly putting yourself in the shoes of others, so it wasn’t that hard for me.

I’ve always had a ton of female friends, so I don’t even really exactly understand this drastic line between the two emotionally. I don’t feel distant from women, so I feel that I understand them, and the truth is the lead character’s emotional life is based on my emotional life. Of course it has changed and it’s fiction, but the feeling of fear of abandonment and being not connected to others is something I feel. And so it’s universal, and if it’s a man or a woman, it doesn’t make a difference.”

Don and I also talked about playwriting in general, including the play he would pick if the world were to suddenly spin off its axis and he were only able to see one work again for the rest of his life:

“I would want to see The Three Sisters over and over again. I want it to constantly change, and I want it to not only change in casting, but I want it to constantly change in style, because for me it’s kind of a perfect play. It’s probably the play that I’ve read the most.

That play, Burn This, and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? are probably the three plays I’ve read the most. But if I was in some kind of purgatory and I could just see one of them over and over again, I think The Three Sisters has the biggest world and the most room for variation.”

I asked Don if playwrights are ever satisfied with their plays:

“I’m going to go in the opposite direction. I think most playwrights always find something they think they could do better, something could be better, this and that. I am not that person because I like to move on to the next thing. And actually the truth is I’m usually more satisfied. I feel that my job is to make sure the stuff on the page is correct for me, and I have not been in a situation where I’ve had plays and I feel like they need to be drastically changed, because I do work on them for a long time before they’re up on their feet. Some painters have the attitude, oh, I want to go back and retouch a little thing, or there are novelists who, even when their novel is published, not only do they want to change it, but they actually sit around and do. They take their published manuscript and start tinkering with it. To me, that’s nuts. I like to move on, so I’m actually usually pretty satisfied.”

Before we left the restaurant, Don on his way to pick up something called a “jigsaw” (which is not, as I assumed, a puzzle, but, apparently, an important tool in creating a stage set) in the Valley because he is doing whatever needs to be done to get the show on, and me to a quick stop at a pet store to buy yet another cozy bed for our three rescued senior dogs, which I would then awkwardly carry the two-mile walk back to my house because I may be an Angelina but I’m also, once and forever, a New Yorker and I don’t need no stinkin’ car to cover a distance of 40 short NYC blocks on a gorgeous day, I asked Don who he’d like to thank for this production opportunity. I’m going to quote him in full again, because if Don considers these people worthy of thanks, so do I and, in addition, I really appreciate the values and sentiments Don highlights via the words he chooses to express his gratitude:

“I really want to thank Ensemble Studio Theatre/LA, especially for the development process. Without the playwrights unit, this play would not be as good as it is, so that’s really number one.

I have to thank Johnny Clark for the space over at VS. Theatre Company. He’s always been a big supporter of my work and we were always talking about the day when we could do something together, and this is the one. So I’m glad that in an industry where people can just say things and not mean them, he’s a great guy, he’s of his word, and at VS. Theatre Company a lot of risk-taking wonderful new work happens. It’s a great place. I’m really grateful to be a part of it at all.

And I have to thank Crystal Jackson and Lizzy Ross, my co-producers, who are organizing everything. A big thanks has to go to Tricia Small. Tricia Small is a tireless, super creative director who has this incredible ability to not only work well with actors, but is excited by design and the physical elements. A lot of directors are good at one or the other. She really does it all. She’s willing to roll up her sleeves and push her resources and her list of people who can help, including Adam Glover, Tyler Matthew Burk, and Shara Abvabi, all deep creatives. She did all that and more. I am super, super grateful.

And lastly my cast, Hannah Prichard, Christopher Reiling, Jayne Taini, Jon Gentry, and Alexandra Daniels. They’re having a great time, and, yes, I’m grateful that they’re doing it, but I’m also really grateful that they formed a family and are having a good time.”

And now, having read this (and having voted for me for Don’s Fan Club president…), I’ll bet you know who I want to thank, right? Don. For his words, his work, his warmth, his wisdom, his winning ways, his tolerance of my excessive love of alliteration.

If anyone’s looking for me on opening night of The Water Tribe, I’ll be that person sitting in an aisle seat desperately trying to dab at her tears – of laughter and of heartbreak – before they make her mascara run down her face…

The post IN A FREEWHEELING CONVERSATION WITH PLAYWRIGHT/WRITER/ACTOR DON CUMMINGS… appeared first on Heidi Mastrogiovanni.

It was such a joy get on my soapbox in this fabulous forum!  My great thanks to the Curmudgeon for inviting me to vent!  Enjoy!

https://www.theweeklycurmudgeon.com/single-post/2019/03/25/Guest-Curmudgeon-The-Evil-Is?utm_campaign=051c9316-79e1-4c37-af85-089bcd16830d&utm_source=so

The post I was a Guest Curmudgeon!! appeared first on Heidi Mastrogiovanni.

http://www.mandiem.com/bold-moves-podcast-episode-205-heidi-mastrogiovanni/

And please enjoy my Fearless Fridays Challenge; I want to send extra thanks to Mandie for the lovely idea of encouraging people through her Fearless Fridays Challenges!

http://www.mandiem.com/bold-moves-podcast-episode-206-fearless-fridays-103-heidis-challenge/

The post MANDIE BRICE IS MY BOLD MOVES GURU, AND I LOVED BEING A GUEST ON HER FABULOUS SHOW! appeared first on Heidi Mastrogiovanni.

I moved to Manhattan at a time when you could actually find a one-bedroom for considerably less than $3,000 in monthly rent.  And I lived in the City (THE City) in various apartments for sixteen glorious years. Then I moved to Los Angeles, where I have lived for the past twenty-two years, and from where I never intend to move. Never. Not ever. Ever.

Herewith, a few very random thoughts on the Big Apple and the Big Orange (this is an actual nickname for L.A.; I looked it up). All opinions expressed are my own. Like I needed to tell you that.

And no disrespect to the four other boroughs, but when I write “New York,” I’m always referring to the Glorious and Incomparable Island of Manhattan (which is, I believe, the official name given to that magical place by the British when they took it from the Dutch…or something like that…).

New York is the best city in the world.

Los Angeles is the best city in the world.

These two statements are not contradictory. No need to try to disprove my point by schooling me on the definition of “best.”  I know what “best” means. And I’m also old enough to have learned that stuff can be true without meeting the strictest standards of definition. Some stuff is true just ‘cause it’s true.

People will live in spaces in New York that no reasonable person would ever define as an “apartment.” Because it’s in New York. I lived in a fifth floor walk-up with the bathtub in the kitchen. Because it was cheap and it was within walking distance of Bloomingdale’s. And I loved every minute of it.  Except for the times when the cockroaches ran across the floor while I was rinsing off with the hand-held showerhead. And, P.S., try schlepping bags of groceries up five flights of stairs. But I did it all…because I was in Manhattan.

The weather in L.A. is brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. The first months I lived here, I was missing New York something wicked.  And then it was February, and I was walking along the beach in Malibu in shorts. And I remember thinking, yeah, I can live here…

L.A. pretty much has anything you can get in New York. We have theater. We have museums. We even have good Chinese food and good pizza and good bagels. They are just WAY more scarce than they are in New York, so you have to hunt for them, as opposed to finding them on each and every block.

New York has great beaches, and they’re as lovely as the fabulous beaches in Southern California. Granted, I’m not strictly talking about the Island of Manhattan here… I’m referring to Montauk, on the tip of Long Island. Go there and tell me the beaches aren’t gorgeous. Go ahead, I dare you. I’m already calling bullshit on that if you even try to tell me, so maybe don’t waste your breath…

Central Park is brilliant. Can you imagine New York without Central Park? No, don’t even go there; it’s too distressing…

The Hollywood Bowl is brilliant, but getting to it can be a huge pain in the ass. Don’t let that discourage you, though. It’s a must-see/hear location.

People do walk in L.A. I’m one of those people. I love walking in L.A., as much as I love walking in New York. Once, when I was living in West Hollywood, I took a delightful half-hour walk to my dentist’s office in Beverly Hills. Upon entering the office, the office manager must have noticed that I was a little schvitzy. She asked me what was wrong, and I told her absolutely nothing was wrong, I had just had a lovely walk to the office. She knew where I lived. Her eyes got huge, and she gasped, “But you live in West Hollywood! That’s impossible!” This is the very reason why people write disingenuous pop songs about nobody walking in L.A.

Hiking in L.A. can be utterly fabulous. You can hike up to the Hollywood sign. And you should and must.

New York has it way over us in terms of history. Walk in the Financial District in New York and see where President Washington was inaugurated for the first time. We have nothing like that here. We think it’s impressive that El Cholo (a fabulous Mexican restaurant) has been serving food since the 1920s.

L.A. has fabulous Mexican restaurants. New York’s are good, don’t get me wrong. But I don’t know one that’s L.A. good…

I’ve been to vegan restaurants in L.A. and in New York, and there are wonderful options to be found on both coasts, which is a very nice thing, in my forever-less-than-humble opinion.

I still giggle when I think about how narrow the aisles are in grocery stores in Manhattan. And we still don’t have anything to match a bodega here in Los Angeles. Salad bars. I miss easy access to superb salad bars. Here, I have to drive to get to one.  But once you get there, they’re great.

The celebrity sightings are legion in L.A. and in New York. And the show biz atmosphere is lush in both cities. So that particular metropolis-v.-metropolis skirmish is a wash.

Driving in L.A. is nuts. NUTS. Rush hour now lasts from 7:00 to 10:00 in the morning and from 3:00 to 7:00 in the evening. At a minimum. A BARE minimum. And people on the freeways will tailgate you at 80 miles an hour, which is NUTS. Also, just about no one signals when they change lanes in L.A., which is just NUTS. And really irritating.

Nobody drives in Manhattan. Nobody. Why in the hell would you?

It’s actually difficult to get a good dinner in L.A. much past 10:00 p.m. during the week, unless you go to a 24-hour diner.  Which is ridiculous. In New York, you can get food at any hour of the night. I used to order pizza and light beers at 4:00 in the morning. And it was delivered speedily and it was delicious. What’s up with the early-to-bed stuff, L.A.? That’s a question, not a criticism. Okay, it’s kind of a criticism…

When you live in New York or Los Angeles, friends and family from around the world will want to visit you all the time. ALL the time. Because you live in New York or Los Angeles. Who doesn’t want to visit there? So get used to hosting and to playing tour guide. Do it with grace and enthusiasm. You owe it to your city, which has always been so good to you, no?

Getting to LAX is a huge pain in the ass. No one expects to be picked up at JFK when you live in NYC and they want to visit you. Don’t get suckered into picking anyone up at LAX. Bob Hope Airport in Burbank, maybe, but not LAX. That’s what Uber and Lyft are for, for god’s sake.

The main branch of the New York Public Library System, on Fifth Avenue and 42^nd Street (the one with the lions in front; Patience and Fortitude, named by Mayor LaGuardia) is glorious. The main branch of the Los Angeles Public Library System on 5^th Street in downtown Los Angeles (there is, in fact, a downtown in sprawling Los Angeles…don’t ask; it’s weird…) is equally glorious, in a very different way. Visit them both; you won’t be sorry you did.

I do predict, with surpassing affection, that L.A. and NYC will always be in a friendly competition with each other. Because they are the two most fabulous cities in the United States. I’ve never been to Chicago, so no disrespect to the Windy City…

Bottom line? I am convinced that, once a New Yorker, always a New Yorker. And I am also a proud Angelena. I’ll always be in a New York state of mind, and L.A. will always be my lady. I visit the City That Never Sleeps at least once a year, and I live in the City of Flowers and Sunshine (yeah, I know it’s called the City of Angels, but that was too easy; City of Flowers and Sunshine is an actual nickname for L.A.; I looked it up).  Seriously, how lucky am I?

Rhetorical question.

The post Los York and New Angeles – Or, As I Like to Call It, My Adult Life appeared first on Heidi Mastrogiovanni.

You can read Lucy’s post here.

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I have a milestone birthday this year. You know, one with a zero at the end of the number. And that is making me think of my mother. On her 85th birthday, I called her to wish her a happy day. My mother had a very heavy German accent, and she started just about every sentence…be it a declaration or a question…with the monosyllable, “Oh.”

“Mom! Eighty-five!” I said. “That’s amazing!”

“Oh. But I don’t feel eighty-five.”

That statement has stayed with me ever since I first heard it. My mother felt like herself. The number didn’t matter. She was who she was, always. I loved that about her. And I love having inherited that joyous view of life from her.

And as I approach the beginning of a new decade (okay, okay, enough being coy…I’m going to be 60 in October…there I said it!), I feel better than I have ever felt, and I feel more like myself than I have ever felt. And this wonderful Beauty of a Woman Blogfest has inspired me to reflect on a few reasons why that is the case.

Three things immediately came to mind. I had rhinoplasty thirty-five years ago. I had a large Sicilian nose that came from my father’s side of the family. It was the same nose my dad had. That nose looked great on his face. It didn’t fit my face. I was very, very, very self-conscious about it.

A few years after graduating from college, I was going through a bit of a rough period, personally and professionally. And I got the idea in my head that having my nose fixed would make me feel better. My parents were very concerned about me at that point, so they agreed to get me the operation, hoping that it would help lift my spirits.

A wonderful plastic surgeon in New York City, where I lived at the time, was recommended to us. He was such a nice man. He looked at the stark black and white pre-op photograph of my profile, and took a pencil to shade out the big bump and the tip of my nose, which turned downward. The change in the look of the photograph was simple but profound.

“I’m just fixing a mistake that nature made,” the doctor said.

“You’re making me look like me,” I remember saying through a voice that was joyously teary.

I had twilight drugs during the operation. I remember waking up in the middle of it and hearing a grinding sound up and down my nose.

“Yikes,” I remember thinking. “Best to pass out again, pronto.”

After the swelling went down in a few weeks, the results were simple and profound. I felt like myself.

A few years after that, I happened to bump into someone from college on the 86th Street crosstown bus. I hadn’t seen him since graduating, so after catching up, I proudly said, “Notice anything different about me?” He didn’t. My nose job was very subtle from face-on. It was really more in profile that the changes could be seen. He admired my new profile, and then he said, “Gosh, your nose never bothered me.”

Which is a lovely comment. And of course I had to answer, “That’s lovely. And it’s kind of not the point…”

Because my nose really bothered me. I had it changed for myself, and for myself only. I have now had this nose much longer than I had the other one. I really like it. It feels like me.

Another thing I did many years ago that has stayed with me for decades happened a few years before I had my nose job. I had never exercised in college. I walked across campus, but I never went to the gym. It never occurred to me to work out.

When I was in New York, a glib comment by a then-boyfriend that I looked like I was putting on weight got me to go to a gym near my apartment to join. I was so pissed at him for making such a snippy reference to my figure, that I wanted to “show him.”

I’m not quite sure what I meant by “show him.” What I am sure of is that this was a major turning point for me. It happened almost forty years ago. I have worked out regularly since then. It is one of the most consistent things in my life. Because I absolutely love it. I love going to the gym. I love hiking. I love taking long walks. I love keeping moving. It makes me feel joyous and energized and relaxed and it helps me sleep better.

And, finally, the best thing for me about getting older is that I am living my values now more than I ever have before. A very dear friend of mine once said something that I absolutely loved… She commented that if anyone wanted to know who I am, all they would have to do is read my Facebook posts.

I’m rather passionate on Facebook…

I’m passionate about animal rescue and animal welfare. I’m passionate about volunteer work. I’m passionate about being a proud liberal feminist Democrat. I’m passionate about the glory of storytelling. I’m passionate about the Oxford comma. I’m passionate about love and kindness and generosity and my wonderful husband and friends and family. I’m passionate about our three rescued senior dogs, Chester and Maggie and Squeaks. I am passionate about gratitude.

I am now in a place in my life where I have the emotional and financial and physical resources to do what I want, when I want. I am grateful for that beyond the ability of words to describe. When I look in the mirror now, I have the same experience I imagine my mother had when she looked in the mirror, up to her 88th and last birthday. I see myself, agelessly comfortable in my skin.

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