covid-19: Writing a Zoom play

When Alleyway Theatre put out a call for a digital play, I was gamed. During COVID-19, many theaters are putting out calls for scripts about the pandemic, and have migrated to plays that can be performed by 1 actor or by 2 or 3 who live in the same household and can perform on Zoom with no special lighting, etc.

Alleyway Theatre, though, is re-imagining another form of art—one that can be performed during this or any such situation where stages are closed and no one can go out. I imagine a health pandemic or wartime or the streets are on fire and curfew is at 8:00 pm.

Going digital, Alleyway asks: What “magic” can you employ to use technology to help tell your story in the most successful way? Is it Zoom? Skype? FaceTime? An app? Something else? Is it live? Live to tape? Filmed previously and heavily edited? 

In terms of audience, Alleyway provides questions: Is it interactive? Passive? Zoom fatigue is real.

The best example I've seen in using Zoom as a medium is SNL where a pastor takes us to church but is constantly interrupted by the congregants. However, when he mutes them, he loses call-and-response: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYP1mXqiwqc 

For my new play, When women travel, they take a song, I decided to use the Zoom format. My sense is that in the world of social media such as tiktok, an audience is likely to click through numerous pages until something catches their attention, then they click through many more again. For my play, I create a collage of six stories that encourages the audience to switch their attention throughout the show. The two main characters who open the play are on Zoom, and a futuristic search engine named Athena places other characters in Zoom for the teenage girls to study for their year-end project. 

This is an all-female cast, across generations, ethnicity, time-periods, and sexual orientation. These characters are chosen as they relate to the theme of “women traveling.” The irony, of course, is the lack of traveling as people are stuck in Zoom.

The way I came about this idea, is I first thought about a monologue I had just completed. I have 2 monologues ready for performance, and a 3rd one that I call a “monologue collage” which gives it more texture. As monologues can be performed on stage, I thought about what would drive these to be performed digitally?

Each of the 3 monologues is spoken by a woman over 60. They are of different ethnicities and time periods.

I looked across my other plays for women characters, and found a theme of traveling & song.

Nikki Giovanni’s poem, “Quilting the black-eyed pea” popped into my head: “To successfully go to Mars and back you will need a song…take some Billie Holiday for the sad days and some Charlie Parker for the happy ones but always keep at least one good Spiritual for comfort—”

I took 2 of my teenage characters—a lesbian couple—and placed them at the opening of the play where they’re working on their capstone project based on Giovanni’s poem to finish out their senior year. They’re musicians and have gotten into trouble because they turn all of their school assignments into a concert and have been told “no concert, or they’ll fail the capstone project and won’t graduate.”

Stuck at home during a pandemic, exploring seven traveling women in Zoom for their final high-school assignment, lesbian lovers BHAGYA and CHIUNG-WEI clash over their own plans for the future.

On the way to Mali Street. April 7, 2019

A street sign in Jerusalem: changing the title of a play

I changed the title of Home Economics to A street sign in Jerusalem.

While I thought a major theme in the play was about making a home, during revision after the Zoom reading, I realized the script was about not forgetting Gabriel - not forgetting family. Naming a street after someone is certainly a sign about not forgetting the person - in this case, my aunt Mali Spighel who founded AKIM.

With the title Home Economics, I thought I was very clever. That’s the name of a course in school where women learned about cooking and being a homemaker in the old days whereas Doda Mali went to medical school - the only woman in the class - and “economics” meant she constructed her tiny living space into a home & physician’s office with her husband.

"Economics” also meant navigating the move from a hostile country to a new home (Nazi Germany to pre-State Israel), and then finding the means to establish a home for cognitively challenged adults (AKIM).

MALI SPIGHEL

Seven thousand keys for 7000 individuals to live with dignity. This is home economics. If someone were to ask Gabriel why was AKIM founded, he would say, “Because of me.”

The key to the play, however, is “don’t forget”:

MALI SPIGHEL

I instruct my family to not forget Gabi when I’m gone. Sie lieb zum Gabriel. Sie relt zum Gabriel. Be loving to Gabriel. Be nice to Gabriel.

With the title A street sign in Jerusalem we have an object, a place, and curiosity. What sign? Why is it important? What’s the story?

I learned from playwright William F. Mayfield that the title of a play should tell what it’s about, like his play, Harriet Tubman Loved Somebody. With the title, I couldn’t wait to see the production. I met Mr. Mayfield only a few times at a playwrights gathering at Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company. At one of these gatherings, he talked about how to title a play. It’s the only conversation I remember from that day. He must’ve been an incredible mentor. He passed away very young, 62, in 2012.

Thank you, Mr. Mayfield.

Playwright Judy Meiksin standing beneath the street sign in Jerusalem named after Malka (Mali) Spighel. January 30, 2018.