In the OC: Playwrights and Me

This weekend was the 14th Annual Pacific Playwrights Festival held at South Coast Rep. I have been going every year for the past five or six years. I went with my old boss. It was usually this weekend where I let go. I was able to speak my mind and be the smart theatre professional I have always been, but had suppressed. This was also one of the weekends where I could be the me I always suppressed. That usually meant making out with strange boys.

This year I had nothing to hide behind. Nothing I was escaping. I was out of both of those relationships. What could possibly be exciting now? :)

It started when I had arranged for my tickets a couple of weeks ago and my friend Kimberly, who's the festival coordinator, asked if I wanted my badge to say "Playwright." A small thing, but a big thing. Yes, I wanted people to see my name and the word PLAYWRIGHT next to it. It was symbolic that I had taken that part of myself back in the past six months.

So whenever anyone walked up to me, they just treated me like a normal playwright and asked what I was working on. Or my friends and colleagues who knew me in my other capacity expressed their great joy that I was just a playwright again. I wasn't serving anyone else's agenda, there on anyone else's dollar, or representing anyone else but myself. That simple gesture felt remarkable for me as well.

And something amazing happened. I didn't evaporate because I wasn't representing someone else. I could stand in front and nakedly myself without any repercussions. Holy shit! What had I been waiting for?

My friend Elaine said that she felt like she was seeing the real me for the first time. It almost brought her to tears. I have to admit, that I was almost brought to tears as well.

This was the year that I reminded myself and the world that I am a playwright. I was a finalist this year for the O'Neill Playwrights Conference with a play that I had written years ago but never submitted. And this year, I caught up with my friend Casey, who has been chatting with me about the new play I'm currently writing. And she's been making it a part of her agenda to get a workshop for this new play together - at one of two theatres in LA. I didn't have to beg, borrow and steal. She was moved by my words and by me as a person enough to make time to make this workshop happen.

It's a play I'm so excited about. A triptych - as my friend Krista reminded me of at brunch today. That sounds so smart and artsy. But guess what? I am smart and artsy.

I had a great day today. Just being myself. The artist. And not wincing or falling away from that or shying away. Just being the artist. In the middle of beautiful sunny California.