March 1^st – Immaculate Heart High School

If someone were outside the All Girl Immaculate Heart High School gymnasium -which doubles as an auditorium – and heard the cheers – one would assume there was a game going on.  But no.  The girls were cheering at Mary Wollstonecraft, and Sojourner Truth and Frederick Douglass.

It was March 1^st, 2012, the first day of Women’s History Month and I was performing SHE’S HISTORY! The Most Dangerous Women in America, Then And Now… for five hundred and forty fabulous future feminists.

This was my first high school performance and what a way to start Women’s History Month!  The girls were rapt!  Rapt I tell you.  They CHEERED at our first feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft – who wrote our first feminist book – A Vindication Of The Rights Of Woman – or as I like to call it Don’t Punish Me For Having Ovaries!  They loved it when I called Bella Abzug, “a great GREAT Pain In The Ass”!  They screamed with recognition at Sojourner Truth.  And they went a bit crazy when Frederick Douglass came to the SHE’S HISTORY! party.

What a joy and a surprise to get this reaction from high school students. The day before I was working on some promotional materials in my Apple Class.  My tag line is “Why do we know more about Snookie than Abigail Adams?  My trainer – a nice 30ish year old man asked, “who is Abigail Adams”? My heart sank.  The night before I was at Staples printing a photo of me and Gloria Steinem who I got to meet for the second time, and asked the lovely young woman helping me, “Do you know who this is?”  When she said no I said “its Gloria Steinem”!  She had no idea who she was.

Immaculate Heart, private girls Catholic High School in Los Angeles, has a reputation as a rebel school.  No wonder those girls related to SHE’S HISTORY! Afterwards, several of the girls came up to me to tell me how much they enjoyed the show.  One lovely young woman gushed compliments, passionate about her desire to get “more people involved in feminism”.  I almost started crying.  Their very cool teacher Claire told me the school has a fabulous theater department (yay!) and the seniors were all taking AP History (a college prep course) and that is why so many were familiar with the women and story lines in the show. I profile, show slides, tell stories about, humanize and bring to life around 40 fabulous females – each one a rebel and each one deserving of their own show.  I am working on Victoria Woodhull’s – the first woman to run for President in 1872.  I didn’t get to perform her story for the rebels at Immaculate Heart, as I had to cut the show down to fit into their 50-minute schedule.  What a fabulous fifty minutes it was!  As Elizabeth Cady Stanton said to Susan B. Anthony – in a scene from the play -  “I am FIRED ANEW!!!”

Sunday, March 4^th SHE’S HISTORY! Show at The Lounge Theater in Hollywood

I keep a comment book at my performances and ask people to write in it after they see the show.  Here are some of the comments from that performance:

I really enjoyed the show.  Thank you for bringing the voices of the women whose shoulders we stand on. Carol W.

Thank you for an enlightening evening. Kelly G. 6^th Grade Teacher (who later contacted me about bringing the show in to her school but is, sadly, challenged by funding.  This is where the SHE’S HISTORY EDUCATION PROJECT comes in.)

You were awesome.  I am now really interested in Women’s History.  Emma, age 13

Wednesday March 7^th

Drive down from Los Angeles to San Diego for an interview I was lucky to get with the local Fox affiliate XETV-Channel 6, promoting the upcoming San Diego Fundraiser shows for The Women’s Museum of California. It is very exciting. Make all the necessary childcare arrangements, which is always challenging for single working parents, especially during the school week.  And of course, my daughter Ruby’s 15^th birthday is the next day.  Of course.  Luckily, her father is in town visiting/working from London where he lives.  She will be able to stay with him in his hotel.

March is crazy.  I made my own history somehow giving birth to both my girls in March.  (My oldest daughter Rose will celebrate her nineteenth birthday on March 22^nd). And when their father (my ex-husband) comes to town, it gets really complicated and hard on Ruby who feels such conflict – wanting to spend time with her dad (who left in 2009,) while trying to maintain her regular hectic ninth grade schedule of soccer, honors classes, and that all important social life.

Thursday March 8^th My Baby Is Fifteen!

6:45AM

It is Ruby’s birthday and I have a short window of opportunity to wish her a happy one before she goes to school. I am staying at my friend Patty’s house so I whisper my good wishes into the phone feeling terribly guilty. I arrive at the TV studio at 8:30 for the live, five to six minute segment.  This is my first television interview with SHE’S HISTORY! I am in the Green Room chatting with the other guests. When I tell people what I do: “I write and perform about women who make and made history”, I get the same “Ohhhhh.  Wow.  Really.  Huh.  That’s cool” response.  And then conversations ensue about fabulous females stemming from my asking; “do you know who the first woman was who ran for president?” Everyone is always so interested.

The Green Room at XETV-Channel 6

A very young, very blonde, very nice, VERY skinny woman in tight pants and high heels is interviewing me.  We have our little pre-interview.  I was asked to send them a load of info – talking points and photos and such.  She is confident and warm and very interested in the topic.  I just want to feed her. This is my first collaboration with The Women’s Museum Of California, my fiscal sponsor who is based in San Diego.  The two shows I am doing are fundraisers for the museum.  I have been working with the director Ashley Gardner for months now so this whole thing is kinda like our first date.

Doing this interview is actually a terrific opportunity to reach a large audience and I am nervous and excited and of course worried about my hair.  And struck with the irony that it is FOX TV.

So.  We do the interview and it is thrilling to talk about my gals and how they overcame obstacles and fought injustice and they are showing pictures  – look – Victoria Woodhull is on television!  And Elizabeth Cady Stanton! I am telling their stories, and my stories about how my daughters did not seem to realize the significance of Nancy Pelosi’s herstoric acceptance speech as first female Speaker of the House. The five minutes flew by and afterwards some of the television staff stops me to tell me how much they enjoyed the segment. Almost every conversation ends with my favorite comment.  The one I hear ALL THE TIME.  The one that motivates me to keep going when I look at my checkbook:

It is so important what you are doing.

It’s over.  I change back into my comfy clothes; stop at Starbucks and head back up to Los Angeles. My now fifteen-year-old Ruby is spending her birthday night with her dad who takes her and a few friends and one of the parents out to a fancy dinner.  How nice for Ruby.  He has also planned a big party for her in a hotel on the weekend.  I could not afford anything like that.  I have no idea how he can, as he lives in another country, purposefully, making it legally and financially impossible for me to hold him accountable.  When you are divorced with children you are legally (and morally) required to financially disclose your income and expenses – which he refuses to do. Don’t get me started on our family legal system.  All I know is when I asked him to buy our daughter a pair of running shoes, he wouldn’t.  I have been dealing with this with him for years, and yet I am grateful. It is precisely this disgraceful, dysfunctional, pathetically easy to manipulate system, that allows mothers to be screwed, that has led me to the work I am doing with SHE’S HISTORY! I got screwed, I got mad, I got busy.  If you are interested in learning more about this, read the frighteningly enlightening  Mothers On Trial by Dr. Phyllis Chesler – a fabulous female who came to one of my New York shows.

Friday March 9^th

We celebrate my Ruby’s birthday at home with a few friends and a lovely home cooked dinner that she requested.

Sunday March 11^th SHE’S HISTORY! Show at The Lounge Theater in Hollywood

From my comments book:

Very enthralling and energetic! A wonderful way to learn about important, historical women. Kristen & Birgit (a mother and daughter that I spoke with afterwards  in the lobby.  The daughter was home from college for Spring Break and they were having a mother daughter day.  I was so honored!

Brilliant Show.  We loved it. June and Renee

Terrific Show!  Thank you. Bill B

Thank you for the enlightening show.  Better than 20 years of school… Jenny

Wednesday March 14^th Fort Ligget/Hunter Army Base

Drive the 250 miles up the coast to Fort Ligget Army Base to do the show. Arranged for Ruby to stay with our family friends – The Hessells, who live around the corner.  It takes a village and they are part of my village. Finding childcare is always tough during the school week.  Her father could not “take her” as he “had to work”.

Fort Liggett/Hunter is far away in the middle of nowhere near Monterey and San Simeon (where Hearst Castle is) on the central coast of California.   The Army is putting me up in Hacienda House, William Hearst’s vacation house, which he sold to the government. I know all about him and his property and have read about his life – particularly because of Julia Morgan, a fabulous female who was the pioneering architect who designed Hearst Castle and about 700 other buildings. I LOVE this area of California – the central coast.  But am nervous a bit about spending the night on an Army base.  I asked if I could walk around in the evening, and was told there are critters and a local mountain lion!

It is a lovely drive and I took Bruce Springsteen along with me.  The new cd was just released and he kept me great company!  After a bunch of freeways and a long dusty desolate dirt road I arrive at the base.  This is my second time on an Army Base.  This base is absolutely gorgeous, and the property is also open to the general public.  I go through the checkpoints, show my ID and find my way to lovely Hacienda House. I meet the gal who hired me – Sandy – who introduces me to Suzanne, who is in charge of food and accommodations.   I am thrilled when they show me my room, which is a lovely old-fashioned cottage style room, designed by Julia Morgan herself!

The women help me lug my suitcases and we proceed to the room I am performing in and I set everything up for the tech run through.  The walls are lined with photographs of fabulous females.  I feel so at home. I am there to celebrate and honor Women’s History Month under the Special Observances and MWR Umbrella (and budget). MWR stands for Morale, Welfare, Recreation. Suzanne asks me what I would like for dinner.  I am thinking I would like to move in!  After the tech, I get to relax and enjoy the beautiful surroundings.  Suzanne brings me a beautiful meal AND a bottle of chardonnay.  It is wine country.  I spend the evening relaxing INSIDE – and texting photos to my peeps.

Hacienda House

My room is down this walkway and to the left

DINNER!

Thursday March 15^th Show Day!

I had breakfast with a few lovely older women I met in the dining hall.  They were staying at Hacienda House, on a holiday on their way to Hearst Castle down the road.   They all met in a divorce support group many years ago.  When they learned I was the “speaker” that day and what I do, we proceeded to chat about all the fabulous females and how my divorce really inspired the show. One took my card, promising to try and get the show into her daughter’s school in Texas.  “It is so important what you do”, she says.

The show was at 11AM and once again I was honored to perform for the troops.  Afterwards, a woman came up to me with a book in her hand.  Her book that she had written; “Belva Speaks”, about Belva Lockwood, the second woman to run for president and the first woman in America to practice in front of the Supreme Court.  I was blown away to meet this fabulous female and author, Susan M. Raycraft – who loved the show.  She lives a few miles away from the base in Lockwood.  Yes the town she lives in is named after BELVA LOCKWOOD!

I was really happy to see MEN from the military in the audience.

Here are some comments from that performance:

Your presentation was fabulous! I have been to many of these Women’s History Observation events and I must admit, yours is the best!  Thanks so much! Colonel Manaois – 1^st Filipina Graduate of West Point 1986 (a woman)

Fantastic! Great articulation, great emotion – Fun involvement, and a great choice for MWR (Moral, Welfare, Recreation) to obtain your ability. Dee Dee L.

I loved your knowledge, enthusiasm and energy! How could someone not be motivated to think more about what it means to be a woman & all it entails.  Thank you for a wonderful presentation! Paula G.

Looking out at the room from my performance area, waiting for the troops...

Sandy who hired me - and I got a plaque!

Colonel Cranelle A. Manaois

A few men made a point to tell me how surprised they were by how much they enjoyed the show. Ahhhhh.  I packed up; hit the road by 2:15PM with a front seat filled with Suzanne’s yummy goodies (the show was also a brunch) which included quiche, muffins, and fruit.   Hit the Los Angeles traffic around 5PM and made it home by 7:30.

Sunday March 18^th SHE’S HISTORY! Show at The Lounge Theater in Hollywood

Here are some comments from that performance:

Thanks for putting into three lively dimensions the women who I can only pay tribute to in my Facebook History posts! David Dismore – Ms. Magazine

(David has a great Women’s History Facebook Page – check it out)

http://www.facebook.com/Equalitarian

I am so moved and inspired by your words today (and your energy).  Thank you so much for your incredible work regarding women! Gratefully, Judy W.

Terrific show!  I’ve long been interested in women’s history even though I’m male.  Wish it could’ve gone on twice as long with more of your wonderful stories! Kim Fugal

Tuesday March 20^th

Phone Interview With Maureen Cavanaugh of KPBS in support of the Woman’s Museum of California Fundraisers San Diego.  Sorry no link.

Wednesday March 21^st

Interview for Radio Or Not with Nicole Sandler (radioornot.com)

Link Coming…..

Thursday, March 22^nd My Rose’s Birthday!

I can’t believe my oldest is nineteen!  She is away at college but really liked my gifts – a purse and a maxi-dress.

Friday, March 23^rd

I drive down to San Diego for the tech rehearsal for the Saturday and Sunday shows.  (It’s never a good idea to travel on show days.) After the long ride down from Los Angeles, I was rewarded. The museum is awesome!  Fabulous females – dead and alive, surround me!  The very much alive museum director Ashley Gardner greeted me and we hugged.  I am so impressed with the fabulous women’s history space she has nurtured.  Everything looked and felt familiar to me.

The Women's Museum's Ashley Gardner

More Ashley Gardner and The Women's Museum

We traveled together the mile or so for the tech rehearsal to the downtown YWCA where the shows were being held. It is in a gritty part of town and also functions as a safe haven and resource center for abused women and families in crisis. The building is also an historic landmark and so appropriate for the show. We lugged my suitcases in and are joined by two other fabulous females – Carolyn who is on the Board and Kit, a theater maven and an old friend of mine and a new friend of  Ashley.  We all worked together, chatting and bonding and filling the space with loads of fabulous female energy.

Saturday and Sunday March 24^th and 25^th San Diego Women’s Museum of California Shows

Both were great, successful and as usual thrilling for me to perform.  San Diego is a big military and college town and both sectors were represented at the show.

Here are some of the comments from those performances:

I loved it.  As a man, we should all see this show. Damion S.

This was a fantastic performance.  You must pursue your show throughout the country.  The young women of today MUST hear what you say. Good luck!

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Great script  – Fantastic Performance.  Looking forward to your next production! Thanks for bringing this to us here in San Diego. Marti K.

Great Show! You should do a performance at SDSU (San Diego State University).  (I got my minor in Women’s Studies there – one of the 1^st Women’s Studies programs in the country!) Thanks for a great show! Jerrilyn H.

I do all my own producing and promotion – only because I cannot afford a publicist or producer – yet….) and I literally emailed every history and women’s studies professor at SDSC -San Diego State University, and UCSD – University of Southern California at San Diego.  I did not get a single response.

Ready For The Audience

After the second show on Sunday afternoon, I was exhilarated and exhausted.  There is a great deal of physical energy expounded when I do the show.  I travel with a few suitcases, one with the equipment – laptop, projector, speakers, cables, and one with the props and costumes, and then there is my personal stuff.  I am grateful I am healthy and energetic enough to do it but I was wiped out.  And there was a big storm coming.  BIG STORM.  I was hoping to hit the road before it hit me choosing to weather the weather rather than find another night of care for my Ruby.  But the storm and I hit the road together.  It was the scariest drive.  Pelting rain and freeway driving – wow.  I prayed and breathed and went real slow and I made it home.

Wednesday March 28^th

Up at 4AM for a 7AM flight to New York City for the Hunter College Women’s Rights Coalition show and the fundraiser for The Museum of Motherhood.   I ship my costumes in props ahead in a suitcase but carry on my equipment and personal stuff.  Lotsa airport schlepping, but my cousin Julie picked me up at JFK airport – a very rare treat in NYC and we drove to Brooklyn and had fabulous wine and sushi!

I stay with a family friend when in Manhattan (my home town btw).  Muncie is a fabulous female in her 80s, a graphic artist, who introduced my parents to each other.  So she is to blame for a lot. She has a two bedroom apartment that I visited as a child.  I grew up with her two daughters who are  women now, and  – like me – they are in arts and education.  Randi is a visual and performing artist in Florida and Jory is a third grade teacher – in Los Angeles.  She teaches in the same school district my girls attend and her daughter and my daughter Rose both worked on the same school play two years ago! Small funny world.  I had just seen her daughter Randi for the first time in over thirty years!  I performed the show in February for the Women’s Club at my father’s retirement community in Boynton Beach and Randi drove down from Fort Lauderdale to see it.  Muncie  prepared a beautiful meal for me and we dined and hung out and it was terrific.

Thursday March 29th

Jumped through several hoops to schlep all my stuff uptown to the Hunter College East 68^th Street Campus for the tech rehearsal.  I need a roadie…..

Friday March 30^th

The show was at 7PM so I rested all day.  So tempted to take advantage of the city but I have learned I need to be very chill on show days – especially when there is jet lag, different time zones and two shows in a row.  So I rested.   It was such an honor to perform the show (in which Bella Abzug has a nice big part), in Bella Abzug’s alma mater.  What an experience!  After the show I enjoyed an utterly fabulous New York City truly authentic Italian meal.  Ahhhh.

Saturday March 31  LAST SHOW

I took a taxi to The Museum of Motherhood on East 84^th Street.  Created by Joy Rose (visionary, Ubermama and founder also of Mamapalooza) this space is my absolute favorite.  This was my second fundraiser at the museum, which is filled with all of Joy Rose’s amazing, empowering, maternal energy. She has single-handedly imagined and brought to life this museum, which she has kept alive through sheer will. The recipient of many honors, including The Susan B. Anthony Award, she is a trail-blazing pioneering super duper rocking and rolling (she also created her band Housewives On Prozak) fabulous female who – since becoming the mother of three – has devoted her life to honoring motherhood.  I performed my last show of the month at 7PM to a small but appreciative audience, which included my brother and sister and cousin.  And, Lenore DeKoven, another amazing and fabulous female.  A pioneer who was my acting teacher back in the Nineteen-Eighties in New York City, she broke barriers as the first female television director. Lenore DeKoven has produced and directed on both coasts in theatre, film and TV and has been on the film and theatre faculties of UCLA, NYU and Columbia University. She has had two books published: Changing Direction: A Practical Approach to Directing Actors in Film and Theatre, and Twilight Man.  She is also the Artistic Director of Our Workshop East. After directing me as an actress for many years, Lenore has been mentoring me ever since I became a playwright.

Museum Of Motherhood Stage

My Sister and Baby Brother

Lenore!

Joy Rose!

Afterwards, there was wine and cheese and much intellectually and emotionally stimulating conversation about the work Joy and I are doing and the work that needs to be done.  I was elated, exhausted, relieved and oh so happy! And what a treat for me to be with my family, who helped me pack up, loaded my stuff in the car and we drove downtown where we celebrated and reminisced and ATE and DRANK.  I was particularly thrilled to have my little brother (he is forty-eight) see the show.  He is a quintessential New Yorker, a guys guy if ever there was one and into cars and sports and rock and roll. “Yo, sis, dat was good.  I learned a LOTTA stuff I dint know.”

March Mission accomplished!

If someone were outside the All Girl Immaculate Heart High School gymnasium -which doubles as an auditorium – and heard the cheers – one would assume there was a game going on.  But no.  The girls were cheering at Mary Wollstonecraft, and Sojourner Truth and Frederick Douglass.

It was March 1^st, 2012, the first day of Women’s History Month and I was performing SHE’S HISTORY! The Most Dangerous Women in America, Then And Now… for five hundred and forty fabulous future feminists.

This was my first high school performance and what a way to start Women’s History Month!  The girls were rapt!  Rapt I tell you.  They CHEERED at our first feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft – who wrote our first feminist book – A Vindication Of The Rights Of Woman – or as I like to call it Don’t Punish Me For Having Ovaries!  They loved it when I called Bella Abzug, “a great GREAT Pain In The Ass”!  They screamed with recognition at Sojourner Truth.  And they went a bit crazy when Frederick Douglass came to the SHE’S HISTORY! party.

What a joy and a surprise to get this reaction from high school students. The day before I was working on some promotional materials in my Apple Class.  My tag line is “Why do we know more about Snookie than Abigail Adams?  My trainer – a nice 30ish year old man asked, “who is Abigail Adams”? My heart sank.  The night before I was at Staples printing a photo of me and Gloria Steinem (who I got to meet again), and asked the lovely young woman helping me, “Do you know who this is?”  When she said no I said “it’s Gloria Steinem”!  She had no idea who she was.

Immaculate Heart, a private girls Catholic High School in Los Angeles, has a reputation as a rebel school.  No wonder those girls related to SHE’S HISTORY! Afterwards, several of the girls came up to me to tell me how much they enjoyed the show.  One lovely young woman gushed compliments, passionate about her desire to get “more people involved in feminism”.  I almost started crying.  Their very cool teacher Claire told me the school has a fabulous theater department (yay!) and the seniors were all taking AP History (a college prep course) and that is why so many were familiar with the women and story lines in the show. I profile, show slides, tell stories about, humanize and bring to life around 40 fabulous females – each one a rebel and each one deserving of their own show.  I am working on Victoria Woodhull’s – the first woman to run for President in 1872.  I didn’t get to perform her story for the rebels at Immaculate Heart, as I had to cut the show down to fit into their 50-minute schedule.  What a fabulous fifty minutes it was!  As Elizabeth Cady Stanton said to Susan B. Anthony – in a scene from the play -  “I am FIRED ANEW!!!”

Super bowl Sunday left me feeling decidedly hungry for something meaningful and substantive after being fed a steady stream of buy buy buy! The barrage of sexual sexist objectifying commercials left my fourteen-year-old daughter and I disgusted, so I was absolutely thrilled to read a review in the Los Angeles Times about the new Margaret Fuller biop The Lives of Margaret Fuller By Laura Skandera Trombley, Special to the Los Angeles Times February 5, 2012.

I loved the review and cannot wait to read the book and am always delighted to see ANY mention, coverage or acknowledgement of women’s roles, but I took issue with captioning the article First Modern Woman.  Hardly.  One could – and I do – argue that Margaret Brent (1601-1671) the thirty-seven year old never married first woman in America to demand the right to vote (was refused), attorney, property owning, savvy businesswoman to whom Lord Baltimore (Maryland’s Governor) gave the power of attorney on his deathbed – was our first modern woman.  The great Margaret Fuller is just one of the MANY modern woman before us who are unknown and unheralded.   (See Fabulous Female Facts http://sheshistory.com/site/?cat=7)

Fuller was easily one of the most brilliant minds of the nineteenth century, with an Oprah-like influence on women and men. She inspired her colleagues, Oliver Wendell Holmes and Nathaniel Hawthorne to write about HER. One cannot measure the influence she had on The Seneca Falls Convention – the first Women’s Convention – in 1848 including the drafting of the groundbreaking Declaration Of Sentiments.  And her influence on Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony – the greatest unknown partnership in American Women’s History and on feminism in general, is incalculable. But women of the 1600s such as Brent and Anne Hutchinson – called “The Mother of the First Amendment” – who not only stood up to the men in charge but to The Church itself – were radical, independent and challenged authority, making them thoroughly modern women.  Fuller was not the first and not the last.

Amy Simon

Cultural Herstorian

Writer/Performer SHE’S HISTORY! The Most Dangerous Women In America, Then And Now…

(310) 308-0947

Sheshistory.com

A new and dear friend recently took the plunge – for the second time.  He and his new wife met in church and are very spiritual.  I planned to give him a wedding gift of “The Gift Of The Magi” – my favorite O Henry short story, which always symbolized to me what marriage is about; devotion, sacrifice, self-less ness – and – pure love.  It’s set in the early 1900s and is about a newlywed couple. He decides to sell his prized possession – his father’s watch – to buy his wife beautiful combs for her beloved hair.   She decides to cut her hair – her prized possession – and sell it to buy him a beautiful chain for his beloved watch.  This is the gift I gave my husband when I naively and ecstatically married him. 13^th 1991 would have been our twentieth anniversary. He didn’t get O Henry. Another missed cue.

I entered marriage blindly.  My parents were married for over sixty years.  They went through everything and survived.  They fought, they threatened divorce, they were miserable – and happy?  They came out of the Depression and are Jewish so what is happy?   And they just hung in there.  They survived tragedy, job loss, three daughters, women’s lib, and addiction. They did marriage encounter, the enrichment program focusing on each other – which was major.  I am sure it was my mother’s idea.  It was the seventies. My father went through the twelve-step program over forty years ago when I was just in elementary school.  He had a gambling addiction but learned to deal with his feelings – which the recovery process forces you to do (and has not gambled since) so we went to the Gamblers Anonymous family program – and I learned a little about therapy.  I was thirty-seven years old when I met, fell in love with and married my “prince” and thought I was prepared to work on our marriage and never take it for granted. And of course, I thought it would be forever.

But now.  Wow.  Now of course, I see.  What I missed during that dizzying endorphin filled insanely romantic courtship.  Two months after our first date, we attended a wedding and got engaged when I caught the bouquet and he caught the garter. (He was separated from his first wife at the time).  It was a love cloud of ignorance and selective vision.  He was so smart, handsome, charming, British and Jewish.  There were signs, but I didn’t see that he was running away – from his country, his soon-to-be-ex-wife, and his debt.  I believed him when he told me that he was the victim of England’s bad economy and a horrible wife who did not understand him.   I was, like a criminal’s mother, in denial.  MY child/friend/school/government…. would – could NEVER do…. THAT!

Twenty years later, he has done it now in reverse:  Run back to his country and away from his responsibilities – and massive debt – here.

I did not realize the LEGAL implications of marriage.  Really. Of course, HE DID.  HE is a lawyer who knows how to work the system and he is masterful at it.  And the family legal system is so dysfunctional and pathetically easy to manipulate.  I did not understand that we were bound together. Legally.  And of course a year and a half after we married when I gave birth to our first daughter, and three years later to our second, my legal and financial fate was sealed.  Yes, motherhood sealed my financial legal bond with him – according to the court – at least until the children turned eighteen.

So I have thought so much about marriage since my divorce seven years ago.  I hate to watch weddings on TV and am completely conflicted about the institution itself.  Do I believe in it anymore?  I don’t know.  I have many – MANY – unhappily and apathetically married FEMALE friends who I have heard say they could walk away and be OK.  I watched and watch them work and struggle and argue and suffer and weigh the pros and cons of their marriage.  And I am jealous.  But many times I think, “I am SO GLAD I am not married!”

When I think, “I will never have that married forever, intimate, shared historic familial togetherness,” I am so sad.  Especially when I think about the future – looking through rose-colored glasses and seeing; the kids come over with the grandchildren and we all have dinner that I beautifully prepare with fresh herbs from the garden that maybe they planted in the same house they grew up in.  What a lovely fantasy.  And I am so envious at back to school night or a religious event, or a high school soccer game where I see couples that I have known for as long as I have been a mom.  I envy them their togetherness. Then I look again and I wonder:  “Are you happy?  Are you having sex?  Does that matter?  Do you resent and/or appreciate your partner?  Is it a good partnership?  Are you on the same page morally?  Have you grown apart? IS IT WORTH IT?  Do you fantasize (as I did) about leaving your marriage”?  These discontented married and mostly mothers -  woman friends – not all – but enough – are – and have been (as I was) feeling unappreciated, undervalued, lost, unsatisfied, and the BIGGIE – TRAPPED.   Trapped.  Just as Betty Freidan’s wives and mothers felt when she wrote about them in the groundbreaking The Feminine Mystique back in the sixties.   The book came out of writing a magazine article on woman’s roles based on a questionnaire she gave to her sister Smith College graduates at a fifteen-year reunion.  They were not happy.  They felt trapped.   Betty Freidan famously identified it as The problem that has no name.

Well, Victoria Woodhull – the first woman to run for President in 1872 – had MANY names for marriage. Slavery, monarchy, injurious, and the most terrible curse for which humanity now suffers entailing more misery sickness and premature death than all others combined. Ok, that was more than one name.  And she married three times!

And Frances Wright – the first woman to speak in public in 1828 (and got crucified for it) said: Marriage, where the law allows robbery and all but murder against the unhappy female, who swears away, at one and the same moment, her person, and her property, as but is too often, her peace, her honor and her life. She succumbed in her thirties to the marriage myth and married a French man who promptly took her vast fortune and daughter when they divorced.

And Julia Ward Howe – 1860s poet/writer/activist and mother of six who wrote The Battle Hymn of The Republic (for five bucks!) said… Marriage, like death, is a debt we owe to nature, and wrote in her diary that she

had never known her husband to approve of any of the activities that she herself valued. She woulda divorced him but back then would have lost her children.

As a Cultural Herstorian – I could go on.

So does marriage work?  How much do you have to give up?  IS IT WORTH IT – the compromise, sacrifice, constant negotiating?  I LOVE the idea of having a partner.  And I want one.  I am pretty sure I know what it takes and how to be – a good partner.  I was one for thirteen years.   I worked hard.  I kept my vows.  I was a good wife. I have had enough therapy, especially marriage counseling, to know that you have to take the whole package.  Figure out what you can live with, what you need – or as I think of it – pick your pain.

I am leaning toward what Katharine Hepburn said:  Sometimes I wonder if men and women really suit each other.  Perhaps they should live next door and visit now and then. She was the daughter of a suffragist, a great actress and quite the adulteress.

So what to give my friend for a wedding gift?  Oy.  I just cannot decide between “The Gift of The Magi” or a California Pizza Kitchen Gift Certificate.

A MAY ZING 2011
THREE SHOWS THREE DAYS TWO CITIES THREE VENUES
NO ROADIES

Sunday May 22nd
My Sunday morning audience:  Eighty beautifully dressed, red-hatted well-fed, fifty years and older lovely ladies of The Red Hat Society (www.redhatsociety.com). I booked this gig at Sze Chwan – a Chinese Restaurant in the Los Angeles suburb of Canoga Park before I was asked to perform two shows two days later in New York City – my hometown – at the Mama Expo (www.mamaexpo.com) on May 24th.  So.  Sunday morning, I load up the car, journey to “the valley” pull up, unload, am surrounded by a sea of red hats, set up, wait for lunch to be over, do the show (which went really well),

strike the set which includes the slide projector, speakers, costumes, props etcetera, get paid, load up and jump in the car – grab a sandwich and head home.  Unpack, re-pack for the New York shows and get it together.

MONDAY MAY 23rd
Wake up at 4:00AM – get to the airport at 6AM – for a 7:20AM flight – on which I get stuck in the middle seat.  Torture. But.  I am bringing my show to New York.  Wow.   Schlep schlep schlep the projector, speakers, laptop and few personal items that filled to the max the one carry-on bag and one personal item allowed (could not, would not, did not risk checking my bags).  The plan is to arrive at 4:00PM – go straight to the theater for tech rehearsal.  I am sharing the show night and the rehearsal with another play that follows mine, and we’re both on another show’s set.  For the uninformed, tech rehearsals are traditionally hell and this one did not disappoint.  Months of planning, negotiating and scheduling had gone into this one tech rehearsal. I had shipped my suitcase of props and costumes ahead to my friend Tom who kindly agreed to meet me at the theater with my show in a suitcase.  After my $55 cab ride from JFK, I checked in to the Excelsior hotel on West 81st Street (one street down from the apartment I had lived in for 10 years as a struggling actress!) and immediately lugged my suitcase to the Drilling Company Theater on West 78th.  Two long long flights up I enter the really sweet “intimate” theater.  It is perfect.  There’s Tom!  Yay!  There’s my suitcase with the cables and adaptors and costumes and props.  I begin setting up and spend an inordinate amount of time figuring out where the screen goes which determines where everything else on the stage goes – including me! The blessing and curse of running my own show is I am technologically empowered, do not have to train – or pay – anyone – to run the show, which includes about 100 slides.  There are lots of transitions, cues and music, which I run with my remote from the stage – it is truly a one-woman show.  After a very arduous and typically trying tech, we get the screen set up – the stage set up – am finally happy and immediately strike, pack up and schlep the TWO suitcases down the two flights of stairs and back to the hotel.  I am wiped out.  Dead.  And starving.  I need a glass of wine and some carbs.  The concierge suggests an Italian restaurant and after walking around trying to find a less swanky one, I go in and order my wine and pasta and – I am a new woman!  Back to the hotel – call home and get the girls on the phone.  They are three hours behind.  I was concerned because my 18-year-old, Rose, was working at Banana Republic and I hated my 14-year-old Ruby eating and being alone on a school night.  I have never left my girls alone for this long before and although I knew my “village” was right there – I still felt guilty.  Ahhh, the curse of the working mother.  But turns out Rose’s shift was changed and they were together. I am so relieved.

I re-organize all the suitcases for tomorrow’s double-header – the first show is at 11AM at the conference.  What is MamaExpo?

MAMA Expo & M.O.M. Conference: Modern Ambassador for Maternal Advancement. Raising Awareness the Museum Of Motherhood (M.O.M.) and Women, (M)others and Families Everywhere. Empowered by Mamapalooza & hosted by Marymount Manhattan University, New York Parks Dept.

The conference is organized by a magnificent magnet of all things mothers and marvelous – Joy Rose, the founder of Mamapalooza, (www.mamapalooza.com), and The Museum of Motherhood (www.museumofmotherhood.org). “Just get here, I’ll do the rest.” Joy told me back in January, when she asked me to bring SHE’S HISTORY! to the conference.  So there I was – a “presenter” at the three day Conference – right smack in the middle of all these really fascinating and accomplished and cool cool cool women http://www.motherhoodmuseum.org/ConferenceSchedule_11.html AND she got me an evening show the same night.  I got TWO slots at the conference.

TUESDAY MAY 24th
Wake up all excited.  SO excited.  Shower, Pilates, forced some breakfast down and grab the suitcases, a latte, a cab and am on my way to Marymount Manhattan College on East 71st Street.  It is almost 10AM and my cell rings.  It is 7:00AM in L.A. and it is the 18-year old.  “Mom?  I did not sleep – my throat hurts and I’m gonna kill the cat”.  She goes on for a while – I am not focusing as we are nearing the destination.  “Honey, I can’t talk. Gargle with salt and warm water, make the ginger lemon honey drink.   Feel better.”  I feel guilty as I pay the $10 fare.  The helpful young gals at the reception desk have my badge and conference bag and I ask them if they know who the first woman to run for President was.  As usual, no one knows – Geraldine Ferraro’s name is offered and I tell them a bit about the show and am escorted up to the room where I will be presenting.  It is a beautiful room.  There is Joy Rose and six or so other women sitting in a circle.  Their session before mine is still going on and it is the discussion of the ongoing activities and future of The Museum Of Motherhood.  “Come join us” Joy invites me and I can hardly focus on what is a really interesting conversation about the goals and identity and branding of this fabulous museum.  All I can think of is how long it will take me to set up the room. The session ends and I swing into action – setting up the projector, the laptop – the speakers… unpacking the suitcase and setting up the props and costumes.  A nice young college student helps me as does an old friend – Jessica – from my comedy days in NYC who is also in Mamapalooza.  A sociology professor from Hunter College arrives – she is a history buff and feminist and was told about the show.  I greet her.   A few other people show up and there is Joy right in the front row with her phone/camera and beautiful energy.  She introduces me; I take a deep breath and begin.  I love doing the show.  I love watching the audience become entertained and moved and engaged and surprised by all the information and stories.  When I finish, they applaud loud and long and we have a Q&A where older women (pioneers) in the audience typically tell me of the gender discrimination they faced in their lives and brag of their accomplishments and I am once again reminded of why I go to all this trouble.

But – no time for glory basking.  Must turn the room over, so while Joy gets us lunch, I unplug, strike, and pack up, all the while trying to chat with the Hunter College professor who is blown away and keeps telling me what a wonderful teacher I am and that “your performance was an example of creative teaching at its best.”   I am so moved.  We talk about Sojourner Truth (who of course is in the show) and the power of theater.  I feel like I always do after a performance of SHE’S HISTORY!   So high.  So so high.  There is no drug like post performance.

Joy returns and we sit with her conference partner – Lynne – another fabulous female and we talk about how exhausted we are and how fabulous but ambitiously planned and amazingly executed the conference turned out to be.  A beautiful colorfully dressed woman comes in and Joy introduces us.  She is Barbara Glickstein – one of the next presenters.  (Barbara is an RN, MPH, MS, Co-Director of the Center for Health, Media and Policy at Hunter College, a public health nurse, broadcast journalist and global activist).  Joy tells her about SHE’S HISTORY! and when asked which women are in my show (there are about 30) I hand her my playbill.  “Oh”, she says, perusing it.  “Lucretia Mott.  I know her great-great-great-granddaughter” and proceeds to tell me about the yardstick that Lucretia’s father – Thomas Coffin – used to measure cloth.  I am now literally hyperventilating as I ask, “does she live here?” And the next thing I know she promises to try and e-connect us.

Time to go – grab another cab back to the hotel where I return calls, check emails, and actually rest for the two hours until the next show.  I refuel with the help of Starbucks and schlep schlep over to The Drilling Company Theater.  It is 6PM.   Lug lug up the two long flights and no one is in the theater.  Yay!  I set up in silence, happy for the peace and focus.  After a bit I am joined by the owner, Hamilton Clancy, and two theater lovers bond.  Then Joy and Lynne arrive with the wine and cheese.  Sebastian – who is running the lights – arrives and we go over my opening cue.  The audience is now squeezing into the teeny tiny lobby. Space in New York City is the ultimate commodity.   It is 6:40 and I am ready. We need to open the house.   In my Bella Abzug costume, I grab the remote, which I use to run the show, and bolt for the tiny backstage room.  Shut the door.  This is the hard part now.  Waiting.  Waiting and hearing the audience milling and murmuring just on the other side of the door which I open a crack and sneak peeks as friends and family and colleagues make their way up the stairs to be greeted by Joy and Lynne who offer wine and cheese. I love a well-fed slightly buzzed audience. The energy is electric.  I am pacing in circles when I spot the framed poster on the wall.  It is a quote by Margaret Mead.  “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” I am immediately moved to tears. This quote closes the show.  It is a sign.  Grabbing my flip, and with an emotional commentary, I shoot the sign.

It is show time.  Joy has done the intro.  “They are all ready for you,” she says.  I enter the theater, click my remote for the first musical cue (“Que sera sera”) and here we go. The place is packed.  I do my thing and I love it.  They seem to love it too.  As I perform I spot all sorts of people.  My sister Barbara, my former acting teacher Lenore who is helping me develop the show, my friend Jimmy from Long Island who taught me how to French kiss when I was fifteen; my old boyfriend and his lovely girlfriend.

I take my bow – make my speech thanking everyone for coming and explain how I have to turn the theater over immediately to the next show.  With the help of my friend Doug, we strike my stuff and minutes later I am outside with a glass of wine enjoying my friends and sister and so so so happy.

(left to right) Robin – the lovely girlfriend of my former boyfriend Twad (yes that is his name), Twad, Doug, my sister Barbara and behind her Joe- her husband, Tom Corozza, friend Amy Stiller, ME, old friend Bob Greenberg, friend Terrie Mintz and her friend….

WEDNESDAY MAY 25th
Wake up still so so so so happy and craving pancakes.  Grab some and another cab and hightail over to the conference.  It is the last day and the only day for me to attend any sessions.  It was so hard to pick and choose but I chose Elena Skoko.  Here is the description.

Memoirs of a Singing Birth. Singer and artist Elena Skoko shares her life and discoveries on the path to motherhood that takes her from Croatia to Rome, from Rome to Bali in search of the perfect birth. Memoirs of a Singing Birth is a story of a personal quest for natural birth that ends up in a rural village in the heart of the island of Gods with the help of ‘guerrilla midwife’, Ibu Robin Lim. While giving birth, this rock ‘n’ roll woman sang! Her path to motherhood is exotic, adventurous, unusual, but also witty and deeply emotional. This is a story that will leave a trace in your heart changing your perception of birth forever, whether you’re expecting children or not. Memoirs of a Singing Birth is also a personal research of contemporary and forgotten birth practices. You will find out how the author and newborn mother succeeds to overcome the labor pains by using her voice, a practice much easier than one can imagine. The e-book describes in detail and with photos the practice of lotus birth. But most of all, this is a magic love story about a woman, a man and their child. Memoirs of a Singing Birth is published on Smashwords: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/27398

She sat behind a desk in a classroom and mesmerized me with her story, her singing and especially the bit about eating placenta. She shared the session with writer/performer Anna Fishbeyn
who – like me – has a one-woman show “Sex In Mommyville”.  Here is HER description:

“Sex in Mommyville”. Anna Fishbeyn will perform an excerpt from her show, and discuss the challenges mothers face in maintaining “healthy” sex lives.  “Sex in Mommyville” is a feminist comedy-drama about a neurotic, guilt-ridden, health-conscious, sex-starved Manhattan mom trying to please her high-maintenance children, her lawyer-husband Zeus, and her Russian parents who live upstairs. Add to this mixture failed sex attempts and an article for Bitch Magazine raging against myopic, media-engendered stereotypes and double standards, and you’ve got a fearless portrayal of modern motherhood caught between Feminism and Bridalplasty! www.Sexinmommyville.com

I was SO worried when she began as she was dressed very sexy in a short skirt, fishnet stockings and high heels.  But she totally blew me and everyone else away with her brilliant take on contemporary motherhood and society’s objectifying and devaluing women. I wish I could see the WHOLE show, which she is doing in July at  Manhattan Repertory Theatre.

Anna, Elena and me

The next session was with keynote speaker Phyllis Chessler.
Author of 13 books, feminist, activist and blogger, Phyllis has been active in the women and mother’s movement her entire adult life. This is her third M.O.M. Conference

Mothers On Trial. This is the 25th anniversary edition with eight new chapters. It is still the first and only book of its kind, a book that looks at how women mothers, what happens when good enough mothers are custodially challenged – often by very violent husbands and fathers who prevail more often than not, and whose cause is often assisted by the court system itself. The book documents the heroism and connectedness of mothers, even under tortuous siege. Also this new edition includes chapters which look at legal trends (1986-2011), legal torture, a new chapter about Fathers’ Supremacists groups, an updated international custody chapter, two new chapters about court-enabled incest, a new introduction, a new resources section, and a new closing chapter interview with a leading Manhattan divorce lawyer: “What To Expect When You’re Expecting a Divorce.”

What can I say?  She was brilliant, articulate, passionate, funny, honest, angry and an adoring grandmother!  I could relate so much and felt so validated and supported, as I believe all the mothers in the room felt.  As I have learned from performing “Cheerios In My Underwear” my play about motherhood, there is something so wonderful about being a in a room with people who are going through the same struggle.

Phyllis Chessler and Me!

Maternally and culturally nourished, I went on the next – and last – session of the day.

Ali Smith: Book author, photographer

Momma Love: How the Mother Half Lives. Societies need healthy mothers in order to survive, but they rarely know how to take care of mothers’ needs properly. Momma Love looks at the varying degrees of support that women receive from partners, lawmakers, employers and each other. Photographer Ali Smith shares photographs and the very personal stories of her subjects. The mothers depicted range from famous actors to a survivor of incest who is struggling to put the shattered pieces of herself back together so that she may parent her son well. Through the anecdotal evidence revealed in these women’s stories, greater truths about the way mothers are living and are treated in western society are revealed.

I loved getting to know Ali – who – like me – spent many years in the sexist, ego-driven, male dominated often morally bankrupt music business.  She was in a band; I worked in promotion.  She gave me a signed copy of her wonderful first book “Laws of the Bandit Queens -Words To Live by from 35 of Today’s Most Revolutionary Women”.   What a cool book filled with some of the women I portray in my show and whom she interviewed including Geraldine Ferraro, Pat Schroeder and Alice Walker!  Ali showed us a presentation of her upcoming project Momma Love – about motherhood.

It all ended to soon and exhausted but totally inspired and emotionally overwhelmed – but in a good way – I hugged and kissed all the fabulous females I met and bonded with and hit the hot and crowded streets of Manhattan.

THURSDAY MAY 26th
I chilled.  I just chilled.  The whole damned day.  Ahhhhhh.

FRIDAY MAY 27th
DID YOU HEAR?  I HAD A BEER WITH LUCRETIA MOTT’S…..
Great-great-great-great-granddaughter.  I still cannot believe it. Who is Lucretia Mott?  An extremely fabulous female who has a BIG part in my show and in women’s history!  Huge!  A founding mother, famous abolitionist, ordained Quaker minister  – one of the first women in America to preach in public (Anne Hutchinson tried it in the 1600s and she – the mother of the first amendment – was literally run out of town). After a few emails, Lucretia Coffin Mott’s great-great-great-great granddaughter Marianna invited me to her home.  I was so excited I could barely speak. When I emailed asking if I could I bring her coffee, she replied:  “Too damned hot for coffee.  Bring some chips.  We’re having ale”.

Ale?  Ale? With Marianna Mott?  I am plotzing, kvelling, freaking out.  I arrive at her loft, she buzzes me up and I see a mezuzah on her door – which is a sign that a Jew lives there.  A Jew?  Lucretia Coffin Mott was a famous Quaker.  A Jewish Quaker?  Could she get any cooler? A beautiful blonde woman younger than I greets me.  I see Mott in her face.  I feel I am in the presence of royalty.  She turns out to be a gracious, warm, lovely smart, feminist mommy and total girlfriend.  I fall in love with her.  We drink the ale, we eat the chips, we get to know each other.  She shows me Lucretia’s father’s yardstick.  It is engraved Thomas Coffin with the year 1797.  I am moved to tears.  I’m such a wimp. I have never been in the presence of such an artifact.  She shows me more things, a book with letters between Lucretia and her husband James.  Some photographs and an award her teenage son (a history buff!) received.  It was The Mary Wollstonecraft Award for Excellence In History.  Mary Wollstonecraft – our first femisnits writer of also has a nice part in my show.  The whole intense trip was worth this afternoon.  An hour flies by.  We promise to keep in touch and I float away.

Marianna Mott, the Yardstick and me

Marianna Mott, The Yardstick, a picture of Lucretia, and me

I subway it to the Upper West Side where I hit Zabar’s (the greatest deli on Earth) and stock up on bread and cake. I meet my former acting teacher Lenore DeKoven, who takes me out to a real nice Upper East Side restaurant for a real nice dinner. We discuss the future of SHE’S HISTORY!  Lenore is a tough cookie with the highest of standards and has supported this project from the start.

I leave for home the next day.  Sitting in a quiet JFK Airport on the Saturday of Memorial Day Weekend, sipping wine, I am absolutely struck with what I have accomplished.  Three shows, two days, two states, three venues, no roadies, no problems and I am still miraculously alive. This was the first time I brought a show to New York.  The first time I did not SEE a show in New York.  The first time I went to New York and did not have a pizza or knish or Chinese food.   Instead, I did a show – or two, felt more proud of myself than I can articulate and – I had a beer with a Mott.

“I truly believe the Soldiers of the Bulldog Brigade would be truly

enlightened by your performance.”

So began an email I received on March 10^th – and thought was a joke – until I called Sgt. Rena Key, who sent it and who runs the Equal Opportunity Program for The Bulldog Brigade at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas.  She plans events to honor holidays and ethnic backgrounds of the soldiers to create and foster diversity and inclusion on the base.  So she hired me to perform my solo show SHE’S HISTORY! The Most Dangerous Women In America, Then and Now….for the Women’s History Month Observance.  What an honor!

Everyone keeps asking how she found me.  It is a bit unexpected – a Women’s History Show on a military base. … I am registered with the National Women’s History Project (www.nwhp.org) and she found me on their website.

She only gave me two weeks’ notice, and being a Cultural HERstorian, March – (Women’s History Month) is my busiest time.  I am right in the middle of a four-week performance run and both of my daughters have their birthdays in March. Yes, I made my own history – and my oldest was turning 18.  A biggie.   I hate to leave them on their own during the school week. I had not taken the show on the road yet.  But of course I said yes.  And the thought of me – a loud-mouthed left-winged liberal Jewish Feminist on a military base in mostly right wing, Republican conservative Texas was just irresistible.  So, after many emails with the sergeant, it was decided.  I would perform at 10:30AM on Thursday March 24^th.  The audience consisted of active duty soldiers – male and female – 18 to 50.  The event also would be open to the community and would include a Fabric Of Women’s History fashion show – yes a fashion show – and a drill by the female soldiers of The Bulldog Brigade.

Arriving in El Paso from Los Angeles for a 10:30AM show required flying in the day before, with a connection through Phoenix.  How will I manage traveling with a slide projector, speakers, laptop, costumes, props and a few personal items without checking anything in?  Cannot risk the airlines losing my show!  I will put the costumes and props and my personal things in one small rolling suitcase and my projector and laptop with my purse in the carry-on.  It will be a challenge.

In the middle of all this of course are the birthdays and my almost-18-year-old is holding her breath daily waiting to hear from colleges.  My house is bursting at the seams with expectations, anticipation, activities and those ever-present hormones, which I cannot seem to dodge.  Tuesday night we celebrate my daughter’s birthday.  She is now legal, can vote, sign for herself and is officially an adult.  We order chicken soup and potato pancakes (her favorite) for dinner and watch “Dancing With the Stars.”  She is happy.  I am all packed and ready to go in the morning.  My just turned 14-year-old is disappointed to learn I will only be gone for one night.  Hmmm.   The morning comes and my 14-year-old tries to go to school wearing an inappropriate (sexy) shirt that I have already taken away from her, and she had the audacity – and stupidity – to retrieve it.   When I order her to “take it off and leave it in my room,” she goes ballistic, banging on my closed bedroom door and yelling — resulting in her being grounded for the weekend.  Ahhh, motherhood.  She skulks off to school and I am off to the airport with my show-in-a-suitcase, praying that I will be allowed on without checking my bags.

Schlep schlep schlep, lug lug lug – this is the travel theme for me.  I hold my breath at the entrance to the jet way – will the agent let me and my very full second carry on item containing my slide projector and laptop – crucial show elements – aboard?  I am sweating, heart racing….I get through.  Ahhhhhhh.

The flight to Phoenix is fine – but I accidentally spill my water in my bag housing my slide projector!  Panic-stricken, I mop up what I can and pray for technological intervention.  SHE’S HISTORY! is a multi-media show with about 88 slides of many of the fabulous females.  I make the connection in Phoenix to El Paso, and the plane is a teeny tiny cigar plane on which my very full show-in-a-suitcase will not fit.  I have to leave it at the bottom of the jet way and am promised it will be there when I arrive in El Paso.

Seated in a teeny tiny windowless window seat that does not go back,  I talk myself out of a claustrophobia attack.  It’s only a 50-minute flight. I have traveled to London from Los Angeles for 13 hours with two toddlers (which inspired the title of my first play: Cheerios In My Underwear).  But it was in first class.  Oh – those were the days…actually I would rather do this than that as on the other end of THAT trip was horrible jet lag for days with toddlers, icky English weather and the prison that was my mother-in-law’s flat, which she ran with anal retentive intensity. On the other end of this was a performance of my show for active-duty soldiers.  As I eat my squished peanut butter and jelly sandwich, I contemplate the sudden turn of events in my life and again thank my deadbeat ex-husband.  If he hadn’t left, I wouldn’t be doing this.  I work on the school program I am creating about the 1800s, and barely get started when we begin our descent.

My show-in-a suitcase and I DO arrive safely and intact at El Paso.  Everywhere I look I see military – the governor’s welcoming announcement over the airport public address invites us to stop all soldiers we see and thank them.  I will.

I roll my oh so heavy and awkward show-in-a-suitcase and carry on containing my slide projector, laptop, etcetera out of the airport and there she is!  I was not expecting fatigues – but she is a soldier. The sergeant I have been talking for two weeks.  We hug, she takes my bags and we get in the car and proceed to the base, which she said was five minutes away but actually is more like twenty.   She is my tour guide to military life, explaining the quarters, barracks, buildings, lingo. I have never been on a base, and it is starkly barren and dull and sterile and male.  Oh so male.  She casually mentions that she is shipping out to Afghanistan in September.

I wanted to check out the performing space – to see how I would set up the show.  We arrive at our final destination.  The dining hall – or as they call it – the defect.  Yes, I am performing in the dining hall.  There is a beautiful theatre on the base but……

I am immediately intimidated by all the soldiers in their fatigues and struck by the institutionalism of it all.  I didn’t know WHAT to expect.  SO many YOUNG men and woman.  All so very friendly and curious and helpful and all calling me Ma’am.

The sergeant could not have been more accommodating, carrying my bag and offering me food from the dining hall, which smells like a yummy hot dog and reminds me of college and high school.  She is a single working mother of three and already my hero.  She volunteers to go back to the car to get my slide projector and laptop so I can have a technical run-through, for which I am very grateful.  She enlists some soldiers to help move tables and we figure out where and how, and my prayers were answered.  The slide projector turns on and all goes well.  She tells me she is expecting 50-100 people.

I am starving and exhausted but really happy that my equipment made it unscathed.  She finally drives me back to my hotel – it is now going on 8:00PM and I am fried. My daughter calls me distraught.  She has been rejected from another college.  She wants to chat and wants me to comfort her.  I cannot.  I feel guilty.  The sergeant and I discuss motherhood and the challenges our ovaries have presented us.  We have now bonded.  I get up the courage to ask her about Libya and we have a very interesting conversation.  It is fascinating for me to hear her point of view, which I expected to be pro-war.  We agree she will pick me up at 8:30AM for the 10:30AM show and promises a stop at Starbucks on the way.

I check in – a nice Radisson and cannot remember the last time I was alone in a hotel.  I am exhausted, excited and elated to learn there is a nice little restaurant right there at the hotel.  I unload my stuff – grab my script, leave my phone in the room and go to the restaurant, where I immediately order a well-deserved $8 glass of Chardonnay.  Three sips later I am tipsy and looking forward to my enchiladas, which do not disappoint.  I devour my meal while working on my script and go for a nice walk around the hotel after dinner.  A pool!  Two pools – one indoor and a hot tub! Oh!  Did not bring my bathing suit.

Back to the room; check on the girls – my elder at work – she got a part-time job (at my insistence) at the Banana Republic at the mall, which is less than a mile away – walking distance.  She tells me she got a ride there and back as there was a MAJOR rainstorm.  The petulant 14-year-old is tight lipped but home safe and sound.   I take a long hot bath in a very short tub, and pass out with a 6:30AM alarm set.

Two seconds later it is 6:30AM.  Well actually 5:30AM, with the time change.  I am dragging my ass but still do my Pilates, shower, run some lines, watch the news that is mostly about Elizabeth Taylor passing away and pack up.  I am a nervous wreck as I order breakfast and wait for the sergeant.  She is late, which gives me time to print out my boarding pass for the after-show flight, and finally we are off to the base.

The doors are locked – all sorts of security on the base – I noticed when I left the building the doors would automatically lock.  The sergeant is bummed and begins banging on the door.  We get in and begin setting up and it is like any other show, busy, chaotic and exciting.  The sergeant is very much in charge and starts the rehearsal.  The program includes a “Fabric of Women’s History” fashion show with six female civilian volunteer models.  Ahhh, a fashion show.  Why is it that we as a culture cannot seem to have a serious conversation about women without attire creeping in?  One volunteer model flaked, so the sergeant takes her place, changing out of her fatigues into a beautiful colonial cream-colored belle of the ball costume.  She is sexy and feminine. The costumes, donated by the Old Fort Bliss Museum are fabulous and authentic.

This is part of the narrative that the sergeant crafted with the help of the National Women’s History Project:

We are here today to honor, celebrate, and relive some of the historical and present day contributions of women. We are reminded of their courage in their struggle to change the hearts and minds of people around the world. As stated by the national women’s project – although women’s history is intertwined with the history shared with men, several factors – social, religious, economic, and biological –have worked to create a unique sphere of women’s history. The stories of women’s achievements are integral to the fabric of our history.  Today, let’s take a glimpse of Women’s strength through fabric. (SOLDIERS IN VINTAGE ATTIRE WALK OUT AND DO MODEL STANCES AS NARRATOR READS THE FOLLOWING): Designer Katherine Hamnett once said, “Clothes create a wordless means of communication that we all understand.” Today the soldiers of the Bulldog Brigade will exemplify women’s tenacity, courage, and creativity throughout the centuries- displaying fashion of women’s clothing truly a tremendous source of strength. Let’s give a round of applause to the Southern belles, the flapper dresses, the wide leg bell bottoms, the 1920’s, 40’s, 50’s 60’s, 70’s and clothing associated with those who uphold the supreme law of the land- our Supreme Court judges.

I am moved by the sincerity of it all and to my surprise, really enjoy the fashion show.  Then it’s time for The Soldier’s Creed.  Several female soldiers in full army fatigue carrying rifles file in and re-enact some sort of drill that is very loud and scary to me. One at a time, they shout out   “I AM A UNITED STATES SOLDIER! I WILL NEVER LEAVE MY POST” and similar sayings.  It is all so foreign to me. I am a military virgin after all.  It is very serious and aggressive.  They are trained to fight.  That is very clear.  But they are so young and innocent under all that artillery. I cannot believe I am here.

“Where is the audience?” I ask the sergeant, as we are five minutes from show time and the only people there are a few soldiers and those participating in the show.  The sergeant is embarrassed.  The turnout is not what she expected.  A few people file in and the show begins.  I am introduced and I perform.  All goes well despite the failure of my body mike — I am a trained theatre professional and I project. The whole time I was performing, I was acutely aware of my audience.  The show is chock full of true stories of incredibly courageous women  – real fighters – who faced obstacles, beat down barriers and struggled so much at great personal sacrifice.  As I looked into the faces of these military women, I could not help but wonder what kind of challenges they experience daily as females in the military.  I always feel an enormous responsibility to the women I portray and talk about when I do the show.  I was absolutely struck by the meaningfulness of this performance for this audience.  More soldiers filled the dining hall, and when I finish and take my bow – I get a standing ovation.  I am very touched.  Then – the sergeant takes the mike and proceeds to have a plaque presentation.  I was shocked and moved to tears when she presented a plaque to me.

3^rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team

1^st Armored Division

Certificate of Appreciation

Is Awarded to

Amy Simon

SHE’S HISTORY!!!!

For your diligence and loyalty displayed through your willing support of the 3^rd IBCT, 1^st AD Women’s History Month Observance

on 24 March 2011.

Wow.   It is such an honor.  After the show, several soldiers and other audience members approach me, praising my performance.  The education program manager of the museum who donated the costumes was amazed.  “That was incredible!  Do you have a video of the show?  I would run it at the museum.”  I don’t, I tell her, but you can bet I hope to eventually.  A teenager approaches me.  She looks to be about 15 and as she starts speaking her voice is hoarse and raspy and she is a bit shaky.  “I am sick”, she said – so I step back.  “But I am so glad I came,” she whispers.   Then her mouth starts quivering.  “When I grow up, I want to be the president.”  She starts crying.  I have affected her.  I have inspired her.  I do a whole thing in the show about Victoria Woodhull, the first woman who, in 1872, ran for president (that no one knows about, of course).  “Well, you can be the President,” I hear myself say, my voice cracking with emotion.   She has affected and inspired me. “You can absolutely be the president.  What is your name and how old are you?”  She is 16 and I can’t remember her name.  “All you need is courage and the will,” I tell her.  “Please go to my website and contact me and I will send you some books.”  I wanted to hug her.

I strike my set and costumes and pack everything up and and on my way out more soldiers congratulate me and tell me how much they enjoyed the show.  A female soldier in fatigues catches me at the exit and tells me how much she loved the show, and then she said: “Ya know, last month was Black History Month and we were all expected to go to the event,” which she explains was given high priority, was held in the theater and apparently very well attended by all sorts of brass.  “And here it is Women’s History Month and you’re performing in the Defect.”  She was pissed.  Yup.  Well, I am not surprised.  The military is not known for its appreciation of women.  And I now have seen it and felt it firsthand.

I meet the sergeant outside – it is 1:00PM and we are off to the airport for my 3:00PM flight.  I am filled with post-show adrenaline and very proud and honored.  She is upset about the low turnout and the fact that none of the higher ups attended.  But – she is having a birthday party for her four-year-old daughter and has to rush home.  Duty calls.

I get to the airport, lugging and schlepping my even heavier bag as my plaque is made of stone and weighs about 15 pounds.  But it is my new treasured possession.   I just get through the long slow security line when some guy behind me mouths off about the screening process and they shut the whole thing down.  We all have to wait while this guy gets the full treatment, a very public body search – complete with the “junk touching” that even I could feel.  Whooof.  Never mouth off in an airport security line.  I am upset about this obviously inappropriate mis-use of power and how it unnecessarily inconvenienced so many, but I am still high from the show and I know there is a cold beer and a taco waiting for me once we are allowed through.

I am so happy and relieved and I get on the teeny tiny cigar plane, reliving the show, get to Phoenix with its two-hour layover, but I don’t care.  I try to nap but am over excited so get a latte and plan on working but – as luck would have it – my 5:00PM flight is delayed.  For three hours.  I am quite sick of schlepping my bags and of airports and traveling in general….finally arrive back in Los Angeles at 10:30PM to a monsoon rainstorm.  Exhausted but happy, I carefully drive home, pull in to my driveway at 11:30PM, see the backyard lights NOT ON as I instructed – just an open invitation to the burglars I keep telling my girls.  Oy.  Unload the car and hear “mom is that you”?  My 18-year-old wakes up.  “Yes honey, I am unloading – go back to sleep.”  I place my prized plaque prominently on the dining room table.  The house smells of wet dog.  We have a cat.  I’m concerned. Kiss my sleeping daughters, take a hot shower, cuddle my cat and go to sleep.  I did it.  I entertained the troops.  I can’t believe it.  I drift off thinking about the emotional 16-year-old who wants to be president.  I would have done the whole thing just for her.

Sergeant Rena Key, another soldier and Amy Simon

Officer Williams, the highest-ranking female Officer on the base

A very nice soldier who was our technical helper. Didn’t get his name.

A lovely community volunteer singing The National Anthem.

The Plaque!

“The Joy – The Oy – Of Motherhood”.

Amy Simon

“We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men AND WOMEN are created equal”.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton (and Lucretia Mott) Declaration of Sentiments First Women’s Convention 1848 Seneca Falls, New York

“When you’re at work, you think of the children you’ve left at home.  When you’re at home, you think of the work you’ve left unfinished.  Such a struggle is unleashed within yourself, your heart is rent”.

Golda Meir, Israel’s First Female Prime Minister 1948

“Any woman who understands the problems of running a home is that much nearer to understanding the problems of running a country”.

Margaret Thatcher – First Female Prime Minster of England 1980s

“The real obstacle to equality is not the vote but the division of lifestyles between men and women…”

Elizabeth Cady Stanton – 1800s

“Oh, if only you were born a boy”.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s father, Judge Daniel Cady  1826

“Female Suffrage causes a sexual state of war”.

Wendell Phillips 1850s Abolitionist – 1850s

“I come before you to declare that my sex are entitled to the inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Victoria Woodhull – Mother and The First Woman To Run For President in 1872

“…women had to be organized to gain an equal share of political power if they were to improve their economic and social status”.

Congresswoman Bella Abzug 1970s

“Government sponsored childcare is a communistic subversion of the traditional family.”

President Nixon vetoing Bella Abzug and Shirley Chilshom’s  Childcare Act of 1971

“A wife in the workforce threatens the very structure of family life itself”.

Ronald Reagan 1980s

“The Price Of Motherhood, Why The Most Important Job In The World Is Still The Least Valued”  2001

Anne Crittenden – (who is a New York Times Reporter and Pulitzer Prize Nominee) after leaving the “paid” workforce to become a mother, wrote this book in response to being asked at a dinner party – “Didn’t you used to be Anne Crittenden?”

“Your Mom Has A Rockin’ Bod”.

That’s what the handsome surfer looking dude told my eleven- and seven- year old daughters about me – their forty-eight year old mother.

It was December 2004.

Seven months after my husband said he wanted a divorce.

Five Months After He Moved Out.

Four months after a Palm Springs Hotel offered me an irresistible package deal for a Christmas stay.

Three months after I looked up an old boyfriend David… who happened to be living in Palm Springs.

Ten minutes after being in the hotel hot tub in an unusually cold California December.

The night before the Tsunami hit.

Yes.  2004 was the year the earth shifted – and life as I knew it changed forever.  I never could have imagined then that I would be the woman I am today; smarter, stronger, happier.  A better me.

Yes, my husband of fourteen years had been living one of those double lives you read about in People Magazine or hear about on Oprah.  I was one of those smart, together trusting women who were duped and about whom people ask, “How could she not have known”?

So in September, when the offer came in the mail: “Spend two nights at Christmas in our luxurious hotel for this amazing discounted rate and all we ask is two hours of your time to look at our time share program” – I jumped on it.

I could not bear the thought of spending this Christmas holiday in the house where we’d spent so many holidays as a family of four, so I packed up the three of us and took off in the family car for the two hour trip from Los Angeles to Palm Springs.  We were shattered, fragile, and raw.

On a whim, I had looked up an old boyfriend who I’d heard was living somewhere in Southern California.  We met when we were both actors living in New York – my hometown.  We fell in love and had traveled from New York to California when I was thirty years old, a month long cross-country journey that was just fabulous.  We lived together for a while in San Diego – his hometown.  He was the only other man I had ever lived with.  It didn’t work out though, because he did not want to get married.  We parted on good terms.  The last time we spoke was when I called to tell him I was pregnant.  Always into astrology, he told me I would have two girls, and that my marriage and motherhood would be the biggest challenge I had ever known.  Freaky.  When I called him out of the blue and said guess who this is – he went through several women’s names before I cut him off with  “no it’s Amy” – which was met with a shocked but happy “really! Told him about the divorce, asked him where he was (he had never married) and when he said Palm Springs, I said “Gosh, what a coincidence, I’m gonna be there in December”.

When my girls and I got to the hotel, the “luxurious” room was teeny tiny and the weather was unseasonably cold for California and by the time we got settled it was getting dark but the whole drive I had promised we would go into the pool.  So we did.  I had ordered a glass of wine for me, and hot chocolate for the girls – poolside – when we were joined by this cute guy.  It was just the four of us.  A very different four of us then we were used to.   I chatted politely, feeling so completely out of my element – discombobulated from the entire “new normal” I was forced to accept so I didn’t even notice that he was hitting on me until his comment to the girls about my “rockin’ bod”.  “Is this guy actually hitting on ME??  In front of my girls??”  I was incredulous, not only that I was getting hit on but in front of my girls?  Then we learned that his girlfriend was upstairs.  Ugh.

“Well, nice chatting with you I said”, self-consciously climbing out of the pool, ushering the girls away while he leered at my “rockin’ bod”.

From that moment on, the rest of the weekend became the “Your Mom Has A Rockin’ Bod” weekend.  My eleven year old – who always kept her feelings inside – seemed to enjoy it all.  But my seven year old – who always wore her heart on her sleeve – did not.  She was just sad.  So so sad.

The plan was to meet David in the Hotel Lobby and have dinner together in the Hotel Restaurant. We had not seen each other in seventeen years.  He looked different but he was – and is – still the same sweet man.  A man who would never – as my mother told me in her dementia – never hurt me.  She was right.

I told the girls the truth, that we were seeing an old friend who lived in town who happened to be an old boyfriend of mine.  As soon as we sat down to dinner, my eleven year old asked him “Are you gonna marry my mom”?  Oh god.  She then proceeded to tell him all about the “rockin’ bod” incident. I wanted to die.  After dinner we all went up to the teeny tiny room and for about an hour, played games.  I played Scrabble with the eleven year old and David played Go Fish with the seven year old.  It was OK, but so so strange.

The next day I went on the “two hour Time-Share tour”.  What a nightmare that was.  “Where do you see your family vacationing next year?  What does your family look for in a vacation”?  How do you spend your leisure time as a family”.   Stuck in a little office with a stranger whose job it was to get this information out of me, I could barely hold it together as I told him that I could not answer any of those questions as our “family” was in a “transition”.  Those two hours were the hardest part of the entire weekend.

December 2010 is coming and I am ready.  We have been through hell and back.  Their dad, after succumbing to his addictions, losing his job, and attempting suicide, lives in another country. And like anyone who has experienced loss, I am so so so appreciative of what I have; my spirit, the love and respect of my precious children – now thirteen and seventeen and doing remarkably well thanks to therapy and stability and lots of love.  My daughters have learned invaluable life lessons. And unlike so many women who lose themselves in their marriages and motherhood – I have found myself. A self I never would have re-discovered and re-invented if I were still married to that man.   I am remarkably healthy – and  – thanks to years of Pilates (and chardonnay), at the age of fifty-four I still have a Rockin’ Bod!

It’s Sunday, August 10^th 2008 and I’m in the Green Room with Annette Bening, talking about how Norman Lear’s original copy of The Declaration of Independence got stuck at the airport.  And of course I remember being hyperaware that I was in the green room with Annette Bening talking about how Norman Lear’s original copy of The Declaration of Independence got stuck at the airport.  How did I get here?  Back up a month.

It’s Sunday, July 13^th 2008.  THE Sunday before the two weeks I get every summer when my kids stay with their dad. I am divorced – four years now and have come to look forward to those two weeks. When kids are involved, there are very few perks to being divorced.  I can only think of two – closet space, and the two weeks every summer. So I‘m thinking about all my plans for the next two weeks – with getting a job top on the list. And the phone rang. It was Mitch, my good friend Marci’s husband. “I might have an opportunity for you.  Can you come to The Broad Stage Theater in Santa Monica tomorrow at 11AM?  The assistant director needs some administrative help.  We’re opening in a few weeks.”  OHMYGOD.  I couldn’t believe it. I knew all about The Broad, which is spelled like Brawd B.R.O.A.D named after Eli Broad, the philanthropist, because I am a theater junkie, and I am in the theater business – have been my whole  – my nickname in NY was Amy Get A Gig Simon – my show “Cheerios In My Underwear” is the longest running solo show in Los Angeles –I am all about theater -  and I read in the paper that Dustin Hoffman was The Artistic Chair.  And now the possibility of a real theater job. The theater is my favorite place.  The theater is my temple.  I actually am Jewish and have a temple -  but the theater is my home. I love theater people.  They are my people.  You are my people.

I so needed a job.  I had been looking so hard and so fruitlessly for the past two years. Here I am – a 51-year-old divorced mother out of the paid work force for 14 years, with my last “real job” back in the early nineties doing radio promotion for Virgin Records in the now defunct record business.  Yeah, I hung out with rock stars but now I needed a job and I couldn’t for the life of me get one.  I had hit that “maternal wall” I’d read about researching motherhood for “Cheerios” so I started building a brand new career writing about motherhood and family life and stumbled on my real passion – women’s history, and my work has just started getting published but in the meantime I need a job! The Broad Stage is the brainchild of Dale Franzen, former opera star, arts educator and visionary, and Director of the Broad, ten years in the making, and she made it happen. Tenacious, indomitable, awesome woman. I know all about tenacious indomitable awesome women – since I write about them.  I am all about trailblazing, history making women – like Dale – like Victoria Woodhull – the first woman to run for president – like Anne Hutchinson the mother of the first amendment – like Elizabeth Cady Stanton – the original architect of the Women’s Movement and especially Abigail Adams whose ”Remember The Ladies” speech I wrote about for Women’s History Month and was the first women’s history piece I got published and paid for. I love Abigail Adams.  Why do we know more about Paris Hilton than about Abigail Adams?  So wrong! So Monday morning, I show up and meet my boss Denise.  She looks at me as if I am Ed McMahon. I am basically hired on the spot.  I fill out my 1099 (no benefits) and sign on for three months as a part time “administrative consultant” and spend the rest of the day falling in love with Denise who is awesome and brilliant and overloaded. I start answering her phone – getting her coffee – seeing about her lunch – much to her surprise – she is not used to being taken care of.  I am by nature very solicitous – my boyfriend’s love me – I’m a Jewish mother – very very comfortable taking care of people.  So.  There is a lot to do. We are launching a theater. It was like jumping on a speeding train.  Everything is being done by everyone at breakneck speed the whole time, preparing for the first show

Sunday August 10^th – a “soft opening” of an original piece called American Voices about the creation of our government – the first of three free shows to thank the members and donors, introduce the space to the community and test out the theater.  Starring Dustin Hoffman, reading The Federalist Papers with Kent Nagano – a famous conductor with a 17-piece orchestra playing Charles Ives music.  How cool.

The end of my second week, Dale informs me that Stephanie Solomon, the main writer of American Voices, needed an assistant and I should call her.  We hit it off immediately on the phone. She tells me how she needs someone to help her with the script and be an administrative liaison between her and Dustin and the theater.  I can hardly breathe. “Why don’t you come to the first table read on Monday at Dustin’s production office?”  I am dying.  Just three weeks ago I was at Apple One Temp Service, struggling through a skills set test and now this. Monday comes and I go.  The offices are nice and there is a big lunch spread.  I meet Stephanie and we hug.  We go in to the conference room, and only some of the actors are there.  I don’t know anyone but recognize Richard Schiff. A very sweet young black actor offers to throw away my empty sandwich plate.  He is very handsome and I will inadvertently get to see him in his underwear.  I meet the director, get a script and before I get a chance to look at it – Dustin comes in.  With a plate of cookies, that he tries to pawn off on everyone.  He is adorable and handsome, short, sweet and utterly charming. The atmosphere is immediately charged with electricity.  He proceeds to put everyone at ease. I immediately fall in love with him. We go around the table introducing ourselves  – it’s a mixture of lucky students, and professional actors – Ben is an actor AND the asst. stage manager. I say I work at the Broad Stage and I am also an actor.  Who isn’t?  I get a laugh.

The table read begins. I finally look at the script. “American Voices: Spirit of the Revolution, A work For Chamber Orchestra andThirteen Actors”.  Dustin is the narrator and the cast of characters – which is genderless playing multiple roles – includes James Cromwell playing James Madison, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, Richard Schiff as James Otis, John Adams and Thomas Paine, Nate Parker – the handsome young black actor as Patrick Henry (turns out he was in The Debaters and a protégé of Denzel Washington) –

Rosario Dawson as Hoboi-Hili-Miko ofThe Creek Nation and Annette Bening as Thomas Paine and and and  ABIGAIL ADAMS.  Oh my god.  I cannot believe what I am hearing.  The play is brilliant, a sort of Our Town historically re-enacting the formation of our government – the revolutionary war, the colonists, the constitution – right up my historical alley and OHMYGOD – there it is – Abigail Adams’ Remember The Ladies speech. I’m dying I’m dead I’m a corpse.

When we break I tell Stephanie about my love for her script, and obsession with Abigail Adams – all of it. She seems impressed with my knowledge and passion.  After, Dustin tells a story about working with Schiff on a movie – turns out it was Last Chance Harvey.  Dustin LOVES telling stories and he is a master at it.  Everyone hangs on his every word.  He decides suddenly to take the cast and on a field trip to The Broad as no one knew where it was. I am the only one there from the theater so I stand up tell him “well I am Jewish and have no sense of direction but I will get everyone there” and the next thing I know I am walking down the hallway with Dustin and he is asking me “so Amy what do you think of the script”.  I go off on one of my women’s history rants, which he seems to appreciate.  As we go down in the elevator he tells another story about Abdoulai – the actor walking with us.  As Dustin told the story – he had just moved out to LA, was getting divorced and living in a hotel in Santa Monica – was already a big star and every day he would walk past Abdoulai who was a doorman and Abdoulai would start to recite Shakespeare “Tis the summer of my discontent”.  That was twenty years ago.

The rest of the week I remain high from the reading and continue working with Denise and Stephanie – so much going on – the theater was still being finished.  I so love answering the phone “The Broad Stage Theater this is Amy how can I help you?”  And on the end of the line – theater people – my people.  I am so happy I literally cry all the way home every day that first week.

The next week we have the first rehearsal at the theater with all thirteen actors.  There’s Dustin, there’s James Cromwell.  I introduce myself and point out the food.  I am a vegan he says with a big smile.  Oh! The farmer from babe is a vegan.  Funny.  I immediately offer to go get him sushi. He could not be nicer.  Annette Bening comes in.  She is gorgeous without a drop of makeup.  Everyone is there except the director.  Something happened and now Dustin is the director. All the actors are milling around and I mention to one that I have some books in my car with letters from the period including letters from Abigail Adams and would you like to see them?  “Oh”, she says – “yes and I bet Annette would too”.  So I get my “American Woman Activists Writings” books and I offer them to Annette and say “here, theses are my books if you would like to take a look”.  “Oh” she says, did you write them?”  I pause for a brief second thinking – Hmmmm.  But instead I say “no but I bought them and I read them.”  She laughs.  The rehearsal begins and everyone participates in the interpretation and discussion of the script – what it means to their character, to them personally, as Americans, as patriots, everyone’s opinion is welcome and respected with Dustin setting the tone. He creates and nurtures an atmosphere, which is artistic and creative and open.  When Cromwell reads Thomas Jefferson (and he looks so Jeffersonian) “We hold these truths to be self evident” you can hear a pin drop. The same for Nate Parker who is brilliant reading Patrick Henry’s speech. “I know not what course others may take; but for me, give me liberty or give me death!” Everyone in the room is hyperaware of the meaning and relevance.  It’s August 2008 – Obama is the Democratic nominee – we all are talking about politics and the country and the theater and this play. It’s just like I thought it would be when I was a theater major in college!  I am having one Oprah Aha like moment after another! We take a break and one of the actresses who plays a soldier named James Collins has to leave.  “Oh”, says Dustin.  “Amy will take her place”.  So I take a seat between Cromwell and Rosario and when it’s my turn I read as I think about Iraq and Afghanistan. “The dead and wounded lay scattered in every direction over the field; numbers lay cold and lifeless; some were yet struggling in the agonies of death, while here and there lay others; faint with the loss of blood, almost famished for water, and begging for assistance.  I could not reconcile to my feelings”.

And I could not reconcile to MY feelings.

Dustin calls rehearsals for every day, complains that he has no assistant or stage manager so I volunteer and for the next four days I am by his side – his buddy, his sidekick, his sounding board, his navigator because the theater is big and mazelike and he is a Jew with no sense of direction and literally cannot find the bathroom – even though they named one after him – really. I am stage managing thirteen actors, and carry around a big beige canvass bag that I brought from home  – my traveling desk containing my notebook – the ever changing script, rehearsal schedules, water bottles, and the all important contact sheets plus office supplies for the cast – three hole punch, and red pens and yellow highlighters which Dustin requires.  It is heavy and I lug it everywhere and I don’t care because I am happier than I have been in years. There’s me and Dustin and Stephanie on the Broad Stage figuring out the blocking.  He is so happy to be in the theater.  He loves the theater – just like his character Michael Dorsey in Tootsie. He tells another story – “I remember when Anne Bancroft was working on that play – her first – what was that play”?  And I say “oh the William Gibson play Two For The Seesaw – I worked on that in my acting class.”  I have cred. He loves me.  He loves everyone.  He makes friends with a worker pounding nails.  He invites a techie to be in the show – playing a techie as he had scripted an opening about how we were testing out the theater and wanted the techie to just cross the stage. Dustin is very in the moment.  And he tells stories all along the way.  “When I was working with Olivier” and “when I was working with DeNiro” and not showing off – just so happy and humbled to share his lucky life with us and from this point on, everything just morphs and escalates with the opening approaching.  I am everywhere doing everything – scrambling and working my ass off – like everyone else. I love being part of the Broad Stage team.  Everyone is talented, professional, dedicated.  No one has seen their families, done their laundry, slept. And no one works harder than Dustin.  “Amy – call these actors and see if they can come in early I want to work with them separately before rehearsal”. He and I just clicked.  I know what to do, I know my way around the theater, I know and understand the material, how to work with actors and I am not intimidated by his celebrity and am comfortable telling him where to go and how to get there and he likes that – he likes me taking charge of him and I do respectfully. There’s Dustin out on the patio working with Ben on his lines and I am walking by and Dustin calls me over.  “Ben – read it for Amy”. And Ben reads, “The accused shall enjoy the right to be confronted with the witnesses against him, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense”.  “Amy, what does that mean”?  And we discuss it.  There’s me and Dustin and Stephanie, outside the campus grounds discussing the script.  It is hours after Dustin was supposed to have left but he stayed and stayed and I am bringing him food because he is hungry and I know what he likes and when he needs to eat.  We are arguing over a passage in the script about “the people” who debated and Dustin is asking what people and Stephanie who is so smart is saying “the men and the women in the town meetings and taverns” and I pipe in – ‘oh no, the women DID NOT participate in the town hall meetings – they did NOT have say in the government” and we are arguing and I get my books out of my car and make my case and just like that I have script input and they change it.  They recognize my contribution and the next day send out an email acknowledging my contribution as the “feminist historical monitor.” The script is constantly being changed – sometimes hourly and I am the one to get the actors the changes and we have all grown so close now as you do when you are working on a play. We have marathon rehearsals scheduled and oh it’s Dustin’s birthday so I come in with homemade cupcakes.  “Amy” says Annette from across the room – “did you make these?”  “Yes I did”.  “You are so sweet”.  Big hug.  Of course, I never ever would have been able to dedicate myself like this if I had my children to take care of.   Thank God my husband left me four years ago!  Ha!  Never thought I would actually mean that.  The little “soft opening” has so morphed into a big deal with everyone and their mother calling for tickets.  I answer the phone and it’s Denzel Washington’s manager asking for tickets for Denzel and I hand the phone to Denise saying, “I’m wearing my red dress”. The show day itself is ambitiously planned with a 1PM dress rehearsal with an invited audience, a 4PM show for the educators and Santa Monica College, there is a 6PM cocktail reception and art unveiling, the big 7:30 final show which KUSC radio is taping – can it get any more complicated?  Yes. Norman Lear’s private original copy of the Declaration of Independence printed the night of July 4^th 1776 – one of two hundred – is being flown in to be displayed in the lobby.  And there’s a big party after with all sorts of celebrities and LA royalty coming but all anyone can talk about is Warren Beatty.   And they are still pounding nails.

Finally, Kent Nagano and the 17-piece orchestra arrive with out first rehearsal on the stage with EVERYONE – actors and musicians slated for the afternoon.  We spend the morning blocking – everyone is getting more comfortable with their lines and characters.  Annette Bening is experimenting and playing around with her lines and speeches –heavy stuff – including also a great scene with Schiff playing John Adams to her Abigail where they argue brilliantly.  Her voice is the most gorgeous instrument. I am busy as a bee finding toilet paper and taking care of the actors, getting Dustin his water and making sure he doesn’t lose his glasses or cell phone and even standing in for him while he directs and generally stage managing and then we break until the actual run through for the first time with Kent Nagano and the orchestra – and Annette reminds Dustin that she can’t be there so he says “OK, Amy will go in for you”.  Yeah.  So there I am with the cast and they are all so happy for me and tell me how I deserve to be up there and Rosario Dawson is so great and remembers all the blocking and cues me when I forget and Dale and all sorts of people I work with are in the audience and I do it.  I read Thomas Paine’s gorgeous words. I AM Abigail Adams arguing with Richard Schiff’s John Adams “If a form of government is to be established here, what one will be assumed?  Will it be left to our assemblies to choose one?  And will not many men have many minds? And shall we not run into dissentions among ourselves?  I am more and more convinced that man is a dangerous creature,” …I love that speech and I feel like I am on acid – it is surreal -  and then and I read the speech – “In the new code of laws I would desire you would Remember The Ladies  and be more favourable and generous to them than your ancestors.  Do not put such unlimited powers into the hands of the husbands.  Remember, all men would be tyrants if they could.  If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies we are determined to foment a rebellion and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation.”

Afterwards, Stephanie says “you did great” and Dustin says “Amy, I didn’t know you could act so good.”

I cannot reconcile to my feelings.  But they felt pretty good.

We all stay late blocking and discussing costumes and Dustin tells me I am the cast understudy – come prepared. I cannot help thinking that a few months ago I was in absolute hell, working as a prop girl on the set of a Baby Einstein video, fetching toys that I couldn’t find or put together for well paid hand models that I envied.  Life is so unexpected.

Sunday – show day – arrives.  I fly down the 10 Freeway and there is another revised script.  “No, I tell the writers – we are NOT making new copies.  The actors have all been making notes on their scripts – I will just tell whomever is affected the changes and they can write them in”.  They obey me.  Me.  It is show time and I am right there taking care of my Dustin.  I have two favorite moments from show day.  One  – all week Dustin needs his bananas and gave me a long lecture about the properties and benefits of potassium so I made sure there were always bananas on the hospitality table and it’s 3:45 – places – and I am backstage with my red pens and highlighters and labeled water bottles when one of Dustin’s two assistants comes panting up to me in a panic “Dustin wants a banana and there aren’t any.  Calmly, I tell her.  Go downstairs to Dressing Room A and in my beige canvass bag you will find a banana.  She does and I am a hero.  Great moment. We get through the first two shows and I am in the wings on the floor with my book taking notes and now we have one more show to go and my Dustin is exhausted.  I see it in his eyes.  There are people everywhere and I take his hand and say come.  I know where you can take a nap.  Upstairs in the brand-new green room there is the one and only couch.  Up we go and there is Annette – asleep on the couch.  Nate and Ben on the floor.  Dustin will not disturb them.   I take him downstairs, determined, and on the stage it is quiet and empty.  I see the piano with its big cover and like Scarlett in Gone With The Wind, I dramatically sweep it off the piano, lay it on the floor and make him a bed.  Go to sleep I tell him.  He obediently does and I pull up the piano bench, sit and guard.  He is out like a light.  He is seventy-one years old.  People walk by and I shush them and point.  They are impressed and obediently quiet.

The whole glorious day and night are a big success.  Everyone does great, the party is fabulous.  And let me tell you, when Warren Beatty looks at you – and he looked right at me – everything just fades away like in the movies.  What a night. I drive home delirious.  I cannot help thinking about the last two years and how my divorce and job search have left me feeling  – humiliated and degraded, disgusted, demoralized and so depressed with my questioning every life choice I had made.  Here I am, a not young female stage character actress in a youth obsessed TV and movie town who writes – not  screenplays – not pilots  – but womens’ history and I end up on stage with Dustin Hoffman playing Abigail Adams.   Yes the stars had aligned to offer me some fantastic karmic payback. There was some kind of intense harmonious convergence that happened where every life skill and past experience I had came to serve me so perfectly.

I’m not very religious but I will say, if God were a woman she’d be a Broad.

Coming Back For WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH

Sundays at 2:00PM- March 13th, 20th, 27th, and April 3rd

The Lounge Theater
6201 Santa Monica Boulevard
Los Angeles California 90038

Tickets:
$20 Full Price
$15 – Group Rate of four or more
$15 – Seniors, Students, Single Parents

Buy Tickets Online Here
Don’t want to buy tickets online?
Call (310) 308-0947 to reserve now.

$10- KPFK Member Discount. Phone orders only, use code KPFK2011 and present your KPFK member card at the box office.

Three Minutes of She’s History!….

Amy Simon is congresswoman Bella Abzug.

Why Do We Know More About
Paris Hilton
Than
Abigail Adams?

What Do Bloomers and Play Dates
Legos and Legislation
Homework and Housework
Have In Common?

SHE’S HISTORY!

Amy Simon is a Mom On A Mission

Mom watching Nancy Pelosi, first female Speaker of the House, making her acceptance speech.

When her ten-year-old daughter came home from school one March stating she was planning on doing her women’s history project on Cher…

Writer/Performer/Cultural Herstorian Amy Simon knew something needed to be done.

Using theater, history, multi-media, audience interaction, and good old-fashioned story telling,
She’s History is chock full of stories, scenes and revelations;
true tales of fabulous females, then and now.

Going back and forth from the past to the present, poignantly and comically (her trademark) our Modern Mom finds the funny
as she struggles with raising girls in today’s challenging world.

Watch Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony multi-task,
just like today’s mom – running the house, fixing dinner and
corralling the kids, all while working on the Fourteenth Amendment.

See and hear about Bella Abzug, Shirley Chisholm and Sojourner Truth, Maria Shriver, Eleanor Roosevelt and Golda Meir, Bloomers, Suffrage, Maternal Profiling, Seneca Falls, Abolition and more!
It’s all there in a fast paced hour long GALA-PALOOZA
Honoring Female America!

From the mom who brought you…Cheerios In My Underwear (www.cheeriosinmyunderwear.com)
which holds the record
as the longest running solo show in Los Angeles….

School report on Frances Wright, first woman in America to speak in public to men and women.

She’s History! in NEW YORK

As part of the Mamapalooza Mama Expo

Tuesday May 24th

The Drilling Company
West 78th Street