The Theatre of the Congresswomen

For those of you who don't know I'm currently in Washington, DC as part of the University of California's Washington DC Academic Internship Program (UCDC). The University of California owns a building here up the street from the White House on 16th street and we all live here and pretend like we are still in school. But honestly it doesn't feel like school. For me at least. I'm only taking a few classes and none of them require hard political research.

Most of my time thus far has been divided between going to my internship at The Studio Theatre and stage managing a production of The Congresswomen with a group of other drama kids, mostly from UC Santa Cruz. Our version of The Congresswomen is loosely based on the play by Aristophanes but in reality it is a devised theatre piece inspired by Aristophanes' appreciation and development of political satire. So far our original script consists of an interview between Michelle and Marcus Bachmann discussing their counseling clinic and a song in which the congresswoman sings, "I am the very Model of a Tea Party Republican" to the tune of Gilbert and Sullivan's classic Major-General's song. We are particularly interested in exploring issues surrounding the congresswomen of California including Nancy Pelosi, Dianne Feinstein, Barbara Boxer, and Loretta Sanchez.

My role in this process is making some form of order out of the chaos. The collaborative nature of this project is both exciting and daunting artistically. We are without the safety net of someone else's script and our director is engaged in projects outside of class leaving him less available to workshop his and our ideas in any structured way. This is easily the most risky project I've ever been a part of. What if this show doesn't end up being very successful because we had too many ideas and never brought it into focus? What if the Board of Administration doesn't like what we are doing? What if the UC Center decides not to continue the Arts Initiative Program which we are so fortunate to have this quarter? These are the questions I've been asking myself lately when I think about how this production will progress in the next few weeks. I'm optimistic about the director's vision and sense of purpose but doubtful of its reception amongst "the higher ups". So far I've met with the producer twice whose real job is to serve as the Manager of Business and Information Services at the UCDC Center. We've met informally to begin the discussion of our production's artistic direction and two days ago we had our first official production meeting with the rest of the designers and collaborators... While our director was in San Francisco. Overall I think it went smoothly.

Next week I'm going to a Picnic with UC Alumni at a vineyard in Virginia and then I'm pulling out my fancy cocktail dress for the Helen Hayes Awards. The Studio Theatre has been nominated for several so it'll be fun to see my coworkers outside the office.