STEPPING INTO THE UNKNOWN WITH LESBO SOLO

Subscribe to My Blog! August 6, 2024 Stepping into the Unknown Lesbo Solo Opens Sat. 8/10! (Click Here 4 Tix) Saturday, August 10 @ 7:30pm Saturday, August 24 @ 12:00pm Sunday, August 25 @ 3:00pm San Francisco Fringe Festival 277 Taylor Street in San Francisco Tix: $17.85 lesbo-solo.eventbrite.com Usually, by the time I open a play, I have had so much feedback from other people that I am very certain that the audience will approve of what I have written. But with LESBO SOLO, I'm working without a director, which is very unusual. Even when I'm producing something that I've performed many times for years, I have a director guiding me, as I did when I just had a run of HICK at the Marsh. Now here I am, doing something basically new without that support. I have gotten a lot of help with the script from Carolyn on Zoom. Even though we're far apart, my long-time collaborator is still necessary to me. But bringing the script to life, I'm pretty much on my own. Thank goodness my new friend Susan has agreed to be my stage manager. She has been incredibly helpful and hard-working. This is a very minimal show technically. But still there are things to be done, and she is up for doing everything -- and then doing publicity on the side. And Susan's comments on the play have been perceptive and helpful. She's been been such a gift. Thank you, goddess. But still I'm far more solo than I've been for a long time. And I haven't had enough feedback to say for sure that LESBO SOLO will work as an evening in the theater. I guess I'll find out on Saturday. It's exciting and a bit nerve-wracking. I'm stepping off into the unknown. This is all reminding me of when I did my solo play IMMEDIATE FAMILY for the first time. It was at the first women's theater festival, in Santa Cruz in 1983. IMMEDIATE FAMILY is about Virginia, at the bedside of her comatose wife, Rosie. She has no legal right to say anything about Rosie's medical treatment because of course they're not married. There were no domestic partners back then either. This is me as Virginia, below. She worked for the Post Office. I was doing a serious play for the very first time. It was about the need for gay marriage, and I really didn't know if I could pull it off. I thought maybe people would feel ... well, I guess, basically that they couldn't take me seriously. That I was a good comic writer and actor, but I couldn't do serious drama. I really didn't know if it would work So I performed. And NOBODY LAUGHED. Of course it was a serious play and they weren't SUPPOSED to laugh. That was the whole POINT. But now that they were silent, I had no idea what the hell they thought. I'd never experienced that before. It was my very first time performing my own work without that constant reassurance from the audience that they were following along and enjoying the show. That was very unsettling. At the end, when people applauded, the lights were totally in my eyes. Usually they bring up the lights on the audience so the actors can see their faces. But this time they didn't. So I couldn't see anyone's expression. So I went back to my dressing room still wondering if the play worked. In those days, people would often come backstage to the dressing room. Almost nobody does that anymore. But then it was very common. Even people who didn't know the actor, if they were very excited by the performance, would come back to the dressing room. And certainly good friends always did. I enjoyed that. So I'm waiting for people to come back and tell me what they thought and I'm waiting and waiting. And by that point I'm pretty sure the play is a flop, and people are embarrassed to face me. And then FINALLY Z Budapest, who I had never met, walks in and tells me that I had gotten a standing ovation, which I didn't know because of the lights in my eyes, and IMMEDIATE FAMILY is a huge success! Z is a witch, so maybe she somehow felt my need for her presence. I will always be so grateful to her for coming backstage to congratulate me. So on Saturday night, I will once again be stepping into the unknown. I hope you can come. But don't come backstage after. You can't do that at the Fringe. Wait outside and we'll go to Little Delhi restaurant, and you can tell me what you thought. Terry Saturday, August 10 @ 7:30pm Saturday, August 24 @ 12:00pm Sunday, August 25 @ 3:00pm Cutting Ball Theater 277 Taylor Street in San Francisco Tix: $17.85 lesbo-solo.eventbrite.com