A lot of things have ended in 2016, and San Francisco Theater Pub is among them.
I fell behind on cross-linking my Theater Pub columns here this year, and in 2017 I hope to collect links to all of my writing in one place, but, for now, here are the five final Theater Pub pieces I wrote.
"What I Did For Love" – following the September announcement that Theater Pub would end after its December show, I wrote about the factors that led to this decision and the reasons why no one should feel heartbroken at the news.
"Comma Comments" – "I’m a descriptivist when it comes to how I punctuate the dialogue of my
plays, but I am a strict prescriptivist when it comes to expecting
actors to respect that punctuation," and more thoughts on punctuation and playwriting.
"Pet Peeves in Arts Journalism" – after 4+ years of blogging for Theater Pub, I used one of my final columns to complain about phrases and ideas that bother me in other arts writing, including "The Bard," "the play's the thing," and either too much or too little knowledge of the past.
"If Only Angels Could Prevail" – I wrote this the night after the election and don't know how I did it. On facing the next four years, the possible role of artist and artists during that time, and how I survived Election Night by sneaking into a Sondheim rehearsal in the back room.
"They Can't Take That Away From Me" – there was no time for nostalgia the day after the election, but last week, I took some time to write a nostalgic look-back at seven years of Theater Pub and seven years of my twenties, titled after the song I sang at the final Theater Pub show.
Showing posts with label elsewhere online. Show all posts
Showing posts with label elsewhere online. Show all posts
Thursday, December 29, 2016
Saturday, October 29, 2016
for American Theatre: "School of Rock" & School of Wizardry
Two months left in 2016 and, as the holiday where we celebrate the undead and otherworldly approaches, I am attempting to raise this old blog from the dead (and catch up on posts that I meant to write this year).
Perhaps my biggest news is that I have started to contribute on a freelance basis to American Theatre's website!
In April, I reported on the first-ever youth production of School of Rock: The Musical, presented by Oakland School of the Arts at the historic Curran Theatre in San Francisco.
And, in September, I wrote a "Critic's Notebook" piece on the script of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, analyzing its affinity to nineteenth-century melodrama.
(I am convinced that being paid money to write about Harry Potter is a Millennial-writer rite of passage.)
Bonus link: the relationship between Oakland School of the Arts and the Curran is still going strong, as evidenced by this recent Curran-produced video of the OSA students singing their a cappella arrangement of "Ring of Keys" (which I briefly mentioned in my American Theatre article).
Perhaps my biggest news is that I have started to contribute on a freelance basis to American Theatre's website!
In April, I reported on the first-ever youth production of School of Rock: The Musical, presented by Oakland School of the Arts at the historic Curran Theatre in San Francisco.
And, in September, I wrote a "Critic's Notebook" piece on the script of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, analyzing its affinity to nineteenth-century melodrama.
(I am convinced that being paid money to write about Harry Potter is a Millennial-writer rite of passage.)
Bonus link: the relationship between Oakland School of the Arts and the Curran is still going strong, as evidenced by this recent Curran-produced video of the OSA students singing their a cappella arrangement of "Ring of Keys" (which I briefly mentioned in my American Theatre article).
Monday, February 29, 2016
February 2016 on the Theater Pub blog
If my writing output is an accurate barometer of my mood/mental health/ability to handle life at the moment, you can guess what it means that I only felt capable of writing one "real" piece for the Theater Pub blog this month, instead of my usual two.
Early in the month the only thing I felt up to doing was a straightforward news roundup of Theater Pub-related info and press, so that's what I did. Well, it feels good to have all that news in one place, as opposed to dispersed in a handful of ephemeral links and tweets.
My "real" piece this month is about the value of getting your friends together and reading a play aloud, which provides the same emotional release that singing karaoke can. Sometimes you need to sing, to embody a piece of music, rather than merely listening to it... the same is true for theater.
Speaking of which, anyone have any suggestions for plays to read when you're in your late twenties and feeling scattered and overwhelmed? I could use that – and the attendant emotional release – right about now.
Early in the month the only thing I felt up to doing was a straightforward news roundup of Theater Pub-related info and press, so that's what I did. Well, it feels good to have all that news in one place, as opposed to dispersed in a handful of ephemeral links and tweets.
My "real" piece this month is about the value of getting your friends together and reading a play aloud, which provides the same emotional release that singing karaoke can. Sometimes you need to sing, to embody a piece of music, rather than merely listening to it... the same is true for theater.
Speaking of which, anyone have any suggestions for plays to read when you're in your late twenties and feeling scattered and overwhelmed? I could use that – and the attendant emotional release – right about now.
Sunday, January 24, 2016
2015 Ends, 2016 Begins on the Theater Pub Blog
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| I sang in the Theater Pub holiday musical this year, too! This is Stuart Bousel and me as the Specialist and his Assistant in "Go To The Mirror," from Tommy. Photo by Paul Anderson. |
In early December, my fellow Theater Pub blogger Ashley Cowan and I teamed up for a special two-part piece looking at the ups and downs of being a tall actress. (I'm 5'8", Ashley is 5'9".) We interviewed other tall ladies and shared some of our own stories about typecasting and insecurities, triumphs and inspirations. Ashley's Part One; my Part Two.
Theater Pub's year-end tradition is to ask each blogger to contribute a Top 5 list. This time around, I chose to write about five delightfully surprising performances that I saw onstage in 2015, from Bay Area actors Madeline H.D. Brown, Adam Magill, Heather Orth, Thomas Gorrebeeck, and Siobhan Marie Doherty.
For the second year in a row (see my acceptance speech from last year), my friend Stuart Bousel cited me in his annual "Stuey Awards" honoring Excellence in Bay Area Theater. My 2015 Stuey is shared with everyone who worked on the Olympians Festival staged reading of Tethys and Oceanus -- which I was nervous as hell about, but came off really beautifully. I don't quite agree with Stuart's conclusion that Tethys "feels like it could be lifted and fully produced as-is," but I'm flattered that he thinks so, and the success of the reading has definitely made me excited to continue working on this script. Stuart also gave a brief nod to our rock-music duet in Tommy -- ha!
I began 2016 by writing about one of the best books I read in 2015: the memoir How To Be a Heroine, by my friend, the playwright Samantha Ellis. In particular, I was drawn to the sections of Samantha's book where she describes the tensions between being a people-pleasing good girl and being a self-actualized artist. I recommend it to any female artist who's working through those types of issues.
This week, because Theater Pub is currently producing short plays inspired by the indie-rock musician Morrissey (two performances left! See it Monday or Tuesday evening), I decided to look at the flip side of that. That is, I highlighted four indie-rock songs inspired by theater, by the Decemberists, the Magnetic Fields, St. Vincent, and the Weakerthans.
Monday, November 30, 2015
"How To Tell If You're In a Stoppard Play" Now Up at The Toast!
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| The Toast illustrated my piece with a still from the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern film, but this is my blog so I'm illustrating it with a picture of Rufus Sewell as the original Septimus Hodge. You're welcome. |
For The Toast's famed How To Tell If You're In a Novel series, I wrote and submitted How To Tell If You Are In a Tom Stoppard Play.
The piece begins:
You have devoted your life to translating Ovid, but your guilty pleasure is ‘60s bubblegum pop.
You are a young woman who’s not shy about displaying her intellectual gifts or her perky breasts.
Thinking of the destruction of the Library of Alexandria, you burst into tears.And continues with many more items of Stoppard-related literary criticism in the guise of silly jokes.
This piece is, I believe, the first thing I've ever written for the Internet that I'm getting paid for, and I couldn't be more thrilled to have that happen with a bunch of Tom Stoppard jokes. I also think I talk more about sex here than I customarily do, and again, I'm amused that this is what it takes to get me to write about sex.
The piece also seems to have found its audience -- closing in on 3,000 social media hits as I write this -- which is so flattering and gratifying. I love that so many of the people who've shared this piece said something like "I always knew I was a Stoppard character" -- I've always intended that as the subtext of the piece: if you love Stoppard's work, if you think these jokes are funny, you're probably a lot like a Stoppard character yourself.
All of the Toast's commenters have been lovely and smart and supportive too -- if only the whole world could be like the Toast's comments section! I'm especially pleased that the "bad Czechs" joke is getting so much love, because it's the last item I added to the piece, after a late night of drinking hot toddies and thumbing through my Collected Works of Stoppard. (After I submitted the first draft, the editor asked me to make it longer, and I feared I didn't have any more good jokes left in me.) And to the person who commented "Somehow this is both a devastating skewering of Stoppard's tropes and a heartening reminder of his genius" -- yep. That's what I was aiming for, and I'm so glad I may have hit the target.
Further reading:
- All of the How To Tell If You're In a Novel entries are pretty fab, but the one that has made me giggle like no other is How To Tell If You are In a Logic Puzzle, by Diana Walter
- If you like my Stoppard jokes, you might also like my essay from two years ago about my decade-long crush on Septimus Hodge and seeing Arcadia for the first time after years of anticipation. Or browse the Stoppard tag on my blog.
November on the Theater Pub blog: "Sense and Sensitivity"
Due to the Thanksgiving holiday, I wrote just one piece for the Theater Pub blog this month: "Sense and Sensitivity." Partly inspired by a Howlround piece about young women experiencing harassment when they performed an outdoor Shakespeare play, partly inspired by that "spoiled Millennials should suck it up and not complain" attitude that has roared up with a vengeance this year, and has been getting me down.
An excerpt:
But! I've got something else up my sleeve this month. Later today, something fun and silly and theater-related that I wrote will be published on a popular website. I can't wait to share it with you!
An excerpt:
Certainly, a large part of what is meant by “maturity” is learning how to suck it up and deal with it. A mature person knows how to pick her battles. But that’s not the same thing as saying that mature people never battle or protest. Sometimes the only way to deal with something is to mount a spirited objection to it. The amount of outrage and overreaction in the culture these days can be both fatiguing and depressing — but I don’t think the solution is to suggest that people should stop reacting entirely. Mature people know how to manage their sensitivity, but they do not disown their sensitivity.(I think I may repeat that last sentence to myself in times when I am feeling low and then feeling guilty for feeling low -- though perhaps quoting my own writing makes me a 'narcissistic Millennial'!)
But! I've got something else up my sleeve this month. Later today, something fun and silly and theater-related that I wrote will be published on a popular website. I can't wait to share it with you!
Saturday, October 31, 2015
October on the Theater Pub blog
Happy Halloween!
I wrote three posts this month for the SF Theater Pub blog, all of which I'm pretty proud of:
The Practical Magic of Props: Anecdotes from friends and acquaintances that celebrate the often-unsung work of the props master, who sometimes must find or create some incredibly bizarre or unique objects according to the demands of the script. (See also: my poem "Ode to the Props Master," which I wrote for a Theater Pub show in 2012.)
Uncomfortable Thoughts: A post arguing against the idea (which I've heard some people articulate) that "the point of theater is to make people uncomfortable," and attempting to negotiate the line between "challenging" and "uncomfortable."
Ridiculously Easy, Theatrically Inspired Halloween Costumes: Exactly what the title says. Includes my perennial suggestion of how to dress up like Camille, which I originally wrote about in 2007 (gawd, how time flies) and is still one of my most popular marissabidilla posts ever.
I was a bouncy, ukulele-playing "Marilyn Monroe as Sugar Kane in Some Like It Hot" for my office Halloween party yesterday, but now it's a gloriously foggy night in San Francisco and I'm off to dress up in Victorian finery and attend a mourning-themed play in a secret living-room theater -- am I doing Halloween right, or what?
I wrote three posts this month for the SF Theater Pub blog, all of which I'm pretty proud of:
The Practical Magic of Props: Anecdotes from friends and acquaintances that celebrate the often-unsung work of the props master, who sometimes must find or create some incredibly bizarre or unique objects according to the demands of the script. (See also: my poem "Ode to the Props Master," which I wrote for a Theater Pub show in 2012.)
Uncomfortable Thoughts: A post arguing against the idea (which I've heard some people articulate) that "the point of theater is to make people uncomfortable," and attempting to negotiate the line between "challenging" and "uncomfortable."
Ridiculously Easy, Theatrically Inspired Halloween Costumes: Exactly what the title says. Includes my perennial suggestion of how to dress up like Camille, which I originally wrote about in 2007 (gawd, how time flies) and is still one of my most popular marissabidilla posts ever.
I was a bouncy, ukulele-playing "Marilyn Monroe as Sugar Kane in Some Like It Hot" for my office Halloween party yesterday, but now it's a gloriously foggy night in San Francisco and I'm off to dress up in Victorian finery and attend a mourning-themed play in a secret living-room theater -- am I doing Halloween right, or what?
Wednesday, September 30, 2015
September on the Theater Pub blog
Two more columns this month!
In "Male and Female, I Created Them," I continued my inquiry into issues of gender and feminism and theater and what we "should" or "shouldn't" be writing. I talk about the first time I wrote a male character that I felt really proud of, and push back against the notion that ideological concerns should govern art. I also describe one of my favorite scenes in the movie Mistress America, which has probably come and gone from theaters by now, but which you should put on your queue because it's super funny and smart.
In my other piece, I wrote a little about Dada and Surrealism, and interviewed actor-director Steven Westdahl about Zurich Plays, his Dada-themed SF Fringe Festival show. (It was a hit and won Best of Fringe!) This also continues my mini-theme of writing pieces for the Theater Pub blog about European avant-garde movements of the 20th century -- earlier this year, I wrote about Parisian bohemia and about Oulipo/Outrapo.
In "Male and Female, I Created Them," I continued my inquiry into issues of gender and feminism and theater and what we "should" or "shouldn't" be writing. I talk about the first time I wrote a male character that I felt really proud of, and push back against the notion that ideological concerns should govern art. I also describe one of my favorite scenes in the movie Mistress America, which has probably come and gone from theaters by now, but which you should put on your queue because it's super funny and smart.
In my other piece, I wrote a little about Dada and Surrealism, and interviewed actor-director Steven Westdahl about Zurich Plays, his Dada-themed SF Fringe Festival show. (It was a hit and won Best of Fringe!) This also continues my mini-theme of writing pieces for the Theater Pub blog about European avant-garde movements of the 20th century -- earlier this year, I wrote about Parisian bohemia and about Oulipo/Outrapo.
Sunday, August 23, 2015
August on the Theater Pub blog
Another month, another two columns.
In "A Monologue of One's Own," I wrote about the whirlwind experience of preparing to play Virginia Woolf in a monologue by playwright Jeremy Cole, part of an evening of pro-choice theater honoring NARAL. I was a replacement for an actress who'd had to drop out a week before the show, so there I was, still not really accustomed to thinking of myself as an actor, opening the show with an 8-minute monologue, portraying a real-life famous person with an accent not my own.
My performance was captured on video (credit: Paul Anderson) -- how do you think I did?
Then, this week, I wrote a something called "An Introvert's Guide to Theater" -- maybe the title is a little far-reaching for what it is, which is a piece about how I'm not anti-social, but I do get run-down after too much socialization. Which can be a disadvantage when you're a theater artist. There are probably more introverted theater people out there than anyone realizes, though, and it's a topic I'd like to explore more in future.
And (if you're reading this in time) come see the Pint-Sized Plays at Theater Pub! I didn't write or direct any of the shows this year, but I produced the whole evening: read all the submissions, selected the plays and directors, sent innumerable emails and put out a fair few fires. The result is a lot of fun and it's been drawing packed houses. We have 2 more performances, August 24 and 25.
In "A Monologue of One's Own," I wrote about the whirlwind experience of preparing to play Virginia Woolf in a monologue by playwright Jeremy Cole, part of an evening of pro-choice theater honoring NARAL. I was a replacement for an actress who'd had to drop out a week before the show, so there I was, still not really accustomed to thinking of myself as an actor, opening the show with an 8-minute monologue, portraying a real-life famous person with an accent not my own.
My performance was captured on video (credit: Paul Anderson) -- how do you think I did?
Then, this week, I wrote a something called "An Introvert's Guide to Theater" -- maybe the title is a little far-reaching for what it is, which is a piece about how I'm not anti-social, but I do get run-down after too much socialization. Which can be a disadvantage when you're a theater artist. There are probably more introverted theater people out there than anyone realizes, though, and it's a topic I'd like to explore more in future.
And (if you're reading this in time) come see the Pint-Sized Plays at Theater Pub! I didn't write or direct any of the shows this year, but I produced the whole evening: read all the submissions, selected the plays and directors, sent innumerable emails and put out a fair few fires. The result is a lot of fun and it's been drawing packed houses. We have 2 more performances, August 24 and 25.
Saturday, August 15, 2015
Theater Pub Posts, May through July, 2015
Yes, I've been having a busy summer. Yes, I feel bad for neglecting this blog. Yes, I've kept writing my twice-monthly column for the San Francisco Theater Pub site. Here's a link roundup of my pieces from May through July.
May 14, How Theater Became a Good-Girl Pursuit: an attempt to figure out how "theater went from being considered on par with prostitution, to being considered on par with the chess club," as my editor put it.
May 28, Forewarned is Forearmed: by popular demand (i.e., I asked my Facebook friends what I should write about, and they suggested this topic), I wrote about the contentious subject of trigger warnings, and what place they might have in theater.
June 11, She Submits to Conquer: as part of the ongoing conversation about gender parity in theater, I revealed the inspiring submission statistics for the Pint-Sized Plays, the short-play festival I'm producing this month. The gender breakdown of submissions was 60% female, 40% male, and the festival lineup also reflects that ratio. I also offered some ideas for "best practices" that will encourage women to submit. (Also of note, American Theatre magazine linked to this article on their Facebook page!)
June 25, Give Him A Great Big Kiss: about taking on my first acting role in seven years, sexy secretary Elsa in The Desk Set, rehearsing my first stage kiss, and playing a sexpot when I tend to consider myself a nerdy late bloomer.
July 9, The Tech Set: a brief column listing all of the seemingly ridiculous things that people discuss at tech rehearsal, especially when it's a show with as many props as The Desk Set! As a side note, this was a conscious attempt to write a column in the style of Allison Page, my smart and hilarious fellow blogger (and The Desk Set's leading lady).
July 23, My Dance Card Is Full: I basically took the week off from writing my column, though I did submit a picture of me in costume for my minor role as a business journalist in The Desk Set.
May 14, How Theater Became a Good-Girl Pursuit: an attempt to figure out how "theater went from being considered on par with prostitution, to being considered on par with the chess club," as my editor put it.
May 28, Forewarned is Forearmed: by popular demand (i.e., I asked my Facebook friends what I should write about, and they suggested this topic), I wrote about the contentious subject of trigger warnings, and what place they might have in theater.
June 11, She Submits to Conquer: as part of the ongoing conversation about gender parity in theater, I revealed the inspiring submission statistics for the Pint-Sized Plays, the short-play festival I'm producing this month. The gender breakdown of submissions was 60% female, 40% male, and the festival lineup also reflects that ratio. I also offered some ideas for "best practices" that will encourage women to submit. (Also of note, American Theatre magazine linked to this article on their Facebook page!)
June 25, Give Him A Great Big Kiss: about taking on my first acting role in seven years, sexy secretary Elsa in The Desk Set, rehearsing my first stage kiss, and playing a sexpot when I tend to consider myself a nerdy late bloomer.
July 9, The Tech Set: a brief column listing all of the seemingly ridiculous things that people discuss at tech rehearsal, especially when it's a show with as many props as The Desk Set! As a side note, this was a conscious attempt to write a column in the style of Allison Page, my smart and hilarious fellow blogger (and The Desk Set's leading lady).
July 23, My Dance Card Is Full: I basically took the week off from writing my column, though I did submit a picture of me in costume for my minor role as a business journalist in The Desk Set.
Wednesday, May 6, 2015
April on the Theater Pub Blog
The way the calendar for April 2015 shook out, I ended up writing 3 posts on the SF Theater Pub blog instead of my usual 2. Here's the links:
- I interviewed Thrillpeddlers' Artistic Director, Russell Blackwood, about his company and their Paris-themed burlesque musical revue Jewels of Paris. I loved that when my editor received the Jewels of Paris press release, he took one look at it and said "this is definitely an assignment for Marissa!"
- Continuing the "Parisian avant-garde" theme, and tying in with Theater Pub's experimental April show, I wrote about the French playwrights' collective Outrapo -- the Workshop of Potential Tragicomedy -- and my attempts to get in touch with the Outrapistes when I was an exchange student in Paris in 2007.
- On the last day of April, I wrote about how my political beliefs and my tastes in theater aren't always 100% congruent; sometimes I feel like a bad feminist when I don't like a play that has a message I agree with... or when I enjoy a play that I know is politically iffy. This practice of reducing a work of art to its sociopolitical message seems pretty common in the two locales where I spend most of my time: in the SF Bay Area, and online. I yearn for criticism and conversation that explores other dimensions of works of art.
Saturday, March 21, 2015
Artists Are Members of a Privileged Class @ SF Theater Pub Blog
I'm rereading Tom Stoppard's Travesties tonight (for a very cool reason which I am not yet at liberty to disclose) and I have to say that it makes for very interesting reading in light of what I wrote for the Theater Pub blog earlier this week.
My Theater Pub piece is about living in an age when "count your blessings" has turned into "check your privilege," acknowledging that being an artist is itself a privilege, and wondering if anything short of total social revolution will change that.
And then I start rereading a play in which Vladimir Lenin, James Joyce, and Tristan Tzara debate art and revolution with Henry Carr, a privileged British guy who'd rather talk about his Savile Row suits than about the carnage of World War I. Despite that, he gets in some rather trenchant commentary on art and privilege.
Some choice quotes from Travesties:
"To be an artist at all is like living in Switzerland during a world war." (Carr)
"Art created patrons and was corrupted. It began to celebrate the ambitions and acquisitions of the paymaster." (Tzara)
"Revolution in art is in no way connected with class revolution. Artists are members of a privileged class. Art is absurdly overrated by artists, which is understandable, but what is strange is that it's absurdly overrated by everyone else. [...] What is an artist? For every thousand people there's nine hundred doing the work, ninety doing well, nine doing good, and one lucky bastard who's the artist." (Carr)
My Theater Pub piece is about living in an age when "count your blessings" has turned into "check your privilege," acknowledging that being an artist is itself a privilege, and wondering if anything short of total social revolution will change that.
And then I start rereading a play in which Vladimir Lenin, James Joyce, and Tristan Tzara debate art and revolution with Henry Carr, a privileged British guy who'd rather talk about his Savile Row suits than about the carnage of World War I. Despite that, he gets in some rather trenchant commentary on art and privilege.
Some choice quotes from Travesties:
"To be an artist at all is like living in Switzerland during a world war." (Carr)
"Art created patrons and was corrupted. It began to celebrate the ambitions and acquisitions of the paymaster." (Tzara)
"Revolution in art is in no way connected with class revolution. Artists are members of a privileged class. Art is absurdly overrated by artists, which is understandable, but what is strange is that it's absurdly overrated by everyone else. [...] What is an artist? For every thousand people there's nine hundred doing the work, ninety doing well, nine doing good, and one lucky bastard who's the artist." (Carr)
Sunday, February 8, 2015
Moved to Tears @ San Francisco Theater Pub Blog
My latest Theater Pub column is about the works of art that make me cry -- something I don't think we talk about enough, in an era that is skeptical of raw emotion. Click over there and read my piece to learn why I made sure to bring a hankie to the performance of Candide I saw last week and how seeing The King and I at the age of 5 utterly ruined me.
(My friend/editor Stuart noted "I think you're the only non-Asian person I know who was traumatized by The King and I... and most of them were traumatized for very different reasons.")
I've also convinced myself that Howard Ashman and Alan Menken must've modeled elements of Beauty and the Beast, especially the ballroom dancing scene, after The King and I -- they were no dummies and, as we all know, "good artists borrow, great artists steal."
In my column, I also mention seeing Rabbit Hole at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival when I was in college -- which happened to be the subject of one of my very first blog posts. Crazy to realize that that was almost 8 years ago (also crazy that I haven't been back to Ashland since then, but that's a topic for another day).
(My friend/editor Stuart noted "I think you're the only non-Asian person I know who was traumatized by The King and I... and most of them were traumatized for very different reasons.")
I've also convinced myself that Howard Ashman and Alan Menken must've modeled elements of Beauty and the Beast, especially the ballroom dancing scene, after The King and I -- they were no dummies and, as we all know, "good artists borrow, great artists steal."
In my column, I also mention seeing Rabbit Hole at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival when I was in college -- which happened to be the subject of one of my very first blog posts. Crazy to realize that that was almost 8 years ago (also crazy that I haven't been back to Ashland since then, but that's a topic for another day).
Monday, January 12, 2015
I'd Like to Thank the Stucademy
Stuart Bousel wrote 5000 words last Monday explaining why he wasn't going to post his Stuart Excellence in Bay Area Theater Awards, a.k.a. SEBATAs, a.k.a. "Stueys," this year. So it was a surprise when, round midnight last night (trust Stuart to post his awards at the witching hour), a post went up on the Theater Pub blog announcing the 14 Stuey winners—including me!
My "Best Breakthrough" Stuey recognizes my successfully self-producing Pleiades last August. "I was blown away by how organized and focused Marissa was, how determined she was to do it as best she could even the first time out," Stuart wrote. "Marissa strategized and planned, gathered information, raised funds, and was just in general super smart about it all. Was anyone surprised? Not really. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take one more moment to tell her she did an amazing job. Everyone looking to produce a show in 2015: call Marissa. She knows what she’s doing."
Inspired by last night's Golden Globes and by Stuart's own honesty in always speaking what's on his mind, I wrote an acceptance speech and posted it to Facebook this morning.
"And the 2014 Stuey for Best Breakthrough goes to... Marissa Skudlarek, Pleiades."
(Applause. I get up from my seat, glide to the podium. At least I'd like to think I glide. The last time I wore high heels and a long gown, at the TBA Awards, I tripped and fell halfway down a flight of stairs and bruised my ankle. [Fortunately, no one witnessed it.] My friend Maura said this made me the Bay Area Jennifer Lawrence and that made me feel a little better, 'cause who doesn't want to be JLaw, but it's been two months and my ankle is still slightly tender. But this is all a daydream in which I'm wearing a gown that probably costs as much as my whole production of Pleiades so yeah, I glide, OK?)
"Gentlemen and la—wait, the Stuey Awards committee consists of only one gentleman—I gratefully accept the Stuey for Best Breakthrough. Of course, I think it’s kind of funny that in the citation for the award, I am praised for, basically, being a perfectionist and having my shit together—wait, can I say ‘shit’ here, or will I get bleeped?—when I often feel like my perfectionism is detrimental and that I don’t have my shit together at all. Like Stuart says, awards are kind of weird. And there’s a certain existential terror, too, in the idea of ‘Oh my God, if I’ve broken through, now I have to keep doing this.’ But honestly, all neurosis aside, I agree with our illustrious host and one-man awards committee that the Internet has gotten kind of awful recently, full of criticism and judgment and not the good kind of criticism and judgment, the place where you can always, always find someone who’ll tell you why you’re doing it wrong. And in a tough environment, in a tough year, I am genuinely touched that someone is willing to say in public that he thinks I’m basically headed in the right direction. That many of us in this room are headed in the right direction. And maybe this thought, and this award, will help me pick myself up faster in moments when I’m bogged down by neurosis and self-doubt. And in the meantime, yes, if you want to talk about best practices for self-producing, drop me a line and we’ll plan a coffee date. Awards have only as much power as we give them, but if this award can make me more personally hopeful or result in more knowledge about self-production being circulated in our community, then its power will be harnessed to a good cause. Thank you again."
(And I glide offstage.)
A couple of thoughts that I'd like to add tonight:
It's a little odd to get this award from Stuart, because his theater company, No Nude Men, was the nominal producer of Pleiades. It wasn't a financial arrangement. Instead, Stuart granted me the prestige of the NNM brand, with its 10+ years of history in the Bay Area; we had a few producer-y chats over coffee; and he let me text/email him with Silly Newbie Producer Questions as they came up. So I feel like a lot of my achievements as a producer simply involved asking good questions and listening to the advice of someone who's produced indie theater here for over a decade. Maybe that's rarer than it seems (Stuart would know), and maybe it's also a bit nepotistic. Fear of appearing nepotistic or biased, in fact, was one of the reasons that Stuart almost didn't post his awards this year. But hey, they are his awards, this is show business, and both he and I are people who overanalyze our actions, so who am I to quibble?
One thing I haven't overanalyzed, though, is the experience of producing Pleiades. Right after it closed, I became overwhelmed by a health crisis and a breakup, in quick succession. So I didn't really get a chance to take pride in my achievement, or to sort out my feelings about the show separately from everything else that was happening in my life. The wounds from my surgery and my breakup have now healed, and I've integrated those events into my self-narrative—but I haven't fully integrated Pleiades. (I haven't even been able to bring myself to open the script on my computer and incorporate the tiny changes that I made in rehearsals.) So winning a Stuey, having my efforts recognized, feels like an anchor, grounding me more firmly in sanity, reality, accomplishment. Yes. I wrote and produced a play. People noticed. And I shouldn't allow anything else to overshadow that.
My "Best Breakthrough" Stuey recognizes my successfully self-producing Pleiades last August. "I was blown away by how organized and focused Marissa was, how determined she was to do it as best she could even the first time out," Stuart wrote. "Marissa strategized and planned, gathered information, raised funds, and was just in general super smart about it all. Was anyone surprised? Not really. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take one more moment to tell her she did an amazing job. Everyone looking to produce a show in 2015: call Marissa. She knows what she’s doing."
Inspired by last night's Golden Globes and by Stuart's own honesty in always speaking what's on his mind, I wrote an acceptance speech and posted it to Facebook this morning.
 |
| In my dreams, this is what I'm wearing to accept my Stuey Award. Marchesa, Fall 2014. |
(Applause. I get up from my seat, glide to the podium. At least I'd like to think I glide. The last time I wore high heels and a long gown, at the TBA Awards, I tripped and fell halfway down a flight of stairs and bruised my ankle. [Fortunately, no one witnessed it.] My friend Maura said this made me the Bay Area Jennifer Lawrence and that made me feel a little better, 'cause who doesn't want to be JLaw, but it's been two months and my ankle is still slightly tender. But this is all a daydream in which I'm wearing a gown that probably costs as much as my whole production of Pleiades so yeah, I glide, OK?)
"Gentlemen and la—wait, the Stuey Awards committee consists of only one gentleman—I gratefully accept the Stuey for Best Breakthrough. Of course, I think it’s kind of funny that in the citation for the award, I am praised for, basically, being a perfectionist and having my shit together—wait, can I say ‘shit’ here, or will I get bleeped?—when I often feel like my perfectionism is detrimental and that I don’t have my shit together at all. Like Stuart says, awards are kind of weird. And there’s a certain existential terror, too, in the idea of ‘Oh my God, if I’ve broken through, now I have to keep doing this.’ But honestly, all neurosis aside, I agree with our illustrious host and one-man awards committee that the Internet has gotten kind of awful recently, full of criticism and judgment and not the good kind of criticism and judgment, the place where you can always, always find someone who’ll tell you why you’re doing it wrong. And in a tough environment, in a tough year, I am genuinely touched that someone is willing to say in public that he thinks I’m basically headed in the right direction. That many of us in this room are headed in the right direction. And maybe this thought, and this award, will help me pick myself up faster in moments when I’m bogged down by neurosis and self-doubt. And in the meantime, yes, if you want to talk about best practices for self-producing, drop me a line and we’ll plan a coffee date. Awards have only as much power as we give them, but if this award can make me more personally hopeful or result in more knowledge about self-production being circulated in our community, then its power will be harnessed to a good cause. Thank you again."
(And I glide offstage.)
A couple of thoughts that I'd like to add tonight:
It's a little odd to get this award from Stuart, because his theater company, No Nude Men, was the nominal producer of Pleiades. It wasn't a financial arrangement. Instead, Stuart granted me the prestige of the NNM brand, with its 10+ years of history in the Bay Area; we had a few producer-y chats over coffee; and he let me text/email him with Silly Newbie Producer Questions as they came up. So I feel like a lot of my achievements as a producer simply involved asking good questions and listening to the advice of someone who's produced indie theater here for over a decade. Maybe that's rarer than it seems (Stuart would know), and maybe it's also a bit nepotistic. Fear of appearing nepotistic or biased, in fact, was one of the reasons that Stuart almost didn't post his awards this year. But hey, they are his awards, this is show business, and both he and I are people who overanalyze our actions, so who am I to quibble?
One thing I haven't overanalyzed, though, is the experience of producing Pleiades. Right after it closed, I became overwhelmed by a health crisis and a breakup, in quick succession. So I didn't really get a chance to take pride in my achievement, or to sort out my feelings about the show separately from everything else that was happening in my life. The wounds from my surgery and my breakup have now healed, and I've integrated those events into my self-narrative—but I haven't fully integrated Pleiades. (I haven't even been able to bring myself to open the script on my computer and incorporate the tiny changes that I made in rehearsals.) So winning a Stuey, having my efforts recognized, feels like an anchor, grounding me more firmly in sanity, reality, accomplishment. Yes. I wrote and produced a play. People noticed. And I shouldn't allow anything else to overshadow that.
Friday, January 9, 2015
2014 Ends, 2015 Begins @ SF Theater Pub Blog
In late December, we SF Theater Pub bloggers revived our tradition of doing some group posts to honor our favorite theater moments, posts on our blog, and posts on other blogs from the past year.
For our compilation of Top 5 lists celebrating highlights of Bay Area Theater, I contributed my Top 5 Design Elements from plays I saw in 2014. ("That's right, you're kind of like our style columnist, aren't you?" said my editor when I pitched this. I ended up covering way more than just fashion/costume design, though!)
Then, for our round-up of favorite posts from our blog and elsewhere, I wrote about Barbara Jwanouskos' busy year of breaking through barriers, physical and mental (she does kung fu); about Moss Hart's memoir Act One; and about Frank Rich's article on the backstory to Act One. Ashley Cowan, meanwhile, wrote about some of my Theater Pub blog entries, including the one from October where I decided to talk about my gallstone crisis publicly. It was one of the more emotionally vulnerable posts I wrote in the difficult year of 2014 and I am honored to be recognized for it.
Ashley praised me for "staying positive" and "searching for stars in seemingly dark skies," but honestly, that's not always easy. It's not like I can find a sense of positivity and peace and then hold onto it forever -- my equilibrium is fragile and I easily spiral into negativity. Indeed, my first Theater Pub post of 2015 has me wondering if I'm backsliding, wondering if I'm losing my mind, wondering if I have anything to say... wondering a hell of a lot of things, actually. Ever since I started this blog seven and a half years ago, it's borne the tagline "a girl with an answer for some things and a question for most things." But I don't think I've ever before publicly shown you the extent of my self-questioning the way I did in my Theater Pub post this week.
For our compilation of Top 5 lists celebrating highlights of Bay Area Theater, I contributed my Top 5 Design Elements from plays I saw in 2014. ("That's right, you're kind of like our style columnist, aren't you?" said my editor when I pitched this. I ended up covering way more than just fashion/costume design, though!)
Then, for our round-up of favorite posts from our blog and elsewhere, I wrote about Barbara Jwanouskos' busy year of breaking through barriers, physical and mental (she does kung fu); about Moss Hart's memoir Act One; and about Frank Rich's article on the backstory to Act One. Ashley Cowan, meanwhile, wrote about some of my Theater Pub blog entries, including the one from October where I decided to talk about my gallstone crisis publicly. It was one of the more emotionally vulnerable posts I wrote in the difficult year of 2014 and I am honored to be recognized for it.
Ashley praised me for "staying positive" and "searching for stars in seemingly dark skies," but honestly, that's not always easy. It's not like I can find a sense of positivity and peace and then hold onto it forever -- my equilibrium is fragile and I easily spiral into negativity. Indeed, my first Theater Pub post of 2015 has me wondering if I'm backsliding, wondering if I'm losing my mind, wondering if I have anything to say... wondering a hell of a lot of things, actually. Ever since I started this blog seven and a half years ago, it's borne the tagline "a girl with an answer for some things and a question for most things." But I don't think I've ever before publicly shown you the extent of my self-questioning the way I did in my Theater Pub post this week.
Thursday, January 1, 2015
One Midnight (of 2015) Gone
Happy 2015!
I spent the first afternoon of the year at the movies, seeing Into the Woods with my friend Corinne Proctor. She's a professional musical-theater actress who played Little Red Riding Hood at San Francisco Playhouse this summer; I'm a Sondheim junkie for whom Woods was the gateway drug. Needless to say, we were both "excited and scared" for the film adaptation!
After all, we'd spent December participating in Theater Pub's big Into the Woods blog-roundtable. Together with local theater luminaries Stuart Bousel, Brian Katz, Oren Stevens, and Nick Trengove, we analyzed the intricacies of this multi-layered show. Our discussion, in three parts:
Also, if the above three links aren't enough Corinne and Marissa for you, she and I made an additional appearance on the Theater Pub blog in December, when I interviewed her about playing "Marge" in Promises, Promises at San Francisco Playhouse. Our discussion touches on vodka stingers, holiday movies, and glamorous stage names... as well as less frivolous matters like Corinne's decisions to join Equity and move to New York City. She'll be in S.F. for another week finishing out the run of Promises, Promises, and then heading back to the East Coast. I'll miss her -- it's always sad when a friend who loves Sondheim and Stoppard as much as you do leaves town.
I spent the first afternoon of the year at the movies, seeing Into the Woods with my friend Corinne Proctor. She's a professional musical-theater actress who played Little Red Riding Hood at San Francisco Playhouse this summer; I'm a Sondheim junkie for whom Woods was the gateway drug. Needless to say, we were both "excited and scared" for the film adaptation!
After all, we'd spent December participating in Theater Pub's big Into the Woods blog-roundtable. Together with local theater luminaries Stuart Bousel, Brian Katz, Oren Stevens, and Nick Trengove, we analyzed the intricacies of this multi-layered show. Our discussion, in three parts:
- Part I, "Once Upon a Time" -- who we all are, why we love Woods, favorite moments and characters.
- Part II, "Honor Their Mistakes" -- the moments that we consider flawed or tricky, and whether we agree with certain frequently-heard criticisms of Into the Woods.
- Part III, "And Home Before Dark" -- thoughts on the meaning/significance of the show and the meaning of fairy tales in general.
Also, if the above three links aren't enough Corinne and Marissa for you, she and I made an additional appearance on the Theater Pub blog in December, when I interviewed her about playing "Marge" in Promises, Promises at San Francisco Playhouse. Our discussion touches on vodka stingers, holiday movies, and glamorous stage names... as well as less frivolous matters like Corinne's decisions to join Equity and move to New York City. She'll be in S.F. for another week finishing out the run of Promises, Promises, and then heading back to the East Coast. I'll miss her -- it's always sad when a friend who loves Sondheim and Stoppard as much as you do leaves town.
Sunday, November 30, 2014
November Spawned a Monster
I didn't write a Theater Pub column this Thursday, because of Thanksgiving. And also because the editor needed to run the VERY VERY SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT that after a hiatus of a year and a half, Theater Pub will return to presenting free live theater in San Francisco bars as of January 2015. (HUZZAH!)
Four weeks before that, I wrote a column that I didn't link to at the time, because I realized I was kind of phoning it in. ("Horror Vacui," from October 30. Read it if you want to read my thoughts on some memoirs I've read recently, or what I did the night the Giants won the World Series. Gosh, doesn't that feel like ages ago?)
But two Thursdays ago... ah, two Thursdays ago, I wrote what is now the most-read (and I believe most-commented) piece in the history of the Theater Pub blog. I took blogger George Heymont to task for failing to perceive the clearly feminist message of Megan Cohen's "Centaurs, or the Horse's Ass," which had greatly affected me when I saw the script in its Olympians Festival staged reading. Heymont responded in the comments section and the back-and-forth got pretty heated.
I attended all of the readings of the 2014 Olympians Festival and it seemed like one of the key themes this year was female anger. Maybe that's appropriate: Stuart Bousel likes to point out that the Greeks had a lot of female monsters, more than most other cultures. The entire final week of the festival was devoted to female monsters, and other plays re-imagined the centaurs, Geryon, and the Minotaur as female. The spontaneous applause that broke out after a feminist rant in Veronica Tjioe's Minotaur play was one of the most satisfying moments I've had in a theater in 2014.
Four weeks before that, I wrote a column that I didn't link to at the time, because I realized I was kind of phoning it in. ("Horror Vacui," from October 30. Read it if you want to read my thoughts on some memoirs I've read recently, or what I did the night the Giants won the World Series. Gosh, doesn't that feel like ages ago?)
But two Thursdays ago... ah, two Thursdays ago, I wrote what is now the most-read (and I believe most-commented) piece in the history of the Theater Pub blog. I took blogger George Heymont to task for failing to perceive the clearly feminist message of Megan Cohen's "Centaurs, or the Horse's Ass," which had greatly affected me when I saw the script in its Olympians Festival staged reading. Heymont responded in the comments section and the back-and-forth got pretty heated.
I attended all of the readings of the 2014 Olympians Festival and it seemed like one of the key themes this year was female anger. Maybe that's appropriate: Stuart Bousel likes to point out that the Greeks had a lot of female monsters, more than most other cultures. The entire final week of the festival was devoted to female monsters, and other plays re-imagined the centaurs, Geryon, and the Minotaur as female. The spontaneous applause that broke out after a feminist rant in Veronica Tjioe's Minotaur play was one of the most satisfying moments I've had in a theater in 2014.
Sunday, October 19, 2014
"The Dryad of Suburbia" - staged reading Nov. 5
(At least two people have already inquired whether there will be nudity on this evening. Highly unlikely, as it's a staged reading. But I'm pleased that the evening's title has done its job and grabbed people's attention.)
You can find out more about The Dryad of Suburbia on the festival's website. Yes, that page has changed since the last time I linked to it, back in January. Back then, I thought I was going to write a play about a Dryad encountering a Druid. I clung to that idea for months without writing a word -- because I was unable to hear my characters' voices. At the eleventh hour, I scrapped that idea and banged out The Dryad of Suburbia in a mad rush. I wrote about this experience in more detail for my Theater Pub column this week.
My new play is about a contemporary, suburban couple whose young daughter has become convinced that she is a "tree spirit." When I was writing it, I had no idea that Cody Rishell, the poster artist for Nymph Night, was designing a suite of posters that show little girls playing with their nymph friends! It's like we were tuned into the same wavelength. The Dryads poster (above) is astoundingly perfect -- I am a very happy playwright! You can check out all of the Nymph posters on Cody's website.
The reading of The Dryad of Suburbia will be directed by Valerie Fachman and feature actors Colleen Egan and Nick Trengove. The other "Nymphs!" playwrights are Sam Bertken, Leah Halper, Sam Hurwitt, Carol Lashof, Bridgette Dutta Portman, Jennifer Lynne Roberts, and Siyu Song.
It's all happening at 8 PM on November 5 at EXIT Theatre in San Francisco's scenic Tenderloin. RSVP to the Facebook event here. Tickets $10 at the door.
Thursday, October 16, 2014
Playwrights and their Gallbladders
The lack of posts here on marissabidilla in 2014 doesn't mean that my life has suddenly become boring. Rather, it means that life has been pretty overwhelming this year, events and feelings all happening too fast for me to blog about them. E.g.: I self-produced a play, and then four days after it closed, I was in the hospital getting my gallbladder removed.
Despite all the things that life is throwing at me, I've continued to write for the San Francisco Theater Pub blog every two weeks. I'll try to be better about linking to my pieces as they come out, but in the meantime, here are links to three of my columns that center around my recent health crisis.
I wrote "Through the Fog, Step by Step," in late August, two days after getting diagnosed with gallstones. At the time, I didn't feel ready to discuss my condition publicly, so I wrote in more abstract terms about the feeling of wanting the summer to be over, and the need to take things one day at a time. (My editor noted that I wrote this piece on "four hours of sleep." Yeah, because my gallstone pain had kept me up half the night.)
The day after my surgery, I begged off of writing a column and asked my editor to post a short video clip from Scrubs that seemed relevant. (It was ostensibly Comedy Month on the blog. Not that I had a lot to laugh about.)
In "Things of Darkness and of Light," from two weeks ago, I wrote more directly about the experience of getting diagnosed with gallstones, and how I made peace with it.
Oddly enough, British playwright Mark Ravenhill also wrote an essay this month about getting his gallbladder removed. His experience of gallstones resonates with me so much: the terrible pain that comes as soon as you lie down, the way you attribute it to "indigestion" at first, the way you avoid food in the hopes that the pain will go away. Plus, just like Ravenhill, having gallstones caused me to muse on medieval medicine's "four humours," in which the black bile of the gallbladder was thought to make people melancholy (melan means "black" and chole means "bile" in Greek). His piece is also good on the science-y stuff (he and I both know more than we ever wanted to know about what the gallbladder does and why it's not essential), then takes a philosophical turn.
I also appreciated the gallbladder comics on The Awkward Yeti, forwarded to me by a sympathetic friend a couple of days before my surgery. Poor little gallbladder!
Despite all the things that life is throwing at me, I've continued to write for the San Francisco Theater Pub blog every two weeks. I'll try to be better about linking to my pieces as they come out, but in the meantime, here are links to three of my columns that center around my recent health crisis.
I wrote "Through the Fog, Step by Step," in late August, two days after getting diagnosed with gallstones. At the time, I didn't feel ready to discuss my condition publicly, so I wrote in more abstract terms about the feeling of wanting the summer to be over, and the need to take things one day at a time. (My editor noted that I wrote this piece on "four hours of sleep." Yeah, because my gallstone pain had kept me up half the night.)
The day after my surgery, I begged off of writing a column and asked my editor to post a short video clip from Scrubs that seemed relevant. (It was ostensibly Comedy Month on the blog. Not that I had a lot to laugh about.)
In "Things of Darkness and of Light," from two weeks ago, I wrote more directly about the experience of getting diagnosed with gallstones, and how I made peace with it.
Oddly enough, British playwright Mark Ravenhill also wrote an essay this month about getting his gallbladder removed. His experience of gallstones resonates with me so much: the terrible pain that comes as soon as you lie down, the way you attribute it to "indigestion" at first, the way you avoid food in the hopes that the pain will go away. Plus, just like Ravenhill, having gallstones caused me to muse on medieval medicine's "four humours," in which the black bile of the gallbladder was thought to make people melancholy (melan means "black" and chole means "bile" in Greek). His piece is also good on the science-y stuff (he and I both know more than we ever wanted to know about what the gallbladder does and why it's not essential), then takes a philosophical turn.
I also appreciated the gallbladder comics on The Awkward Yeti, forwarded to me by a sympathetic friend a couple of days before my surgery. Poor little gallbladder!
Wednesday, June 4, 2014
Those Awkward Post-Show Greetings @ SF Theater Pub Blog
I love and respect the English language. I try to say what I mean and mean what I say. I want to wield my words accurately and honestly.
I can also be a rather socially awkward person.
The combination of these two factors means that greeting and congratulating my friends after a theater performance can cause me excruciating anxiety.
I wrote about the problem of knowing what to say -- and some solutions I've tried out -- in my Theater Pub column from May, "After the Show, the Drama Begins."
After I posted this piece, several friends told me on Facebook that they feel the same anxiety and thus, many of them just default to saying "Congratulations." Which is always a lovely thing to say, but if it's your default response, it will eventually become meaningless, won't it? Theater-makers spend so much time and effort trying to create meaning, trying to make you think or feel something new, the least we can do is offer a few unique and heartfelt words to them after the show...
Also, here's something funny I learned recently: according to the strictest rules of etiquette, it is improper to say "congratulations" to a bride, though you may say it to the groom. It all has to do with pesky old gender roles: the man should pursue the woman and propose to her, and it's undignified for a woman to aggressively pursue a man. " 'Congratulations' has the improper implication that the bride has won something in snagging her groom and carries the unfortunate connotation that the bride is social climbing. Congratulations should be extended to the groom, because the groom has accomplished something specific in obtaining his bride's hand in marriage," the explanation goes.
I'm a feminist, so I ought to find this utterly ridiculous, but for some reason I find it oddly charming. I like arcane rules, I collect old etiquette books, and while this little shibboleth is an outgrowth of the patriarchy, it seems like a relatively harmless one. I've attended two weddings in the last six months, and have another three weddings to attend before the year is out (yes, I am in my mid-to-late twenties, how did you guess?) and I have a feeling that I'll be keeping this protocol in mind...
I can also be a rather socially awkward person.
The combination of these two factors means that greeting and congratulating my friends after a theater performance can cause me excruciating anxiety.
I wrote about the problem of knowing what to say -- and some solutions I've tried out -- in my Theater Pub column from May, "After the Show, the Drama Begins."
After I posted this piece, several friends told me on Facebook that they feel the same anxiety and thus, many of them just default to saying "Congratulations." Which is always a lovely thing to say, but if it's your default response, it will eventually become meaningless, won't it? Theater-makers spend so much time and effort trying to create meaning, trying to make you think or feel something new, the least we can do is offer a few unique and heartfelt words to them after the show...
Also, here's something funny I learned recently: according to the strictest rules of etiquette, it is improper to say "congratulations" to a bride, though you may say it to the groom. It all has to do with pesky old gender roles: the man should pursue the woman and propose to her, and it's undignified for a woman to aggressively pursue a man. " 'Congratulations' has the improper implication that the bride has won something in snagging her groom and carries the unfortunate connotation that the bride is social climbing. Congratulations should be extended to the groom, because the groom has accomplished something specific in obtaining his bride's hand in marriage," the explanation goes.
I'm a feminist, so I ought to find this utterly ridiculous, but for some reason I find it oddly charming. I like arcane rules, I collect old etiquette books, and while this little shibboleth is an outgrowth of the patriarchy, it seems like a relatively harmless one. I've attended two weddings in the last six months, and have another three weddings to attend before the year is out (yes, I am in my mid-to-late twenties, how did you guess?) and I have a feeling that I'll be keeping this protocol in mind...
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