Tarhearted.

DISPATCHES FROM THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST.

Sorry I went away. I went on vacation to visit my family in rural Washington State. It was strange, but ultimately pretty relaxing. It was strange because I haven't been home in years. Seriously, it's been years. I'm also one of those people that feels anxious when I leave New York, so I didn't actually calm down until right before I left Washington. Things about the Northwest I'd forgotten or just plain missed include:

-Rain. Good god, it didn't stop.

-Wolves. Wolves on everything. Every tee shirt, coffee mug, etc. Wolves or Native American women with earthen pots. Oh, or salmon art. Lots of salmon art.

-My childhood was much more blue collar and less suburban than i remember.

-When the ferry isn't your main source for getting around, it's really lovely and relaxing. I now see why tourists like the trip to Bainbridge Island. It beats the hell out of a subway ride.

-At some point in any conversation with my dad he will inevitably tell me that he's proud of me and that I'm his "greatest work of art."

-Seattle is an awesome city that i miss dearly. I wish I'd gotten more than one afternoon there. I toured the new Cornish College of the Arts campus, which is amazing, and got to talk with my old mentor who is the Theater Department Chair there.

-Riding in a car with my chain smoking mother is like being inside of a smoker's lung. All of my belongings have to be Febreezed.

-My nieces Karma and Amelia are the cutest, sweetest set of twinsies since Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny Devito.

-People get a lot older while you're not paying attention.

-Crazy Native American "S" towns: Suquamish, Snoqualmie, S'klallum, Sequim (pronounced "squim", Snohomish etc.

-People in rural Washington only decorate with brown.

-Dream catchers, dream catchers, dream catchers!

I didn't get to write as much as I would have liked. I worked on my soap opera a little and wrote two scenes of the play I'm writing for Playwriting Month. Its title is alternating between Hooray for Hot Dogs and The Sluts of Sutton Drive, and it's about two women in a small Washington town who take a stip-ercise course that changes their lives.

I'm glad to be back in New York, but missing home again.

BONERVILLE.

Hey, you. Yeah, you! Do you like pancakes, never ending Bloody Marys, and sexy ten minute plays? Sure you do. I could tell. That's why I'm inviting you to the Youngblood Bruncha Sutra this Sunday. My play is entitled Bonerville, and is the story of a fleeting intimate moment between two strangers in a rest stop men's room outside of Des Moines. It was inspired by this vintage cover art:

$18

Sunday, November 1st
doors open at 12:30pm for buffet and seating
show starts at 1pm

COME EARLY - the food and seats go fast!

RESERVATIONS REQUIRED:

call (212) 247-4982 x107

Bonerville by Joshua Conkel

Starring sexy, sexy Anthony Johnston and Frank Harts

Directed By RJ Tolan

In closing, just for fun, I submit to you Awkward Boners.

THEATER, YOU KILL ME. PART ONE BILLION.

Grannies the world over  like to say something retarded about God and opening windows... or something? I wonder if it works in reverse. I had the most amazing summer as a playwright! First there was all the success of MilkMilkLemonade, for which I'm really grateful and proud. Then I wrote a piece about health care for Youngblood that I was really happy with. (It occurs to me that I never wrote about it here, but it was called America, You Kill Me. and featured Nikole Beckwith* covered in blood with a wind shield wiper stuck in her side. At the end of the play she crushed Bobby Moreno's head with her boot and it splatter blood and brains everywhere. Big hit!)

Well, it seems God or whoever saw fit to close a damn window already. I just found out I didn't get into the Soho Rep's Writers/Directors Lab for the second year in a row. Insert sad trumpet sound here. Rejection sucks, but it's just part of the game. Entry to the lab is super competitive, so I'll try not to be too hurt. Also, in years past I feel like there were six writers and directors each and this year there are only five. I wonder why that is. Anyway, I'll keep applying because I'd really like to do it some day and, besides, it's good practice just to submit to any and all opportunities.

I'm also stoked for Jess Barbagallo for getting in. She's crazy awesome and talented and was recently in MilkMilkLemonade, for which Time Out wrote this little piece. She's an incredible talent and I hope I get to make theater with her again some day. Adam Greenfield is an acquaintance and fellow Seattle-ite, as well as being an amazing director so that's cool too.

There's just one thing that is sort of sticking in my craw about this. Katherine Ryan is one of the playwrights but she's also the Co-Chair of the lab. Meghan Finn is one of the directors but she's also on staff at Soho Rep. I noticed this happened last year too. It's not really that big a deal, it's just a little... I don't know exactly, but it bothered me today when i read the list and it bothered me last year too. Soho Rep is obviously free to choose whomever they wish, but I can't help feeling the teensiest bit... I don't know... miffed.

It's certainly not a big deal compared to something else that I got rejected from. The Boyfriend ran into the curator of an unnamed theater festival at a party and asked him point blank why he didn't accept my play. (The Boyfriend is kind of immodestly appalled when I get rejected from things, because he's awesome.) Said curator straight up told The Boyfriend that he didn't read my script and that he just green lighted his friends and people he'd heard of. Ouch. So I'm using that experience to soften the blow of Soho Rep, because really... it could be a lot worse.

I'll keep applying, obviously. I'll wear down their resistance if it's the last thing I do. If I didn't have some degree of tenacity I'd still be serving onion rings in a shit hole by the ferry in Kingston, Washington.

Like my girls, Reba and Beyonce... I'm a survivor.

*Nikole Beckwith backstage before America, You Kill Me.

JOSHUA CONKEL IS FAMOUS (KIND OF.)

Holy shit! NY Press just named MilkMilkLemonade the best Off Off Broadway show of the year!

Check it out.

I'm so honored that I don't really care that they got my name wrong. I can't tell you how much I miss the show and wish we were still doing it. Somebody PLEASE make a deal with me so I can produce it in your theater. Who do you have to give a beej to in this town? Not to toot my own horn, but the play received nearly across the board raves, we turned away audiences almost every night, it's immediately got picked up by Playscripts, is getting published in Plays and Playwrights 2010, and was called Best Off Off Broadway Show by NY Press. Please, please, please little theaters of New York.... don't you want to help the career of a youngplaywright and make money at the same time?

Also, as my friend Jeff pointed out, because of a bit role as the "mean gallerist" in this movie (in which I'm also credited incorrectly) I'm now only three degrees from Kevin Bacon!

Josh Conkel, who was in Love You Back with Elli Fordyce, who was in Playing Doctor with Michael Ciesla, who was in Taking Chance with Kevin Bacon.

I'm a "Joshua", for the record. Anyway, I'm famous! Now I can get super tan and get the lip injeections I always wanted. Just like Cojo! See you at Fashion Week!

P.S. If you ever need a mean gay receptionist, waiter, gallerist, proctologist, day care provider, grifter hobo etc. for your short play or film then I AM YOUR GAY. Seriously, I'm a pro.

WOOLIE BULLY.

I'm supposed to write a sexy play for Youngblood's November Brunch, which is erotically themed. My instinct, or course, is to write about furries, or pony play, or adult babies or something. I don't write sexy very well. When you deal almost exclusively in the absurd and the ugly, erotic is a tall order. And they want it erotic. Actually erotic. I have no idea what to write.

I feel like prostitution is cliche. I can't even decide if I want to write something gay or not. Gah!

While doing some research, however, I came across woolies.

You're welcome.

THEATER, YOU KILL ME.

So this post got posted here and here and now everybody hates me, including a playwright I really admire. This is the reason I didn't write about theater on blogs for years and years and abstained from commenting on theater blogs. I was afraid of something like this happening. It's time to bring that rule back. I have a pretty nasty sense of humor, and often things get taken too seriously, so I really should have seen this coming. (Special thanks to 99 for being so awesome and getting my intent.)

I was only trying to be cheeky about a very real insecurity I have. The truth is that I do feel like a second class citizen in the theater for not having an MFA. That may or may not be imagined, or partially imagined, but it's how I feel. A lot of us feel that way. It wasn't my intention to insinuate that only rich and undeserving people go to Ivy League schools or MFA programs. My intention to point out that maybe it's not fair or wise to make that the only point of entry into the industry for playwrights.

I'm sorry for having offended those artists, but I'm not sorry for posting my own feelings on my own blog. I'm really struggling with class issues right now, and I get the sense that a lot of other folks are too. Because it's not just my frustration with being a playwright; it's my frustration with being an American in general.

I've just worked so hard, and to still be struggling feels bad. I've had to fight really hard for any little scrap of something, had to do things that were demeaning and even humiliating to me, and for what? Am I any better off now than I was then? What was the point? I might as well have stayed in Washington State. The point is, I'm really jealous of some of my friends in New York, and I'm trying not to be.

And, in terms of being a playwright, what do I expect to get? What is success in this industry? How do I compete against writers with amazing educations or writers who don't have to work day jobs? How do I measure my success in an industry that doesn't really exist?

A couple of weeks ago I reminded myself on this blog that we make (or should be making) theater for our communities because we love them and want to put on a show for them. I forgot that already! Ugh! I don't know why I get so caught up with these grody ideas about success and material things and competition.

I don't know. Blech! Feeling like you don't have a shot at life sucks. Feeling like the system is rigged sucks. I should just go cut hair like any other self-respecting sassy gay.

Hey... maybe then I could get a TV show! America, loves a sassy gay (as long as they're on television and not real.) Too bad for me the theater blogs don't.

I was born to be blue collar,
Tarhearted

FAKE IT 'TIL YOU MAKE IT.

This is an entry about theater, elitism, and the great class divide, so if you came here to read about fake nails or forgotten New Wave bands, come back in a bit or read the archives. I know, I know... writing about theater is boring. My photo essay on Witchboard should be coming later today, or first thing tomorrow, so come back then.

That said...

The Boyfriend and I were walking to a friend's house in Williamsburg last night when we started talking about a certain theater "opportunity" I've applied to, but haven't heard back from. I apply to it every year, and although it's supposedly for emerging artists, it's really for already biggish names and anybody willing to suck a few dicks (figuratively speaking).

But I'm not bitter. I prefer the dick suckers to the rich kids. At least I can compete against them.

I've also been thinking a lot about this stuff in regards to the O' Neill and fake submission opportunities in general. Further, I've been toying with the idea of applying to graduate school. I'm not even sure I actually want to go to graduate school. It's just that sometimes it seems to me that one has to have an Ivy league MFA to be a working playwright.

I'm not against education, but I think it's a problem that theaters use the MFA programs like NBC uses the up fronts: as a preview of what's to come. The training programs are supposed to be training programs, aren't they? I'm okay with fancy pants Ivy Leaguers doing well too, but it would be nice if those Lit Managers and Artistic Directors were also going to see Off Off shows and researching scripts from out of town as well, wouldn't it? That way, some of us lower class writers would have a shot. At least then we'd have some different voices.

It seems to me that plays are always about rich white people, written by rich white people, to be performed exclusively for rich white people. I wonder how much of that is because of the MFA programs? Contrary to popular belief, these programs aren't exclusively merit based. Most of them are cost prohibitory for working class or middle class students. The free programs only take a couple of students a year, and what are the chances that a nobody from Kentucky is going to get in over somebody who went the best private schools, an Ivy undergrad, and whose parents' financial support enabled them to not work so they could complete impressive internships?

I guess it's probably just under dog-ism, and I'm not sure how much of it is real or imagined, but it's a miracle I've even gotten as far as I have. I sometimes feel as if I started crawling to New York as a baby. It's been a long and painful journey. Until I moved here with $150 in 2003, I'd never even met somebody who went to an Ivy league school or had a trust fund. My mother is a secretary and my father is in the Navy, for God's sake. I was the first person in my family to ever go to college, and it was by way of heavy loans, scholarships, and sheer ingenuity. In order to get through college, move to New York, and make self produce my first few plays I had to do things that would make your average Harvard freshman cry. Seriously, like, whoa. 

I don't mean to sound all "poor me". I've come a long way and done a lot of awesome stuff. I'm also deceptively scrappy and tough (seriously, there were days when I would have pushed you in front of a train in exchange for a Big Mac), so I hate to seem whiny or weak. It' s just frustrating because I feel caught between two classes, and I struggle with anger when I see people who aren't necessarily any more talented than me getting opportunities I wanted because they have more pedigree. 

So I was discussing this with The Boyfriend when I joked that i should just put "MFA, Yale" on resume. Without thinking, he said, "Why don't you?"

It's so obvious! I don't know why I hadn't thought of it before, especially since I have an obsession with the old fashioned Dandies: working class or middle class men who broke into high society by impersonating it and then, like Oscar Wilde, doing it better than them.

This is a lesson I've already learned a number of times. The last time I learned it I was 21 and had just moved to New York. I learned that if you could manage to look stylish and rich then the stylish and rich will let you in anywhere. You can easily accomplish this by shoplifting, maxing out credit cards, borrowing clothes from rich kids, and convincing horny old men to take you shopping. Why, to this day I still call restaurants as my imaginary assistant, Marco, when I want a hard-to-get reservation. You'd be surprised how much it helps.

In that spirit, I am adding the following to my resume. Let me know of any other cool things you think I should add. Also, it should be said that some of these aren't crazy elitist, but just things I would have liked to have accomplished, but haven't, so I'm just going to skip ahead and pretend I did:

MFA, Yale

The O' Neill

Humana Festival

SoHo Writer/Director Lab

Ars Nova Playgroup

P73

TARHEARTED READERS HAVE ADDED:

SPF

McCarthy Genius Award

I know there must be others.

Hearts,

Joshua Conkel of the Hansville, Washington Conkels

P.S. After I posted this I came up with an idea: why doesn't somebody in an MFA program post all of their assignements and readings on an anonymous blog so that everybody can get an MFA vicariously? VicariousMasters.blogspot.com. Come on.... make it happen!

MilkMilkLemonade AND COMMUNITY THEATER.

MilkMilkLemonade closes tomorrow and my heart hurts. My heart started hurting last week, in fact. What can I say? I'm always a little ahead of the curve. I just don't want it to end. I really wish we could extend somehow, but it doesn't look like it was meant to be, due to schedules and mundance things like "space".

This has been the single most positive theater experience of my adult life. This is how it was doing community theater when I was a kid in Washington. I'd begin the summer with a collection of strangers and through the coming months we'd all become close friends while learning choreography and the lyrics to "Tradition" or "The Telephone Hour" or whatever. I love my cast and my designers a lot. And I want to gay marry my director, except he's not gay and is already spoken for and could probably do better than a hot mess like me anyway. Who wants to marry into my credit rating?

The press has been AMAZING. People seem to really love the show. Don't take my word for it. Just ask these guys here. Or here. Or here. Or here, or here, or here, or here, or here, or here, or here, or here, or here. Only one critic wasn't that into it. The Village Voice gave it the equivalent to a C plus, but that's only because that particular critic's heart is made of tar and looks like a Craisin. Just kidding! A C plus is fine, especially from the Village Voice. I'll take that C plus straight to the bank, thank you very much.

Mostly I feel good because I feel as if I made theater for my immediate community, which is something I've been thinking about a lot. Until recently I had very different goals. Without going into it too much, I got caught up in my backwards thinking of what a successful playwright is. Lately though I've been thinking that it's important for theater to be local. It's not television or a Hollywood movie, which have to reach widespread audiences. We should be making theater for our communities. The people who are actually around us. Maybe then they'd actually come to the theater. I knew this when I was 12 and performing in musicals in Kitsap County, Washington (which always sold out, by the way). I wonder when I forgot it.

P.S. MilkMilkLemonade is getting published. Details to come.

P.P.S. You could vote for us in the New York Innovative Theater Awards if you want to.

Hooray. Ding.

REFERENDUM 71 IS FOR ASSHOLES.

The opening of MilkMilkLemonade went really, really well last night. We had a packed house and lots of laughs and some people even seemed really moved by the end. I also think some people were offended by the crass humor, but I suppose that's too be expected. This is good old fashioned queer theater, and a comedy about cruelty to gay kids in America, so it's certaint o not fit all tastes. I'm finally to a point where I've let go of my insecurities. I'm proud as hell of the play and the work that this group of artists have done.

Speaking of cruelty to gay people: a federal judge just ruled that citizens who donated money to Washington State's Referendum 71 are to remain anonymous. From The Seattle Times:

"A federal judge has continued to keep private the names and addresses of those who signed Referendum 71, saying they likely are protected under the First Amendment and that the state failed to prove a compelling public interest in their release. U.S. District Judge Benjamin Settle in Tacoma granted a preliminary injunction today, blocking the state from making the petitions public...The Secretary of State's Office — the defendant in the case — has said it is obligated under the state Public Records Act to release the petitions to those who request them.

"But Protect Marriage argued that the law 'chills free speech ... particularly when it is reasonably probable that those exercising their First Amendment rights would be subjected to threats and harassment.' Stephen Pidgeon, attorney with Protect Marriage, said: 'We think this is a good decision. It protects Washington voters' right to speak freely even in impassioned debate.' But Brian Zylstra, spokesman for Secretary of State Sam Reed, said the judge's decision 'is a step away from open government...When people sign a referendum or initiative petition, they are trying to change state law,' he said. "We believe that changing state law should be open to public view.'"

As a proud Washingtonian, I have to say this is discouraging to say the least. To catch anybody up who might not know, Washington State recently got an "everything but marriage" law giving gay couples all the same rights as heterosexual couples, save the word "marriage". Referendum 71 effectively pushed pause on that law and gives voters the opportunity to approve or reject it. It's similar to Prop 8 in California, except voters who aren't retard will want to vote "yes" of Referendum 71. Do you got that? Vote "yes". It's "yes" to approve gay marriage in Washington, unlike in California when it was "no" to vote "yes' on gay marriage. The bigots operate in double speak to confuse you, so DON'T BE HAD. Washington State, in addition to being the most beautiful part of America, is wonderful and progressive, so I pray that the voters decide not to be hateful bigots there. 

It goes without saying that this judge has missed the mark by a billion miles. It is a reaction to the boycotts and protests private citizens and their businesses faced after donating to Prop 8. Protect the identities of people who are looking to enshrine discrimination and bigotry into law? If they give their money to this hateful cause, then they deserve to have their buisinesses boycotted. Gay people have every right to know which of their neighbors is seeking to keep them second class citizens. In fact, that is the very reason these are ususlaly made public. Everybody citizen gets a vote, but each citizen is also responsible for that vote.

Let this be another lesson, to you gays. The people that seek to remove rights from others maintain that this is not about hate, that this is simply about "protecting" marriage, as if my marrying The Boyfriend would somehow make Ozzy and Harriet explode. To say this is not about hate is a bald face lie. Gay couple in Washington didn't even have the right to marry. They had a seperate but equal domestic partnership bill, and even that was too much for the "Christ loving" anti-gays. Additionally, these same bigots have sought to over turn any shred of equality the LGBT community has achieved, whether it's in employment or housing or marriage. Do not let them tell you this is about "protecting" marriage. Do not let them tell you that they don't hate you.

They hate you.

Remove all the rhetoric, remove all the buzz phrases like "prtoecting families" or "saving marriage", strip away all the "love the sinner hate the sin" garbage and you will find the simple truth. They hate you and they want you to have nothing. After all, getting punched in the gut hurts, even when the person punching you is smiling while they do. The truth, in spite of all their reassurances that this isn't personal, is that they don't feel you're deserving of equality because they don't believe you should exist. PERIOD.

THEATER AND CRITICS.

My publicist sent me the press list for MilkMilkLemonade and my heart started racing a mile a minute. This will be my second play to receive a lot of press, and the first time was a mixed bag. Mostly people liked The Chalk Boy, except for a few critics who said that I was too mean spirited or that I abused the characters in my play for no good reason. As much as it hurt to get bad reviews, I learned from what was valuable in the criticisms and threw out what wasn't valuable. That's maturity for you. (That play is getting published now, by the way, so those critics can suck it.)

Anyway. Those critics probably won't like MilkMilkLemonade.

I wrote this play from a really guttural place. Without getting too personal,  a lot was happening- both in my life and in the world. I'd quit drinking and started running after a prolonged depression and it amazed me how much those two seemingly small choices were changing my body. I suddenly realized how much my body held me back because of the choices I'd made, how it was getting stronger and more vital. Still, I felt trapped. No matter how good I was to my body, I felt trapped inside of it. I hadn't paid so much attention to my body since puberty. Thinking about puberty made me think  lot about my experience growing up queer in rural America and how I never felt safe as a kid. Add to all this my (un)healthy obsession with gender politics and the very worst offerings of pop culture, and- poof!- you have MilkMilkLemonade, my love song to gay kids everywhere. Especially the ones who don't have the luxury of understanding communities around them.

The play scares me a lot. It's intensely personal, but also retarded and silly. It's heinously ugly with a sweet streak just beneath the surface. It's a colorful, mean, funny, raw, dizzy, stunted sixty minutes and I really love it. I've had the most incredible journey with it, from getting sober writing it, to traveling to Chicago to workshop it with The Pavement Group, to collaborating on it with the amazing director, cast and production team it has in New York.

It's like a kid I want to protect. It scares me to think what critics might say about it. I almost want to cancel the New York show and drive the whole production to the country and do it in a barn for nobody but a busload of queers and outsiders. The 11-year-old characters in the play don't get the luxury of kindness, and neither will I. This is the nature of theater: it has to has to get seen. 

I'm not trying to get down on myself. I think the show is fucking awesome and that anybody who wouldn't like it is obviously boring or ugly or something. That said, I think it bares repeating, for myself or for anybody else who makes things, that it takes courage to open yourself up and maybe just the act of sharing it counts for something.

Gulp.

I'm gonna be brave.

So. Here I am sharing myself. Come join me.