IOWA DIARY #3

Cedar Falls Iowa! I'm trying not to smile too big right now as I think of it, as I am in a lecture hall with a law professor learning the basics of special education law. I am not going to law school. Sometimes feminists who are actresses who are not Meryl Streep work for law schools as pretend clients for law students to practice interviews, counseling sessions, and negotiation sessions (which by the way everyone nowadays should learn how to do - negotiate, learn it now, practice with your friends, your mother, your father, your cousins - you get the point.). It's actually really heartbreaking work. I think of it as my yearly lesson in compassion. Many students have started law school right after undergrad and have never run a meeting. Their hands are cold, their voice shakes, they have no idea how to start or end. Thankfully, after all that awkwardness, they get to talk about law, and that they know.

Gloria (our Iowa grad student assistant extraordinaire), I love you. Your feedback during rehearsal, your bright colors, and your cookies were all terrific! Professor 'M' never gives us cookies and wears a typical beige or grey toned business suit. And I've never looked down to see Professor M's shoes. Probably those comfortable and worn in kind. Who needs that. I mean, if you are going to go that route at least wear sneakers and pretend you've just come from the gym.

Tech! Tech! The tech was fantastic! Thanks guys. I really appreciated it. Not even at this newly renovated top of the line lecture hall is the tech handled so well. Professor M is always pausing to figure out how the computer turns up the lights and dims the sound while we are trying to watch a practice interview. IT is always stopping by to help out. Like now. Excuse me as I check my emails. Ooh. Aphra printed her diary entry of our tour de force de Walmart. Hee hee.

Ah, working with the incredible Lucille Ball (our student volunteer). I loved the physical comedy the most (wasn't Jessica the incarnation of Lucy, I hope you don't mind if I call you Lucy). I've never had so much fun playing 'Machoswine' as I did with you as 'Chauvinisto.' You just jumped right in and made such bold choices and were so humorous. I think that was my favorite part. Mostly because, while I am a feminist, it's really all about everyone being able to be who they want to be and be respected for it as much of their lives as possible. And for me, that's being an actress. Thanks Lucy for a great 'scene.'

All righty, off I go...heading to Canada. More later. See you on the other side,

Dame Edith Evans

March 30, 2001

Iowa Diary #2

Yo diary!

Our journey to Iowa began with two warm tropical plane trips and a short drive to our hotel. What else was there to do but go to Aphra Behn’s favorite store, Wal Mart?

We went for a wonderful dinner in Downtown Cedar Falls called Bourbon Street, and although they didn’t have bananas, they did have some lovely New Orleans food, including Pickle Chips, which were a delight.

The day of the show, we returned to Wal Mart for a lovely photo shoot, where we danced around the aisles looking for as much interesting food as possible. Aphra also got several bras on sal for our opening "sunrise" bit in "Feminists Are Funny". Mine is a left over Valentines Day bra and the women in the check out line in front of us exclaimed "Oh, that's too pretty to hide!" Guess what? I'm not planning on hiding it!

Before we knew it it was time to go to the University of Northern Iowa. It was a fantastic theatre, and to my pleasure and surprise the tech went extremely well. Our student volunteer, Jessica, was very excited and she did a great job at the rehearsals.

Suddenly it was showtime and our audience was hot! We could feel the enthusiasm bursting onstage. My favorite ad libs were when Aphra described pulling the topics out of the hat as “Avant Garde” and when I had the audience all applaud for “yay, discrimination!”

The commedia skit was hilarious, as our super enthusiastic student volunteer almost stole the show. She made Edith Evans drop her cigar twice during the skit, which I thought was a slapstick routine but turned out to just be an accident. Talk about upstaging. Who knew we would have met our improvizational match in Jessica!

The Q&A was thoughtful, poignant and hilarious. Almost everyone in the packed house stayed which made it comfy and cozy.

Edith, Aphra and I headed back to our hotel exhausted but not too tired to have a cast party in Aphra's room complete with Wal Mart wine and snacks courtesy of Gloria our grad student cohort. Until we meet again Iowa...I will dream of you.

Monkey love,

Audrey Hepburn

March 29, 2011

CALLING ALL Feminists - listen to Guerrilla Girls On Tour in Houston, Texas on KUHF at 12:15 CST TUESDAY APRIL 5, 2011!

http://app1.kuhf.org/houston_public_radio-the_front_row.php

Iowa Diary #1

Dearest book,

I’m going to give you our tour of Iowa in FOOD, since that seems to be part of the focus of our latest version of “Feminists Are Funny”. We arrived in Waterloo, Iowa on Monday March 28^th where the snow lay in huge, dirty piles all along the road to Cedar Falls. Since Subway has overtaken McDonalds as the largest restaurant chain in the US, Subway is our new favorite lunch spot and Cedar Falls did not disappoint with 3 of them! Our first day here we didn’t really have much to do so we decided to check out Wal Mart – especially since the Supreme Court was hearing arguments the very next day in the class action suit brought by women against Wal Mart for discrimination. There is no Wal Mart in New York City – we’ve kept them out so here we go, a little exploration of just how much can we buy in Wal Mart for how cheap.

Audrey and Edith don shopping sacks and away we go down the gia-normous aisles.

First of all, it appears that everything is a dollar! That’s right, those prices are truly slashed and everything is a great value!

You don’t have to buy your vodka and cranberry in separate boxes, they come together.

Found a huge sack of honey buzzers, whatever those are.

Whipped cream for all those pies we throw in our new food show.

Laundry detergent that will last a few years.

OK, enough with the Wal Mart.

We’re hungry. Off to downtown where we had a swell meal at Bourbon Street – another chain, though not as well known – with yummy New Orleans inspired entrees and fried pickles to start. Never had em, now I crave em everywhere I go.

Tuesday, March 29^th is show time day. We check into the University of Northern Iowa where Gloria, our grad student assistant brings us peanut butter cookies with M and M’s! Awesome. The tech crew is one of the best we’ve ever had and we have plenty of time to spare to dip into our back stage snacks.

The show is awesome…! Edith Evans, Audrey Hepburn and I rocked the rockin’ packed house of on your feet feminists! OK, so I was wearing my brand new yellow shoes and I did fall off the stage. But hey, anything for a good laugh and my follow up was funny. We head back to our favorite Quality Suites hotel and share a bottle of wine (that we got for cheap at, you guessed it, Wal Mart). Edith, Audrey and I have good laughs over some of the ad-libs we did during the show. The next day is a travel day – flying to Duluth and the driving to Canada – to Lakehead University at Thunder Bay! To be continued….