U Can't Touch This!

I “VOTED” IN THE SWING STATE OF FLORIDA

Last night on the news I saw Governor Cuomo announce that anyone displaced by Superstorm Sandy could vote via affidavit at ANY polling place in New York State.   People in a federally declared disaster area should not be prevented from voting.  Granted, he did not say that if you were displaced outside of New York you could vote but I thought I would give it a try.  So I wrote a letter to the County of Manatee Supervisor of Elections, Bob Sweat, stating that I was a resident of a federal disaster area and that I would fill out a Florida provisional ballot and asked him if he would send my ballot to my New York City Board of Election.  Then I took that letter along with copies of my ID and I went off to the polls.

I had done my research the night before.  Even though Florida requires you to have a state issued photo ID you cannot be turned away from voting if you do not have an ID.   Anyone without a Florida ID who requests a provisional ballot must be given one and be allowed to vote.  These provisional votes are not counted until two days after the election and there is follow up – you are sent a letter stating if your vote counted or not.

The nearest poling place to where I am in Florida is at the clubhouse of a retirement community.  When I walked in and asked for a provisional ballot the entire room, full of voting people and pollsters, got silent.  I think I even heard a gasp as the sweet looking senior citizens around me frowned and one even shook his head in disgust.  I was taken to a special table so that I could “tell my story” to the supervisor of the polling locale, Margaret. 

After about 5 minutes of waiting, Margaret finally sat down across from me, a stern look on her face.  I asked her for a provisional ballot.  I told her I was from New York City.  She said that she first had to place a phone call to see if it was OK. 

When Margaret got on the phone I heard her say, “There’s a lady here from New York here who want’s a provisional ballot.  Now I remember they told us at training that provisional ballots won’t count but that we should just give them out to make people happy.   I’m just making sure that’s what I should do.”  Yes, that is exactly what she said.  Isn’t it great to hear that good old Florida voting laws are being carried out to the tee?

Margaret hung up the phone, came over, sat down and point blank told me my vote wouldn’t count so she wouldn’t take it.  I insisted.  She took me over to the voter registration machine and had me try to enter my information. Now I knew this wasn’t’ going to work – the Florida machine certainly would not accept a New York City address.  I think she wanted to do this so that I would go away.  But I had made it this far – heck, I survived Sandy – so I stood my ground. 

After 10 minutes of trying to get the machine to accept “New York” as a city address in Florida I informed Margaret that I knew that Florida state law says that ANYONE who comes into a polling place without an ID must be given a provisional ballot.  She turned her eyes on me and a stare-down ensued.  Gotcha, Margie!  You’re the supervisor and I know you know that!

Margaret told me to sit down again and got back on the phone.  After 5 minutes (she claimed she was talking to Bob Sweat, supervisor of elections himself) she came back.  “OK, she said, I’ll let you fill out a provisional ballot.  But it’s not going to count!” 

She gave me a pink envelope and asked me to fill out my name, address, etc.  There was a section for voter comments and I put down “displaced voter from federal disaster area New York City”.  She then gave me a paper ballot.  I carefully filled in the oval next to OBAMA/BIDEN.  Margaret was now about 5 feet from where I was sitting.  She called out in a LOUD voice so that everyone in the place could hear, “Now fold and put your ballot in the secret folder!”  There was a white folder in front of me marked “Secret”.  I did as she instructed and slipped in the letter I had written to Bob Sweat as well as copies of my NY State Drivers license and other photo ID that I had copied. She then said “Put the secret folder inside the pink envelope and seal it.”  I did and she gave me the receipt off the envelope, which had a number on it.  Then she walked me over to a black lock box, unlocked the box and slipped the envelope inside. 

“Thank you so much, Margaret”, I oozed.  “Oh”, she replied, “don’t forget your I Voted sticker” and handed me a sticker with an American flag on it.

I slapped that sticker on my chest and marched out. 

Now I think I’ll write a letter to Governor Cuomo and let him know that Bob Sweat has my vote and that he should call him up and demand that it be sent to New York City.

-Aphra “I Voted” Behn

My Absentee Ballot Swallowed by Superstorm Sandy

I am a registered voter in New York State and tomorrow I will not vote.

For the second time in my life my absentee ballot has not arrived in the mail in time for me to vote. 

For the second time in my life I will spend Election Day not exercising my right as a US citizen because of the US mail.

The first time this happened to me was in 1992 during Clinton vs. Bush vs. Perot.  I was in California.  My absentee ballot arrived the day after Clinton won.

I am currently in Florida and I spent today waiting for the mail.  Absentee ballots must be postmarked by the day before the election (today) in order to be counted.  Because of Hurricane Sandy absentee ballots don’t have to arrive back in New York until 13 days after the election BUT they must be postmarked by today.  The special hurricane  extention means squat because it’s obvious that what us NYers need is an extention on the postmark date.

I did all the right things.  I applied for an absentee ballot weeks in advance.  But Sandy knocked out lower Manhattan and my Board of Elections is on Varick Street.  The mail stopped in New York for three days entire days and was slowed down for another 7.  My absentee ballot is probably floating down the Hudson right now.

It was the right call to cancel the marathon.  But what about the election?  How are those without gas, food, homes going to vote? 

Today I called the Manhattan Board of Elections and was put on hold for 45 minutes.  I finally got through 4 minutes before they closed.  A very nice but obviously exhausted election employee told me that I was his last call and that, unfortunately, he didn’t work in the absentee section.  He looked up my name and confirmed that nope, no absentee ballot application from me had been received.  There was nothing he could do.

I started to cry.  I told him I was an activist and that I had spent 16 years of my life in a rubber gorilla mask touring the US and trying to inspire people to vote.  I was going to be pissed if I couldn’t vote for Obama.

“I can’t discuss politics” he replied.  All he could do was suggest that I go to a local board of elections in Florida and demand to submit a presidential ballot.  Apparently in New York State you can demand to vote during a presidential election if you can prove that it’s an emergency and you can’t vote anywhere else. 

Thanks, I’ll try that, I grunted. 

And then he broke his own rule.  “I’m voting for Romney,” he said. 

I wanted to kill him. 

Tomorrow I won’t be voting.  But I will be thinking of that guy manning the phones at the Manhattan Board of Elections. 

Don’t think for a second that your vote won’t count or that one vote doesn’t matter. 

Get out and vote.

-Aphra Behn 

The Campaign Saga of Racism

An excellent blog post by Dianne Liuzzi Hagan: 

Hurricane Sandy and the Campaign Saga of Racism

http://aboutracewriter.blogspot.com/2012/10/hurricane-sandy-and-campaign-saga-of.html?spref=fb

We Came! We Saw! We Threw Bananas! WE WERE THEATRE!

Check out Aphra Behn's guest blog post on the Women and Hollywood blog:

http://blogs.indiewire.com/womenandhollywood/guest-post-we-came-we-saw-we-threw-bananas-we-were-theatre

PHOTOS of WE ARE THEATRE by Miriam Berkley

Dana Berger performs "Who’s The Man" by Mary Steelsmith 

 

Alysia Reiner performs "Chopping Cabbage" by Sophia Romma  

Yvette X performs her own "Bridge to Baraka" 

Drae Campbell in "A Rejection in Full" by Mila Golubuv

Gael Schaefer performs "She" by Caridad Svich

Honor Molloy performs her own work "Not Published, Not Produced" 

Annie-Sage Whitehurst performs "I Am Estonia" by Jyl Lynn Felman 

 

Sarah M. Duncan performs her own "PSA"

Taifa Harris performs Theresa Rebeck's "Why Can't We Do That In The Theatre?"

Guerrilla Girl On Tour Anne Sexton as Machoswine in "Oh, the joys of being a woman playwright"

WE ARE THEATRE CURTAIN CALL 

ACTION CALL - BLITZ THE ROUNDABOUT THEATRE!

WE ARE THEATRE ACTION CALL:

BLITZ THE ROUNDABOUT!

The Roundabout Theatre has announced their 2012/2013 mainstage season - a season that contains ZERO plays by women and ZERO female directors. Artistic Director Todd Haimes recently wrote on the Roundabout blog: It is very exciting to put together a season with such variety...and consistently offers the audience the kind of enduring themes and stories that have come to define Roundabout.

http://www.myroundaboutblog.com/?p=6920

INUNDATE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR TODD HAIMES WITH messages, faxes, stickers and tweets telling him what you think about his ALL WHITE MALE MAINSTAGE SEASON

CALL (212) 719-9393 ext 311

FAX (212) 869-8817

Fe-MAIL artisticoffice@roundabouttheatre.org

AND/OR info@roundabouttheatre.org

STICKER THE TOILET STALLS: Be a volunteer USHER (aka undercover WE ARE THEATRE agent) for the Roundabout

call their VOLUNTEER HOTLINE:

(212) 719-9393, ext. 523

DOWNLOAD STICKERS HERE:

http://guerrillagirlsontour.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Inthistheatresticker.pdf 

TWEET IT NOW! mention the Roundabout @RTC_NYC and We Are Theatre @OccupyBroadway

Tomorrow night at 7PM women will occupy The Cherry Lane.  We will write, direct, act, design, promote, manage and produce theatre.  We are theatre. 

See you there or watch it live http://www.livestream.com/ggontour

5 days to the end of discrimination in theatre!

FOR ONE NIGHT ONLY

Guerrilla Girls On Tour! will come out of the jungle, go into the Cherry Lane Theatre and stand up for gender equality.

WE ARE THEATRE

An evening of kick ass plays by Tiffany Antone, Brooke Berman, Kate Bornstein, Lynne S. Brandon, EllaRose Chary, Paula Cizmar, Sarah Duncan, Jyl Lyyn Felman, Lauren Ferebee, Dominique Fishback, Mila Golubov, Elizabeth Hess, Yvette Heyliger, Velina Hasu Houston, Penny Jackson, Erato A. Kremmyda, Andrea Lepcio, Marianne McDonald, Irina Merkina, Honor Molloy, Brighde Mullins , Vince Peterson, Sophia Romma, Laura Shamas, Mary Steelsmith, Caridad Svich, Kathleen Warnock, Sheilah Rae, Theresa Rebeck, Thelma Virata de Castro, Shay Youngblood and Guerrilla Girls On Tour!

WHEN: September 24, 2012 @ 7PM WHERE: The Cherry Lane Theatre 38

Commerce Street, New York City 

WHAT: A theatrical Happening that will cause more plays by women to Happen 

TICKETS: $20 general admission, $12 students and seniors. - for half price tickets use the code WAT 10

FOR TICKETS CLICK HERE: https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/pr/916365

OR HERE:  http://www.broadwaybox.com/shows/we_are_theatre_nyc_tickets.aspx

WATCH LIVE – WE ARE THEATRE WILL BE STREAMED LIVE: http://www.livestream.com/ggontour

DRESS: ANYTHING YELLOW 

DONATE: to the cause: http://www.indiegogo.com/WeAreTheatre

MEDIA REQUESTS: Contact Meredith Rich at meredithrich@earthlink.net

www.facebook.com/WeAreTheatre @OccupyBroadway

www.ggontour.com

WE ARE THEATRE PRODUCERS: Guerrilla Girls On Tour! with 50/50 in 2020, the Women's Initiative members of the Dramatists Guild and the Belladonna Series

WE ARE THEATRE CO-SPONSORS:  Women's Project Theatre, LA Female Playwrights Initiative, WET Productions, The Feminist Spectator, The Shirley Chisholm Project of Brooklyn Women's Activism, Project Girl Performance Collective, Hollaback!, Hedgebrook, LIVE GIRLS Theatre, Judith Shakespeare, Bella Abzug Leadership Institute, New Perspectives Theatre Company, The Queens Company, The Negro Ensemble Company, Guerrilla Girls Broad Band, Little Black Dress INK, Looking for Lilith, Women at Work Festival, The Bella Abzug Leadership Institute and Agent 160 Theatre.

On September 24 sexism in theatre will end forever

REPORTS FROM STOCKHOLM and WPIC 2012

SKOAL!

As often as we can, Guerrilla Girls On Tour! tries to bring together badass feminists and women artists to celebrate their talent and create solidarity. Well, the Women Playwrights International Conference hosted by Riksteatern, the national touring company of Sweden, did this in a big, wonderful and global way!  We toured to Stockholm in August of 2012 to participate and perform at WPIC 2012.

Day 1: We're HEEERE!

Bleary-eyed and drunk (figuratively, much to my disappointment, airlines always had the gin and tonics flowing when I traveled around for my poetry tour in the 1960s) from an international flight, the Girls - Aphra Behn, Fanny Mendelssohn, Josephine Baker and myself checked into our ultra-chic Swedish hotel in the south of Stockholm.  Then we headed up to the Sodra Teatern, the beautiful venue right on the water, where the conference was being held to sign-up for all the fabulous lectures, workshops, readings and performances we wanted to see over the course of the week.  Nothing could prepare us for the illustrious, fancy opening ceremony to come - Stockholm's City Hall, with gold-gilded walls, beautiful mosaic painting and stately terraces.  

With women playwrights from Afghanistan

We tried to imagine what it must be like to receive a Nobel Prize in the room where they were handed out.  Women don't receive those very often, and Guerrillas... well the odds aren't great, but one can dream!

Elizabeth Blackburn - Nobel Prize winner!

WPI, a fabulous organization: Women Playwrights International, hosts these conferences and themed the Stockholm Conference "The Democratic Stage".  We invite all of you to look up this organization and take part! http://www.wpinternational.net/

Here's a debriefing:

WPI is a non-profit and non-governmental organization dedicated to facilitating communications, meetings, interchanges, and activities among the international community of women in theatre. This is done mainly through maintaining ongoing international Women Playwrights Conferences every three years at different locations in the world. The mission of WPI is to further the work of women playwrights around the world by promoting their works, encouraging and assisting the development of their works and bringing international recognition to their works. ”Women Playwrights” shall be understood to include all women working in the theatre of all races, classes, ages, ethnic or religious background, sexual preferences, and women with disabilities.

The six goals of WPI are:

• To extend opportunities for meeting, international networking and artistic exchange

• To increase and further production opportunities for women’s writing for the stage

• To encourage, create and assist the education and development of women playwrights and their craft

• To defend the right of women playwrights to engender their own artistic forms and critical standards

• To encourage study and informed critique of the work of women playwrights

• To support women playwrights against censorship and political persecution for the expression of their ideas

The first conference was held in Buffalo, USA in 1988. It gathered more than 200 women from 30 countries around the world. The second conference, in 1991, was held in Toronto, Canada, followed by Adelaide, Australia 1994, Galway, Ireland 1997, Athens and Delphi, Greece 2000, Manila, Philippines 2003, Jakarta and Bali, Indonesia 2006, and Mumbai, India 2009.  Of course there's Stockholm, Sweden in 2012 and you'll want to take part in the 2015 conference -- it's in South Africa!!

Day 2: Conference or Buuuuust.

On our second day we attended a smorgasbord of keynote speeches focused on the Arab world with Nidal Al Achkar, founder & director of Al Madina Theatre in Beirut and most charismatic women known to walk the planet, Mona Knio, Chair, Department of Communication Arts at The Lebanese American University...

Nidal Al Achkar of Al Madina Theatre 

...and last, but not least, the young and fearless Sondos Shabayek, Egyptian journalist, dramatist, director and activist, who told us about her experience taking part in the protesters at Tahrir Square in Cairo. Sondos gathered stories of several protestors in Cairo and compiled them into a theatre piece called The Tahrir Monologues, stories from the revolution. (www.tahrirmonologues.com)

Sondos Shabayek talks about protesting in Tahrir Square in Cairo 

The inspiring day of Arab feminists was completed with the Scandinavian première In the Lost and Found: Red Suitcase, written, directed, and performed by Lana Nasser from Jordan, winner of last year's Etel Adnan Award, a three-part award for an emerging Arab playwright presented by WPI and Nidal Al Achkar, who gives each winner a week run in her cutting-edge theatre in Beirut, the Al Madina Theatre (www.almadinatheatre.com).

My spirit was lifted by all these strong, confident and liberated Arab women who were expressing themselves through theatre and refusing to be shutdown by any political, social or gender-based prejudices.  They were mentoring and inspiring each other, and in turn, everyone at the conference.  They definitely struck a deep chord with me and I couldn't help thinking about the disparity in the United States.  We have no real support system of strong women theatre artists to mentor and help younger theatre artists.  Women who have succeeded in winning leadership positions in theatre around the US and the world should make it a top priority to mentor younger women, and be active!  We may consider ourselves more developed than the Arab world, but our apathy sets us back decades.  As Josephine Baker so aptly put it in our show, "The fight for gender equality never takes a day off!”

Day 3: Free Pussy Riot!

The perpetual summer sun was shining in Stockholm city as the conference was in full swing.  Feast your feminist eyes on these seminars/workshops: Women and Creating: Rights and Possibilities, What does Red Riding Hood carry in her basket?, Mapping yourself, Do you feel understood? Young Women Playwrights around the Baltic Sea were just some of the fabulous workshops taught by women from all around the world.

The women, along with all of us GGOTs were shocked when three members of the Russian feminist activist group, Pussy Riot, were charged with “hooliganism” and sentenced to two years in jail for speaking up against Putin.  It is shocking and appalling that in 2012, such a monstrosity and disregard for free speech is happening to our Baltic sisters!  GGOTs and the other women at the conference marched through the Old City and gathered at the main square and joined in on a global protest with speeches, songs and chants. 

What an awesome way to spend the day!  I have to say we Girls get some strange looks in our wigs and gorilla masks, but never so much as when we were marching through Stockholm chanting “Free Pussy Riot!” J

With badass feminist playwright Van Badham from Australia

Day 4: The Day of the Show, Ya’ll.

 Backstage at Dramalabbet 

The excitement for our show, Feminists Are Funny, had been mounting all week and we wanted to do our very best, high-energy, madcap feminist mayhem kind of show for all the ladies at the conference.  Talk about feminist rock stars!  We were totally impressed with all these theatre artists and set the bar very high – we were pounding bananas like no tomorrow.

And we needed the potassium, because the amazing energy in the Dramalabbet where we performed was intense!  These women were fantastic!  Clapping, cheering and talking back – “Ladies and Gentlemen, THIS is what a true feminist looks like!”

We had a tremendous night.  Thank you to WPI for having us Girls, and a special shout out to all the incredible women we met who are kicking theatre butt around the globe.

Day 5: Normal, Natural.

Our last day of the conference was our Street Theatre workshop!  We had about 25 participants and they were burning to add their issues to the idea board for potential street theatre pieces. 

Issues!

 My favorite was the “Normal, Natural” group who used the 16-count movement sequence we gave them as a way to create the ideal “normal, natural” heterosexual couple.  Hilarity ensued.  Adorable Swedish girls playing in the fountain outside the theatre stopped to clap along and watch and you couldn’t help but hope that a little bit of the message floated into their sponge-like brains. 

Normal/natural Street theatre! 

We really did have a mini Feminist UN, with groups from Sweden, the UK, Jamaica, Estonia, India, the US and more coming together to collaborate on universal issues.  It may be expressed in a different ways, but I hope the ladies involved saw how similar their struggle as feminist theatre artists was. 

Not too long after, Aphra and I left on a jetplane while Josephine and Fanny continued on to Malmo, Sweden and the rest as they say, is Feminist History!

Keepin’ it Normal and Natural (whatever that means!),

xoxo

Anne Sexton

We Are Theatre SPEAK OUT tickets now on sale

AUGUST 15, 2012: TICKETS ON SALE FOR WE ARE THEATRE

at the CHERRY LANE THEATRE NEW YORK CITY

Guerrilla  Girls on Tour!, along with 50/50 in 2020 and the Women’s Initiative members of the Dramatists Guild, is presenting a speak-out on the evening of September 24^th at the Cherry Lane Theater, located in New York City’s Greenwich Village and entitled WE ARE THEATRE. 

WE ARE THEATRE intends to drive home the blatant lack of parity for women playwrights (less than 20% of all plays produced in the U.S. are written by women) by presenting a series of specially commissioned monologues, skits, songs, and scenes about sexism in the theatre.  These short works have been written by just a handful of the thousands of women theatre artists who continue to persevere in the tradition of creating superior, innovative American theatre.

Works by Theresa Rebeck, Brooke Berman, Kate Bornstein, Thelma Virata de Castro, and Shay Youngblood will be among the 24 writers whose work will receive staged readings at WE ARE THEATRE. WE ARE THEATRE is supported by Gloria Steinem and co-sponsored by the Women’s Project and Productions, Hollaback!, Hedgebrook and LA Female Playwrights Initiative to name a few of the national organizations involved.

WE ARE THEATRE begins at 7PM.  Tickets are available at the Cherry Lane box office as of August 15th, and are priced at $20 for general admission and $12 for seniors and students.  For tickets:

https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/pr/916365

For more info visit http://www.facebook.com/WeAreTheatre.

@OccupyBroadway