History Girls: Alan Bennett Hear My Prayer!

Finally, no more Enron love letters.

Anyways, word up to all the Feminists out there. I wanted to put "The History Boys" on at Yale with a cast of all women.

But, as in High School (at The Ellis School For Girls and Young Women), I ran into licensing and legal issues when Samuel L. French required that men be played by men. Women played by women.

Something tells me that Alan Bennett would not have cared too much and might have found my exploration of nostalgia, memory, sexuality, hierarchy and "the cult of masculinity" interesting from a feminine perspective. Granted, I don't like messing with scripts too much in such an Avant Garde way, but there is something to be said about investigating "a Man's World" through a female lens--is breaking through History, making women the makers, seekers, and lenses of history. I mean, even Mrs. Lintott says, "History is just women trailing behind with the bucket." (or something like that). Let's change that. Theater is a good medium to do so.

While I don't want to deal with the fines and legal issues of breaking contract, I do want to bring this issue to the public eye with my play (or rather the program). I want to let people know about these restrictions in the theater world, which is apparently so free and accepting and open to the eyes of idealists out there. Baby, this is a business.

But even if we are a business, business is all about innovation and growth. We are a creative century. Why can't we get past these gender issues already? Break into new territory with theater? Go beyond licensing restrictions and move to something better?

Actors in Management: My World View

Sometimes, I feel my worldview is royally unique. It could be brilliantly effective, or a huge, misguided utopian failure.

I am an actress who looks at the world as a stage. Where do our motivations come from? Why do we gather together in search of spectacle? Uniqueness? Unity? Why do we strive for the best performance, in whatever arena we are in (business, sciences, military, sales)? Its about putting on the best act, the best show, to please the client, to improve their lives, and maybe get something out of it yourself.

At the same time, I'm obsessed with business, marketing, networking, organization. I like to create projects, initiatives, get funding for them, create value in them, oversee them, and then pass them on. (Ivy EME, theater, Afghan Sister School, even now with a new entrepreneurial venture I'm developing in the field of headhunting). The interaction. The creation of value. The all holy thing we call capitalism. Hell, creating capitalism! (Why else am I fascinated by Kosovo and the business climate of the developing world?)

Its all the same. Its about putting the right actors in the right business to get good performance ratings, and put on a hell of a good marketing campaign--a spectacle if you will.

Ultimately, even the vocabulary is the same.

Now, how to get this business going would be fabulous.....

Hopefully I'm not sounding too idealist. But I sold you? Right? ;)

Now to say that to myself.