A brief tour of my script-writing history:

I began writing scripts in the form of vignettes in 1979 with David, my then collaborator, and together he and I performed them. We were known as "Night People" and our routines were born and bred in Portland, Oregon. We played nightclubs, art galleries and special event venues. 

David and I sprang our act, "Night People" on an unsuspecting crowd in a robust, avant garde nightclub devoted to poetry one night a week. The Long Goodbye club owner, Richard Vidan, conspired with us, weeks ahead, so on our designated opening night, circa 1980, David--a well-known poet in this venue--mounted the stage and began a recitation of a classic Ginsberg poem: "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness...." I charged into the club and onto the stage, bringing his reading to a halt, making a scene as his irate girlfriend chastising him about his career choices. The crowd freaked. The bit was called "What Are You Going To Do With Your Life?" David pulled the want ads from his back pocket and said: "How about a doctor? There's openings." The crowd roared. Our act was launched. 

We played that club on a weekly basis with brand new installments each week, until we had a full evening's collection of routines. A small press journalist's review smiled upon us, likening David to "Charlie Chaplain in spirit and gift," giving me "ten points for her use of irony well-written and exquisitely delivered" and declaring both of us "talented and funnier than God."

The particular photo above captured one of our on-going routines...a talk show parody with David playing all the deeply idiosyncratic guests. (This routine fed part of the story line for my fourth play: Remote Control, produced through Sirius Productions in Portland, 1986).

Another press photo, this time putting word out about our bona fide, full-evening's show (same name as our team: "Night People") in a theatre (Playback), downstairs from the club where we first appeared. Holly Johnson of the Oregon Journal thought David and I were "two exotic people with that reassuring wildness about the eyes that signifies they are truly actors and should be in no other field." (oh-oh) Ted Mahar of The Oregonian thought we were "funny... promising... with a bizarre but likable sense of dedication...worth taking a chance on."

Here's a photo taken at a rehearsal for a show we did at a performance venue (Darcelle's), in Portland's Chinatown. The routine started with me depositing money in a bank. David charges in, holds up the bank and takes me hostage in my car. Gruff and temperamental, he holds a (mimed) gun to my head while he drives (English-style). Meek, forelorn and impressionable, I become entranced, reach into the back seat, pull out my guitar and commence singing "So Close."

I continued in that vein, writing and workshopping plays in the Pacific Northwest, through theatre companies (Cubiculo, Columbia, The Group), independent arts grants and play festivals.

Before I left Portland in 1987, I was invited to participate in a locally-produced television pilot, SNAX, as a writer and player.

Press article for SNAX. That's me leaning up against the wall, one hand on my waist, one on my head.  

More press for SNAX--Sam Downey's ground-breaking effort to produce a comedy show (pilot) on a commercial television network affiliate. That's me holding a wind-up toy (second from top left). The show was broadcast November 1982. We saw it on a big screen in a downtown restaurant--packed for the occasion.

In 1988, just after moving to Seattle to further develop my play writing, I was commissioned to write a monologue by a professional actor. That quickly turned into more commissions and the beginning of my monologue book series.

In 1990, I was commissioned to write a play, Crazy in the Mainstream, through the Washington Alliance for The Mentally Ill (WAMI) and Washington Arts Commission. That commenced a sequence of play commissions for special populations, including Count Me In, sponsored by Seattle Repertory Theatre Company.

Just prior to the Crazy in the Mainstream project, I decided to return to University and complete my BA (1990). I earned quite a few credits through the rigorous process of converting my professional writing work into academic terms. The name for my area of concentration emerged: "Psychodynamic Writing for Dramatic Interpretation."

Just before my first quarter at Antioch, I had the luck and pleasure of receiving a scholarship to attend a particularly eye-opening New York intensive training with Jonathan Fox, to expand my knowledge and practice his "Playback Theatre" methods.

Around that time I was introduced to Alice Miller's writings and, through a Masters class at Antioch, Dr. Arnie Mindell's process-oriented psychology. A steady flow of new ideas, somatic experiences and community process opened me to a new kind of "script" and artistic intent. Speak of the Ghost: In the Name of Emotion Literacy was soon to follow.

Enter, Ted Sod, head of Seattle Repertory Theatre Company's education and outreach department. Ted's attendance at one of my Speak of the Ghost readings prompted him to offer me the first in a series of compelling opportunities: an artist residency at the King County Youth Detention Facility (the Rep's first at that location, 1995-1996).

That artist residency was extended, thanks to a phenomenal, spontaneous funding offer from Seattle Repertory Organization. And that opened a big door for me to create Trigger of Light, a play giving witness to youth in detention and, for the community, a window into aspects of their world through emotion literate eyes.

"The Art of Emotion," an article (pictured above) about my Rep residency experiences and perspectives, can be read in full here, along with an interview with Maximillian Bocek, here; both were published in Seattle Repertory Theatre's publication Prologue.

I am seated here with Garfield High School students in a special honors-credit, language arts/emotion literacy program (1999-2000), funded by the Weeden Foundation and the Parent Teacher Student Association under the umbrella of the Alliance for Education. A group of self-selected students and I worked for a year to create a double-issue online publication called The Familiar. The pieces in that publication represent the students' exploration of emotion literacy through creative writing and multi-artist mentorship. You can still view it online here.

In 2001, at Ted Sod's caring behest, through Pablo Stanfield's kind, patient tutelage, Daniel Sackett's astute, active, multi-resourceful and loving loyalty, along with Mark Magill's keen wizadry and the additional talent, special expertise, time and energy of other close collaborators, I founded Emotion Literacy Advocates--a natural habitat for work at the crossroads, where entertainment meets social-emotional learning and multi-form generative processes find new application as learning tools for broadcast media, conferences, social services, educational programs and arts-friendly events in the Pacific Northwest, Canada and Mexico.