Songs For The Struggling Artist

The neighbors were walking through the neighborhood checking out the damage caused by Tropical Storm Isaias. I asked them if they had power and they shook their heads. None of us had power. And of course, I’m talking about electricity. I was staying at my friend’s place and the storm had brought down trees all over the area, knocking out power lines everywhere. Rich neighborhoods, poor neighborhoods, the power grid was out for everyone. To read more of Do You Have Power? visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. This is Episode 217 Song: Power by John and Johanna Hall To donate to Unite to Light visit: https://www.unitetolight.org/ Image via Pixabay Listen to The Dragoning here and support via Ko-fi here: https://ko-fi.com/messengertheatrecompany To support this podcast: Give it 5 stars in Apple Podcasts. Write a nice review! Rate it wherever you listen or through: https://ratethispodcast.com/strugglingartist Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/ Like the blog/show on Facebook: https://www.

Does it make you uncomfortable when I say I am a genius? I can see why it might. Women aren’t supposed to be geniuses, for one thing, and they should be modest, as well, so even if women COULD be geniuses, they shouldn’t go around declaring themselves such. We learn very early that we should hide our intelligence, that we should be quiet about what we’re good at and that we are never going to be seen as brilliant. Because being brilliant, and being a genius, is for boys. To read the rest of I Am a Genius, visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.  Song: Supra Genius by Soul Coughing Image by ElisaRiva via Pixabay Listen to The Dragoning here and support via Ko-fi here: https://ko-fi.com/messengertheatrecompany To support this podcast: Give it 5 stars in Apple Podcasts. Write a nice review! Rate it wherever you listen or through: https://ratethispodcast.com/strugglingartist Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/ Like the blog/show on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SongsfortheStruggling

I sort of thought I was all done sorting through my past and re-evaluating. I’d scanned through it during the various waves of Yes All Women and Me Too. But the other day, I found myself suddenly absolutely newly furious about a relationship I had when I was 17. Before this moment, I had mostly fond memories of this relationship and, despite some ups and downs, I remained friends with the man. Until now, I’d seen this relationship with the eyes of the seventeen-year-old girl who was in it. Now I’m 46 and I realize that I had no business being involved with a twenty-three-year-old man. He should absolutely not have been messing around with me, a seventeen-year-old girl. To keep reading Is a Seventeen Year Old Girl Convincible? visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. This is Episode 215 Song: I Saw Her Standing There by The Beatles Image of Edith Wharton via WikiCommons Listen to The Dragoning here and support via Ko-fi here: https://ko-fi.com/messengertheatrecompany To support this podcast: Give it 5 s

When a friend of a friend asked me for some advice about starting a blog and Patreon, I told her the truth – that most writers struggle to find an audience and the internet is largely indifferent to our work. I realized after I hit send, that this might not be the kind of advice a writer might want to hear. I mean, I know I expected that the internet would fall at my feet and deliver me instant recognition when I first began writing and posting music there. I think imagined that there were people who spent their days just running their fishermen’s nets through the internet’s wide oceans looking for gems. This is what I thought despite the fact that I never used the internet that way myself, nor did I know anyone else who did. But I suppose hope springs eternal? Anyway, there are no gem finding internet fishing boats and putting things up on the internet is largely like going outside in a thunderstorm and shouting your latest sonnet. It’s not likely to be heard or even noticed. Very few people, besides the one

Part of the reason I just went ahead and went full steam ahead with this podcast idea of mine a few months ago is that I thought, well, with all the theatres shut down, theatre journalists will have absolutely nothing to talk about – so maybe a little indie theatre company making work in the middle of this storm will suddenly be of interest. Maybe, I thought, this is our opening. We are, after all, still making theatre of a kind – even if it’s in solely audio form. Theatre lovers will want to hear it, I naively thought. Turns out what theatre lovers want is celebrities. Turns out theatre lovers would rather watch cast reunion zoom meetings. They would rather gaze at Kristin Chenowith’s bookshelves than engage with some off-off Broadway something or other. Big companies would rather air the stuff in their vaults than point the way to smaller companies who may have already been working in the digital space. Theatre lovers would rather listen to a podcast of people talking about famous theatre than actually lis

For the last few months, I have been trying to grapple with the loss of my primary art form. When theatres shut down back in March, it was painful but we all hoped it was temporary – just a little disruption in our theatre lives. As time has worn on, and the virus has gotten worse here in the US than it was when they shut the theatres down (Florida reported 12,000 cases this week, which is twice what New York had back in April at the height of things.) it has become increasingly clear that theatre won’t be back any time soon. The art and business that we knew and loved is dead. There’s a small chance of zombification but theatre as we knew it is probably over. To read more of Theatre Is Dead. Long Live the Theatre. visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. This is Episode 212  Song: There's No Business Like Show Business by Irving Berlin Image of Epidaurus by KiraHundeDog via Pixabay Listen to The Dragoning here and support via Ko-fi here: https://ko-fi.com/messengertheatrecompany To support this p

Over the last few years, I have leaned into making work for young people – both as a theatre maker and as a writer. I dove head first into Theatre for Youth and then, later, into middle-grade fiction. I went to conferences for both and found that they shared something I didn’t expect. They were both fields that were largely run by women. Women were the decision makers and the middle (wo)men. Women dominated – which was very nice to see. There aren’t a lot of fields where that is true. To read more of Favorite Sons and Unicorns, visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. This is Episode 211. Song: C'e La Luna Image by Teodor Drobota via Unsplash Listen to The Dragoning here and support via Ko-fi here: https://ko-fi.com/messengertheatrecompany To support this podcast: Give it 5 stars in Apple Podcasts. Write a nice review! Rate it wherever you listen or through: https://ratethispodcast.com/strugglingartist Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/ Like the blog/show on Facebook: https://www.facebook

For well over a decade, I have had a daily writing practice. I’ve developed various pieces of it over the years but it has included, consistently, at least an hour of concentrated writing. I have written about it before – here, here and here if you want to know more. The thing about a practice, the practice of anything, I suspect, is that it is not always easy but the fact of it makes some other things easier. Let’s say I had a daily swim practice (which, lord knows, if I had access to a pool I would have). It might be hard to get in the pool somedays but surely I’d get better at swimming over time and perhaps even challenge myself to learn new strokes as time went by. Days wherein I didn’t swim might feel strange somehow and a little off. This is true for a writing practice, as well. To keep reading Now Would Be a Hard Time to Start a Creative Practice, visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. This is Episode 210 Song: Water River Stone by Emily Rainbow Davis Image by Ichigo121212 via Pixabay Listen

My State Assembly member has been kind of amazing at her job. Let’s call her A because this is about her but not really about her. She is amazing, though. She’s super progressive and has gotten some really sticky legislation passed. She’s kind of heroic that way. Every time I’ve sent her emails through ResistBot or something, when I wasn’t QUITE clear who was supposed to handle the thing I was concerned about, she has responded to those emails immediately and almost every time, the response has been something like, “Thank you for your message. I sponsored a bill about this and am working to pass it now.” It’s happened more than once. She’s ahead of me every time. She’s remarkable. So – that’s A. Z showed up a few months before the primary elections. We started to get flyers from him and see posters. I couldn’t figure out whose seat he was running for because he was pitching himself as a progressive change candidate and both of our state reps are some of the most progressive reps around. Like, who is he tryin

It was when I noticed I was pushing our building door open with my hip that I started dedicating clothes for inside or outside. With the pandemic raging outside, no extra precaution seemed too crazy at a certain point. So I take my clothes off at the door and go wash my hands before putting on the inside clothes. When Scott started wearing outside pants, I thought it was overkill but then I noticed all the times I made contact with the world when I went out in it – like that door and my hip. I’ve started to realize that things are a little different for folks in other parts of the country and world, and so, in the interest of preventing other places becoming an epicenter like this, it seemed like maybe a little recounting of what has become normal for us might be useful. To keep reading A View from a Small Apartment in NYC visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.  This is Episode 208 Song: Apartment Four by They Might Be Giants Image by caronessel via Pixabay Listen to The Dragoning here and supp

As a self-described struggling artist™, when the pandemic struck us and people suddenly started worrying about struggling artists, many folks thought of me. I appreciated it very much. It was quite remarkable to suddenly receive support I didn’t explicitly ask for. But as a Struggling Artist™ (just kidding, it’s not trademarked,) I have felt some ambivalence about the resources for us that I’m seeing emerge. The bulk of them are emergency funds and they are incredibly necessary for so many people. I bow down to those who are raising those funds. But one thing I’m thinking about a lot is how few artists I know who would actually apply for these sorts of resources. Everyone I’ve talked with about them is leaving them for someone who is in real need. To read more of How to Help Artists the Most, visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.  This is Episode 207 Song: We Close Our Eyes by Go West Image by ddouk via Pixabay Listen to The Dragoning here and support via Ko-fi here: https://ko-fi.com/messenge

Despite generally being a Nick Hornby fan, I resisted reading Juliet, Naked for a while because of the title. When I finally read it, I remember being glad that it wasn’t actually about a naked woman. I remember liking it but I’m fairly certain I was in a different decade of my life then. After watching the film version, I find I’m curious to re-read the book – to find out if it’s as problematic as I found the movie. I was going to say “sexist” instead of “problematic” but I’m not sure if the movie is as sexist as the world is. It just highlights some of the ways the world is sexist and it’s problematic for me because it’s also a bit seductive. To keep reading Something About Juliet, Naked visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist. This is Episode 206  Song: Romeo and Juliet by the Dire Straits Image of Parker Posey via Wikicommons Listen to The Dragoning here and support via Ko-fi here: https://ko-fi.com/messengertheatrecompany To support this podcast: Give it 5 stars in Apple Podcasts. Write a nice re

I’m an artist who tends to hang out with other artists so I sometimes have trouble making sense of, or being made sense of by, non-artists. Sometimes I discover how dramatically different our world views can be, such as when an acquaintance of mine said something like, “You have theatre, I have The Bachelor.” It was sort of a joke but I think to them it felt like a real equivalency. It helped me see that there are probably many who believe that my relationship to theatre, to writing, to the arts is like being a fan of something or having a hobby they really enjoy. This explains a lot. To keep reading  "You Have Theatre. I Have the Bachelor."  visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.  This is Episode 205 Song: Red Vines by Aimee Mann Image by jggrz via Pixabay Listen to The Dragoning here and support via Ko-fi here: https://ko-fi.com/messengertheatrecompany To support this podcast: Give it 5 stars in Apple Podcasts. Write a nice review! Rate it wherever you listen or through: https://rate

Warning: This post has got a lot of swears in it. And it’s kind of a mess. But aren’t we all? I don’t know what to say right now. We’re in a revolution which was long overdue and I feel invigorated and glad that changes are already being made in some way in some places. I also feel terrified and alarmed by the power of the police state which is acting out in the worst possible of fascist ways all over the country and particularly in my city. To read more of You're Late. I'm Late. Let's Get to Work visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.  This is Episode 204 Song: That Is How She Knew from Dragon City Radio by Emily Rainbow Davis as a Thank You podcast for a donor to The Dragoning podcast Image: LinkNYC by DanTD via WikiCommons Three places to donate to support Black activists:  Center for Media Justice List of Bail Funds for protestors around the country NourishNYC is feeding and supplying NYC protestors.

The former prime minister of Australia was on a podcast talking about how the gender pay gap won’t be closed for decades at the current rate. She found this “frustrating.” I found it enraging. And it’s not new information. I know that every single measure of equality is moving at a glacial pace. But it struck me as I listened to her that the problem is that we are attempting to make change without making waves. The current pace, the current rate of change is unacceptable – but anything faster or more aggressive will rock the boat. The waves will be too big to allow us to go along as we’ve always done. If there’s anything we’ve learned so far in the current pandemic moment it’s that going along as we’ve always done isn’t going to work anymore. To read more of We Tried Asking Nicely visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. This is Episode 203  Song: Goodbye Earl by the Dixie Chicks Other songs referenced: The Guillotine and 5 Million Ways to Kill a CEO by The Coup Listen to The Dragoning here and s

If we’ve talked about TV in the last few weeks (and we MAY have talked about TV a lot in these virus times,) I’ve surely mentioned Cable Girls to you. I’ve become a bit obsessed. It’s a Spanish TV show about switchboard operators in the early 20th century. It is stylish and sexy and most impressively, about women’s solidarity. There is nothing the women in this show won’t do for their friends. And I mean nothing. They will tank their relationships, start a strike, even stage a prison break. They are a group of friends who show up for each other in some really extraordinarily ways. To read more of The Inspiring Solidarity of the Cable Girls visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. This is Episode 202 Song: Marta, Sebas, Guille y los demas by Amaral Image of a Cable Girls poster in Madrid by Fred Romero via Wikicommons Listen to The Dragoning here and support via Ko-fi here: https://ko-fi.com/messengertheatrecompany To support this podcast: Give it 5 stars in Apple Podcasts. Write a nice review! Rate it

The masks we’re all wearing these days are not the sort that would play onstage. You’d have to use them if you were playing a naturalistic surgical scene – but otherwise, these protective masks are awfully hard to express one’s self in. They may be very important for not spreading the virus but they are lousy theatre masks. Even so, I’ve been trying to figure out how to apply what I’ve learned from years of mask work to these terrible untheatrical (but incredibly important) medical ones. To read more of Tips On Masks from a Mask Theatre Person visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog.  This is Episode 201  Song: Behind the Mask by Fleetwood Mac Image by Vesna_Pixi via Pixabay Indiegogo campaign to make The Dragoning is here. Listen to The Dragoning here. To support this podcast: Give it 5 stars in Apple Podcasts. Write a nice review! Rate it wherever you listen or through: https://ratethispodcast.com/strugglingartist Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/ Like the blog/show on Facebo

Once upon a time, I dreamed of the world I would inhabit as an adult. I thought I would grow up to be Ann Magnuson or Annie Potts. I thought I would hang out in the cool clubs from Desperately Seeking Susan and be taken to a restaurant that had glass tables where I could watch myself while I was eating. The adult world I imagined featured a lot more cool haircuts and funky suits than I ever see in my actual adult life. To read more of The World I Imagined When I Was a Teen, visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. This Episode 200 Song: Left of Center by Suzanne Vega Image of Ann Magnuson in NYC in the early 80s via Wikicommons Indiegogo campaign to make The Dragoning is here. Listen to The Dragoning here. To support this podcast: Give it 5 stars in Apple Podcasts. Write a nice review! Rate it wherever you listen or through: https://ratethispodcast.com/strugglingartist Join my mailing list: www.emilyrainbowdavis.com/ Like the blog/show on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SongsfortheStrugglingArtist/

When it became clear to me that my big break in theatre wasn’t coming any time soon, I began to create things in the digital space. If I couldn’t book a gig in a theatre, I could at least, play a song on-line or have some words I wrote get read. While I appreciated the opportunity to share with people around the world, I also felt somewhat banished into that space. The difficulty and expense of producing things pushed me there. The many barriers to entry exiled me there. Given a choice, I would have chosen a career of only theatre. I would not have become a blogger or podcaster. But I wasn’t given a choice and so I did (and do) do those things. I love them but they’re sort of a substitute for theatre for me. And now, due to the virus, my entire field has been sent home and all the people who have never not worked steadily in theatre are catapulting into the digital space. And I feel super weird about it. To read more of Digital Gentrification and Ontological Insecurity visit the Songs for the Struggling Arti

As soon as the theatres shut down, the King Lear memes started. Over and over, people urged us not to bemoan our sudden retreat to our houses because Shakespeare wrote King Lear during the plague. This was meant to encourage us to believe that it might be highly productive to be sent home. Instead, it gave a lot of people anxiety about having to produce a masterpiece while navigating the challenges of social distancing. I suspect some historical context might be useful and since most Shakespeare scholars are busy trying to figure out how to adapt their courses for Zoom, I thought I might offer some interim thoughts on this topic. If you'd like to read more of You Don't Have to Write Your Lear. Or Your Venus and Adonis Even. visit the Songs for the Struggling Artist blog. This is Episode 198 Song: (Sittin on) The Dock of the Bay by Otis Redding Image via The British Library Indiegogo campaign to make The Dragoning is here. To support the podcast: Give it 5 stars in Apple Podcasts. Write a nice review! Rate it