Alicia Dattner

Writing a Solo Show, Part 1 of 7

So you want to write a solo show? Not everybody does. It used to be most people felt they had one good novel in them. One good album. Five minutes of good standup. Maybe one good screenplay. You take the particulars of your life and assemble them in a funny or touching or absurd or poignant way and they become universally understood as human. And after that, you have to actually get good a the craft and technical know-how.  There's charisma, and there's skill.  Possessing charisma might bring you to the stage, but building skill is what can keep you there.  But let's not worry about the skill part yet.  Plenty of time for that.  What's important right now is that you want to create.

Today, especially in the San Francisco theater and standup comedy scene, solo shows or monologues are becoming a great venue to speak your life.  And many people are taking the form to the level of mastery.  You've heard Eric Bogosian on CD, you've seen Spading Gray on DVD, maybe you went to the theater and saw your first solo show in person.  And now you're Inspired.  "This is it!" you realize.  This is how I want to tell my story!  (I'm chomping at the bit to go see two shows at the Marsh in San Francisco: Ann Randolph's Loveland, and Dan Hoyle's The Real Americans.  I'm on my way in the next week to see Dan Hoyle!)

So if this is your first foray into the world of possibility in creating your first solo show, where do you start?  Well, you start where only you can.  You already know in your heart why you're reading this.  Something incredibly important, intense, and powerful occurred in your life.  It may even be connected to some issue out in the world that is equally important, intense, and powerful.  That's where you start. 

Begin by allowing yourself to speak what that is.  But keep it to yourself for the moment.  This is a precious moment, when you acknowledge to yourself what it is you know you have to tell the world.  Take 30 minutes and sit.  Let yourself write the it down.  Write in whatever form: bullet points, a poem, short pieces of prose...  Write what comes about the CENTRAL MOMENT of this powerful event or truth in your life.  During this central moment, where are you?  What time of year is it?  What are you wearing?  What does the air smell like?  Who is with you?  What music do you hear?  What did you eat that day?  What are the sensations in your belly?  Write with a pen and paper if you can...  let those images and emotions wash over you and spill onto the paper directly from your heart through your hand to the page, and make Natalie Goldberg proud.

When you finish, don't yet show it to anyone.  It's a tender and sweet piece of work you're doing, and you deserve to have it held with your own utmost compassion before opening it to others. 

Ready for Part 2 of 7 on "So You Want to Write a One Person Show?"  Stay tuned!  I'll be writing it in the next few days.

Ending World War Through Laughter

 I came across a little blurb in the New York Times a couple of years ago that intrigued me, and I clipped out... I started using it as a bookmark and it would pop up at various times when it seemed coincidentally apropot.  Here is the gist... it's, well, possible end to the world war... So Yoki Kamuar of Kansai University (Osaka, Japan) believes he might have the answer to ending world war. It's simple, healthy doses of laughter.

Yoki, an expert in communications, has invented a machine that charts laughter in a unit of "aH".  He says adults tend to calculate weather it's appropriate to laugh and in a sense forget how to do it.  Children, on the other hand, laugh more freely and put out almost double "aH' measures. Yoki Kamura's goal is to measure laughter and to make the measuring device as small as a mobile phone and sell it as a health and amusement device.  He wants to use this new information to "shift from a century of wars to a century of humor and tolerance."

I wonder what would happen if we actually started recommending a certain aH for people?  If we had a government-suggested Recommended Daily Dose of Laughter?  Vitamin A 20 mg, Vitamin B 30 mg, Vitamin L 50 aH...

At the doctor's office, along with weighing you, taking your blood pressure and temperature, they could also measure your aH!

Doctor to man in office, "Ok John, turn your head and laugh."

I wonder if they laugh much at terrorist meetings...  I'd like to see what a couple of Marx Brothers movies would do to their vengeance level.

So I'm going to find one of these machines and get my laughter up to the RDDL to end some world war here.  You in?

Eat, Pray, Laugh solo show: comedy & kirtan in February!

Here's a little sample of what I've been up to in my creative life.  I'll be performing this show Eat, Pray, Laugh! in San Francisco January 20th, 2010 to February 24th each week with kirtan singers Mirabai and PG.  You can get tickets here.

No Laughter Yoga for Fido.

Think us humans are the only ones who need comedy in our lives?  Turns out animals have neural circuits for laughter in the ancient parts of the brain, that predate even the existence of humans!  There was laughter even before there was people.  

Recent studies are debunking the theory that animals don't feel joy or sorrow.  "Indeed, neural circuits for laughter exist in very ancient regions of the brain, and ancestral forms of play and laughter existed in other animals eons before we humans came along with our 'ha-ha-has' and verbal repartee," says Jaak Panksepp, a neuroscientist at Bowling Green State University.

A recent study suggests that animals from rats to monkeys partake in joy and laughter that very much resembles a humans joy and laughter. Monkeys chase eachother and pant in ways that resemble a humans laugh, even rats, as they play chirp in ways that resemble our very own giggles.  They actually found that--no joke--rats might be into Sid Caesar.  

"Although no one has investigated the possibility of rat humor, if it exists, it is likely to be heavily laced with slapstick," Panksepp figures. "Even if adult rodents have no well-developed cognitive sense of humor, young rats have a marvelous sense of fun."

Panksepp says more studies need to be conducted in order to really tell if these behaviors are truly an animal's way of expressing laughter, but laughter could be a deep seeded brian function that not only exists in humans, but in the animals around us as well.

So, no need to take your dog to laughter yoga with you, he's already laughing at you--I mean, with you.

Check out Cinnabar's Solo Mio Festival

A theatrical showcase festival of solo performance artists

 

 

I highly recommend checking out Clark Taylor and Johnny Steele here--two great (and may I say unsung) heros of San Francisco comedy.  And, for full disclosure, also buddies of mine.  It's great that we're getting so much solo show work happening in the Bay Area--especially from standups.  We're so good at being on stage, and often have so much more to offer by adding a story arc that glues our jokes together like a sturdy arc over the stormy waters of the stage.

 

Cinnabar's Solo Mio Festival illuminates the compelling nature of solo performance that exists between one performer onstage and the audience, celebrating the beauty and immediacy of story-telling in this theatrical showcase spotlighting comedians and solo performers Fred Curchack, Will Durst, Dave Pokorny, Johnny Steele and Clark Taylor. 

 

Will Durst - 8 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 28; 
Dave Pokorny - 6:30 p.m. and Clark Taylor 9 p.m. Friday, Jan. 29; 
Johnny Steele -  6:30 p.m. and  Will Durst 9 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 30;
Clark Taylor -  5 p.m. and Dave Pokorny 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 31;
Dave Pokorny - 8 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 4; 
Fred Churchack - 6:30 p.m. and Johnny Steele 9 p.m. Friday, Feb. 5; 
Dave Pokorny - 6:30 p.m. and Clark Taylor 9 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 6; 
Frech Churchack - 2 p.m., Johnny Steele 5 p.m. and Will Durst 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 7;
Fred Churchack - 8 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 11; 
Will Durst - 6:30 p.m. and Fred Churchack 9 p.m. Friday, Feb. 12; 
Clark Taylor - 6:30 p.m. and Johnny Steele 9 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 13.

 

TICKETS:  $25
Single Tickets: $25 per person. 
All Five Shows: $100 per person. Four-Show Pass: $85 person. Three-Show Pass: $68 per person.

 

LOCATION:   Cinnabar Theater, 3333 Petaluma Blvd. North, Petaluma, CA

 

PHONE:   707-763-8920 
Order tickets by telephone 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday or purchase at the door. 
Reservations highly recommended. 
   
www.cinnabartheater.org

 
 Dave Pokorny - Based On A True Story

A (mostly) true journey of one man’s life as he attempts to procrastinate finding his calling.
For a full decade Dave Pokorny toured the U.S. as a working stand-up comic, however after his first daughter was born he no longer wanted to tell jokes to strangers in bars for money.  After seven years as a stay-at-home dad he still doesn’t want to just tell jokes, but he’s realized he has a lot more to say than, “Hey, put that down...leave your sister alone...because I said so that’s why...and pick that up!”
              
Johnny Steele - Johnny’s Inferno
Fast talking, semi-improvisational, sometimes controversial, always funny.
Johnny Steele is an entertainer best known for his fast talking, semi-improvisational, sometimes controversial, comedy performances. Johnny, a former winner of the San Francisco International Comedy Competition, is also a former bay area radio and television host. Currently Johnny is working on a solo show and The BOOMERS! a three-man skit and sketch comedy revue about coming of age in the sixties and seventies.
          
Clark Taylor - Mad'Ville
A mad romp through junior high school and small town life in Louisiana in the 1960’s and 70’s.
Clark is a long time storyteller and stand up comedian in the Bay Area.  He worked as a screenwriter in LA and earned a Masters in US History from San Francisco State before returning to the stage.  He recently completed work on an environmental documentary entitled Deep Green slated for a September 2009 release. He currently resides in Fairfield, California.

Trapsing: Oxford, London, Bombay...

Dear Lovies: (as they say in England) The last ten days have been a whirlwind. As I type, roosters a cockadoodledoo-ing at 1:30 am. Wild dogs, doing the same. I don't know if their internal clock is off, or there is some weird Indian breed of rooster who crows when the sun is down instead of up... Everything else is "backwards" here, so why not add farm animals to the list. I arrived in Oxford, via Heathrow ten days ago and stayed with my friends Christina and Brian, of new baby fame. Their six-week old bundle of joy is named Jasper, and we shot the shit (metaphorically and literally) all week. We all laughed and played and I learned that much of the external Harry Potter scenes were filmed right in Oxford. Which is why I kept expecting to see the students pull magic wands out of their matriculation robes and say something Latin-sounding, and no, not the salsa kind of Latin. Visited Avebury, an energy center similar to Stonehenge, but way quieter and way cooler. Went to a local sustainability conference and festival. Ate amazing beef lasagna (even though I don't do that.) Roasted a chicken for the first time. In London, I hung out with friends I met last year at Sivananda ashram in India. I went on a date with a cute Irish guy (whom I'd met on the plane when I was coming home from Costa Rica.) Navigated the Tube, ate apple cinnamon cake with clotted cream. Did TWO comedy shows in London--thanks to my friend Paul, who I met in India. One was at a pub in the theatre district, one was with some really good comics in East Dullich (sp?) ALso had a drink at the famous Ivy Room (though I didn't spot any celebs) with a theatre producer before flying out to Bombay in the morning. Last night I flew into Bombay at 12:30 am. Negotiated several hours of immigration lines, security checks, swine flu checks, and then night time in the city that's never sleepy--my taxi driver didn't know where Thane was--or speak English--or have a mobile phone--so every few minutes we'd stop and ask some more rickshaw drivers where Thane, Balkum, and Runwal Garden City are. I was about to give up and look for a hotel instead of trying to get to my friend Sam's house when a guy on a motorcycle led the way and we finally arrived, sans cell. The most amazing thing here has been not having a cell phone for the last ten days, and having sporadic email access. It's so freaking liberating. Of course I'm aware of how much I use my iPhone. Every four minutes, I check something. What to do without all the checking? Without Googling something when it comes up and I don't know the "answer". Just something to chew on... I'm hoping that when I return, and set up a new place to live, I'll create a new structure for my life, with my new home as my alter, and my iPhone as my bitch. And not the other way around. \ Oh, BTW, I just did "Eat, Pray, Laugh!" in Bombay tonight with my fellow comic Sam Koletkar at the Jewish Community Center here in India, and we rocked it! What awesome fun! All the bits I was scared they'd be offended by were the ones they laughed the hardest at! (Pics to follow--it's hard to upload on vacation.) Namaste, Alicia P. S. Want to get my updates and info by email? Send me your address... I'll put you on my list!

bombay to kerala... om!

hari om... so... we last left our heroine in bombay... (that sounds so strange to say--like we stashed our smack in an alley in india) she was just finishing a performance of her new comedy show "eat, pray, laugh" along with her comedian friend samson at the jewish community center. she--ok, i--was worried that the indian jews wouldn't really enjoy or understand the racier bits of my indian travel tales... 

but it turns out that those were the parts they enjoy the most. i capture most of the show on my awesome canon elph camera, which i then leave in a rickshaw the next day, along with all the other photos i took in england of jasper and i. jasper is six weeks old and adorable. letting go i am sad for a couple of days about losing the photos. and the camera too. it served me well on my last trip to india. so now i am learning lesson number 8,341 on letting go. but like i'm actually getting it. i mourned the loss, and then i got that, hey, this shit is all temporary. and it's a great addition to my losses. meaning, now i don't have a laptop, a cell phone, or a camera to distract me from what's right in front of my nose. 

nothing exists but here and now. and what i'm seeing in the here and now with my eyes is also marginal on the reality scale. whispering woods co-incidence of strange co-incidences, the method acting teacher i studied with for four years, who has never been to india, is in bombay the exact same week that i'm here. i visit him at the film school where he's teaching and sit in on a couple of classes. the studio is called whispering woods, and it's like the canyon in LA. lush, green, undeveloped. i even get to do a deathbed scene while a kind of famous (so i'm told) actor is in the class. talked with some of the other professors there and the head of the film school and might get to teach a class on standup the next time i'm in the hood. 

anandashram

i remember sam and his sister alice dropping me off at the train station, but i don't remember anything about the ride. all i know is that it was overnight and i arrived in khanangad as the sun was coming up. one of my kirtan heroes, krishna das, told me after a concert that there's a place in india where they chant "om sri ram jai ram jai jai ram" continuously. an ashram called anandashram. so that's where i'm going. i arrive and somehow i'm not in the guest book, but they let me stay anyway--give me a private room and everything. and it's a very special time to be there because a saint from tamil nadu (a state in india) is visiting for several days named thuli baba. i've never heard of him until now, but it's very exciting. after each meal, i have the opportunity to have satsang and prasad with his group of devotees. the skinniest, frailest, loudest cat i've ever seen curls up next to thuli baba every day. they tell me that the cat was a guru in the last life and is working out some heavy karma for the world by coming back as this cat and not eating. sun and moon friends of my friend haridas bring me to the ocean to see the sunset and the full moon rise on the opposite side of the earth. i climb the mountain behind the ashram and leave all my worries there hanging in a tree. 

letting go for the 8,342nd time. you know what they say... "8,342nd time's a charm!" the next day (or the day before... who knows!) my german friend sandra and i are walking back from a beautiful little temple in a field and we pass the cows' maternity ward. on the ground is a five-minute old calf being licked by its mother. they milk the mamma cow and i peer into the giant milk pail of colostrum saying, "whoa." "you like?" the guy says. 

the next morning they knock on my door with some cake for me made from coconut milk, sugar, and this thick cow colostrum--let me tell you--i have never eaten anything more rich. plus, when i was trying to "om" it started coming out as "moo" that day. i joke! i'm getting daily two-hour massages from these two young women with medicinal hot oil. after five days, it actually gets to be kind of boring! they don't speak much english, so i'm cracking them up with my mime humor for two hour straight. "cheery" means smile in malayalam. and "tamasha" means joke. (these words strangely come in handy later when i'm being harassed at the train station.) 

"ichally" means ticklish and "idally" is a kind of breakfast rice dumpling. and they kind of rhyme so i'm just saying "ichally, idally, ichally, idally..." there's nothing funnier than jokes between people who don't speak the same language. i'm joking with gestures about how the oil they're using smells like cooking oil and that i'm afraid all this basting means they're going to cook me for dinner... and on and on...... stuff that's way funnier without words. i know by ths time in my trip that i'll be spending more time in india in this life. it calls. 

i hope your day of giving thanks was full of grace. i have returned from my time in india and i'm back in the bay, so blessed in so many ways. have a gander at the next installment of my adventures below... more to come about Tiruvanamalai in my next note.. 

In the meantime, I invite you to join Suzette Hibble, Erin Brandt and I, for the next Creativity, Sexuality, and Spirituality Workshop! Please register for the December 10th workshop event with me if you're interested--soon--it is filling up--only a few spots left! Namaste, Alicia

The Latest Show on Earth--Unearthed

I recently found a review on someone's blog about the circus I started back in '03-'04. We had dispersed some DVD's of the tour movie, and I guess she got a copy! "A traveling conceptual, twisted, idiotically brilliant circus by Dattner and Ben Turner that travelled through the country, performing in 20 cities in double that amount of time, making audiences into temporary circus performers, such as the Amazing Moderately Flexable Man. Dattner's invention of "The Latest Show on Earth" makes a wonderful vehicle for the lithe, ridiculously magnetic Ben Turner, adorable in a variety of roles such as the Self Taming Lion Man, and the Emotional Escape Artist. Dattner and Ben made use of the traditional circus obnoxious overacting and relentless flamboyant level of excitement, but their travelling circus was anything but conventional." -Tantra Bensko

Sure I'm laughing... but is it comedy?

laughter yoga Alicia Dattner leads laughter yoga every week.. I have seen a lot of standup comedy. I have seen thousands of comedians perform in the last dozen years. And I've performed somewhere between one thousand and two thousand times... What did that do for me? I laughed a lot. But I also got pretty jaded and, well, admittedly, a little bitter. I got so into analyzing the jokes, comparing comedians, cataloging bits, and thinking about what makes the funny... I stopped really laughing after a while. When I did laugh, it was either kind of fake, or just a smile... a "that's clever" smile. I lost the actual pleasure I went into comedy for in the first place. The physical sensation of uncontrollable paroxyms shaking my body. The sense of being totally powerless, driven to pleasure. An itchy sort of pleasure... Joke-tellers are tickling your mind. The only way I truly find that uncontrollable laughter these days is watching reruns of America's Funniest Home Videos on Youtube. I consider myself a relatively intellectual person with relatively refined tastes... But something about watching people fall while dancing, get kicked in the groin,houses fall over, pants falling off... It kills me! Something to do with shutting of my brain and letting my limbic system take over. I laugh so hard that I start to cry--and then I'm bawling and laughing, tears, drool, happy and sad,gleaning some perspective on this short, crazy life we fall into and are pulled from... It's very spiritual. But I decided there has to be another way to get my rocks off like that. What's a comic to do? Laughter Yoga. Of course! When I returned from traveling in India last year, I resolved to become a certified Laughter Yoga leader. I trained with Lydia Gonzalez, who trained with the Indian inventor of Laughter Yoga, Dr. Madan Kataria. And now I lead Laughter Yoga every Tuesday in Dolores Park. What the heck is Laughter Yoga? Do you hold poses and laugh? Yeah... but mostly we just bounce around and giggle. Shut off the brain. We laugh for no reason, we act like idiots, we roll down hills, we do yogic breathing, sun salutations... It's great. Plus, did you know that laughing reduces hunger cravings? I just read it in a study! Wanna come? It's Tuesdays at 6:00 pm in Dolores Park, at 19th Street, on the East side, just to the left of the steps. Look for the sandwich board sign and silly people. Suggested donation $10. You can sign up in advance at eventbrite.

Shatner Does Palin, Pulled from Youtube

A couple of nights ago on the Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien, William Shatner took parts of Sarah Palin's goodbye speech and rendered them in a way that only he can. He and maybe Ginsberg. With bongos and bass behind him. It's comedy because it's classic beat-style poetry. "[The cold, though...] doesn't it split the Cheechakos from the Sourdoughs? And then in the summertime such extreme summertime about a hundred and fifty degrees hotter than just some months ago, than just some months from now" Can't find it on Youtube? That's because NBC would prefer that you view their copyrighted material on their own site, where you can see the sexy Gatorade ad first. I understand that. We all gotta make a living. So, the poetry of Alaska's frozen plains, brought to you by Palin, brought to you by Shatner, brought to you by NBC, brought to you by Gatorade, brought to you by examiner.com me, brought to you by me. Now if that's not community and connection bringing us all together in a swirling matrix of love and commerce, I don't know what is. See the clip here.