2012
I go on another month-long silent meditation retreat...this time in Pennsylvania on a farm. When I finish the retreat, i clean out their zen rock garden that's been covered over in weeds.
I get hit up to write some funny bits for web ads. This becomes an all-encompassing writing/producing job for MISTER, a gay dating app. I write dozens of scripts, find a director, make a budget, audition actors, set a schedule and shoot an initial 4 videos, followed by a fifth one that I just wrote and let someone else produce.
The web work lead to more random web jobs that I'm cobbling together. I'm asked to create a campaign to encourage young people to vote in the 2012 election. I create the Vote It Forward Campaign and hand out over $20,000 in prizes for great videos and funny content. I also create and produce a fundraiser for Three Jewels, using the theme of voting rights and democracy. This is my part in both creating content, earning money, and taking part in our democracy...with a Buddhist bent.
I go to a bigwig fundraiser in Connecticutt and rush back to the city in time to batten down for Hurricane Sandy. The following week I'm supposed to attend the world premiere of SKYFALL, but the hurricane has done so much damage that they scale things back to just showing the movie. I'm put up in a hotel near Times Square for the screening. The next morning is the election. i wake up to Fox New predicting a blowout victory...for Mitt Romney. I laugh to myself and go home. My new roommate comes that evening, but by the time he shows up the election is over with...Obama wins. Maybe I played some small part in that? Who can say?
I start working with a new company Red Shirt Entertainment. They ask me to write something so I decide to expand my short play DEFACING MICHAEL JACKSON into a full script. Afterward I don't hear anything from them for a while. I also write DON'T SMOKE IN BED, an interracial two-hander for a reading at Red Shirt. I don't know what's going to happen but I figured this is an exciting start. My other play St. Augustine, FLA is going up at the Red Shirt rooftop reading series.
I decide to apply for the Juilliard Playwriting Fellowship, and I'm going to use DEFACING MICHAEL JACKSON. I make an agreement with the universe: if this is meant to be, then let it happen. If not, then I will accept that fate.
My short play FREEFALLING gets into the Barrington Stage Festival. I go up there for a wintry fun weekend. When I get back to the city, I have a call from Juilliard: the literary manager wants to interview me in January.
2013
At the end of 2012, I tried out a few posts titled GET WHAT YOU WANT that offered grant help. In 2013, I decided to go all in and start posting a listing every month. On the volunteer front, I started answering letters from people in prison needing 12-step help. But I found that most prisoners were writing about wanting to know how they could get government identification when they got out, places to sleep, etc. I started a mailing list for NY state prisoners that listed where they could get new ID, temporary housing locations, job training centers, and 12-step meetings for different substance abuse problems. I started getting more letters from around the state requesting this improvised packet. I sent them out to prisoners, people in halfway houses, and even some prison officers who requested it. Eventually, I was let go from this volunteer position because I had overstepped the bounds of my position: making my own packet and sending it out to anyone who requested it crossed a line. I sent my last bunch of packets out at the end of the year to an inquiring prison administration official. I told him I was no longer at the position, these are all the copies of this packet, and to please keep it going.In January/February I interviewed for the Juilliard playwriting fellowship. I was the first person being in, so I was told to have patience. They would be doing interviews into the spring so I shouldn't take offense if I don't hear anything for several months.
For work, I was put up in a Stanford CT hotel room for a week in February. I was told to charge everything to a mysterious account, and to even get a massage. My job was to help a wealthy woman needing to warehouse certain goods. Every morning I waited by the phone for more instruction, and every morning I was told that we would start the next day. After a week, I was told my services were no longer needed. I was handed a check for $14,000 and summarily dismissed. I had done nothing.
That Monday after the Baltimore Ravens and Ray Lewis won their last Super Bowl, I took the train back to my apt in Queens. I found out that my roommates and next-door neighbors had gotten into a huge brawl. People were arrested, some went to the hospital. I decided that maybe a) that week in the hotel was an angelic sidestep to being at my apt and getting beaten up and b) it was probably time to move.
I was working on a series of plays about genocide for Red Shirt. I acted in the first play about the Holocaust and helped out with the dramaturgy. The second play was about Rwanda and I was mainly put in charge of dramaturgy. The play had a fire dancer. I continued writing/producing web videos and got a job with IHS to do a series on our surveillance state and Edward Snowden. Once again, I got to dive into writing/producing. I found a director, worked with a college professor, got some actors together and we created a 3-part series about how our lives are being monitored constantly. The videos went semi-viral.
My play FREEFALLING won the FIAT LUX prize by the Catholic Church. It also got a tv reading at Williamstown that I attended, and won first prize at the InspiraTO Theatre in Toronto. I never imagined that taking an hour to jot down a 10-page play on my kitchen table would have such a far-reaching impact.
By the end of the summer, I was answering another batch of letters from prison, when Juilliard called to tell me...I got in! I was so stunned that I was numb. I thanked them. It had been 6-7 months. I assumed a rejection letter was in the mail for me. Now my entire life was going to change. Red Shirt immediately wanted to put up the play that got me into Juilliard, DEFACING MICHAEL JACKSON. Nuyorican Poets Cafe agreed to let us use the space for a workshop production.
In the fall I started at Juilliard, went into rehearsal for DEFACING, was writing/producing another web series about Millenials and debt, titled "Generation Debt" At school, I brought in OBAMA-OLOGY as my first play, wrote another play about miracles, and used some Juilliard actors for the Generation Debt filming. I signed with Paradigm Talent Agency. They asked if I was interested in a tv writing job. I thought about it... 'sure.'
I started off 2013, worrying about my career and finances...so I made a request to the universe. By the end of the year, the answers were being shouted at me.
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