As performed at the We are Theatre speak out...

Hey all, Just wanted to share a short piece I wrote for Guerrillas Girls Speakout at the Cherry Lane Theatre last night.  Video of the performance plus other funny, inspiring and provocative work by great female playwrights can be found here. 

The script is below plus there's this sad sack gif. Which is pretty much what I look like when I get rejected but with more ice cream and possibly pickles.



A Rejection in Full
A playwright receives a letter in the mail. With high hopes, she reads it aloud to herself. Quickly, she deflates.

                A PLAYWRIGHT
Dear Playwright #454, thank you for submitting your piece“Big Fat Pussy Cat” to the Emerging Feminists of the World Festival. We would like you to know that the following rejection has been a very hard decision for all of us,especially me. After all, at Theatre for the Free People,people are not numbers to us. Not quotas to be checked off. However, we do have only 5 spots to fill this year and only one could be filled by someone like you. Knowing this, we have read each submission diligently, with open hearts and minds. 

In fact, I personally, perused your artistic statement in full and read two pages into your play before deciding it was neither feminist or emerging or worldly enough to compete with our 500 plus submissions this year. She takes a moment to turn over the page.

                 A PLAYWRIGHT
While I was very moved by your personal story of struggleas an immigrant or steelworker or cripple or recovering drug addict, your piece itself lacked a certain international wow factor. 

As I’m sure you know, you’re white. And as a white woman you have yet to master believable oppression in your work. I’m sorry to say but your sci-fi film noir puppet opera retelling of the Cat in the Hat lacks the emotional depth we are looking for.

Please consider more hard-hitting thematics in future submissionssuch as rape, incest, female genital mutilation and/or back alley abortions. While these topics are not mandatory, they are strongly preferred.

While I’m at it, have you considered making the Cat in the Hat a woman. While it is not a requirement to make all the characters in your piece female, we have many generous donors that are making their stage debuts in this festival,including my aunt Agnes. Agnes would make an excellent Cat.

This by no means is an invitation to resubmit “Big Fat Pussy Cat” to the Emerging Feminists of the World Festival again next year, as by then you will be thirty and will have emerged.

She throws the paper on the ground and examines the envelope. There is another page. What is it?

               A PLAYWRIGHT                                       Do not hesitate to join our email list and donate copious funds to our kiss ass Kickstarter, so that Theatre for the Free People can provide year long opportunities and essential development workshops for people more deserving than you. 

Goodbye and good luck, sincerely Mary Allister,intern/writer/producer/director.