Help the Sluts of Sutton Drive Conquer the UK!

We here at the Youngblog love sluts. Specifically, The Sluts of Sutton Drive by Youngblood Alum Joshua Conkel. We've loved Sluts since Josh first brought the script into a Youngblood meeting, since it rocked Bloodworks, and since it brought down the house at Unfiltered. Now, Sluts is going international: this "dark dark dark dark dark dark [etc]" comedy will premiere this summer at the Finborough Theatre in London. But before they can get across the border, they need your help raising a little scratch. Watch the video below to find out why you should donate (I mean, I think I just told you why you should donate, aka because it's an awesome play, but watch the video also), then click to kick in a few pounds.

Do it.

Everybody Is A Critic

An older gentleman poked his head into the office before The Sluts of Sutton Drive to ask, "Would you mind turning the music down in there? It's terribly loud." We also had a few walkouts with each performance. As I predicted, the show was a little divisive. I kept telling myself that it's okay for people to dislike a comedy with strip teases, eye gauging, dismembered penises, and bombs going off. Mostly people were really into it, but it was also kind of hysterical when they weren't.

Overheard in the EST Lobby:

"There's a SECOND act? How can we be expected to sit through that?"

"It's derivative and immature, but at least the actors are okay."

"That playwright must've been on Kablammo."

"Awful, awful, awful."

What can I say? I wrote a play that was punk as fuck, and my whole cast and crew were incredibly bold and wonderful. I'm eternally grateful to them and I'm also grateful to my adventurous audiences who took in the show with such great spirit. Even the ones who hated it.

Here's a video of Jem and the Holograms covering Le Tigre. Enjoy.

I Am Going To Make Fun Of You.

So, um... The Sluts of Sutton Drive opens tomorrow.

There was a moment in our tech rehearsal yesterday when I turned Graeme Gillis, Youngblood’s Co-Artistic Director (and actor in my play), and said, “Wow. I think this show might just come together after all.”

He agreed. “Yeah, I think people are mostly going to have a great time. Except for a couple of people who will really, really hate it.”

I laughed it off until later when I thought to myself, “Wait. Why would anybody hate The Sluts of Sutton Drive?” I mean, I could understand if somebody thought it was just plain stupid or poorly written or whatever, but the insinuation was that the play would offend somebody.

There was a reading of the play in Park Slope a few months ago and the email that went out had a warning on it. “Not for the faint of heart,” or something like that. I’ve heard actors in various readings and in this production too call it a “dangerous” play. My agent says most theaters won’t have the balls to produce it. Here’s the thing though… it’s just a comedy.

That’s all.

It’s never my intention to offend people. I love my audience. I want them to have a unique and thrilling experience. I may try to shock them a little, but it’s only to shock them into laughter. I write about things that hurt me or anger me- in this case it’s the subjugation of women, rigid gender roles, conformity, rape, income disparity, addiction- and then I make fun of them. For me, it’s a way to talk about them and take their power away. What can I say? I like cheekiness and I have a gallows humor as a result of my effed up background. Further, as a poor person without full civil rights, one of the only things I have at my disposal is my ability to make fun of shit. What... can't take a joke?

I could go a step further and spell out how offensive or shocking humor is an important part of a larger queer dialogue and an integral part of our community’s make-up, but that’s totes pretentious and not really necessary. True, but not necessary.

It’s especially annoying to me when other liberals get offended by plays. It’s always the same kind of liberal- a privileged, armchair, politically inactive one who complains about my dog and pony show without actually being offended by the things I’m satirizing. Liberals can be so annoying!

The Sluts of Sutton Drive isn’t a dangerous play. It isn’t a challenging play. Or, at least, it shouldn’t be. What’s really dangerous is a whole art form’s insistence that plays be this particular thing or that particular thing. (This and that = white, male, straight, wealthy etc.) What makes people think they're exempt from being offended anyway? Frankly, it’s dangerous that there aren’t a shit ton of plays that poke fun of things mainstream theater audiences hold dear- because, frankly, almost all of us deserve to be made fun of.

The Sluts of Sutton Drive opens tomorrow. I hope you don't hate it.

A Reading of "The Sluts of Sutton Drive"

The Sluts of Sutton Drive

by Joshua Conkel

Directed by Lila Neugebauer

A vicious comedy about radical individualism vs the American family. Stephanie Schwartz is a working mother who enrolls in a strip aerobics class only to realize she hates men and promptly becomes addicted to drinking cleaning products. That's when things really begin to unravel...

Featuring the most bananas crazy talented cast ever assembled: Hannah Bos* (The Debate Society), Denny Bess* (EST), Amy Staats* (EST), Paul Thureen (The Debate Society) and Steve Boyer* (EST). Stage directions read by Gwendolyn Ellis.

Wednesday, October 13th @ 8:30 pm

549 W 52nd St., Sixth Floor
New York, NY 10019-7799
(212) 247-4982

FREE! FREE! FREE!
rsvp to boxoffice@ensemblestudiotheatre.org

*Actor's Equity

Blogging Bloodworks: Conkel Edition

My play, The Sluts of Sutton Drive, is a dark comedy about a working mom who enrolls in a stripper-cise class only to realize that she hates men. A lifetime of awful sexual experiences come to a head in explosive ways when she becomes addicted to drinking household cleaning products and finds herself involved in a grisly crime.

I'm crazy, coo coo, insane right now doing the rewrites, and to be honest I'd like to take a break from thinking about it directly. I thought for this blog entry I'd share some of my inspiration points with you in a tidy list. I'm a man with exquisite tastes!

• Gossip. I was obsessed with riot grrl when I was fifteen and have been rediscovering it lately thanks to Gossip. I grew up in Washington State and all the cool, tough, brassy girls and arty gay boys (re: my people) were listening to bands like Bikini Kill, Seven Year Bitch, L7 etc. I'd all but given up on ever having bands this empowering and tough in the age of Miley Cyrus, but then there was Gossip. Portly lead singer Beth Ditto TURNS. IT. OUT. Their album, "Music for Men" is basically all I listened to while writing this. If you ever get the chance to see them live, RUN DON'T WALK.

• This is kind of vague but I don't know how else to say it: banal lady things. Shit that gets sold to women. Stupid shit that women actually buy. Like yogurt commercials, Sex and the City, Cathy comics, and women who pretend to be addicted to shoes. I hate and love these things so, so much. I was once presented as the only dude writer in a feminist theater festival. I was so saddened to find that all of the plays were basically about, like, weddings and yoga and babies and shitty things like that.
  

• The S.C.U.M. Manifesto by Valerie Solanas.
• All my friends are sick of me talking about Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, the 1970's sitcom/soap opera hybrid that I'm obsessed with. I'll just say this: it is amazing. The set is gorgeous in its ugliness, the lights are way too bright, and the all the actors are covered in pancake make-up. Plus, a sitcom with no laughter? Sign me up. It also doesn't hurt that the actors and writing are both brilliant. In a perfect world my play would look exactly this. So what if it doesn't take place in the 70s?

• This is going to seem really weird, but I read the complete works of Sarah Kane while I wrote this. That was probably influential. I hope people don't take this the wrong way, but am I crazy for thinking that Blasted is a little campy?
• The brilliant Roseanne Barr/Meryl Streep movie She-Devil.

• Your mom. Obviously.

Directed by Lila Neugebauer

Featuring Megan Hill, Nicole Beerman, Frank Harts, Paco Tolson and Curran Connor.

Thursday, May 20th
7:00 PM

Pace University
41 Park Row, 10th Floor
Schaeberle Studio Theater

FREE! FREE! FREE!