I’m in! That is, my PLAY is being produced!
Dear friends, DEAR READERS, dear EVERYBODY,
Happy eve of All Hallow’s Eve. It’s a blustery, silvery one out there today.
I’ve been looking forward to this day for more than a month, because my best friend Mir and I have been trying to find a way to see each other in her busy, busy schedule and tonight is the NIGHT!
We are going to the Great Jones Spa, which my friend Judy the Engineer introduced me to earlier this year. I love it because it has WATERFALLS. And a HOT TUB. And Mir is a MERMAID, so I like to give her water things whenever I can. Especially when she’s been working one billion hours a week.
Also, because… one of the reasons Mir’s so busy is that she’s DIRECTING MY PLAY!
Well, that and she ASLO works two incredible jobs: at LaMama Experimental Theatre Club as Community and Educational Coordinator; and at DVP—Dances for a Variable Population—as Program and Events Manager. (DVP, by the way, has one of my favorite mission statements of all time. I love what they do.)
Oh, Mir’s full name is Miriam Grill, by the way. The Notorious, Infamous, ILLUSTRIOUS Miram Grill. She’s a hotshot director. Yeah, baby. And a genius. So that’s awesome.
Mir and I went to high school in Phoenix together lo these 20 years ago. Then we both had many adventures and lived many places. Me, in Chicago and Rhode Island. Her, in China and Taiwan.
Back in the 20-teens, Mir moved to NYC to go to graduate school at Columbia University for Directing, and I moved here to marry Dr. Doctorpants (Carlos Hernandez). So for the last eight years, we’ve FINALLY been living in the same city (and country). We even lived together during the heart of the pandemic, which was hilarious—in its idiosyncratic, often difficult, but very dear way.
But even living in the same city, it’s STILL super hard to see each other, because these little islands with their little boroughs are actually QUITE VAST and MISCHIEVOUS, and they often like to tangle with the space/time continuum IMHO.
But back to my play!
I wrote Hey Nonny Nonny! off a prompt from the Red Bull Theatre short play festival, on the theme “Defiance.” While it didn’t make the cut there, it still brought me great delight to defiantly take the only four female characters from Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, and give them a little something more to do.
(Something more interesting than wallowing in virginal victimhood and furious helplessness.)
Call it a missing scene. Call it a feminist revision. Call it an invocation of Diana the Huntress 400 years later. As you like it.
Hey Nonny Nonny! is one of six new works in this year’s Shakespeare SlayFest—Season 2: SKULLDUGGERY.
In 2024, the SlayFest won New York City’s “BEST SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL” award. This year, it’ll be held at the Atelier at TheatreLab NYC.
It’s sexy. It’s subversive. It’s SKULLDUGGALICIOUS. What can I say?
It’s also free. Tickets have SOLD OUT. This is great. You know what’s also great? DONATIONS! If we get enough, we can mount FULL PRODUCTIONS, not just staged readings, NEXT YEAR.
Here’s the SlayFest LinkTree, for all information plus donations!
Now, I know you’re sad that you won’t be able to make it this year. Well, some of you can’t. Probably most of you. That’s okay. Like Delia Sherman likes to say, “We cannot live all lives”—a phrase I’ve found VERY USEFUL as an adult, and also as a New Yorker.
But I wanted to say that one of the other playwrights from the SlayFest—Martin Jude Farawell—as well as Grant Leopold Cartwright, the SlayFest’s Artistic Director, and the FABOOSHIEST Carla Kissane, Producing Director—will be joining me on my TWITCH CHANNEL this coming Monday FOR A PANEL!
You know all the info from our previous invites—but Imma tell you anyway!
WHEN: Monday, November 3rd
WHAT TIME: 7 PM – 8 PM EST
WHERE: twitch.tv/csecooney
I can promise you the panel will be be lively and informative, and possibly HILARIOUS. I’ve not yet met ANY of my fellow playwrights, so it’ll be a treat for me to chat with Martin.
Also? I ADORE Carla and EVERYTHING she does. And I’m pretty sure I love Grant too, though I’ve only met him a few times. But I mean, come on. WHAT’S NOT TO LOVE???
I hope to see you there on Monday night! If not, I’ll report back after the SlayFest and tell you ALL!
Yours Truly,
C. S. E. Cooney
C.S.E. Cooney 