Paula Vogel

Now, I have written a few times.

I belong to a writer's group where we have done the Paula Vogel exercise, the 48-hour exercise, where you get a prompt.

All right.

For example, one time I got a prompt with pictures of elephants.

So it's kind of like that.

So I think I got three plays out of the...

Paula Vogel exercise.

I swear by it.

So I had a, the longest stretch I've ever had away from them, which was three weeks, and that's when I started writing.

And, and this play is a, a brilliant play called Mother Play! by Paula Vogel, and it's really intensely about m- mother- motherhood and mothership.

Mm.

And we were having a beautiful, incredible time sharing our mothers' stories and going deep into this, and there I was away from my kids for the first time-

Mm-hmm.

You're saying that cis straight men should be able to play Mary Todd Lincoln, a play written by Paula Vogel that was literally built upon the, uh, ideas that queer culture is radical, and if a non-queer person or even a, a non-woman who has been othered and treated like a lower class, if that person is not playing Mary, then it defeats the entire purpose of that play.

Why would we let a cis straight man play a role that is b- basically built into the idea that we are not treated as a part of the majority or people who deserve respect? Jay, what do you say?

I, I think the one way we can make sure that they understand just how important the task they are undertaking is is if they give Eric Williams head first.