Ten Recommended Posts from 2022

Post-Operative

I can’t even determine what were my most visited posts of the past year, the amount of visits have inflated beyond anything I have previously experienced, which means that either a) my blog has suddenly gotten very popular or b) they’re all bots.

Even the most basic post about my ongoing experiences in grad school receive over two hundred notices a week and I am here to tell you, they really don’t.

However, I have posted some essays this year which I feel might warrant a second (or first) look, and here is a list of those.

1. Secret New Year’s Getaway (Parts One & Two)

A set of aging Gen Xers risk the Omicron variant for a romantic weekend in NYC during which everything went perfectly well except for the original reason for which they had planned the trip.

Bryce Evan Lewis, Adrionna Powell Lawrence,
Jaime Bouvier
"The Witches"
(Cleveland Public Theatre, 2022)

2. On Self-Control

While writing a new script, I delve into the darker elements of my childhood and how I evolved into the witty but restrained raconteur I am today.

3. On Social Anxiety

Picture says a thousand words, this one just says “loser” over and over again.

4. Phil Collins

He’s the only one who really knew me at all.

5. On Solo Performance

Notes on this particular form of performance and the best cheeseburger I ever ate.

6. The History of Western Civilization (play)

No, seriously. It’s all the guns. This year marked the thirtieth anniversary of Guerrilla Theater Company, and one of our members wrote a really great piece about the American gun epidemic.

7. On Abortion

In the aftermath of the Dobbs decision which overturned Roe v. Wade, a recollection of one heady summer of street protest.

8. On Sight (Pre-Operative, Post-Operative, Recovery) 

The vision in one eye was compromised by a detached retina. The operation and recovery took place while my family was out of town.

Guerrilla Theater Company, 1992

9. I Hate This (playlist)

Much of the fall centered around the premiere of the film adaptation of this solo performance on stillbirth. I provided this deep dive into the musical inspiration for the original stage production, which was also included in the film.

10. Leaving Twitter

Pretty self-explanatory. It is a decision which daily proves to have been the right one.

Ten Theater Projects in 2022

"Here's To You, Mrs. Robinson" at Cleveland Public Theatre's Pandemonium
Sarah Blubaugh & James Alexander Rankin
Photo by Steve Wagner

Folks have asked, David! Why a degree in playwriting? Aren’t you already an accomplished, professional playwright?

No, the answer to that is no, I am not. I am a playwright with an obnoxious social media presence which might lead one to think I am successful, if they weren’t paying close attention.

The fact is, I have done lots of plays in the past, and they are good plays, but they are not great plays. One or two may be considered very good. And I have never had a production at a professional house. Apologies to all the theaters that have supported my work in the Cleveland area, no shade, but I would very much like to have a full production at an AEA house.

This year, however, I have had a large number of original pieces, generated through my graduate workshops and elsewhere, that have been workshopped or produced. It’s been a pretty remarkable year.

Hannah Woodside & Adam Harry
"The Ocean Breathes Salty"
(Convergence-Continuum, 2022)

1. The Ocean Breathes Salty (festival)

The year began with a ten minute play, as part of the NEOMFA Playwrights Festival, about miscommunication and loss, and that fucking bunny.

2. The Witches (workshop)

I learned so much through this process. Sometimes I bite off more than I can chew, and this was one of those moments. Let’s say my heart was in the right place, but I did learn to lean back a lot through this experience, and I like to think I managed it the best I could.

I like to think that it was this experience which was greatly influential on the very next script I would complete which brings us to:

3. Scenes From a Night’s Dream (reading)

Here’s the thing. I once wrote about what was important to me, personally. And I produced comic strips and short plays and full-length plays that told people what was important to a narrowly-focused straight, white man. These plays have always been, not surprisingly, more successful with straight white men than they were with people who do not identify that way.

Then, I chose to expand my point of view, and so began to write about people who were not like me. Some attempts were not successful, and in the case of The Witches (first drafted before the pandemic) I learned a great deal about that.

However, I have produced scripts in the past two years which I feel have worked because I do more listening than I used to. But I have failed, to date, to seek into myself for that which is within me that might be universal, relevant, and possibly dangerous. And where better to find what passes uncensored and honest than in a dream?

This will be my Masters thesis production at Convergence-Continuum in February, 2023.   

Falling

4. Falling (short film)

For my graduate level class in illness narratives, I created a short film that described the sudden decline of our mother, the text taken from my daily writings at that time. It’s not something I want to be made available for public viewing, but who knows? Maybe I’ll do something with the script one day.

5. Theater Camp

This summer we used my short plays as splash scenes for the middle and high school students to concentrate on, in addition to larger and longer pieces from Shakespeare. Some parents took offense to the “political” nature of some of the scenes, but if you think moral relativism humor is political, well, there’s not much I can do about that.

6. Forget About Me: The Breakfast Club Play (reading)

One of my recent works was tapped by the folks at Purple Rose Theatre for a Zoom reading, which was very exciting. People claim to be exhausted by Zoom but there were around one hundred fifty participants, which would be very impressive for a live reading! Their theater has a devoted following, and the company specializes in new works.

The cast, the director, the entire program was supportive, productive, and I hope I have the chance to work with them again some day in the future!

7. Here’s To You, Mrs. Robinson (Pandemonium)

It was a delight to return to Pandemonium, having previously provided a scene from The Witches, a work in progress at the time. I have a bad habit of submitting unhappy scenes to this event, which is supposed to be a party. I took great pleasure in presenting something which, while still entirely me, was funny, dirty, and transgressive.

Apparently the Dawson’s Creek joke went over like gangbusters during each of the three performances.

8. I Hate This: A Play Without the Baby (film)

This was a such a big deal. It had been a year and a half since principal photography, and to finally release the work to an audience was so important. It’s now being used by University Hospitals to educate teams of nurses and doctors about the effects of child loss on the parents, and I am so grateful for that.

After Roe

9. After Roe (reading)

The man said write a play that will change the world. I don’t know if I managed that, but I can say that so far this has been a remarkable experience, interviewing fifteen subjects and then braiding (there’s that word again) their stories together into what I believe is a compelling and important narrative. I will be submitting this piece far and wide in the coming weeks.

10. Metropolis (in progress)

Still in its formative stages, this is what I am currently working on. Using both the film and the novel as source material, to create a stage adaptation of the most inspirational science fiction film in history. If it makes any difference, H.G. Wells hated the movie, which relieves a certain amount of pressure.

Twenty Twenty-Three

I have notes.

Fifty-five was once the age of retirement and isn’t that just fucking hilarious.

The second half of this year has been one of health issues. In July my retina detached. In September I got Covid. In November I developed a bout of vertigo. At the same time I continue to run, to exercise. I try to keep moving.

Barring any last-minute surprises, in this new year I will receive my Masters Degree in Creative Writing. One of the benefits of no longer being on Twitter is that I don’t have to read snarky comments about creative writing programs. I will have a Masters degree and I like to think I earned it.

This winter my thesis production will be part of the NEOMFA Playwrights Festival held at Convergence-Continuum. The play is Scenes From a Night’s Dream, one of the deepest dives into my own subconscious that I have ever attempted to get on stage.

Apart from that, who knows? It’s all in my hands. Not only to promote existing work, but to keep creating. I will be working on a one-hour version of After Roe which absolutely deserves a stage in the new year.

We have a film adaptation of I Hate This, the fulfillment of a twenty-year wish, and I owe it to everyone involved to promote that, to get into before the eyes and ears of doctors and nurses and midwives not only across the country but around the world.

There are other opportunities in the air, and I look forward to sharing them if they come to fruition.

With age, and practice, my appreciation for my own work, and for the place it takes in the community of theater creators, is in what I believe is a very good, realistic, acceptable place. I am grateful to no longer be jealous, anxious, embittered. Did you know I felt those things? Perhaps you did. If so, I am sorry you had to see that.

Which is all to say that, in spite of the horrors of the present age (or my present age) I am determined to remain optimistic. I am further than I ever have been from being concerned about what my career as a writer will amount to. I always wanted to write. And writing is what I do.

Response to "I Hate This: A Play Without the Baby"

Photo by Cody York

Over the past two weeks, over six hundred people visited the Playhouse Square website to view the film adaptation of I Hate This: A Play Without the Baby, performed by James Rankin, directed by Chennelle Bryant-Harris and filmed by Ananias J. Dixon.

Here are some heartfelt responses the film received, shared with permission.

Via Instagram:

Paul: Your play was powerful. At times I struggled watching it because I could so closely connect to it. Our experiences with stillbirth were almost identical. 

My son Noah was born still 2/2/18 and every detail of that day is burned into my memory, & it forever will be. You experience a wave of every emotion imaginable, and it's difficult to talk to others about those emotions if they haven't experience the same trauma. 

Everything you detailed in your play, from the shock of them telling you they can't find a heart beat, to the memorial service you held, to trying to remove your wife from any trigger (like formula fliers coming in the mail) are the same things I experienced as a husband & father. 

It's been a challenging 4.5 years without Noah. I have his name tattooed on my forearm because I can't physically see him every day but never want to forget. That's all I want from others is to never forget our boy. I appreciate your willingness to share your own experience so beautifully.

Via Facebook:

Lynna: I have seen David perform it years ago and heard the radio version, but it is such a heartbreakingly beautiful play and so worth watching this iteration, performed so wonderfully by James Rankin.

Sarah: This play is such an important play. It's a deep and raw story that David found a way to shape and share with us. 

In this particular point in time of the reversal of Roe vs Wade, this play is even more important. This play, now a film, I cannot emphasize enough that folks should see it if they are able to.

Via email:

Bronwynn: A sensitive, real, multi-dimensional performance ... I love the play's theatricality mixed with realism. By getting glimpses of the couple moving forward for a year beyond their loss, it makes it possible for the audience to endure the experience of their loss. Bravo.

I am so grateful to have had this experience this month, and the to have chance once again tell our story. Many thanks to everyone involved.

Today is the final day of Pregnancy & Infant Loss Awareness Month, and tomorrow the link will no longer be available through the Playhouse Square site. Please reach out to me directly if you would like to arrange a viewing for your hospital, clinic or bereavement support group.

Process LXXIV

Before/After

Good news! The screening was a success, and Playhouse Square and University Hospitals also have made streaming I Hate This: A Play Without the Baby available for free through the end of the month. Over four hundred viewers have seen it in just five days, and I hope to make it available to others in the future.

Interviews for workshop are winding down, which is good. I never intended the play to be just a series of individual monologues, I want to find common themes and even similar phrasing to braid them together into a chorus.

“Braided narrative.” That’s a term I learned in craft and theory last week. I Hate This is a braided narrative. It always has been.

And I need to continue plotting my adaptation. Let me rephrase that, I need to begin plotting my narrative.

This week I also enrolled for next semester, my last semester of grad school. What a remarkable feeling. Four months from now my thesis production will be in the rearview and really, that’s it. I don’t want to get too maudlin about this, but it truly has been enjoyable. How would I have survived the shutdown without it?

I have a little under three weeks to complete the first draft of my creative writing essay. I could expand that thing into a book. Or better yet, a play. Really. I like writing plays.

I Hate This (production photography)

"I Hate This" production photography by Cody York

James Alexander Rankin

James & Director Chennelle Bryant-Harris

Chennelle & Cinematographer Ananias J. Dixon

Playwright David Hansen & James

Playhouse Square presents the premiere of the video adaptation of "I Hate This (A Play Without the Baby)" by David Hansen, directed by Chennelle Bryant-Harris and performed by James Alexander Rankin, in the Westfield Studio Theatre on Saturday, October 15, 2022. 

I Hate This (playlist)

When the time came to create the original music for the original 2003 stage production of I Hate This, I gave composer Dennis Yurich a CD with everything I had going on in my head. These are songs that just made sense at the time, some that have associations that pre-date Calvin's birth, and some that don't.

Perhaps I should explain. "CD" stands for "compact disc" an easily-damaged cache for digitally recorded music. 

You're welcome.

The themes Dennis created have been incorporated into the film adaptation that will screen on Saturday, October 15 at Playhouse Square. Here is a playlist of the songs included on that CD I shared with him.

Hospital Themes

For all themes taking place in the hospital, I wanted electronic music. Something suggesting a fast heartbeat.

1. Everything In Its Right Place by Radiohead - "Kid A"
2. Idioteque by Radiohead - "Kid A"
3. Blame by Everything But the Girl - "Temperamental"
4. Packt Like Sardines In A Crushd Tin Box by Radiohead - Amnesiac"

Released in 2000, I listened to Kid A a lot when driving back and forth from Tri-C during Bad Epitaph's production of Cloud 9. That was when Toni was first pregnant.

"Blame" is included for obvious reasons. Temperamental was released in 1999.

During FringeNYC 2001 there was a coffee house in Harris's neighborhood that I visited every morning. It seemed like all they played were Radiohead albums, each day a different Radiohead album. The Amnesiac track was also on a mix that a co-worker played for me in New Knoxville that fall.

Kid A is also the pre-show music I prefer when I perform I Hate This on stage. It brings me back to that time.

Brazilian Guitar Themes

5. August Day Song Bebel Gilberto - "Tanto Tempo"
6. August Day Song (King Britt remix) Bebel Gilberto - "Tanto Tempo Remixes"
7. Fragile Sting - "Nothing Like the Sun"

8. Fragil Sting - "Nada Como El Sol ..."

Photo by Cody York

I was washing dishes on a night in December, 2001 at the aforementioned housing in West Central Ohio, listening to that guy's mix CD, and was caught off-guard by King Britt remix of Bebel Gilberto's "August Day Song." 

I knew the tune, but couldn't place it. Toni had actually gotten me the original Tanto Tempo disc when it was released in 2000, but I hadn't listened to it that much at the time.

The Sting tracks were played at the memorial we held in late May. I like the Portuguese version because sometimes it's good not to hear certain things in English.

Those 70s Themes

9. Three Is a Magic Number by Bob Dorough - "Schoolhouse Rock"
10. Lonely Boy by Andrew Gold - "What's Wrong With This Picture"
11. Cat's In The Cradle by Harry Chapin - "Verities and Balderdash"

Thoughtless hold-music from a certain baby food company. A gag employed often on The Simpsons. We used them in the stage version, but not in the film. Theses ditties in particular were chosen because of their resonance with someone who may have been a small boy between the years of 1974 and 1976.

Music for Crying Out Loud

12. Gymnopedie No 1/Var.1 by Jacques Loussier Trio - "Satie: Gymnopédies Gnossiennes"
13. Gymnopedie No 1/Var.3 by Jacques Loussier Trio - "Satie: Gymnopédies Gnossiennes"
14. Gnossienne No 6 by Jacques Loussier Trio - "Satie: Gymnopédies Gnossiennes"
15. Tales from the Far Side by Bill Frisell - "Bill Frisell Quartet"
16. Gutaris Breeze (6000km To Amsterdam) by John Beltram - "Late Night Beats: the Post-Club Sound of Britain"

Discovered in a shower around 4 am in late 1998 (yes, I heard it on NPR) the Loussier themes were among those that carried me through that bizarre depression I had in early 1999. Odd, that, because 1999 was one of the most fruitful and adventurous years of my life. The other pieces are also discoveries I made that year.

The Frisell track figured heavily on the Last Words episode of This American Life, which remains my favorite episode ever.

The Jacques Loussier album was used as pre-show music for the original staged reading at Dobama in August, 2002. Though no more depressing than listening to Kid A before a show (how many people hear the pre-show music, think "uh-oh" and leave?) the Satie themes are too gentle. I wanted a sense of unease to hit people as they came in, not the sense they were about to see a staged performance of something soft and sentimental.

-- Happy Families XTC - "She's Having a Baby"

Have you got Miss Carriage? 

She's the girl who wants a baby that she cannot find. 

Strange, the ones who want to win the race 

Are usually the ones who fall behind.

A British card game for kids. Sometimes you don't even care what the lyrics of certain songs mean until they start making sense. Currently unavailable on Spotify, you can listen to it here.

17. Kang Mandor by Degung Orchestra - "Putumayo Presents: Music From the Tea Lands"

Finally, there is Kang Mandor. I make reference to it in the scene "the Dream" and the very first time I heard it, in April, 2001, I just wept. It so entirely captured my imaginary summer of 2001, the summer I was going to have with my first-born child, the one I had not allowed myself to daydream about, and yet, it was captured in that recording. I have shared this with very few people until today.

Playhouse Square presents the premiere of the video adaptation of "I Hate This (A Play Without the Baby)" by David Hansen, directed by Chennelle Bryant-Harris and performed by James Alexander Rankin, in the Westfield Studio Theatre on Saturday, October 15, 2022. 

Process LXXI

Read all the way to the bottom for a special video announcement.

So, we’re reading. We’re reading a lot. The playwriting workshop is freewheeling; there is no assigned reading, but by the end of every class, I have two or three books or plays I want or need to read. I was reading the novel Metropolis, now I’m reading a play which is contemporary to that novel, Machinal by Sadie Treadwell.

I am also plowing through small press histories of a certain maternity hospital.

Also, recording promotional videos for the premiere of the film adaptation I Hate This at Playhouse Square.

Finally (okay, not finally) providing writing workshops to Cleveland city schools.

It’s a lot.

I am scatterbrained, putting down one book to pick up another, setting that down to make a note in one notepad (or the other notepad) or to jot down thoughts that itch the back of my brain, to put them here. To remember I was feeling like this when I get to the end of the week and trying to recall what happened.

I have missed drinking during class. We’re almost done here so I can say this. Taking classes on Zoom means you can drink. I know I’m not alone in this.

Tell me I’m not alone in this.

The Future: September 2001

James Alexander Rankin
Photo by Cody York

You know this story, or one very similar to it.

It was my second week as an actor-teacher for Great Lakes Theater. We were in rehearsal, playing a warm-up exercise. Someone’s cellphone went off, and instead of turning it off, this someone answered it and started talking. This has always irritated me in remembering it, that that was unprofessional. Inappropriate.

I recall only now that it was his mother. If it had been my mother, I would have answered it, too.

The rest of us kept playing the game. Silly game, one meant for children. I could overhear the conversation my colleague was having. Something bad had happened, happened in New York.

I thought, I am now in the ignorance. Really, I thought that. This is my last moment of the innocent not-knowing.

It was a deep, blue Tuesday. And on that day the 21st Century truly began.

As I was composing the script about my experiences with stillbirth, the script which would eventually become I Hate This (a play without the baby) I included a scene about September 11th. It made sense to me then. The story begins in March 2001 and tells about what happened through the following twelve months. It is set in time, how could you not make mention of the most traumatic moment in modern American history?

On that day we, we actor-teachers, we first listened the radio, and then went downstairs to watch on TV in a local bar and grill, before finally drifting away. Rehearsal was over for the day. I called my wife, she was watching at the fitness center. She lived in NYC for seven years, we knew people there, we had been there less than a month earlier, and we were both still so fresh in our personal grief. Was she okay? She was fine. Disoriented, but fine. We planned to meet at home.

She had a therapist appointment that afternoon, and called to see if she was seeing anyone that day. Her doctor said, well, she had appointments after all. And didn’t it make sense, seeing as what had happened that morning, to keep them? The doctor even asked if my wife would like to invite me to join them, which was very nice, and so I did.

David Hansen
(MetroHealth Main Campus, 2005)

Trauma can trigger unrelated trauma. It felt selfish even then to make this about us, and our loss. People had died that day, thousands of people died horribly. But we were still in our recovery, and the shock of this other event was still a shock.

I tried to articulate this in my play, which I began writing in 2002. One member of our writers group thought it was a distraction from the main story, which was and is intensely personal. He said it took him out of our story to mention 9/11. The others disagreed, and I kept it in, but his sentiment was not unreasonable and it stayed with me.

I remember my first performance in the West Village in 2004, as part of the New York International Fringe Festival. I was aware of the fact that I might be reporting back to people personally affected by the tragedy what it had been like to watch it on TV. From Cleveland.

During the scene in question, titled “The Future,” I take the briefest of pauses after first mentioning the World Trade Center, a moment of silence in which one of the critics seated in the second row, literally five feet in front of me, loudly clicked their ballpoint pen to make a note. Ah-ha.

Directing the play for video this year, Chennelle asked if I would consider dropping the scene. She’d suggested a few judicious but minor cuts here and there, first when she directed my performance in 2016, and again directing James for the Playhouse Square video. Minor, but notable. She’d never suggested cutting an entire scene. I asked her to film it, and we’d see.

There’s nothing wrong with James’s delivery. In fact, it’s very good. But watching a rough cut of the video, I have decided that Chennelle is right, that the time had come for this scene to go. Because to someone who had not lived through that moment, it is distracting. There are details that tie the play to time and place, but that one is so vast. Mentioning it before was appropriate, because it was expected. Today, I agree that it is no longer necessary to include in this play. 

James Alexander Rankin performs "The Future"

Playhouse Square presents the premiere of the video adaptation of "I Hate This (A Play Without the Baby)" by David Hansen, directed by Chennelle Bryant-Harris and performed by James Alexander Rankin, in the Westfield Studio Theatre on Saturday, October 15, 2022. 

I Hate This: Recording

Westfield Insurance Studio Theatre

I have become my mother.

When I Hate This was first produced at Cleveland Public Theatre in 2003, my mother chose not to watch. If you are familiar with the Levin Theatre space at CPT, you know that the seating is on risers. Mom offered to hold month-old baby Zelda, so that Toni could watch the performance. Mom walked back and forth, behind that tall bank of seats, listening, keeping the baby lulled asleep.

She said later that she preferred it. She didn’t want to watch. At first, I thought it was because I had hurt her feelings with the production, but that wasn’t it. She did want to see me in pain.

This entire week, sitting in the dark recesses of the Westfield Insurance Studio Theatre, watching James tell my story, there were moments when I found myself not watching. Not merely looking at my phone, but closing my eyes. Looking down. I did not want to see myself, my wife, in pain.

Most of the time, however, I was enjoying myself a great deal. Just sitting there, watching these professionals do their work. Because what they’re making is a movie. Julie the stage manager, Angie the sound designer, Ananias the cinematographer, Chennelle the director, James the actor, the entire Playhouse Square surround team. Collaborating, creating video and sound.

One of the advantages of this process is that they can record scenes out of order, to save time. And to record several takes of each shot. In between, Chennelle may or may not give James notes. They have a secret language together, a code. I don’t know what they’re talking about, but it works.

Ananias & James

How old were these two in 2001? Eleven? Twelve?

The laughter in the house brings me joy. When discoveries are made, when mistakes are made. It appears to fuel James’s spirit in performance. This is not a play about feeling grief. I mean, it is, but it is more about dealing with grief, reacting to it. Trying to say the right thing, maybe getting it wrong. Human frailty.

This is also an opportunity to get it better than I have in the past. It’s a performance, not a documentary. This means that everything presented is a choice, my choice. Chennelle has helped me make better choices. Some of my original performance decisions make me cringe. A few were racially insensitive. A nurse. A child in a toy store.

And there were elements of casual cruelty, revenge. And she would ask, what purpose does this serve? If I had no answer, then out it went. She is nicer to my parents than I was.

The process of filming all of the scenes, out of sequence, took five evenings. My job in attendance, as I saw it, was to correct misstatements during performance -- but only when I felt it was absolutely necessary. James might drop a phrase in one take, and I would think ... does it matter? Usually not. I’d let it go.

Once, at the end of the rocking chair scene, he used the word baby once instead of child. That I corrected. But performance notes? No. Not my business. Chennelle and James had worked so carefully on a consistency of style, of mood, most of all of character, it didn’t make sense for me to interject.

Chennelle & James

Watching James perform the birthing scene, I was overcome with emotion. You might think, of course you were, why wouldn’t you be? Well, I’ll tell you why. Because of the words. I could recite the scene in my sleep. This version of that event, I have it memorized better than perhaps any passage of text that I know. And I have seen others perform the same piece and enjoyed witnessing it, but not been affected.

But in this peculiar situation, he’s so like me, but not me. He looks like me, only smaller. But he’s different enough that I saw the scene in a whole new way, and I thought I could truly see myself the way others might see me. And what happened. And how I felt. And that made me cry.

The biggest revelation was watching James perform the “Blame” scene, which was always the hardest scene for me to perform. People ask if it’s difficult for me to play this most tragic moment of my own life and I say no, because I enjoy telling the story. But this scene is hard, because I don’t like who I am in it.

However, James shows that in the proper hands it is a dynamite monologue. I’d even recommend it for people to use for auditions.

So. Now his work is, as they say, in the can. Next up … editing!

Playhouse Square presents the premiere of the video adaptation of "I Hate This (A Play Without the Baby)" by David Hansen, directed by Chennelle Bryant-Harris and performed by James Alexander Rankin, in the Westfield Studio Theatre on Saturday, October 15, 2022.