My big sister takes good care of me.

She kept apologizing when we went dress shopping that none of the sample dresses fit (because they were sample sizes made for people who are not weird shaped like me) in defense of my ego. Then she took me into a salon to get my bangs trimmed so that I would not be so shaggy shaggy sheepdog and would be able to see. Then we got froyo and pedicures. And this morning she willingly got up at 8 AM on a sunday to make me eggs and coffee and send me back to the bus station.

Just saying that she is the best and you all should be jealous.

More cool stuff in my inbox.

Summer classes have started, which are going to be cool once I get into them. In the meantime, my friend Em drew some stick figures based on Like a Dog in Space characters that ought to be shared with the world.

(I wonder if I can somehow bribe her to do the rest of the cast...)

For now, enjoy Anatoli and Ivan.

Just a quick plug and then I'll shut up~

My friend Abi has started a blog! She is seriously one of the smartest, funniest people I know and people should read her because she's awesome. And because I want her to share her Summer Quinoa Salad recipe with me because it looks delicious. And because she works somewhere that seriously looks like it's part of the set of an X-Men movie (hello radio telescope).

And, uh, this, because it is relevant.

#historicalfiguresinunlikelyplaces

Last night I had a dream about Buzz Aldrin (the astronaut) talking to me about skydiving. Seeing as Opening Night for Like a Dog in Space went fantastically, I am going to take this as a sign that the universe is smiling at me. Which is a pretty cool feeling to have, all in all. I mean, I don't really know why my subconscious chose last night to pepper my dreams with retired spacemen, or why they were talking about extreme sports, but it left me feeling kind of warm and fuzzy, so it can't have been a bad dream.

Anyways, opening night was brilliant. A friend who I knew was coming showed up, and then I was surprised by another friend who I hadn't seen in about two years, and a fun time was had by all! All three shows this week are really, really strong, and the other two playwrights are really sweet and smart and talented. Like, I could not have asked for a better group of people to spend my last YPF with, and they give me a lot of hope that the festival's going to be A-OK in the future, because they're already giving me a run for my money and they're 2-3 years younger than me.

If you're in LA and reading this blog post in the weekend it was written, I strongly encourage you to come see the show, if not because Emma, Nicole and I are awesome then because the week's cast is amazing and fun to work with and has all kinds of cool credits under their collective belts and it's a 99 seat theater so there are No Bad Seats in the house, pretty much anywhere you sit you will be close enough to feel them spit (if that's what you're into). Or if you don't go this week, go another week, because it will still be just as cool, it just won't be us.

I got some "Soviet Flowers" and lots of hugs:

All of my other pictures are on other people's cameras. This is... just as inconvenient as it sounds, really.

My brother got in last night but he hasn't seen the play yet - that's what he gets to do tonight, or maybe sunday? I'm not sure what the plan is yet. He did steal my contact lenses this morning, but I promised not to tell that whole story so I guess I'll leave it at, "That happened and it was frustrating at the time but hilarious afterwards."

Also my brother says about the flowers, "In Soviet Russia, Flowers smell you!" which is actually kind of funny.

My face hurts from smiling and I only slept like five hours last night because I was really jumpy and excited and I am actually really, really okay with this because I get to go back and do it all again in less than 12 hours, which is awesome.

Also, people who leave during intermission and don't stay for the third play are losers. Because, I mean, I got A WHOLE EXTRA ADJECTIVE in the curtain speech ("fantastic, marvelous little play after intermission") and people still left during intermission and it's lame. Like, the ticket price has gone up since last year, you might as well stay and get your money's worth!

Also, shout-out to my lovely, brilliant, beautiful cousin Faye who is currently spending a month in the hospital after pelvic surgery and a waterski accident. :( I love you and hope you have a smooth recovery!!!!

Also, MINIATURE WATERMELONS ARE ADORABLE. WE ARE EATING ONE FOR BREAKFAST RIGHT NOW AND IT IS THE CUTEST THING EVER. (But not Too Cute To Eat.)

Also, I saw two grown women in full-body pajamas "planking" in the Hollywood and Highland Complex yesterday. Like, I was aware that this was a thing, but do people understand how silly they look? And also, why would you want to lie on those stairs? the whole thing seems vaguely unsanitary to me.

Also, that was a lot of Alsos.

Sensationally yours,

Leez.

It doesn't rhyme with Kennedy

I have a friend who has a character whose name she always pronounced "Al-SEEN" until she met someone who pronounced it "AL-kin" and ever since, that's been the character's name. Not that there's anything wrong with that, I just thought it was a neat little anecdote, but it's more complicated in theatre where a character's name has to be said consistently by the entire cast. It's even more complicated when the name is foreign and needs to be pronounced correctly, the way characters who are native speakers would.

So, like, the name Gennady? It doesn't rhyme with Kennedy. And deep down I knew that but then we got into practice and suddenly every name was getting pronounced a million different ways and I was like, "I'm not even sure how these names are supposed to be said anymore." Which is always an awkward thing to do because I don't know if I'm the only one who gets weird and OCD about looking like she knows EVERY SINGLE THING about the world of her play. So, I always feel like admitting "I'm not sure" about something is a sign of weakness. Like I should have thought about this, why didn't I think about this.

LUCKILY SOMEONE HAD FORESEEN WE MIGHT HAVE THIS DIFFICULTY and a really nice native Russian speaker stopped by rehearsal to confirm, once and for all, how to pronounce all the names. And we took careful notes and parroted back to her and watched as she shook her head at our flat American accents like, "No, no, that's wrong," until we'd approximated it to her satisfaction.

Even something as simple as that morning makes me feel more solid about the play moving forwards: in the future if anyone asks me how to pronounce Valeri or Anatoli or Milena, I know with pretty good authority what to tell them. No more wincing and telling them I have no idea.

Still working on getting a cast picture, but we have our first actual run through and off book day on monday, so I'm looking forward to finally seeing it on its feet all the way through. Even though I've been present for most of the rehearsal process, there are still two scenes that I haven't heard out loud, and it's really important to me to see them tomorrow in case there's something I need to tweak anything - they're two pretty early and important scenes that I want to make sure are spot on since they come so early in the play and give us so much vital information, and I'm actually the tiniest bit uncomfortable that I'm a week into the rehearsal process and haven't managed to see them.

I mentioned before, I definitely feel the pressure this year, because it is my last year in the festival and I have done it for four years and I am one of the two oldest kids in the lineup, and because I saw my mentor from last year last night and he mentioned that "I've heard this is the script that everyone wants to read," although by "everyone" I assume he just means "festival staff" and I'm pretty sure that I'm getting more milage out of the title than I really ought to. Also, that was all one sentence.

I am really, really impressed by some of the summaries for the plays this year - things that just look incredible, written by really young kids (Okay, not so young... fifteen and sixteen years old, which is how old I was when I got into this crazy world). There's one in my week that I am really, really looking forward to seeing and meeting the playwright because she's a sixteen-year-old who wrote a historical piece about a really, really cool topic and when I was sixteen I was writing poorly-planned and poorly-executed magical-realism pieces about greek mythology and bratty kids.

There are also some plays in later weeks that I won't get to see, but I'm really curious about them. There's a guy in week four who I met back when we were both sixteen, and he was lightyears ahead of me then (INCREDIBLE WRITER), so I can only imagine how much better than me he is now.

My first year at Blank, there was a guy a week ahead of me who'd done the festival for five years. I was already missing a year to catch up with him, but I was just some kid from Florida and the whole fact that I'd managed to win three separate competitions with this little play that I'd written on a bet was baffling to me. I was still at a point in my life where I was writing to prove to myself that it wasn't a fluke. I couldn't have known then that I'd go four-and-four in the festival. Now, knowing other kids who've done Blank, who I know from previous years and didn't make it back this year, I'm now realizing that that kind of winning streak is the exception, not the rule.

And I can't explain why I'm here, and some of my brilliant friends who I've met in previous years or at other festivals aren't. I really do not know. And I could chalk it up to luck but that would be belittling the selection process, which I have been assured doesn't have any favoritism involved and actually is harder on returning playwrights. ("We only bring you back if you've improved.") But the more I work on Like a Dog in Space, the more I realize that it's really nothing like my last three years of plays. Structurally, thematically, my choice of characters - it's not like my usual work. Maybe it was the novelty of it that got me in, or my apparent willingness to take risks, or just because it's so damn weird.

I really don't know. And this post is a lot longer than I originally planned it to be, but once I got onto the subject and forced myself to write about it, it turned into a huge monster blog post and I could probably go on about it for another four pages but it would just be me expressing how I'm still not very certain of myself and my skills... and that's not really interesting to read, is it?

Do you guys know my brother?

Because he's hilarious. And kind of nerdy and adorkable. And if any of my friends are in the market for a 6'6" Nice Jewish Boy who likes video games, computer programing, and over-analyzing movies, I will Set You Up.

Also you should read his blog. Because he is my brother and he's hilarious. I mean, how am I related to this guy? My siblings are so much more talented than I am, *cry forever*