-Rogers and Hammerstein Stepsister’s Lament from CINDERELLA

Bored with always centering too-good-to-be-true Cinderella and her prince? Let’s tell the story from the point of view of a wicked stepsister, the magic coach, or even the glass slipper. In this writing workshop with poet and playwright Monica Raymond, we’ll begin with some exercises in inner listening, then allow the voices of objects and minor characters from well-worn tales to reveal secrets, destabilize and re-enchant those stories. While Raymond will provide suggestions, please feel free to bring your own favorite fairy tale, Bible story, myth, or canonical narrative (Macbeth? A Christmas Carol?) to work with. We’ll be creating new work, not workshopping previously written pieces. Sharing what you write during the workshop will be optional, though welcome.

This workshop is for fiction writers, poets, playwrights and screenwriters, visual artists, anyone who’s interested. Scholarships available by request to info@surelsplace.org. This programming is supported in part by the Western States Arts Federation (WESTAF) and the National Endowment for the Arts.

BIOGRAPHY

Monica Raymond (Massachusetts) is a poet, playwright, lyricist and librettist. Primarily a poet for the first half of her life, she began auditing courses in performance art while teaching writing and interdisciplinary arts at the Boston Museum School. While she still makes the occasional solo performance piece for herself, she soon realized that she prefers to write scripts for other people. Her first full-length script, FASTER, about the death of a teenage anorexic, got her admitted to Smith College’s under-the-radar MFA program, from which she graduated in 2000. Since then she’s had close to ninety performances or staged readings of her work in the US and Canada.

“My work, particularly in theater, usually addresses some thorny knot of a world problem for which I do not have a solution, only many questions and a whorl of feelings and sensations,” Monica elaborates. “Creating strong, complex women characters is central.” Her multiple prize-winning full-length The Owl Girl was an extended meditation on the situation in Israel/Palestine. Another play, A to Z, looks at the 1968 murder of a Black male activist through the stories of his girlfriend, sister and first grade teacher. Monica’s work often has a magical, spiritual aspect, stretching from the mundane into mystery.