In Resident Dramaturg Gina Pisasale's house, Euna and Noah stay in one place for just long enough to watch David Lutken's Porch Song rendition of "This Land is Your Land" – instruments in hand!
Domestic Blitz is a series of dispatches from parent-artists around the country juggling domestic immersion with creative aspirations. People's Light hired these artists to submit haikus, recipes for sanity, short essays, songs, sketches, video cries for help, you name it – whatever gives a snapshot of their current experience in perpetual proximity to their loved ones.
An Ode to Carbohydrates
By Jennifer Childs
Sour cream biscuits and cardamom carrot cake
Molasses ginger cookies and lemon melt-away bars
Blackberry lime coffee cake with tahini
Leek and goat cheese quiche
Bread
and
Bread
and
Bread
and
Bread
and
Bread
I wish I was doing more juicing and less baking.
But now is not the time for kale my friends.
It is the time for puff and choux and hot water crust.
The recipes are so precise
The science is so exact
It is delicious math
As I measure and pour and stir I am, for a moment, in control
I follow the steps and know exactly what to do next
And I know that at the end of the process everything will be fine
Any mess that has been made can easily be cleaned up
There will be something that smells and tastes wonderful
And I will be able to feed my family
And right now that kind of hope is what I knead.
JENNIFER CHILDS is the co-founder and artistic director of 1812 Productions, and rocked our stage in 2018 with her powerhouse one-woman show, I Will Not Go Gently. Current projects include developing a future People's Light panto with Alex Bechtel, putting on pants for virtual 1812 events, and like many of us, filling her kitchen with baked goods.
If you're running out of ideas for new culinary creations in quarantine, here are some of Jen's recent favorites:
Cardamom Pistachio Carrot Cake
Sour Cream and Onion Biscuits
Blackberry Tahini Yogurt Cake
JUSTIN JAIN is a prolific Philly theatre artist and Wilma HotHouse Company member who has made several appearances on our stages, most recently in Shakespeare in Love. He's back for Domestic Blitz in a very different role, a far cry from the dastardly swordfighting aristocrat Lord Wessex – with a very special guest.
Phone Poem
By Bess Wohl
My daughter's second grade class did a unit this year called Spotting Poetry. The idea was to create found poems, to find poetry wherever the kids could spot it. This entire poem was found in my phone. Every line of it comes from my own text message history, beginning in early March. I only used texts written and sent by me so as not to violate the confidence of others, and I tried to put them more or less in chronological order. I used whatever jumped out at me, whatever I spotted. I offer this in the hope that it may help others find poems in unlikely places.
have a bad cold
I still have a cold
I feel like NYC is going to be on lockdown next week
Ok
just please try to stay calm
I'm getting salmon
this virus situation is bananas
basically he thinks in a week NY is going to be Italy
check out the NYT home page today
i mean it's not good
Come over anytime
We are here
All the essentials
I can't tell if I have corona or if my kids are killing me.
We are all Tom Hanks
FUCK
I am so sorry
Forever?
Now school is closed until March 27
How's ur mom
How are your parents
How ru parents
i really think I just have a cold but of course paranoid
Peak virus in 45 days
This is gonna go on for a while
I am not gonna make it
it's better to get it early while there are still ventilators avail
trying to figure out where to go
Oh Jesus
Nightmare
Decided to self-isolate
We are totally isolating
We are just holed up
I have to say... it's a lot
I mean they're saying that school will not come back at all this year
should we do a zoom party
I'M AROUND
when she left to get the chili i was hoping she had gone to kill herself
every morning i wake up and i'm like was that a dream
what are you guys doing all day
LOVE
no help
trapped inside
oh no
can you find the baby
dying to talk to you
dying in general
Also: Indigo Girls
i really apologize
sorry for being fucking distracted
MAKE THE CAKE
realized after I got home the pebble in my shoe
was actually a piece of glass in my foot
what the fuck is she mad about
she wouldn't take tylenol so i mixed it in ice cream
and then she threw it up
and then she ate cheddar cheese goldfish and i was like let's watch a movie
it's a mystery
What's happening in your world
I am so sorry about your mom
I wish I could hug you and drink with you
How do you get groceries
What does the internet say
How was your day
You mean the purple dinosaur
I just spent 3 hours making a sweatshirt into a stuffed seal
I'm like DO SOMETHING
MAKE A PLAN OF ACTION
YOU ARE A GENIUS AND A LIGHT
We're just here indefinitely
well yeah that too
BESS WOHL is an acclaimed playwright and screenwriter whose work has been produced around the country, from New York to California. In 2013, her play Barcelona premiered right here at People's Light, directed by Jackson Gay.
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