HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEB MARGOLIN

You are my hero.

I always tell my female students we steal the stage. No one gives us the stage. We steal it like Prometheus stole fire.

Posted 8 months ago & Filed under birthday, women artists, artist, performance, awesome, i want to be like, art, literature, art now, DEB MARGOLIN, 2 notes

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jerrika reblogged this from jenespillane and added:

FUCK. YES. of course you know her birthday. of course.
jenespillane posted this

About:

My old bio used to read:

Jen Spillane has survived the swamps of Southeast Texas, living on a glacier in Alaska, and a fantastic three-flip car wreck in Kansas. With nary a scar, she forges ahead, melding life experience with intensive research to tackle the whys and wherefores of contemporary society. She produced FemmFest: Under the Apron (two nights of original performance, music and visual art by female students) and has previously performed three of her other solo performances (Interlude, Cain’t; Wait and The Human Equation). Her full-length play, Typhoid Mary, was produced in 2003.

Definitely dated now. And a bit too chutzpah, yes? Now I design properties for a children's theater, write grants for a grown-up theater, and make pictures in any leftover time.

The old blog (06-09) was anonymous - which I miss terribly. There was adult content and rants galore; I'm not sure what to do with myself as nonanonymous.

Several years ago (whilst performing my last solo show, VIRTUE), someone* wrote about me:

Jen Spillane, herself a sort of one-woman symposium full of carefully constructed thoughts, whimsical musings and challenging unanswerable questions, does in her solo performance piece VIRTUE what most shows can only aspire to: She bravely explores without regard for destination.

This is the kind of theater that whirls around you while you’re seated comfortably in the audience, but then it envelopes and consumes you when you leave. Easy? No. Fun? At times. Well executed? Always.

Instead of running ahead without us — as many performance artists are wont to do when they are so clearly ahead their audiences on a given topic — Spillane invites VIRTUE attendees along on her journey. Let go and enjoy. It’s worth it.

That made me inordinately proud. Someday the next solo show, The Last Drag, will be done, and maybe I will have something else to update that? Ego abounds!

* Roger Pille for Cincinnati Citybeat