Trivial Pursuit
I’m not really that interested in nature. But I am interested in an environment that can act as a nice backdrop for my feelings. A Best Western, a cul-de-sac, a tree stump.1
I haven’t left New York all summer. This isn’t a bad thing, but it is funny that I’m sitting here writing a blog post when I ought to be taking the last week of the summer off to be somewhere seasonally appropriate.
Sometimes, I feel a bit sheepish when it has been a while between posts, like I need to constantly be updating you with essays about something I saw online or a passing thought I had about a file I found on an old hard drive. It’s good to disappear from time to time—for a month or even years, who cares. You can emerge at a later date with an offering: a selfie, a shitpost, a Pulitzer Prize winning novel… Whatever you want.
One of my biggest problems lies in the fact that I don’t think I’m that interesting. Like, my life in general is not that interesting.
The truth is, I’ve spent most of my summer working and ensuring that my cat, who was recently diagnosed with a heart condition, gets his medication every 12 hours. I’ve also spent a fair amount of time in rehearsal for a play I wrote called Trivial Pursuit. I’ve teased it a bit here and there, but it is set to premiere in New York this September.
The play focuses on three girls at a vision boarding party. Together, they create a collaborative vision board from hundreds of images that are printed out and strewn across the stage. Each image features a block of text on the back, which the performers read aloud before placing it on the wall behind them. No two performances are the same.
While seemingly unstructured, there is a narrative that underpins the entire play. There are also opportunities for audience participation. Trivial Pursuit is part play, part game.
Leave me to my fate!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Trivial Pursuit stars Maya Man, Mackenzie Thomas, and Maya Martinez. It is curated by Kyla Gordon and will run at PAGEANT in East Williamsburg for two nights September 19 and 20 at 8PM. You can purchase tickets here.
I wrote this play in such a way that could be scaled up or down, depending on resources. That being said, my lovely performers, all of whom are artists I admire, have been donating their time for free. Because of this, I’ve come out with a postcard set to accompany Trivial Pursuit. Think of it as a miniature version of the play. Each set comes with 12 4x6 double-sided postcards. They feature images from the vision board on the front, with dialogue from the play on the back. All of the proceeds go to funding the production. It’s a steal at $22! It’s also a way to engage with the play if you can’t make it in person, or until the performance comes to a city near you ;). You can use the cards to create a vision board, send them to your friends, or pull them like tarot cards.
Once again, money has bought me happiness.
A line from the play Trivial Pursuit.