Good news, everyone!
Cowgirls Don’t Ride Zebras is going to launch to new horizons: digital! The eBook version is currently in development! There isn’t a current release date, but it will be coming very soon. The eBook also has a very special ingredient: a read-along version! This means that with most devices, you can have the book read to you, not by digital voices like Siri or Alexa, but by Emma! Who is Emma? Emma Shachter starred as Penny in the world premiere of Cowgirls Don’t Ride Zebras: the Play. I’m super excited that Emma is a part of the next step for Cowgirls Don’t Ride Zebras! Take a very short listen to what we all have to look forward to!
About Emma Shachter
Emma Shachter is a 5th grader at Scioto Darby Elementary. Her CATCO is Kids credits include A Seussified Christmas Carol and James and the Giant Peach JR.
This post is two things happening at once. One of my playwriting gurus taught me that irony was "the simultaneous delivery of two conflicting points of view." This post is about as ironic as it gets. It's about how much I hate marketing as a playwright and is also about me telling you about my upcoming projects. It's the anti-marketing marketing post! In grad school, my part time GA was working for marketing for both the Theatre and Dance departments at The University of Iowa. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed designing posters and programs; I enjoyed writing the articles; I enjoyed interviewing the directors and choreographers for the articles. All fun stuff. At that time, marketing for shows was mostly text and print-based. This was when Facebook was only available to people in college (remember that?), so social media wasn't an option. We were frequent guests on the Dottie Ray Show on KXIC. She has a wonderful 15 minute show early in the morning broadcasting from her home. I had the pleasure of meeting her twice. I also was also lucky enough to be on a different Iowa Public Radio show to talk about the New Play Festival that happens every year at the University of Iowa for the MFA playwrights, which is, completely coincidentally, happening next week, May 5-10. There are readings in the afternoon and two performances of plays in the evening. We also branched into TV with a commercial that aired during Commander in Chief and Boston Legal (Remember those?). I like marketing in general, but when it comes to talking about my own work, I get stuck. On those radio shows, I was able to be an authority when speaking about the plays of my peers. I believed in their work; I was excited about their work. While I'm excited about my work and believe in my work, I can't help but feel that lingering ball of doubt in the pit of my stomach that calls me, to be overly dramatic, a fraud. That's completely untrue, but sometimes that voice in the back of your mind can be cruel. Kimya Dawson's song "The Competition" really hits me as true: I never wanted to be better than my friends Another verse goes on: I thought if I succeeded I'd be happy and they'd go away Listen to the song. It's great. You'll relate. Anyway...
The point is I have a hard time talking about and promoting my work, especially when it comes to social media. I still feel myself stumbling and fumbling along with the etiquette of Facebook and Twitter. Who do I invite to an Event on Facebook? What hashtags do I use? #NewPlay is okay to use? Maybe? Definitely don't use #2amt for promotional use ("We’re not here to promote shows or scripts, and we’re not here to shout each other down. There are plenty of sites for both of those.") How do we market ourselves (and brand ourselves) as playwrights in the new media? We need to make ourselves part of the conversation so that our posts and exchanges in the various hashtags and happenings are not completely narcissistic and disconnected from the larger conversations. We need to engage. We need to contribute to the well and not simply keep drawing from it. It should be a relationship. A friend of mine said that a relationship is like a bank: If you keep making withdrawals from the other person and don't make any deposits, there's going to be a point where the funds run out. Or the well runs dry, choose your metaphor. If I add to the conversations then that little, dirty feeling that comes inside of me when I talk about myself and my work can go away. It becomes less about me and more about the community. I always wonder whether I'm depositing enough to the conversation to be able to make a withdrawal. It's that doubt that makes me hesitate to post something promotional. Another question is: When do we post? Do we post a month before the event? A week before? Do we post once a week? Twice a week? I have rehearsals and performances starting Sunday (first read-through for Books & Bridges!) that I want to share, to promote and entertain, but don’t want to inundate, oversaturate, bore or annoy my followers. Does anyone else have these questions or fears when it comes to marketing? What are your thoughts? What are your rules of marketing etiquette? And now, the plugs. You have the chance to see my work in Columbus Ohio! You can catch my ridiculous short play comedy A World Without Allergies, A Talk by Dr. Michael Kramer is being performed as part of the 15th annual Theatre Roulette at MadLab Theatre in Columbus as part of an evening of plays by Ohio playwrights, including two by Jeremy Sony. I'm excited to see his plays. Those performances are 5/9, 5/17, 5/22 (all at 8pm), 5/24 at 2pm. The big one is the staged reading of my play Books & Bridges on June 8th at 6pm presented by CATCO here in Columbus as well. All the best to you, my fellow theatre-makers. Be excellent to each other. Here's the full line-up of plays for MadLab's Theatre Roulette! Tons to see:
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