Wednesday
by James Anthony Zoccoli (Jaz), Actor/Writer of Wiggerlover [white boy + black dad = grey areas]
LEFT, RIGHT, LEFT, TOGETHER
“Now I am Jimmy Z & I’d like to say Hello
To the black & the white, the red & the brown, the purple & yellow.
But first…”
If shoes make the man, then mine are Boogie Shoes.
I was hardly born with two left feet, but, even still, it takes patience, pratice & diligence to Get on the Good Foot, like James Brown.
I always loved to dance & sing, but I remember the first time the funk hit my backbone & went straight to my head.
First there was the cowbell, then the bassline, then the synthesized strings & next thing you know…
It was like that moment in The Jerk when Steve Martin’s character Navin R. Johnson is laying in bed - dejected from learning that he was adopted by his Black family & realizing that he’s going to be White forever - & as he starts to eat his Birthday Twinkie while listening to “Music in a Mellow Mood” on the Radio.
“It’s unbelievable. I’ve never heard music like this before. It speaks to me. Now, watch…”
His toes start to tap, his fingers start to snap, & the beat of the Mantovani Orchestra sweeps him away.
“Well, if this is out there, just think how much more is out there! This is the kind of music that makes me want to go out there & be somebody!!”
The same phenomena occurred with me at the Rainbo Roller Rink in 1979 when I heard Rapper’s Delight by the Sugar Hill Gang.
As soon as I heard it, I threw my hands in the air & started waving them around like I just didn’t care!
For the rest of the year, I walked around goin’, “I said a-hip-hop, the hippie, the-hippie, to the hip-hip-hop, a-ya’ don’t stop, the rock it, to the bang-bang boogie, say up jumped the boogie to the rhythm of the boogie the beat…”
Tuesday
by James Anthony Zoccoli (Jaz), Actor/Writer of Wiggerlover [white boy + black dad = grey areas]
BOTH. That is my favorite word.
“Why,” you may ask? “Is it because of the sound or the meaning?”
& I will tell you, “Both.”
First of all, look at the spelling – B – O – T – H. Both.
Now say it: “Both.”
Try saying it again, but this time, really slowly: “BUH – OHHH - THHHHH.”
Now, say it ten times fast: “Bothbothbothbothbothbothbothbothbothboth.”
Weird, right? After a while you start to wonder if it is even a real word.
But, besides the way it looks & sounds, whenever I am confronted with any set of options, it is usually my answer.
“Would you like Soup or salad?” Both.
“Toast or Bagel?” Both, please.
“Chocolate or Vanilla?” Both, thank you.
When my grandparents asked me: “What do you want for Christmas, Jimmy, the Star Wars Action Figures or the Guns of Navaronne Playset.” I, of course, said: “Both.”
When the judge asked: “Do you want to live with your mother or your father?” I answered: “Both.”
When people ask me, “Is your last name pronounced, ‘ZAH-kah-lee’ or ‘TSOH-koh-lee’?” Actually, both.
I’m from Chicago, so people wonder, “South Side or North Side?” The answer: both.
“City or Suburbs?” Truly, both.
“House or Hip-Hop? Ska or Reggae?” Both of both of those.
“Cubs or White Sox?” Whaddayouthink?
Monday
by James Anthony Zoccoli (Jaz), Actor/Writer of Wiggerlover [white boy + black dad = grey areas]
WHAT ARE YOU?
“Half-Italian, half-Polish, all Black.” That’s my joke.
It’s funny ‘cuz it’s true…& truth is stranger than fiction.
As a kid, I was pretty darn funny & pretty darn smart: smart enough to know better than to feel responsible for the fact that my mother & father were divorced when I was three years old; funny enough to be able to keep a sense of humor when times got tough.
If humor is a defense mechanism, I was Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon and the television was my Shaolin Temple. His style was Tiger. Mine was Python. Monty Python. My special move would have been the Banana Split. My impossible mission was to make my family laugh. I was James Bond in a Tennessee Tuxedo; my drink was a Tom & Jerry.
Though I didn’t know why, I knew at a young age that Chicago was called “The Second City” & I was proud that our town was the birthplace of SCTV.
After the divorce, my mom & I moved from Orland Park to Rogers Park.
We zigged & zagged; South Side to North Side & back again…
Then, my mom married my dad & we moved to Hyde Park.
Jeff’s final blog
by Jeff McLaren, Wishbone company member and Director of Spandex
DCA Theater’s INCUBATOR process was a wonderful opportunity for Wishbone. I’ve learned to never underestimate the potential power of a vacant room, in this case DCA’s beautiful Studio Theater. Add an inspiration, a few energetic actors, someone to lead, and you’ve got yourself a play waiting to write itself, so to speak. But is that really all it takes? Even with an abundance of ideas to fulfill concept, what happens if the play doesn’t write itself?
It’s an intriguing decision to make before commencing an ensemble-developed piece whether to include a dedicated playwright. On one hand, you are entrusting just one person to capture the essence of all the ensemble’s research, discussions and improvisational efforts and convert it into a play that ideally the entire group believes in. On the other hand, without a playwright to absorb and filter what is created in rehearsal, whose responsibility then is it to write? The director’s?
We faced a similar quandary during Spandex. While we had very fruitful creative process, ultimately and somewhat unexpectedly, the playwriting role came to me (the director) and Laurie Jones (a member of the acting ensemble). It became necessary for us to consolidate seven different superhero stories and draft the first three scenes. With feedback from the acting ensemble, we tweaked and refined the scenes until we had a script we felt happy to present to an audience. However, looking to the future with Spandex, I would prefer not moving forward without a dedicated playwright. If anything, to give more clarity to a very free and open-ended process.
Jan 24
by Kimberly Van Ness, Wishbone Company member and actor in the ensemble for Spandex
Today marked Wishbone’s last rehearsal for the Incubator Project. To think that we started the month of January with little more than an idea in our heads and now have a definitive focus, characters, and written scenes (as well as a whole lot more information in our heads about the ins and outs of the superhero uni-oh wait, MULTI-verse) is pretty exciting.
When the idea for this show first came up, it stemmed from a desire to know more about the word of superheroes and their connection to society today. When developing new work, sometimes it’s hard to narrow down the topic enough. Initially we were interested in every single aspect of the superhero world. How, for example have politics influenced the creation of superheroes and villains? Should we explore the religious connotations, the idea of a chosen ‘one’ that exist in so many superhero stories? What parallels can we draw between American comic book superheroes and the superheroes of other countries? The amount of information we were able to find was staggering and it was a bit overwhelming to think that we would have to narrow down all these bits and bobs of research and find a common theme. Our story was in that information pile somewhere, we just had to dig it out.
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