Spring Flung

By Susie Felber

Written & performed 1/19/15 for

The Public Theater Presents The 24 Hour Plays®:

A Bennington Alumni Tribute to Nicky Martin*

Photos taken from the rehearsal and performance of this play can be found here on Bennington College Flickr account. All photos from the day here.

Marion Markham — Julia Powers

Tim Daly — Clint Powers

Lesley McBurney — Grim Reaper

Brandi Nicole Wilson — Summer Autumn Rain

Directed by Lorca Peress
Assistant Director: Deidrea Hamid

Stage black. We hear a woman’s scream. It is Julia. Lights up. Julia is hysterical. She’s on a stage devoid of any furniture.

Julia

Clint!  Clint!  Ohmigawd CLINT WHERE ARE YOU?

Clint enters sleepily

Clint

Julia. I’m here. I’m here. What the hell are you screaming about it’s... the middle of the night.

Julia

Clint. Ohmygod I thought. I thought I smelled smoke. And I couldn’t see you and I was yelling, crawling through flames and…

Clint

How many Klonopin did you take?

Julia

I didn’t… well two. Two. But that isn’t it. I… it seemed so real. Didn’t you hear the alarm?  

Clint

I’m going back to bed.  Hang on… where’s the bed?  Where’s the walls where’s...anything?

Clint is looking into the theater lights using his arm to shield his eyes from the glare when Dr. G.R. enters. She lifts her arm deliberately and slowly and points at them. She turns her arm over and beckons for them slowly with one finger. They look at her stunned and then she drops the gravitas and becomes chirpy.

G. R.

Hi! Howdy.  

Clint

Who the hell are you? How did you get in here?

G.R.

I get that a lot.  So I’m just going to cut to the chase. I’m... the Grim Reaper!

Clint

The grim reaper?  You look like a proctologist.

Julia

Honey, no proctologists are that hot.

G.R.

Well I am a doctor… of DOOM.  (she laughs at her own joke) Ah but seriously, we focus grouped it and found the whole silent bony guy in a black robe thing was kind of a bummer.  Plus most people thought it looked like a bad New Yorker cartoon.  And people tend to trust doctors.

Julia

We’re dead?

Clint

to Julia

We’re not dead.

G.R.

No you’re not “dead” we now refer to you as the “previously living.”

Julia

We’re dead. The smoke. Remember I told you the lights were flickering? And you said it was probably PSE&G.

Clint

And you Googled “lights flickering” and decided we were doomed. So I told you to take a Klonopin and go to bed.

Julia

It said something about power arcing and how that could generate heat and we had to contact an electrician immediately.

G.R.

Bingo.

Clint

Bingo?

G.R.

You died in a house fire.  About six earth weeks ago.  

Julia

Six weeks ago?

G.R.

We’ve been busy. So many more clients than we had a few hundred years ago.

Clint

I don’t believe it. We’re not dead.

G.R.

Check out Facebook.  She looks at a phone.  Julia, you got over 350 comments on your wall.  Those are pretty good metrics.

Julia

Only 350 comments? But I have over 900 friends!

G.R.

The algorithm. People miss a lot. When Zuckerberg gets here... I’m gonna talk to him.

Julia

We’re in a bright room… with columns. Is this ancient Rome?

G.R.

No, not ancient Rome -- we call it The Entrarium!

Julia

“The Entrarium”

G.R.

It’s to die for, right?

Clint

This is nuts. The grim reaper is not a hot proctologist, we are not going to the great beyond from a room that looks like… like friggin Atlantic City because

WE. ARE. NOT. DEAD.

Julia, do something. Stand on your head.

Julia

I don’t think…

Clint

Stand on your goddamn head!

Julia reluctantly complies… stands on her head.

Clint

A HA! See? Not. Dead.

G.R.

Take her pulse.

G.R. takes out a phone and takes a selfie with Clint and Julia as they are taking her pulse.

Clint

Holy crap.

Clint then takes his own pulse.

G.R.

Intake photos. Oh look! Julia, your mom just commented.

Julia

My mother’s been dead for 15 years...

She reads the phone

“You should let your hair go curly already. I can’t believe you’re still with that ukulele-playing hedge fund bum.”

Mom!

G.R.

OK so now that we’re all ready, it’s time to go.

Clint

Go? No. I’m not going. I’m not going anywhere!

G.R.

Oh yes… that is an option. Very old school. Stay on your property and haunt.

Thing about haunting? New people will move in and trust me — it’s like watching the most boring reality show…for all eternity.

Julia

I am so not haunting. I want to see my mom. Besides, Clint, the people who move in here are just going to complain about how their kids are being tested too much…and they’ll be gluten-free… Clint let’s go.

Clint

Go? Where are we going? To heaven? Hell?

G.R.

OK so after the rebrand -- we did away with heaven and hell. We have membership levels.  Let’s see… Julia. Julia Powers...

she checks her phone

Julia, you are going Premiere Elite. And Clint — Clint you’re going coach.  What we call our “frequent liars” program.

Clint

I’ve been married to the same woman for 30 years. I am not leaving her now!

Julia

takes Clints hand

Awww. That’s right. We go together.

 A woman enters wearing a ski helmet.

Summer

Clint!

Clint

Oh my god.

Julia

Who is this?

Summer

removes her helmet and holds out a hand to Julia

Hi, I’m Summer Autumn Rain Schwartz.

Clint

Summer. Summer. I’m so sorry.

Summer

I was Clint’s intern during my FWT.

Julia

What the fuck is an FWT?

Summer

Winter internship.  Bennington College. They make you do it. Great for the resume…

she starts to get angry

...if you live to graduate.

Clint

Summer, it was an accident… you, you fell.

Summer

I didn’t know you had a wife.

Julia

A wife who thought you were skiing with your Williams buddies.

Summer

And when I found out and said I’d tell her, about us… you pushed me.  

Julia

Clint!

Clint

The bar was up…you’d been drinking...

Summer

Goddamnit -- no one over the age of 13 skis sober! Oh but of course the papers jumped on “drunk Bennington co-ed falls off ski lift.” I swear if you weren’t dead I’d kill you.

Clint

Oh -- like the world really needed another interpretive dancer!

Julia

OK, I’m ready.

Summer

You’re going to love premiere class. And your mom is a total hoot.

Julia and Summer link arms and exit together happily.

Clint

So. When…?

G.R.

You’ll be here… a while.  Want your ukulele?

Clint nods. G.R. hands him a ukulele and then exits. He beings to play “Sympathy for the Devil” as lights slowly fade.

Clint

(Singing)

“Please allow me to introduce myself I'm a man of wealth and taste…pleased to meet you, I hope you guessed my name..."

Me & my director for the eve, Lorca Peress

Quick post to show I'm alive if you don't already follow me on Twitter or any of the other venues I post on more regularly.

I'm performing (this pic from December's hurricane Sandy benefit), I'm writing for many and I'm enjoying my life with the smalls.  Below are some links to prove it.

All my recent blogging for truTV

One of my many new photo galleries for truTV -- Kama Stupid: New Sex Positions for 2013.  I got to hire pal Stephen Gardner to illustrate which was neat-o.

Scope more of my recent writing about Gardening.

And finally, one of my spawn having a crazy wild time at chess club. 

I'm also doing all copy for a another business -- a website redesign/rebrand -- will get sharey with that when it's all done and dusted.

I'm hosting a comedy benefit for the Hoboken Relief fund 12/14 at the historic Hoboken Elks lodge.  Oh-so pretty posters below. Click to enlarge, hope to see you, etc.

I haven't updated this since August mainly because I'm on Twitter -- where I'm @susiefelber -- Tumblr, Facebook, Google+, Flickr ,StumbleUpon and -- and I'll stop now.

But I've also been not here because I've been up to new stuff.  I'm editing and writing for the truTV dumb blog.  That link will whisk you to all the posts by me.  I'm also writing and editing the dumb photo galleries.  Faves I've written are Dumb Pinterest Obsessions, Crazy Sexy Halloween Costumes and Inappropriate Photos of Candy Corn.  I expect my Pulitzer to arrive any day now.

I'm also still getting my garden geek on writing for the Bentley Seeds gardening blog.

Pretty soon I'm hosting what will be a monthly comedy benefit show at the Hoboken Elks -- first show is Dec. 14 -- pretty poster and info to come.

I'm still doing the fill-in radio co-hosting thing when asked and when free.  The pic there is a super psyched me with Carol Burnett and Freewheelin' host Chris Tsakis after we did in October. The being free thing isn't very often these days but December 4th is my next appearance. Details to come if I have time after updating all the other social sharing venues.

I've also got other exciting writing projects in the hopper that I can't talk about yet and occasional V/O.  Oh and my Sesame Street Oprah impression aired again last week.

Add to this plate two kids who are so cute I must not devote every daylight hour to work -- and stick a fork in me -- I'm done.

So really, same old same old.

xoxo,
Susie

New newness: I am now writing on this gardening blog for an upstate NY company with roots that go back over 100 years: Bentley Seeds.

Yes I'm still doing V/O, still writing for funny stuff a plenty, still working the social media beat.  This job was taken on because it's with a company my best friend now works for -- not just fun but we're both web experts in different areas and we've tons to learn from each other.  And it's also because I am -- or have been until now -- a closet garden nerd.

Lots of original photos by me and blather on seed stuff -- what more could one want?

Here's my first three posts by topic, if not title:

Gardening with (or in spite of) Kids

Bragging 'Bout Beans

Upcycled Planters -- Holy Grail of Silly Pinterest Obsessions

Image credit: Me! Me! Me! And it's a Columbine in the Catskills doncha know.

Update 8/24: check out my interview with UK Landscape Architect Robyn Butcher.

 Hooray for my Husband and his Secret Showbiz Life

Ed, who is an editor by trade, narrated these funny Olympic highlight videos for the Wall Street Journal.  The best WSJ puppet videos you've seen all century.  Check 'em out:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EoeyXiYy5E

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLPvDIM8Q4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Gm80vDa1C4

See me, hear me:

Radio!

I'm filling in co-hosting on Sirius XM 106 for four weekdays starting Friday 4/27. Tune-in 11a-2p ET. Go ahead and like the show's Facebook page here: Freewheelin' on Facebook.  I love love doing radio and this show has a great host and we'll have some fab guests. More on this later...

Stage!

I'm performing live Fri. 5/18 at a fantastic show called Kevin Geeks Out. It's at 8p and it's in NYC so I don't have to tell you it's ET.  At least I hope I don't.  Show is a measly $10.  Get tickets and mucho more info here.  At this show I'll be telling the story of how I came to write a video game back in ye olde late 90's.  Tina Fey is involved, seedy bars and more!  See how I piqued your interest by implying Tina Fey has some relation to the seedy bars? Well she doesn't.  Or not that I know of.  Anywho, it's a fun show, so if you're not a crazy stalker, do come.

That's it.  I'm sleepy.  And I just remembered no one blogs anymore. 

So, I gotta go tweet the above in less than 136 characters... why not 140 characters?  I always leave room for someone to RT and add "Ha!" 

Hope springs eternal.

Toodles!

@susiefelber

My new listicle on Kveller explores sexy Jewish dads -- the elusive JDILF.

Dear Dearest Mary,

I'm new to glasses. A year? Year and a half?

Doesn't sound very new but as the only one in a family of five who didn't need them I thought my eyes were special. Made of tougher stuff. Thought I might need reading glasses when I was old, where old = some far-flung future where I am suddenly blessed with the ability to knit and the personality transplant needed to choose to craft instead of reading or writing.

But then reading was making me sleepy. I chalked it up to pregnancy. To being tired from work, life, baby, caring for my mother. Then to pregnancy again. Repeat.

When I finally stepped into an optometrist's office for the first time since my eldest brother hit my eye with a small hard ball (my fault for looking skyward trying to see where it had gone) -- I didn't just need reading glasses. I needed progressives which sounds really awesomely liberal but just means I'm three levels of blind.

Getting glasses meant the world was suddenly HD. This was cool -- the skyline suddenly went from wide watercolor to so sharp I actually heard Rhapsody In Blue when I looked at it. And also very not cool -- oy my face! I never worried about wrinkles, it turned out, because I couldn't see them.

Don't know how it is in Denmark by you, but here all glasses available are still of the skinny early Tina Fey variety. On her: Sex-hay. On me: Bifocal Betty. My husband kept asking me if I was angry. I wanted a pair of owls. Not chunky black hipster frames but ethereal floaty Ruth Bader Ginsberg's or a pair of in-your-face Lynda Carter's. And not just for fashion -- it's hard to get a progressive into a skinny frame which I learned the hard way. Those small glasses, my first pair, made reading in bed like trying to spy on your neighbors through a venetian blind.

These specs, above, are designer sunglasses. Purple frames. It's all I could find and what I'm wearing until the comet of large eyeglass frame fashion swings by this planet again.

And yeah, I totally look like your uncle Morty.



xoxo,

Me

That's my grandmother and I as young women.

Never knew my grandmother, really. When I was a year old she was struck and killed by a drunk driver while attempting to cross Queens Blvd.

She was the only grandparent who met me and perhaps because I never knew anything but those stories I've always been incredibly fascinated by older generations.

But as you get older, as you dig, the stories morph... from your family, from others families. You get told the things you couldn't be told as a child. You get told the things that you weren't told as a teenager because people did such an ace job of editing them out or re-branding themselves that they forget you never knew them in the first place.

And those, even if they still can not be spoken in polite company by those touched by them, are far more interesting because you see them as real humans who have lived in three dimensions.

This blog is kept up for sentimental reasons. Churning at various speeds since 2002. Lately, barely stirring as I'm on Twitter, Tumblr, another Twitter, Facebook and making money doing those same darn things fo' others as a social media producer.

Anywho, I shoulda stopped by the old homestead and mentioned I've been co-hosting on Sirius XM the last few days. Fun fun fun. Today is my last day. If you got satellite radio, here's the 411:

TODAY 12/22: I'm on Sirius XM 106 one last day as fill-in co-host with Chris Tsakis. Today's show is about holiday traditions... so tune in... call in... LIVE at 11A-2P ET
Please go and like the Facebook page...
http://www.facebook.com/freewheelinroaddog
Entire show replays at 8p ET too.
Today's show description below...
The Longest Night

“Winter is coming…” as they say on “Game of Thrones”. Today - the shortest day of the year (and the longest night) - marks the Winter Solstice, the traditional beginning of the season. Beyond that, how much do you know about this astronomical and cultural event also known as “Midwinter”… and what it has to do with Christmas, Hanukkah and Mummers? Freewheelin’ goes in-depth to reveal all the details of the Winter Solstice and ask “Do you like the wintertime? Or would you rather be sunning yourself someplace warm?

A Blog Post to Prove I am Alive and Clicking

I performed in a Comedy Fights Cancer show at Sloan-Kettering last Sunday -- got a good workout making my way around the NY marathon + felt a satisfying afterglow for doing the show.

I wrote and directed an offsite video for AMC Networks recently. It's funnnnny. Was a blast to do. Will share when I can share.

Am still doing social media for HSM Global. Got to attend their Elite Leadership Program at Essex House in NYC. I am now fully qualified to be a CEO. Or something.

I'm still writing jokes for Car Talk on NPR. Thor willing, an assignment I suggested will air shortly. Always fun.

Have a few other projects in the hopper. From a line of original products to working for a start-up -- details soonish.

Pictured: Me and my PDP Miss Piggy iPhone case in the hyper-fem Essex House powder room.

I'm hosting a LIVE show on Twitter TODAY at 2pm ET/ 11am PT


Some great peeps doing it including Julie Klausner, Michael Ian Black, Josh Malina and Steven Weber.

Watch the Hallowitstream widget on Huffington Post comedy or here on Witstream.

I'm on a panel at NY Comic Con tomorrow. The New York Times writes about this year's show. 100 thousand will attend and this is said to be a cozier alt to the San Diego show.

So get cozy with me!

GeekChicDaily Presents: Inside Jokes

Date: Saturday, October 15
12:00 pm - 1:00 pm

Location: 1A23

Speakers: Elliott Kalan, Gabe Liebman, Jessi Klein , Kevin Maher, Stephen Wacker, Susie Felber

Description:
GeekChicNYC, the city's best free daily email for geeks, is picking the secret seeds from the Big Apple's nerdcore. Join us and some of New York's finest comedians and writers to talk geek humor, the mainstreaming of nerd culture and how to make money being funny.

Panels & GeekChicDaily Presents: Inside Jokes - New York Comic Con | October 15, 2011 | Javits Center

Just got finished with two 14+ hour days running social media for the World Business Forum. I was packing an astonishing amount of electronic gear and assorted chargers. I could've used a Sherpa and a donkey or three.

I got to hear most of the speakers. When Ben Zander got thousands of biz types to all sing "Ode to Joy" in German, it genuinely got me -- you know, a little farklempt. Zander was a fave of many and no doubt about it, he was grand. Highly entertaining and smart. But he was very much like your zany Jewish uncle after a glass of slivovitz. And that's awesome, but not so exotic. And then I realized -- ah -- not everybody has a zany Jewish uncle.

Many great talks and I'm not playing favorites (and I'm not sayin' who could stand to kick it up a notch) but I really enjoyed Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks. His conviction to make the world a better place seemed genuine. He seems passionate about making a difference.

And Malcolm Gladwell always weaves a good story. This time he waxed on about learning, children and what he termed "useful disadvantages." He said, “The idea that more resources always lead to better results is a pernicious lie." Which of course is delish to any over-engaged parent, making us feel better about not giving little Johnny private school along with corneal transplant lessons which start immediately after harp class.

But really, in the end, it's performance. That's why I like it. Even though these are business people and business minds, it's live. Humans have good days, better days and the like. And the fact that this was a live show was thrilling. Been so long since I was a serious actress and stage manager. Comedy requires so little stage craft, mostly. But I always liked the backstage scene of big shows -- the tech guys, the performers warming up, and at this event, they had two translation booths behind the set with a total of four people providing Spanish to English and English to Spanish feeds to the world on the fly. I love backstage because it's like a dark club whose secrets rarely spill out. I love the things that go wrong that the audience never sees because people scramble to get it right.

Anyway, I met new people, played with new apps and got to take cool photos. Those fetching buff men are from Cirque du Soleil (they were launching a new Montreal biz and creativity conference called C2-MTL) and yeah, that's President Clinton, below.

It was great meeting people I only knew digitally as I work from home and many of the people who put this conference work out of HQ in Argentina. On a side note, the men from Argentina win the best-dressed award. If word got out about this odd breed of sharp-looking straight man they'd have to build border fences -- to keep the women of America in.

SFX: rimshot

But seriously folks, I learned tons -- including what I could do better next time I do social media for a huge event. This one, the World Business Forum, had over four thousand attendees. Don't get me wrong: I was awesome, I hit my marks. But best I can explain it? Even if you know how to flip a switch, some lights can't be turned on until you enter the house. Knowwotimean?



I'll be posting more of my photos online soon and will add a link. For right now, you could go on the facebook page for the conference and see some of them now. http://www.facebook.com/WorldBusinessForum And 'like' the page if you can. Because, ya know, that'd be nice.

Photos: By me and my Nikon -- fancy schmancy lens thanks to R & P Holland

This & That

I'm gonna be on a New York Comic Con panel run by GeekChicNYC with some great people talking about geek humor, the mainstreaming of nerd culture and how to make money being funny. Saturday, October 15th from noon to 1p in room 1A23 at Javits Center. More details to come... Oh wait -- here they are. Bio says I'm working for BBCA -- but I'm not anymore. But I am still writing jokes for Car Talk on NPR. Also doing social media for HSM Global and their upcoming World Business Forum. And some other stuff.

Speaking of other stuff, if you're lucky you will catch me doing V/O as the letter "O" on Sesame Street. If not lucky, well, you can always watch it here.

I'm also helping moderate a WICT panel on work/life balance being held at the Time Warner Center 9/27. Space is limited, security is ridiculous, so this is just FYI.

Labor Day seems far away...

Lots of new work and exciting news soon. Got a phone meeting and then the treadmill calls.

Above is the next LIVE twitter-based comedy show I am producing and hosting for BBC America this Saturday night, July 30th.

The amazing lineup can be viewed here.

I recommend you watch here on Witstream: http://www.witstream.com/#ministryoflaughs

The new tweets will start populating when the show starts at 9pm ET.

No drink minimum! No leaving home! No excuse for not attending!

xo,

Susie

I produced and hosted this comedy show on BBCAmerica.com with Witstream. I did it from a screened-in porch in the Catskills. So fun.

See the whole lineup of 14 awesome comedians here: http://blogs.bbcamerica.com/anglophenia/2011/07/15/witstream_funny-flyers/

You can watch it now. Some jokes are spicy. But it was Saturday night. And you people can handle it.

Frequently Funny Flyers (Click below to watch Replay!)
http://bit.ly/MOL-BBCA

No this is not a video, it's just another example of "play buttons on noses" which I adore so. Enough for a tumblr? I think so.

Play Buttons on Noses: playbuttonsonnoses.tumblr.com

I can almost smell my book deal.