HEIDI REBECCA CELESTE KRAAY
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Reminders

7/24/2020

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Art shows me the world I want to see, reveals how I want to live.
The process of making art teaches me to live better.
Putting creations into the world helps me express
what's going on inside me, in my life, what I observe in this world, my beliefs
when I find it impossible to do so face to face.
By sharing the work I make, I can make myself vulnerable
in a way that opens me up to connect with others through empathy,
and them to each other.
When I see art that inspires me, I am reminded of our condition,
our world, the irrevocable sense of beauty and truth in each moment.
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A few things learned in graduate school...

5/8/2020

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That still apply today...

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Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
March 23, 2016

Panic does not accelerate productivity.
Slowing down helps me see with more attention and sustained focus.
There is great creative power in waiting and in doing nothing.
Wandering opens up as many ideas as spaciousness.
Taking a long time on a project can help me go big with it.

I can still pump out material, generate new work and experiment
with several improvised pieces a day.
The process is becoming about the long haul.
How I sustain, how I balance out the creative, the professional, the personal.

We handle grief in innumerable ways.
The ways I handle grief over time changes.

Opening up, taking down walls and allowing for vulnerability
makes way for connection.
It's uncomfortable to be vulnerable.
The discomfort zone is where learning happens, where magic happens.

I can only sit for so long without upsetting my body and brain
for the rest of the day.
I need to move and find new positions for myself
in order to engage holistic learning, teaching and making.

I am a total maniac.
I know how to make massive quantity, how to write a lot and create a ton,
and that is an exquisite practice to have under my belt,
but now my challenge is learning to do less
and in that way do better.

I have a mountain of experience under me
and when I don't recognize that,
I stand tiptoe on top of that peak,
unbalanced, about to fall to bottom.

I am privileged in many ways. Marginalized in a few.
I can walk into a room recognizing the areas
in which I am privileged
and use those to help lift up
the marginalized in the room.

Instead of listening for contention or to interrupt,
listen for understanding.
Pay attention to a room --
Does someone need to step forward?
Does someone need to step back?

Reflection is as important as planning and acting.
When questions drive the work,
the work creates more questions.
We can explore deeper to make those questions better all the time.

At the roots of everyone's work are a few core questions.
Finding out what drives us means asking
what enrages, inspires, makes us curious, brings us joy, makes us laugh
and then tapping into those answers.

Generating material is only the first part --
then comes reworking, redrafting, feedback, queering, showing, rewiring...
All the parts that play with the work take the longest.
That final 5 percent it takes to finish a work really does take 95 percent of the time.

A play that taps into shared perversity is more compelling
than one that investigates psychological motivations.

Asking where am I? each moment
can bring deeper awareness and presence
and is an easy way to slip back into a conscious mind frame
when the spinning option steals my breath.

Finding ONE thing, one focus at every given moment
leads to greater groundedness in the work.

Art matters.

I know what I'm doing.
I'm on the path to creating a lifelong process that works well for me.

Great art has roots and reach.
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Photo by Eugenio Mazzone on Unsplash
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Belated Highlights

1/31/2020

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At first I thought I wouldn't share these this year, but now before we get too far into 2020,  here are some of my highlights from 2019. It's good to look back.

Highlights:
  • Submitted to over 200 writing opportunities
  • Spent my third year in a row in Creede, Colorado for the National Winter Playwrights Retreat, where I workshopped my play Polar Opposites: An Impossible Tale
  • While in Creede, got my short play Ways Not to Drown recorded as an audio play for The American Playbook podcast, released in June
  • Completed my TYA Animal Trilogy, making that three commissions in a row from Boise Contemporary Theater in 2017, 2018, 2019. In 2019 I enjoyed a staged reading of Polar Opposites: An Impossible Tale
  • Taught my dream class, a six-week Writing for Performance workshop through The Cabin
  • My play How to Hide Your Monster was a semi-finalist at Seven Devils Playwrights Conference
  • Got two ten minute play productions through Idaho State University: Ways Not to Drown and Somewhere on the Pacific
  • Completed Julia Cameron's 12 Week Course The Artist's Way for the first time
  • Co-taught two Migration Theory residencies -- one at Boise State University (BSU) and one at Company of Fools in Hailey, Idaho
  • Performed in readings with Migration Theory at Treefort Music Festival and MING Studios
  • Got poems published through Timshel, Willow Creek Journal & Z Publishing ("not ready", "last breaths", "how could you ever find air", "Water Obsession")
  • Read poems at the Voices for the Earth event at BSU 
  • Heard an excerpt from my play Kilgore performed at Campfire Theatre Festival's Fundraiser Gala
  • Thanks to the Alexa Rose Foundation, enjoyed three months in a playwriting sabbatical writing my new play, see in the dark
  • Spent two weeks of those sabbatical months at Seven Devils for a Your Own Private Idaho playwrights retreat
  • Heard my new short play lift read at HomeGrown Theatre's 10 Minute Play Festival
  • With help from the Idaho Commission on the Arts, traveled to Juneau, Alaska to do two weeks of place research for see in the dark
  • On that trip, my partner proposed to me in front of a waterfall and we got engaged!
  • My short play The Way Up got an NYC reading through The Alternative Theater Company
  • At last started a small interdisciplinary writing group! We meet monthly.
  • My partner and I started hosting backyard concerts. Quite fun.
  • Spent some enjoyable time in one-on-one mentorships
  • Got my radio play CloudMelt produced by Radio Boise
  • Went to workshop see in the dark in Pagosa Springs, Colorado for a week through Thingamajig Theatre Company, enjoying two public readings in the process -- one seated, one staged
  • Also got to hear a reading of my play How to Hide Your Monster at Thingamajig in Pagosa Springs
  • My short play The Way Up got produced in Vancouver, BC, by the Tomo Suru Players. My first international showing!
  • My short play Ways Not to Drown was accepted for a scratch production in London through Talos Theatre Festival -- they ended up having to table until fall 2020 because a director dropped, but that's something to look forward to
  • My one-act Hoarse was produced in Austin by Trinity Street Players
  • Got to share the stage with my dearest one at Radio Boise's Couch Surfer Series, reading work, playing music and having a conversation with Matthew Cameron Clark
  • Started working with my sister Kate Kraay for the first time on a devised theater project

Here are my three big goals for 2020 and 2021:

3 Big Goals for the Next Two Years:
  • Travel overseas
  • Go on one (or two!) silent meditation/silent writing retreat(s)
  • Send 250 submissions in 2020, 300 in 2021

2020 is my year of finding presence, rather than worrying over the future or running reels of the past through my brain. That's my intention, anyway...we'll see how it goes :)
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A sweet waterfall and (delicious proposal site) at the top of Perseverance Trail in Juneau
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Survey on Stress

9/27/2019

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New Project Survey

​My amazing sister Kate Kraay and I are collaborating for the first time on a theatrical project. Well -- besides the times we performed renditions of fairy tales with our brother for our parents when we were growing up. I remember playing Gretel opposite my brother's Hansel when I was six, with Kate graciously taking on the witch's role... 

Now we're a little older, devising a new play/performance/thing together and could use your help as we begin. We'll be exploring the effects of stress on the body, women's bodies in particular, in comparison with the effects of stress on our planet, stress caused by humans in particular. Your insights through the survey questions below will be most helpful in giving us more direction, context and research.
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Photo by NASA on Unsplash

​You are welcome to take this survey whoever and wherever you are. Though we are most interested in responses from individuals who identify as womenx, non-binary, transgender or gender non-conforming, if you are a human who has lived in this world, we appreciate your answers. And if you know someone who may have a lot to say about these questions, do consider sharing it with them. Thank you!

Learn more/respond below, save the form for later on a new page or share it using this link (https://forms.gle/8qw4ReXwR6vnYywA9). Thank you so much for your time and insights! If you have questions, feel free to reach out through my contact page. 

Many thanks,

Heidi and Kate
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Cracking the Earth

8/16/2019

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​As I find myself at a pausing point in the play I'm working on after this glorious summer of writing, developing, researching, exploring and rewriting rewriting rewriting, I think back to my last solo-written full-length play How to Hide Your Monster and what I was thinking about around this time in 2015. At the end of that summer, I similarly found myself unsure of my next steps, knowing I'd gotten as far as I could go before getting outside feedback.
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Ah, that fresh ink feeling. Both How to Hide Your Monster and my new play, see in the dark, bring in monsters that resemble this ink obsession of mine.

​I think about crystalizing my voice.
I think about cracking the earth, opening it with care.
I think about the job of an actor.
How much it teaches me as a writer
to watch what a person can do onstage,
fully present in each moment. 
I fall down watching. 

Writing used to be what I did to get the desperation out.
I had to put my story into words.
Now the next step: getting that story out to the world.
I've done it step by step,
getting the fiction out in pieces through plays, stories, essays and poems.

Now with this play I'm trying to get up the courage
to speak with more specificity and openness
about who I am and where I've been in person, onstage,
outside the veil of fiction.

Fiction can tell the truth in magical ways.
More powerful is its ability to get me to accept where I've been
and to name it out loud.
To learn from my mistakes and to see my failures.

Enduring humiliation and failure is important for everyone.
What we do with that is important.
If we didn't accept our failures and successes, we wouldn't learn.
Terrible mistakes get made and they should be acknowledged.
There is a big difference between "I failed" and "I am a failure."

Celebrate those failures.
Those are my teachers.
They are for me.
​Successes are for the audience.
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More fresh ink.
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and reach

7/5/2019

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I watch my breath, my frame.
I think worldwide of
people hungry in the mud
faces in cages
heartbeats dead 
families capsizing in escape.
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Photo by Aswin Deth on Unsplash.

​When I was young,
hearing my first tragic events,
my response was massive guilt and shame.
I had it okay while lives cracked apart across the world,
in my neighborhood.

And then I hurt myself.
And got addicted to hurting myself.

Now, here, globally, in this country,
cruelty happens daily.

I am healthy. I have enough. More than enough.
I want to help.

Instead of saying,
they suffer so I must suffer,
I want to say
I am at peace, how can they be at peace?

Instead of my limbs paralyzed,
instead of acting against myself,
I can reach out and take care of me
and thereby reach out stronger.

I don't have a lot.
I have enough. 
I can be here for you.
I can sit in the same room as you.
I can listen to your story.
Open up the world for you.
Help you tell your story.
Get people to listen. Or try.
Bring communities together. Try.

I sometimes feel so young.
I doubled my gray hair the last ten weeks. 

Still breathe, still be.
And reach.
Open. Continue to open.
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go small

6/7/2019

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I wrote myself out of abuse,
out of disorder,
out of homelessness,
out of numbness.

find vitality 

Meaning exists
in every moment
because we say so.

We create meaning
by collecting
observations. 

strip down
do less 
show less

That's where I find beauty, elegance.
Simplicity is my way to wholeness.
I am already whole. 
I feel my back pulse.

neurons can rewire
brain chemistry can shift 

A diagnosis
said I was hardwired 
to need antipsychotics forever,
that I would never be stable not really.

I learn daily my neurons' plasticity.
All thanks to repetition.

Yes I get tempted to work longer
to stay deeper in screens
but that doesn't help me. 
I'm learning to stop sooner.

pace
stay healthy
shift
 
take time to breathe 
the blue
the bicycles
a ringing bell

resist the urge to control
hear the music of stillness

​I'm captured by cremated energy.

keep it small 
your day will thank you 
I know you're addicted

let go
your body/brain
will thank you 
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Photo by Michelle on Unsplash
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simplify

5/31/2019

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I invest in the edge between brutality and beauty. 
I write until I run out of ink. 
I work until I run out of life.
 
I want to perform confidence. 
It's no longer a luxury.
It is what I need in order to do the job I must do.

I need to pull in the authority and believe I know what I'm doing. 
Say what is on my mind. Listen. Let that be enough.
​
I give away my time a lot
to help others with little things
because I feel I should.

This is a distraction. 

I need to hold each activity in my palms and sit with it. 
Marie Kondo it. 
Ask, does it give me joy?
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Marie Kondo-ing my life. Photo by Samantha Gades on Unsplash

And if not,
and especially if it also doesn't feed my belly or build bridges,
I can let it go. 

Each thing I take on has several elements inside. 
Going deeply into them takes me away from other things. 

I don't want to do any of it halfway.
​
I want to immerse in each job, not fall apart, not take it on the surface level.
I want to aim higher, go big. 
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Otherness Survey

5/24/2019

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Survey for New Play

​My next full-length play, see in the dark, will explore how we handle the threat of outsiders and ask the price of suspicion versus compassion.
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How does it feel to be an other or outsider? How does it feel to perceive others as outsiders? Photo by Alexis Chloe on Unsplash

As research for see in the dark, I'm asking some anonymous questions in the survey below. I'd love your input, as in-depth or quick as you'd like. You don't have to answer all the questions, but I appreciate your input toward any of these topics. 

You can also write answers to any/all of these questions below in the comments section, over email through my contact page, or if we're connected on Facebook/Twitter. 

I'll embed the form below and here is a link to the survey.

Thank you for your insights! By posting answers, know that your ideas, experiences and words may be used in this new play. 

Thanks again! 

Heidi Kraay
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Refresh, Renew, Reflect

1/4/2019

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Happy New Beginnings, everyone! Here are some of my highlights from last year. I'm very glad to be in 2019, but there were some sweet moments to look back on from 2018, for sure, some that I'd forgotten.

Highlights:
  • Workshopped How to Hide Your Monster in Creede, Colorado, followed by two readings through HBMG Foundation and National Winter Playwrights Retreat
  • My play New Eden was a semi-finalist at Eugene O'Neill Playwrights Center
  • Wrote Slap! A Beaver Tale as a Bown Crossing Library Writer in Residence 
  • Got a staged reading for Slap! at Boise Contemporary Theater (BCT)
  • Mission At Tenth, Volume 7 published (co-editor)
  • Spent a week in Pendleton, Oregon in an artist retreat with my dearest love
  • Saw Hamilton in Portland, OR, thanks to Jason McGrath and Nicole Laeger 
  • Received a grant from Alexa Rose Foundation, giving me paid sabbatical time to write my next full-length play in 2019 (yay this summer!)
  • My poem "there is no control" was published by 208 Fringe
  • Co-wrote, co-devised and performed in small matters: a big project about little things, Migration Theory's second full production 
  • Got lovely new head shots from the multitalented Sarah A Gardner
  • Visited gorgeous British Columbia -- Victoria, Vancouver and Hope -- with my favorite person. We finally used our passports, both of us for the first time!
  • Started three fantastic one-on-one writing mentorships with brilliant young and emerging writers
  • Taught Dramaturgy and Contemporary Theatre History classes at Boise State University, five courses altogether including Introduction to Theatre
  • My poem "warm/cool wet" was published by Before/After Godwink
  • My poem "Water Obsession" was displayed at Surel's Place 
  • My play CloudMelt was a top finalist for Women Playwrights' Initiative
  • Got a reading for my new play The Way Up at Opal Theatre Company's 10 Minute Play Festival
  • Read favorite selections from Migration Theory productions with Tracy Sunderland and Sarah Gardner at Campfire Stories Reading Series
  • Helped Ballet Idaho develop their new pre-show discussion program
  • Got the third play of my TYA trilogy commissioned for BCT'S Children's Reading Series in 2019
  • Made my first headstand in a yoga class.
  • Finished a draft of my first feature-length screenplay, The Hungry Ones
  • Got a reading of The Hungry Ones  through HomeGrown Theatre
  • Made plans for my third year at National Winter Playwrights Retreat in 2019
  • Made 121 submissions (mostly plays, a few poems and one essay) -- 21 plays above my goal of 100!
  • Spent sweet holiday time with family in Donnelly, Idaho, writing my latest play for young audiences, Polar Opposites: An Impossible Tale
  • Finished my first draft of Polar Opposites

Here are my three big goals for 2019 and 2020:

3 Big Goals for the Next Two Years:
  • Travel overseas with my favorite person 
  • Get to a Natalie Goldberg True Secret Writing Workshop
  • Send 200 submissions in 2019, 250 in 2020

2019 is my year of compassion, generosity and gratitude toward myself and others.
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Happy New Year from a friendly neighborhood Sasquatch near Hope, British Columbia.
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And from me! Photo Credit: Sarah Ann Gardner
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    Heidi Kraay

    Process notes on a work in progress (me). This mostly contains raw rough content pulled out of practice notebooks. Occasional posts also invite you into the way I work, with intermittent notes on the hows and whys on the whats I make. Less often you may also find prompts and processes I've brought to workshops, as well as surveys that help me gather material for projects. Similar earlier posts from years ago can be found on:

    ​50 Shades of Kraay

    Thanks for reading!​

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