What’s the Word?

By Rachael Altman, MA ‘09

I am no stranger to Hollywood. I have been visiting Los Angeles since the age of four, and loved every minute of it. While I have not made many true friends in this strange land, I have been happy spending quality time with my aunt, uncle, and cousins. I have spent the last three summers in Los Angeles, but this summer is by far the best. I did not come to California to spend all day at the beach or to spend the days shopping on Rodeo drive. I ventured out West this summer because I discovered an incredible internship at The WordTheatre in Santa Monica, California.

WordTheatre is a nonprofit organization dedicated to keeping the love of language and literature alive through the art of oral storytelling. This may come as a shock, but WordTheatre is not an actual theatre. Since it is a small nonprofit, we currently do not have enough money to buy a theatre; in fact, we do not even have an office. We work out of the director’s home, and the shows take place in cafes, bars, and other small venues.  WordTheatre is an experience not a mere explanation, but I will do my best to convey the revolutionary hipness of the organization.

Since its inception in 2003, Artistic Director Cedering Fox and her partners have been creating, producing and recording live events featuring literary works performed by world-class authors and actors at our salons in Los Angeles, New York and London. Past participants in WordTheatre events include James Franco (Spider Man, Pineapple Express), Amanda Seyfried (Mama Mia), Amber Tamblin (The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants), Angela Bassett (Malcom X), John Heard (Home Alone), Edi Gathegi (Twilight), and Jackson Rathbone (Twilight) among several others. We’ve done stories from authors such as T.C. Boyle, Rick Moody, Aimee Bender, Amy Bloom, Steve Almond, A.M. Homes, and Amy Hempel.

Aside from the commute from the Valley to Santa Monica, and the non-stop, bumper-to-bumper traffic, there is nothing about this internship that I can complain about. The weather in Santa Monica is perfect, and I spend my days reading stories and poems, as well as scouring the web for new stories and poems. Each day flies by because I spend my time at the office reading. This does not seem like work because I am doing something that I enjoy.

Recently I have been working on two upcoming shows: UPHEAVAL and Acts of Love: Pioneers. We decided to make UPHEAVAL a revolutionary show by picking stories that push the buttons of people’s comfort. WordTheatre wants to attract a younger audience with this show so we chose edgy stories: Crazy Glue by Etgar Keret, japanese children with digital cameras in a field by Tao Lin and Ellen Kennedy, and Stories by John Edgar Wideman. Acts of Love is the seventh annual WordTheatre benefit show for Autism Speaks. The theme this year is Pioneers. These can be pioneers of art, music, politics, literature, science, or really just about anything. After putting together more than two hundred pages of pioneers research, I am confident in my newly discovered knowledge of “pioneers” and the future of the show.

I have been working at WordTheatre for almost six weeks, and with only two weeks left, I cannot believe how fast the summer has gone by. WordTheatre is a one of a kind experience. I actually feel attached and invested in the work I have completed this summer. I have read some great (and not-so-great) stories, but I have discovered new authors and broadened my literary horizon.