Yvette Sirker — playwright, director, actor
Restoration Resident — March 2006
A Studio in the Woods/ A Refuge for a Refugee
By Yvette Sirker
In late August 2005, I sat in horror for endless hours watching the events of hurricane Katrina, and the subsequent flooding, unfold before my eyes on national television. It was only a matter of hours after hearing of the levee breaks that I realized I had lost my home. Katrina took the roof and the levee breaks brought eleven feet of water into my home. Within weeks, I learned that I also lost sets, costumes, props, crew, and collaborators for several theater projects that I had schedule for my 2005-2006 theater season. To add insult to injury, I eventually learned from online news that I had lost my job as an acting teacher in the New Orleans Public School’s Gifted and Talented program, and my health coverage. Most painful, however, was the loss of my sense of community. Pre-Katrina, I was fortunate to be a part of an arts community that consisted of theater artists, visual artists, musicians, dancers, and writers. As a member of this community, I enjoyed the rare opportunity of financial stability in the arts world, through a combination of steady theater work as a playwright, director, producer, actor, with wonderfully satisfying work as an acting teacher. With the loss of the education system to anchor our financial lives, and with the loss of so many theater venues, my community was, sadly, scattered to the winds.
Without a home and a steady income, I found myself faced with a difficult decision: get a new home and start over elsewhere, or remain homeless and committed to my work in theater and finish several of the projects to which I had committed for the upcoming theater season. The decision was easy. Realizing this task was not so easy. But with the help and support of residency programs like A Studio in the Woods, I was able to take time away from the devastation of my home and community, to complete two theater projects that were very dear to my heart.
In 2003 I began writing a play called “Pink Collar Crime”, a play about a group of women during hurricane season in New Orleans. As these women go about the struggles of their everyday lives, they also face the inevitable annihilation of their hometown as a result of a hurricane and flooding. Corporate greed resulting in global warming, and the destruction of the Louisiana wetlands, is addressed in this work. As is the historic and legendary incompetence of the Army Corps of Engineering. The issue of crime in America is raised by the fact that the corporations and engineers who would inevitably have New Orleans’ blood on their hands, would never be prosecuted for their crimes. “Pink Collar Crime” is a time capsule of New Orleans before the devastation.
The first work-in-progress presentation of “Pink Collar Crime” took place on June 20, 2004 at Ashe Cultural Center in Central City New Orleans. Eight months later, Jefferson Performing Arts Society (JPAS) offered to produce the world premier at experimental venue, Teatro Wego. In July 2005, JPAS went to press with their 2005-2006 season with “Pink Collar Crime” scheduled for a May 12, 2006 opening. One month later, on August 29, 2006, “Pink Collar Crime” turned from a cautionary theatrical work into a play about the worst natural disaster in American history.
While a refugee in Austin, Texas, I learned from internet news that JPAS sustained significant damage but was planning to go ahead with a scaled down season that included “Pink Collar Crime” in its originally scheduled slot. So, I decided that, come more hell or more highwater, I would do everything I could to get the last draft of this play ready for the May opening.
Thanks to A Studio in the Woods, all proceeded as planned. With no home in New Orleans to return to for the rehearsal and production process, ASITW provided me with a month-long safe landing while I went through the painful process of re-entering my ravaged community. Close enough to New Orleans to allow me to go about the pre-production process, ASITW turned into a much needed quiet place, in a damaged but still beautiful natural setting. I was able to dash into New Orleans for production meetings, then return to this very peaceful setting, a stone’s throw from the Mississippi River. My days began with a pot of tea on my porch swing, overlooking a lovely pond complete with singing frogs to serenade me. I watched in wonder as spring burst through the shocked limbs of trees healing themselves from the ferocious hurricane winds that rendered them bare seven months before. My hours and hours of writing were accompanied by many species of birds singing praises to the arrival of spring’s rebirth. I took morning jogs along the Mississippi River, and did yoga on my work-studio deck. Lucianne Carmichael took great care in providing healthy organic food and delicious dinners. David Baker, ASITW’s environmental biologist delighted me with details of nature’s ability to heal herself. He was a wealth of information on the flora and fauna of this last piece of sacred land in the New Orleans city limits. Ama Rogan was a joy to get to know, great to talk to, and I look forward to an ongoing friend ship with her, and all the folks at ASITW.
With all the challenges of re-entering my hometown post-apocalypse, ASITW provided me with all that I needed to prepare for the rehearsal process and , production of “Pink Collar Crime”. ASITW hosted a playwrights reading of “Pink Collar Crime” which became a joyous first gathering of the cast and crew. Ray Vrazel, the director made a delicious pot of red beans and rice using his secret Jazz Festival recipe. We sat at a large table, in the screened porch of Lucianne and Joe’s home, to read the new draft. The new cast had traveled far and wide from around the country to be a part of this exciting project. It was a great way to get rehearsals underway for “Pink Collar Crime”. And, I took great pleasure in watching the actors and crew wander around the property, climbing on fallen trees, and gazing at the rebounding woodlands.
In addition to my work on “Pink Collar Crime”, I was also able to write a new one-act called “Hay Outta Hell”, which focuses on the issue of security, based on my post-Katrina experience.
The funds provided by ASITW were instrumental in helping me secure a place to live when I transitioned from the woods into New Orleans. And the supplies budget allowed me to replace the many office supplies lost to the floodwaters. Finding myself a refugee in my own country has been an experience of epic proportions. There have been unfathomable challenges, and surprising gifts. I am eternally grateful to ASITW for providing me with a refuge for creating and healing during this extraordinary time in my life, and in evolution as a theater artist. It was truly a refuge for a refugee.
Biography
Playwright, producer, actor, director, and choreographer, Yvette Sirker is a native of New Orleans, Louisiana, born to Nicaraguan immigrants with East Indian heritage.
The world premier of her latest work "Pink Collar Crime" (PCC), ran in May 2006 Jefferson Performing Arts Society. PCC is the story of two days in the lives of a group of present-day New Orleans residents, during hurricane season. The play is a meditation on the cycles of human existence, and the rise and fall of civilizations. Ms. Sirker’s operative question is: “If future historians or archeologists were to one day discover the submerged city of New Orleans, what would I want them to know about the cause of city’s demise?” Her response is a humorous and poignant theatrical work that is a time capsule of New Orleans before “the big one”. PCC addresses the roles of corporate greed and the historic and legendary incompetence of the Army Corps of Engineers, in the destruction of the Louisiana wetlands. As the world now knows without wetlands, the city had been vulnerable to annihilation by a category three or higher hurricane for decades. PCC sheds light on the inadequacies of our legal system: although the Army Corps of Engineers and CEO’s in the oil and chemical industry have post-Katrina blood in their hands, they will never be brought to justice. Ms. Sirker predicted this years before her hometown was devastated by hurricane Katrina and the subsequent flooding. Her play now has greater resonance, and significance as everything she wrote about in 2003/2004 has come to pass. In her time capsule, Ms. Sirker depicts the lives of five New Orleans women during hurricane season. As they struggle with the complications of everyday life, the threat of annihilation by a hurricane looms in the background. In face-off with a white collar criminal, a deadbeat “ex” and father, and a category five hurricane, the women rise to these challenges with an act of “pink collar crime”. Despite the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina, “Pink Collar Crime” will go on as scheduled in a scaled down post-Katrina production. PCC was developed in 2003 and 2004 with grants from the National Endowment of the Arts, the Louisiana Division of the Arts, and the Arts Council of New Orleans. Zhoux Zhoux Theatre Company produced a work-in-progress presentation on June 20, 2004 at Ashe Cultural Center in Central City New Orleans. The JPAS world premier was a collaboration with Zhoux Zhoux Theatre Company. It ran at JPAS’s Teatro Wego from May 12, 2006 – May 28, 2006.
Just before Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, Ms. Sirker was in the development stages of "Other", a work addressing the issue of identity in the American south. “Other” is based on her experiences as an American of Latina-American/East Indian heritage caught in the middle of the black versus white race struggle in the Louisiana south. Pre-Katrina "Other" was in rehearsals for a September 2005 presentation at The Big Top in Central City New Orleans and was produced by Zhoux Zhoux Theatre Company, Community Arts and Decentralized grants from the Arts Council of New Orleans. Because flooding destroyed all set pieces, props, artwork, and costumes, and because all collaborators are now displaced, this project has been postponed until the script can be re-worked to accommodate new circumstances.
Finally, in its infancy stage is work called “K-Factor”, a multi-disciplinary work exploring the concept of “apocalypse” through dramatic text, theatrical movement, modern dance, and music. The Drilling Company of New York City commissioned Ms. Sirker to write a one-act on the issue of “security”, based on her post-Katrina experience. The resulting work, “Hay Outta Hell” was written during Ms. Sirker’s March 2005 Playwrighting Residency at A Studio in the Woods in Algiers, Louisiana. “Hay Outta Hell” had it’s first reading in New York City on April 2, 2005, at The Drilling Company Theater. The world premier of “Hay Outta Hell” will run in November 2006, at The Drilling Company Theater. Eventually, “Hay Outta Hell” will be the first act of the full-length work, “K-Factor”.
Past work includes an Artist Residency at Dillard University where Ms. Sirker directed "Flyin' West", and "Eden". During her residency, she wrote/directed "Troubled Waters" which won a Big Easy Award and an ACTF Award. With a commission from Delgado College in New Orleans, she wrote and directed “Speakeasy” which won her a Louisiana Division of the Arts Fellowship in Playwrighting. "Speakeasy" and "Troubled Waters" both bring to life events surrounding the Great Mississippi River Flood of 1927. Other directing credits include "Twelfth Night" and "Love's Labour's Lost" at the Shakespeare Festival at Tulane, where she also played the role of Lady Macbeth. As an actor Ms. Sirker has recently been seen in "Hello Sister, Goobye Life!" on Disney TV, "Infidelity" on Lifetime Network TV, "The Madam's Family" on CBS TV, "Cloning Judson" at Southern Rep Theater. She co-wrote and performed in "And Momma Said" for Zhoux Zhoux Theatre Company, and played the role of Purl in “Pink Collar Crime”. Her choreography credits include "Dawn in the Floating City", "A Woman Called Truth", "Hair" and "West Side Story".
Active in the field of theater education, Ms. Sirker has taught acting at Tulane University, Dillard University, Delgado College, and the New Orleans Public School's Talented in Theater program, and the New Orleans Public School’s Arts in Education Program. She created the Shakespeare Festival at Tulane's Apprentice and Intern Program, and developed acting training programs for the New Orleans Chapter of Young Audiences, and Zhoux Zhoux Theatre Company. She is founding Artistic and Executive Director of Zhoux Zhoux Theatre Company a new 501(c)3 organization devoted to the development of new theatrical works that address issues of the contemporary American south, with a specific focus on southern women of all races.
Ms. Sirker holds a B.A. in English from Cornell University, and an MFA in Acting from New York University. She has been awarded grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Louisiana Division of the Arts, the Arts Council of New Orleans, Bellsouth, the RosaMary Foundation, and the Kabacoff Family Foundation. In addition to a Fellowship in Playwrighting from the Louisiana Division of the Arts, she has also been awarded Gambit Weekly's 40 Under 40 Award for outstanding contribution to theater in New Orleans.
Since Katrina, Ms. Sirker has taken refuge in Playwrighting Residencies at the Santa Fe Art Institute in New Mexico, and A Studio in the Woods. In July 2006 she will serve as Playwright in Residence at the Montalvo Art Center in Saratoga, California.
