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Linn Lane has been writing plays and performance poetry for women’s and gay theatre since 1973. Her credits include: six full length local productions, two video dramas, numerous performance pieces, and lots of dramatic poetry readings. (See descriptions below)
Of course, she also has unproduced scripts. Finding a proper theatre to do a production is a big problem for small local companies that Lane says has gotten worse over the years. “People have no idea what we need to do an actual production. Why don’t you do it in a restaurant, in the yard, or at the library, they say.”
People don’t realize a production team has to build a whole world, rehearse in it, and leave it there for an extended period. A play is not a concert or poetry reading or performance art. Also an audience needs to be comfortable to concentrate and become involved. They need to be able to see, comfortable in their seats, heated and cooled. Swatting at mosquitoes, bent up limbs, and background noise will ruin any mood.
To solve the Theatre space problem WomanKraft Mixed Media Players want to acquire a building where they can develop a 100 to 200-seat theatre to share with other small companies. A long time advocate of the notion that art groups need to own their own work space, the WomanKraft organization bought the Castle at 388 South Stone and turned it into an art center in 1992.
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LINN LANE’S BIO
People who don’t like being alone probably aren’t playwrights. Characters get you by the ear and they don’t shut up until you write it all down. Being a playwright is not easy and no one has to do it but someone always does, me, and others like me. Besides providing companionship and an obsession for life, writing plays lets you build whole worlds. That’s the best I can do for a reason why this particular activity means more to me than anything else in this world.
All my plays are character driven stories about gay people. Six of my full length and six of my short scripts have been produced locally. Two of the long plays have been made into video dramas. I’m also known for my dramatic poetry readings, ritual and performance art.
Though I may channel personalities, I have some practical traits too, the main one being stubbornness. Against the odds, in 1992 I was effective in helping my arts organization, WomanKraft, acquire our wonderful old Victorian building where we have developed The WomanKraft Castle Art Center. I am the Executive Director of this organization and have business training and background in administration.
My academic background is in Psychology and Speech/Communication. I’ve taught workshops and classes in writing, performance art, women’s theater, women’s writing, creative roots, psychic arts, group art making, creating from dreams, and fusion art. More recently my workshops focus on assisting others in organizing their lives so they can attain their life goals.
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LOSSES by Linn Lane
We speak of losses
And remember loved ones who have crossed
A childhood memory,
A favorite book,
Or pet,
Or place by the riverside,
Now the site of industrial uglyization,
A renovation that should never have happened.
A habit from the wildness of youth,
But our gravest wounds and losses are carried in places
More profound than anything remembered.
From other generations,
Brought over on ships,
Stored in the hull of our minds,
Below and shaping memory,
Remnants,
Torn thing,
Birds wings’
Frozen and on their own.
A hunger that chased a nation,
Across a sea,
All the while longing for
Name, home, hearth.
Or fleeing an old farm,
Fleeing to a foreign land,
Putting language away like bad china,
To be used only with the family.
These are the wounds that are deeper than memory.
An old broken cup that’s bleeding,
Such are the seeds of the heart.
Always it is the same story,
The same stony heartbreak, longing for land, for ruins of land,
Ruins of a time when there was a glory,
A joy in something quite ordinary,
Longing for the ruins of a way of life.
Some say this is so expected as to not need to be remarked upon
That it is all so gone.
But I say look long, look deep for every person is reacting to a secret and broken piece,
Every soul keening from these ancient losses.
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Drawing by Gayle Swanbeck
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