By Alisha Giampola (writer/performer) Today is International Women's Day, and a lot of women around the country are participating in a "strike" organized by those who also organized the recent Women's Marches, in support of income equality and also resistance of the current administration's agendas that so disproportionately affect women. Some schools are even closing because of how many educators requested the day off, which is awesome. The school I work for sent an email to us encouraging those who were still teaching today to wear red in solidarity. I encourage my fellow artists to participate in any way you... Continue reading

...Baby iguanas. Seriously though, read on. By Alisha Giampola (writer/performer) This week, we learned that we might be living in The Matrix. After a totally crazy last minute envelope mixup at the Oscars, America went from thinking the highest film award honor of Best Picture had gone to preposterously over-hyped and under-whelming La La Land to realizing that it had actually gone to the deeply moving, amazingly written, and incredibly beautiful Moonlight (strong opinions mine). This alternate reality scenario in which the best possible outcome happened to be actually true, got most of us wondering "can we go back and... Continue reading

In this review: SPOILERS for the experience of seeing Then She Fell. You've been warned. By Alisha Giampola (writer/performer) I am a sucker for immersive theatre experiences. I loved Sleep No More. I want all of my future theatre experiences to involve snacks and/or alcoholic beverages and even slightly intense prolonged eye-contact. Perhaps because I know what it feels like to be on the actor's side of the fourth wall, I love shows that totally destroy that wall and ask the audience to step over the crumbled ruins of it and into the action. If Sleep No More offers a... Continue reading

By Alisha Giampola (writer/performer) Three recommendations for some short film watching this Oscar season that are all better than La La Land: This year, my favorite Oscar-nominated live-action short film was a gut-wrenching, timely French piece that evoked the current refugee crisis and general political climate...Enemies Within. My favorite Oscar-nominated animated short film was a SANDPIPER film about a BABY SANDPIPER and featuring OTHER SANDPIPERS including an adorable MAMA SANDPIPER. Watch the whole film here and die of adorableness: Devastating, yet deeply vital to see, is my favorite Oscar-nominated documentary short: the Netflix film about the heroic efforts of the... Continue reading

It's only February. By Alisha Giampola (writer/performer) When satire has become reality, when those leading our government are making Orwellian propaganda seem tame by comparison, when the creators of South Park don't even know how to make fun of the current administration, because truth has become too much stranger than even the fictions of their twisted minds... what is the right approach? What tone do artists take during times like this to resist fascism and authoritarian moves like literally attempting to destroy the amendment that maintains our government's fine line of separation between church and state? It isn't funny anymore,... Continue reading

By Alisha Giampola (writer/performer) The Crazytown site has been down, and I'm not sure if it will be back up for this to post Wednesday morning, so I'm just going to leave two articles here that I think are worth a read during this intense week. ~ Sam Waterston's thoughtful opinion piece in The Washington Post. ~ David Frum (former Bush speechwriter) writes a long, but deeply thought-out article for The Atlantic. We'll be back up to our usual shenanigans next week- in the meantime, artists, don't put down those protest signs just yet! And if you haven't already, the... Continue reading

By Alisha Giampola (writer/performer) This past weekend, the Women's March drew millions of participants around the globe (on all 7 continents! Yes, on Antarctica too!!) In response to the march, Trump tweeted "Why didn't these people vote?" A similar sentiment to "Why are you marching anyway? Bet you don't even know." We do know. we did vote. I voted. Every single person I went to the march with or personally knew who was marching voted. We marched because it was the first day of an administration that women and marginalized people everywhere fear. We marched to hold a leader, who... Continue reading

All the ladies who truly feel me Throw your hands up at me By Alisha Giampola (writer/performer) I visited the Whitney Museum this past weekend with a dear friend on her birthday. She's an artist herself, and as a writer, I deeply respect anyone who can create a picture to replace my thousand words. We stopped at one point in front of the same piece, by Annette Lemieux, titled Left Right Left Right. Reading a bit about the artist and the piece, which was created in 1995, I learned that the piece used to be exhibited upright, with the fists... Continue reading

Welcome to 2017, year of the FIRE ROOSTER. Seriously. By Alisha Giampola (writer/performer) Has anyone in this family ever seen a fire rooster? When I was little I loved looking at the Chinese zodiac paper placemats that would invariably be under your plate of egg rolls and duck sauce. I loved how arbitrary the parings of years to animals seemed. I loved that awesome or mystical creatures like dragons and tigers held the same positions of importance as goats and rats. I loved that animals who would never in real life hang out together were considered compatible as friends or... Continue reading

Right. This. Very. Minute. By Alisha Giampola (Writer/Performer) It doesn't feel like Christmas yet in New York. There's only been a brief flurry of snow, nothing to stick, nothing to take a picture of. Even I, grumpiest of cold-weather persons, have not yet unpacked my heaviest winter coat. The overall feeling of sadness and dread that settled over the city after the election has not yet dissipated. Difficult times, corrupt leadership, war and strife, these things frequently nudge our greatest artists to produce their greatest art. Beauty is always best forged in the hottest fire. This week, I took myself... Continue reading

Better than Cyber Monday. By Alisha Giampola (writer/performer) My husband Daniel and I had a delightfully anti-Black-Friday this year. Instead of shopping, we spent the day eating leftovers and calling early voters for Foster Campbell's campaign for a Democratic Senate seat in Louisiana. It felt great to be doing something active and also aligned with protesting this weeks' collection of terrible things the president-elect is up to. If you're interested in helping to create a split in the Senate that would provide better checks and balances in our increasingly unbalanced government, you can learn more or donate time/money here. So... Continue reading

aka. It's Hamilton lyrics from here on out, people. By Alisha Giampola (writer/performer) Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and a lot of New Yorkers are making the pilgrimage (haha, see what I did there?) back to the small midwestern hometowns that they moved away from to be the artists, writers, and other assorted over-employed roles this city requires of them. The holidays can be tense for a lot of people, and this year, 2016, the most ridiculous year of all time, is probably going to be an especially tough one for some. Before we go a step farther, may I recommend something... Continue reading

"And we’re gonna take this country back for people like us, who don’t just think about things." - Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson By Alisha Giampola (writer/performer) "Take a stand against the elite... They don't care anything for us And we will eat sweet democracy And let them eat our dust." Reality television has a simple and deeply watchable formula. You get a handful of very different people into a house, or on an island, or on opposite teams, and then you gently poke at their insecurities and fears. You manipulate footage to make it seem like people are instigating fights,... Continue reading

By Alisha Giampola (writer/performer/all around nasty woman) You, reading this on Wednesday, know something that I, writing this on Tuesday night, do not. Who the president is going to be starting next year. As I go to bed with this all too close to call, after waking up at 6am excited perform a civic duty that I as a women have only had the right to do for less then a century, I must reflect on why I'm saddened right now. And it's not JUST because as I go to bed, a horrible satire of a person, whom I did... Continue reading

Anyway the wind blows; doesn't really matter... By Alisha Giampola (writer/performer) It's only a week till the election, guys. Can you/your stash of bourbon make it till then? What about the very likely resulting fallout of angry racists who feel disenfranchised? Or worse, the opposite of that? A lot of people are feeling some major existential dread this week, and you can really feel it here in New York City, safe haven for liberal intellectuals who already live with a taco truck on every corner and are here to tell you that it's fantastic. May I recommend trading in your... Continue reading

By Alisha Giampola (writer/performer) So it's almost Halloween, and you're interested in going as this year's most topical costume, a Nasty Woman. You might even have a Bad Hombre or two to take pictures with! This is pretty much the only political Halloween costume I'm interested in everyone I know dressing up as this year, so let me help you narrow down all the possible bad ass Nasty Women of American History that you could choose to go as. (If you missed the 3rd presidential debate and somehow have no idea what I'm talking about, please avail yourself.) ANGELICA SCHUYLER... Continue reading

....singular sensation. By Alisha Giampola (writer/performer/only child) I've been an only child my whole life. Outside of a very brief period of time around the age of eight, I have never wanted siblings. The brief desire for them was, honestly, probably more an interest in expanding the theatre company I fancied myself artistic director of than anything else. I enjoyed things happening my way, as a child. And they usually did. I liked casting the children who came over to play in elaborate productions about my obsession du jour. Which was frequently something like Ancient Rome, or the Druids, or... Continue reading

By Alisha Giampola (Writer/Performer) I went to Boston over this long weekend, and ate a lot of food and hung out with some friend's babies and made some observations about the stupidity of celebrating Columbus Day. A lot of terrible things happened this weekend too, like Hurricane Matthew, and the airstrikes on Aleppo, and the second presidential debate. And now it's Wednesday, and we all need something to get us through the rest of the week. So may I suggest..... ~ The new season of Drunk History is FINALLY HEEEERREEEEEE!!! ~ Go see Mary-Louise Parker in Heisenberg (no not that... Continue reading

Encountering the Amazon without taking off my headphones. By Alisha Giampola (writer/performer) Last week I had the opportunity to see the opening night of the first play to open the 2016/17 season on Broadway, Simon McBurney's one-man immersive audio-experience, The Encounter. The circumstances that led me to be sitting in the very first row (in front of Kevin Kline, no less!) of this production were related to my husbands' work, so I actually had not prepared myself in any way for the show I was about to see until the lights were dimming. Well, unless you consider preparing yourself to... Continue reading

The SCOTUS with the Mostest. By Alisha Giampola (Writer/Performer) The Notorious RBG gave a speech in New York City last week at the Temple Emanu-El Skirball Center, and I had the extreme honor of attending with my friend Ilana (of Argument Sessions fame). We stood in line to get our tickets checked with the obnoxiously giddy excitement of two teenagers circa 2002 at a Britney concert. Behold: It's tempting to say that this is the nerdiest picture I've ever been a part of, but I'm sure I'm underestimating myself. Justice Ginsburg was asked if she thought women still faced bias... Continue reading

By Alisha Giampola (Writer/Performer) Happy Almost-Autumnal-Equinox-Day, kids! It's fall. Everybody's favorite season. The least controversial time of year. A surefire way to get literally anyone to agree with you, across lines of religion, political party, or sports affiliation, is to profess your love for the fall. Who doesn't like fall? It's not too hot or too cold, the light is pretty, the leaves are pretty, the wardrobe color combinations are pretty. I myself, in fact, chose to get married on this very day four years ago, the day before the autumnal equinox of 2012, known by many women my age... Continue reading

On The Night Of and the slowing down of television. By Alisha Giampola (Writer/Performer) Behold the face of evil, maybe. HBO's immediately-addictive miniseries The Night Of concluded, appropriately perhaps, on my birthday. Since the finale on Sunday, the internet has had plenty of opportunity to decide how they felt about it, tear apart the plot, admire John Turturro's subtle, touching, eczema-plagued performance, and try to figure out if the fucking cat did it. Because in this new post-Breaking-Bad world, audiences not only accept intricate, realistically-paced drama on television, they practically demand it. The first gripping episode of this particular show... Continue reading

Beyoncé, most likely. By Alisha Giampola (Writer/Performer) I had the pleasure yesterday to participate in a documentary project conceived by an old pal from college/early days of restaurant work here in the city, Samantha Walsh. Her project, titled Womanish, "addresses what it means to be a strong woman". Sam clarifies that what most interests her in the idea of the "strong woman" is this: "why we even have to preface woman with that adjective in order to make that statement clear for the people around us, the society at large. But most importantly, for ourselves." Sam had reached out to... Continue reading

This one goes to Eleven. By Alisha Giampola (Writer/Performer) So, this image has been making the rounds on the internets over the past couple weeks and it's pretty much my favorite thing right now: image via. (credit where credit is due!) It got me thinking that someone better get to mashing up Stranger Things images with quotes from Strangers With Candy pretty quick. And then I thought, why could that person not be me?! It was obviously time to stop not doing what you pretended you can do and can't, and start doing the thing that you can't do, but... Continue reading

Who gets the gold in Synchronized Male Objectification? By Alisha Giampola (Writer/Performer) So, we've all been watching the Olympics, right? Right? RIGHT?! DEAR GOD AM I RIGHT?!!! Yes. We're all watching the Olympics, for many assorted excellent reasons. And today we continue our highly rigorous coverage of the Olympics with a fun interactive way to participate in these summer games! If you've been bitten by the Olympic bug and want to feel involved in Team USA, may I suggest something I've just invented called the Make It Through Your Week In NYC Olympics? Because isn't living in NYC basically like... Continue reading