A note from the editor:
My Culture Journal is a weekly series that consists of sharing a week in the cultural lives of Indy residents. If you are interested in submitting a journal, please send an email to Mirror Indy arts and culture editor Jennifer Delgadillo at jennifer.delgadillo@mirrorindy.org and tell us about yourself.
Day One:
11 p.m. I’m a bit of an arts jury junkie, having served on panels for Heartland International Film Festival, Broad Ripple Art Fair, and others. So while a multi-hour Zoom call may sound like a Saturday chore, I actually enjoy my time spent in the Indiana Film Journalists Association’s (IFJA) annual debate session to determine our awardees for 2023. I lobby hard for the French animated film “Robot Dreams,” and am happy to see it make IFJA’s top 10. You can see the full list here. My personal choices will be published later at Midwest Film Journal.
7 p.m. A holiday party populated mostly with folks from the local theater community. Highlights include sharing tales of first heartbreaks, a riotous round of Funemployment (a job interview improv game), and a chat with actors from the Philippines about “Here Lies Love,” the recent semi-immersive musical about Imelda Marcos that we all saw on Broadway recently. And it turns out I’m not the only person from Indy who saw the ill-fated “King Kong” musical.
Day Two:
1 p.m. Chipping away at rewrites on my latest play-in-progress. Dropping a character. Restructuring the ending. Trying to figure out a core relationship. I refer to these times as having a play “up on blocks.” It’s that time after a completed draft and a reading with actors when I have the piece disassembled in an effort to figure out what needs to be added and what needs to go.
4 and 7 p.m. Take breaks to watch two films I missed in the IFJA voting: Ava DuVernay’s “Origins” and the Nicolas Cage flick “Dream Scenario.” Start drafting my year end list. Instead of Best Films, I write about my Most Satisfying Films. There’s a difference.
Day Three:
6 a.m. In theory, I’m burning off my unused vacation days from my full-time job (editing Quill, the magazine of the Society of Professional Journalists and managing SPJ’s awards programs). But I’m still up early, so I watch another 2023 film, the gentle science fiction comedy “Jules.”
12:30 p.m. Semi-monthly lunch with a friend and arts mover/shaker, which includes an update on my projects as well as all things Indy arts/culture. Exhilarating and inspiring, as always. I hope you have at least one person around you who sees you as the person you want to be.
2 p.m. I recently started collecting graphic novels in the Fables comic book series after finding a few at a library book sale. But I was disturbed when told by someone who knows the genre better than me that the author has made some problematic choices in the past. What to do? My decision: Continue enjoying the books but only acquiring them through used or remainder bookstores and via trades. That way, there’s no money going into his pockets. I know it’s a small thing, but it feels right. So I make a few stops in my search, yielding one new volume. (If you have any you want to get rid of, feel free to contact me. Maybe I have something you’re interested in.)
Day Four
6 p.m. For my standing Tuesday night gig hosting Game Night Social at the Garage Food Hall, I basically serve as a board game concierge. Each week I have about 50 games to choose from and folks can borrow them to play, for free. I provide guidance and instruction as needed/wanted. We have some serious regulars and others who just happen to be out at Bottleworks and are up for trying something either familiar or new.
7:30 p.m. A family of eight is having a good time with Apples to Apples, a quartet is trying Thirteen Words for the first time, a pair of regulars are competing in The Queen’s Necklace, and a couple is sampling Timeline and Word on the Street.
10 p.m. Home for a late-night viewing of “Wonka” as the deadline looms for my year-end movie round-up.
Day Five
8 a.m. Therapy appointment where much of the discussion focuses on what I actually want, creatively in 2024. Conclusion: Collaboration. I thrive in collaborative environments, which is why I love it when a play of mine gets picked up for production. 2023 brought a few public readings but no full productions and I’m trying to change that in the coming year. Theater is such a dependent art. The play as written is just the blueprint. It’s not fully formed until there’s a creative team … and an audience.
10 a.m. In discussions about bringing back Indy Actors’ Playground, a play reading series that I co-founded and ran at Indy Reads Books prior to the pandemic. The idea was to give local professional actors a chance to select material they are burning to do. Each month we picked an actor, they picked a play and cast it, and we offered a free reading without any announcement of the chosen play. Lately, I’ve been asked by many if the series could return. If it does, the next one will be the 100th reading in the series. Tempting.
Day Six
2 p.m. More work on my play. It’s in here somewhere…
Day Seven
9:00 a.m. Breakfast with a Quill writer. Yes, I know it’s supposed to be a vacation day but this is hardly work since the freelancer — a former radio personality here who has now transitioned into a successful writing career — is delightful and the conversation lively.
11:30 a.m. Lunch with a local theater producer/director, including dissecting (in a productive way) a play reading of mine from early December. Excited to hear some of the projects in the works and to kick around some possible ideas, including a fundraiser that I’ve been trying to get someone interested in for more than a decade.
1:30 p.m. In what may look from the outside like a bizarro world drug deal, I meet a stranger in a parking lot to buy a copy of the board game Santa’s Workshop. While I still sometimes spring for a full-price purchase, a big part of my game collection has been acquired through similar trades and used-game purchases established through online connections. I look forward to introducing the game to players next Tuesday’s Game Night Social.
4 p.m. More arts jury work for pleasure. Reviewing the pile of recommended plays for the Steinberg/ATCA Awards. These are prizes given by the American Theatre Critics Association to outstanding world premiere plays that have not been produced in New York City. Each year, our committee reviews and discusses anywhere from a dozen to 35 plays, eventually awarding $40,000 in prizes.
4:30 p.m. Even better than reading the Steinberg/ATCA contenders is hearing them out loud. So, as I’ve done in previous years, I reach out to some interested actor friends about getting together to tackle a few. Enthusiastic response follows and a date is set.
10 p.m. End the day rereading “Mr. Ives’ Christmas,” by one of my favorite authors, Oscar Hijuelos. It’s been years since I first devoured it and, while I remember the tone, I don’t remember much of the story. Hijuelos’ writing is so rich in detail, so melancholy and so deeply human that I wish he was more appreciated beyond his Pulitzer-winning “The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love.”
10:30 p.m. I go down the internet rabbit hole wondering what happened to the stage musical version of “Mambo Kings,” which collapsed on the road back in the early 2000s.
12:30 a.m. Wait, how is it now 12:30?
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