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New York, New York
All of BOLD’s New York City activities were organized by the national BOLD office. Originally, since this was BOLD’s first year, we had decided last spring to not stress ourselves out with a national event. But…when BOLD’s “fever” kept spreading throughout the world we just couldn’t stop ourselves from putting together a BOLD Labor Day weekend in New York City! BOLD’s founder, Karen Brody, reports: I decided for BOLD’s first national statement wouldn’t it be great to gather well-known professionals who are out in the world making birth mother-friendly and get them up on a stage to read the play – to make a statement that it’s time to BE BOLD about birth? I rang up Henci Goer, author of The Thinking Woman’s Guide to a Better Birth, first. To my delight she said yes! Then I rang Barbara Harper, president of Waterbirth International and author of Gentle Birth Choices and she too enthusiastically said YES! Wow, to get Henci and Barbara together reading Birth in New York felt like a huge honor. These women have dedicated long miles and many hours to supporting a model of birthing that is mother and baby centred. I was thrilled! Of course some wonderful birth professionals like Penny Simkin, Ina May Gaskin and Marsden Wagner weren’t available, but this did not deter me. I needed to be BOLD! The BOLD cast was incredible. Elena Carrillo (Lamaze Board member and director of a prestigious birth center in Mexico City) signed on, Jenna Houston (Executive Director of Midwives to Midwives and a beloved midwife who produced a fabulous tape I used every day when I was pregnant with my boys called Journeying Through Pregnancy) said yes, Larry Perl (mother-friendly obstetrician from upstate New York and married to Jenna) said yes too, Debra Pascali-Bonaro (doula, co- chair of CIMS International and a leader with the International Mother-Baby Initiative) played phone and email tag with me and then committed, Carol Penn (former Lamaze board member, prenatal yoga instructor and doctor of osteopathy) jumped on board, and Jillian (yes, the REAL Jillian whose birth journey is in the play!) enthusiastically said yes. What a BOLD cast!
Since everyone was flying in from all over (the world!) we didn't even start rehearsing until the Saturday evening of Labor Day weekend. How BOLD is THAT?!! Our fabulous director, Heidi Miami Marshall, had worked with everybody individually on their parts, but Saturday was supposed to be our first read-through of the script. Well, get a bunch of birth activists and mothers together and ask them to tell you their birth stories (which we did) and 4 hours later we conceded that the script probably wasn't going to be read that night. We did bond deeply with each other by sharing our birth stories. It's amazing how we all saw threads of ourselves in each others' stories.
We had our first read-through on Sunday afternoon
after an exhilarating "Bagels
and Birthstories" at the Red Tent Women's Project. Let me digress and
tell you that the Red Tent event was beyond my expectations. Decorated like
a harem with red scarves, red couches, and red cushions we gathered under the
tent and told our stories. Barbara Harper, Henci Goer, Jillian (the REAL Jillian!)
and myself were all there listening to these women speak. And speak they did...from
making birth sounds together...to listening to an African American woman's
teenage pregnancy story to a homebirth mother telling us of her emotional homebirth
where she felt she could no longer do it (transition?!) and she was kneeling
on the floor in pain and her midwife got down on the floor with her, looked
her in the eyes and said, "Match the pain! Match the pain with your voice,
Shannon!"... to a mother telling us her c-section story (really, Sandy's
story in the play) where the baby's heartbeat was dropping and she was given
a c-section and now she is 10 weeks pregnant with her 2nd baby and wants to
do it differently and has no family support... to a tear-jerking story of a
woman named Natalie who found out after she went into labor that she had medical
midwives and when her labor stopped after she entered the hospital she was
told after a while in labor that "we're going to cut you if you
don't give birth in one hour" so somehow she managed to dilate to 10cm
(she said through ALOT of visualization) but then as she was pushing the midwife
took out scissors for an episiotomy and Natalie yelled, "No! Don't cut
me! I don't want to be cut" The midwife began cutting and Natalie screamed, "No!
No! No! PLEASE don't cut me!!!!!" and the midwife kept cutting. Natalie
ended up with a 4th degree tear and now, sitting at the Red Tent with us
very pregnant and about to deliver her baby any day now, she told us that
with her 2nd pregnancy she has gone for no prenatal care and plans to deliver
her baby unassisted at home with only her husband, friend and son present.
It was an incredible and all-too-real story. Is this what some pregnant women
have to do to feel safe? Certainly Natalie felt so.
Barbara, Henci, Jillian and I had a hard time pulling ourselves away from the Red Tent, but after 4 hours we left and went to rehearsals on 21st Street between 5th and 6th Avenue at Center Stage, a rehearsal space. Well, honestly, while we all had fun reading it was quite scary to think we were actually going to pull off a performance on a professional stage the next day! None of us were actors! We rehearsed for 4 hours and then all went out for a fun dinner.
Labor Day. Well, it was time to rise to the occasion! And boy did we. We had a tech rehearsal on the stage at our venue (Symphony Space on 95th Street and Broadway) where we ran through the entire script. We practiced using the onstage microphones (really challenging to remember to speak into them!) and stopped and started about a hundred times as the director and sound/light crew played with the lights/sound while we kept shouting out at them, "You rock!"
The tech rehearsal was supposed to end at 5pm giving the cast 2 hours before show time. Well, at 6.30pm we ended so I thought, of course they'll start the show later than 7pm - I had a woman coming to do a 15 minute blessingsway, the cast needed to eat, and I had about 100 people to connect with before I too went on stage (as Sandy!) - but the stage manager politely told us at 6.45pm "I'm letting the audience in and the show will start at 7.05." GULP! Everyone was rushing around, shoving Chinese food into their mouths, getting on their "costumes," letting a professional makeup woman put on their makeup. It was ALL happening. Time was flying. Suddenly it was 7.05pm and we were all waiting backstage to go on stage. Jenna Houston and Barbara Harper brought the entire cast together...we held hands and grounded ourselves...honored all birthing women...and honored all of us for being BOLD with so many other BOLD casts around the world. It was a special moment. Then a beeping sound went off and we took the stage.
What an experience to walk out on stage and perform my own play. I can't explain it. It was a thrill. And for all of us it was very exciting to hear the audience reacting to the words we were saying. I think it was the audience that got us into it the most. We really, truly did a magnificent job! The crowd loved it and especially loved when Barbara Harper was shouting "My Body Rocks!" and Debra Pascali Bonaro as the doula was getting the crowd to shout back "Your Body Rocks!"
I think all of us felt our director, Heidi Miami Marshall, was the best. Smart, funny and - like I mentioned before - very cheerful considering not many of us had any acting experience! Below is a photo the stage manager took of some of us backstage with Heidi right after the show. Thank you Heidi! YOU ROCK!
The second half also went well and suddenly we were at the talkback. What an honor to have Dr. Christianne Northrup, author of Mother-Daughter Wisdom and many other important books, come speak at our BOLD Talkback. Dr. Northrup enthusiastically supports BOLD and made that VERY clear by coming to speak at our Talkback.
I think the Talkback lasted almost 2 hours!!! We finally finished up because Symphony Space was kicking us out! Everyone was amazing. Dr. Northrup wanted to know why most women are not reading all the great birth books out there? And she said that right now with the birthing climate she has told both her 20-something daughters that if they are pregnant she thinks their best options to have a safe gentle birth in the USA are to homebirth or go to The Farm. She said she got out of obstetrics in 1985 because she couldn't stand seeing how they treated women and thought it could get no worse and – but it has she told the sold-out crowd of 160. She thinks BOLD may be the answer to start getting pregnant women aware that their bodies rock and that they deserve a good birth. Henci spoke about the need for accountability in the maternity care system. Barbara Harper called What to Expect an "epidural for the brain." Everyone screamed LISTEN TO WOMEN and to women the panelists screamed LISTEN TO YOURSELF...if your gut tells you to leave a situation when you're pregnant follow that instinct. One audience member said she wanted to see BIRTH on college campuses. I told her find me the funding and it's there!
All and all it was an amazing weekend – a BOLD celebration and discussion of what birth is and what it can be. I received many emails after the show, but one of them I felt I must share with you:
The New York show at Symphony Space was a benefit for the Red Tent Women’s Project, the only community center in New York City for all women. They welcome all who identify as women to the Red Tent Women's Project, whatever your background, identity, or life experience, including race, ethnicity, age, spiritual path, sexual orientation, country of origin, citizenship status, class, etc. Check out their website www.redtentwomensproject.org for information on how to get involved and our upcoming activities and events. BOLD is hoping to sponsor more “bagels and birthstories” events there…email us at birthonlaborday@gmail.com to be put on our “bagels and birthstories” email list. All proceeds for the Red Tent will go towards programs supporting mother-friendly childbirth and to help keep the center going. A BOLD thank you to… Tim, the playwright’s husband,who spent the summer days doing fulltime childcare and running the household so Karen could BE BOLD. Annette Brody, the playwright’s mom, who opened up her apartment so many of the BOLD cast members could have a place to stay and was an incredible hostess. Heidi Miami Marshall for her enthusiastic “yes!” when Karen asked her to direct the New York show and for her cheerful optimism that she could turn a group of birth professionals into actors in 3 days (well, make that 2!). And to all the “hands” that helped make the production possible.
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