Happy Friday!
Between opening my newest solo play, GRANDMA & ME: An Ode to Single Parents, last Saturday night and being two full weeks into grandparenthood myself with baby Nora, it’s been a whirlwind of activity!
First, for all of you who’ve been kind enough to ask, Nora and her parents Carolyn and Patrick are doing just fine. Nora gets cuter
every day, Her poor parents…more tired. It’s been almost 30 years since I was responsible for a newborn. I can’t believe how much I’ve forgotten, such as the whole “not sleeping through the night" thing. The poor kids are in shifts all night and exhausted.
I do remember how to change a diaper, though. Did you know that they’re Velcro now?? I’m old enough to
remember changing my baby sisters’ cloth diapers with diaper pins when I was a preadolescent helping out my mom and grandma. My own kids had the ones with adhesive fasteners. Now…Velcro. Maybe the next step is a self-changing diaper that senses when the baby is wet and changes itself. The other big change from the last time I did it…no more baby powder during changing. It’s apparently linked to cancer. Too bad, I liked that smell. It smelled
like…well, babies.
On the show front, Opening Night for GRANDMA was magical! It was a wonderful audience who got every joke and felt all of the pain and moving moments I’d intended when I wrote the play. They were right there. At the end, they gave me what was literally the longest standing ovation of my entire career. I couldn’t believe it. Lovely, lovely
audience. The reviews have started coming out and the critics have been very kind. Here are a few examples…
The San Francisco Chronicle wrote:
“You can’t help liking…”
The San Francisco Examiner wrote:
“If you are a single parent or you have a single parent in your life, you need to see this show!”
Broadway World wrote:
"Brims with humor and humanity"
"…a preternaturally gifted entertainer and storyteller"
"Copeland really shines"
"…well worth the
wait"
"…hits that sweet spot between funny and moving"
"Tells a tale not quite like anything I've seen onstage
before"
"It's a feat of dramaturgy, really, that we get two complete stories, two emotionally satisfying journeys, equally well-told and deftly tied together at the end"
SF Theater Blog wrote:
"As always, Copeland gives us wonderful
voices"
"Very funny as well as deep"
“A testament to single parents everywhere.”
Theater Dogs wrote:
"Every parent should be so lucky to have a child who pays such a beautiful tribute as Copeland does for his grandmother"
“A show that overflows with love.”
“Beautiful tribute.”
I am beside myself with joy. It took me two years to write this play. To have it be so well received by critics and theatergoers alike is beyond
gratifying. The show has been extended through November 19 and I’ve gotten the Marsh to continue with the specials I want to give to grandparents and single parents. Go to www.themarsh.org for
tickets. Use the code GRANDPARENT and you get your tickets for free. Use the code SINGLEPARENT15 and pay just $15 on Friday nights. Performances are Friday at 7:30 PM and Saturdays at 5. Ticket prices are on a sliding scale, $25-$100. You pay what you can afford in that range. I hope that you’ll come out this weekend and share this wonderful experience with me.
Got to a few things this week to tell you about…
READING
CONFIDENCE MAN: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America
By Maggie Haberman
Last week I recommended this book and, at 608 pages, I’m still deep into it. It’s by far the best book on Trump ever written. Maggie Haberman covered Trump for Politico and the New York Times her entire career, starting with Trump’s career as a blowhard, New York developer. It’s thorough, well sourced and scholarly. It’s not an opinion piece. She backs up everything that she’s written. It’s a cradle to grave bio that starts with the beginning of the Trump fortune that his grandfather started and goes through his presidency. It’s warts and
all.
What bothers me the most reading this book is the reporting that even though Trump is in his 70s, he has NEVER, EVER been held accountable for anything he’s done. Not for the laws he’s broken throughout his career as a businessman, not for the livelihoods
and reputations he’s ruined or the lives he’s affected in an adverse way to benefit him and only him.
One story in the book that sums up Donald Trump in a nutshell is his marriage to Marla Maples. He began an open affair with her while married to his first wife
and the mother of his three oldest children, Ivana. Ivana was actively working as his partner, running parts of his casino business in Atlantic City. He didn’t even bother trying to hide the affair from his wife. Once they divorced, he married Maples and they had a little girl. 4½ years later, he decided to divorce her and told the tabloids before even telling his wife. The reason for his change of heart? Maples' prenup agreement stated that if the marriage lasted 5 years, she would get
substantially more more money should they divorce. When asked about it later, Trump told confidants, “It was just good business.”
Copie’s Choice: READ
