COMING IN HOT

a controversial new play

based on

Powder: Writing by Women in the Ranks, from Vietnam to Iraq adapted for the stage by Shannon Cain, Lisa Bowden & Jeanmarie Simpson

with award-winning actor Jeanmarie Simspon

and Vicki Brown on viola

directed by Lisa Bowden

Premiered in Tucson September 24-27, 2009

For booking information and upcoming performances call 520-327-2127

(Booking info page coming soon)

                                     ...           

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING ABOUT

Coming in Hot

Coming in hot is military lingo to arrive with guns blazing, moving as fast as possible.

 

". . . you should run to see this show;

not simply because you'd enjoy it,

but because it's your duty."

—Jeremy Cole, script consultant, Amnesty International activist, San Francisco

see behind the scenes of Coming in Hot

POST A COMMENT TO THE BLOG

Sara Corbett, The New York Times Magazine, says of Powder

Here is American military history as it hasn’t been glimpsed before—through the eyes of creative women who have served. Powder introduces a 360-degree view of war and the soldier’s society,and what it means to be female inside them.

Andrea Miller, Curve magazine:

While soldier stories hold a hallowed place in media and literature, the voices of the women who serve are often subdued or drowned out altogether. Cain and Bowden make a great start toward remedying this [...]. This page-turner is an insider's look at what it's really like to be a servicewoman.

Powder contributor Charlotte Brock asks  

“Why is there no national debate on the fact that women are subject to institutional discrimination in the US Military? Nowhere else in this country are women so blatantly prohibited from certain jobs solely on the basis of gender. The American public should know what military women have achieved, what they have gone through, and what issues they face."

***

Coming in Hot is adapted for the stage from the first-ever collection of memoir and poetry by women who have served in the United States military, offering a rare glimpse into the current status of women at work in the nation’s biggest corporation—the U S military.

The writing here exposes the frontline intersection of women and soldiering, describing from a steely-eyed female perspective the horror, the humor, the cultural clashes and the fear. Contributors to Powder and Coming in Hot have seen conflicts from Somalia to Vietnam to Desert Shield. They worked as air traffic controllers, medics, Arabic linguists, sonar technicians and interrogators. Many joined the military as teenagers and left in their twenties; others remained for a career of service. The poems and personal essays adapted for the one-woman show are inspired by a photo album of the enemy dead; heat exhaustion on an afternoon in Mosul; a first jump from an airplane; fending off advances from Iraqi men; an attempted rape by a Navy SEAL; contemplation of suicide; and a spiritual meditation on preparing the bodies of fallen comrades for burial.

***

THANKS TO:

Joan Kaye Cauthorn

Renee Morton

Sara Dobbis

Joel Arthur

BeachFleischman

Charlote Brock

Borderlands

Ryan Bruce

Liz Burden

Drew & Andrea Burk

Jennifer Camano

Joan Kaye Cauthorn

City High School

Flam Chen/Paul Weir

Jeremy Cole

Erin Collier, Joni & Rosie

The Coyote Wore Sideburns

Karen Falkenstrom/Odaiko Sonora

Feast

Kim Fry

Gene Hall

Jorge Gonzales

Congressman Raul M. Grijalva

Councilmember Rodney Glassman

Todd Hanley, Richard Oserand

Kristine Jensen

Amanda Krauss

Councilmember Steve Leal

Michelle Livingston

Loft Cinemas

Moniqua Lane

movement salon

Nora Nickerson

Krista Joy Niles

Pima Friends Meeting

Pima Meeting Peace &

Social Concerns Committee

Tamara Prime

Marco Prado

Steven Petersen

Kate Randall

Eve Rifkin

Nancy and Jared Rifkin &

   The Book Club Ladies of Queens, NY

Colleen Runyan

Alice Ritter

Rhythm Industry Performance Factory

Regina Romero

Betsey Rollins

Erin Russ

Bill Shiba

Don Simpson

Jeff Simpson

Skip Streib

Christina Smith

Carla Stoffle

Mirto Stone

Monique L Tippins

TC Tolbert

UA Po Cent

Tony Vaccaro

Councilmember Nina Trasoff

Council member Karin Uhlich

Les Wallach

Angela Walker

Jeff Webster

Dean Mary Wildner Bassette

Brooke Willock

WILPF Tucson

Kathleen Williamson

Adam Wojcik

Margret Wojcik

Laura X

Amy Zenizo, L.M.

Zuzi

the creative team for Coming in Hot:

light & set design

Beth Weinstein's practice, Architecture Agency, focuses on collaborations with visual and performing artists, in and out of proscenium space. She is an Assistant Professor at the UA School of Architecture (MA Architecture, Columbia) and her research and writing focses on architecture and choreography. Honors include the Architectural League’s Young Architect’s Award, residencies at France’s Casa de Velazquez and the Tucson MoCA.

actor/writer

 Jeanmarie Simpson is a peace activist and theatre/film artist. She is founding artistic director of the Nevada Shakespeare Company and starred in the film version of her play, A Single Woman, based on the life of first US Congresswoman and lifelong pacifist, Jeannette Rankin. Simpson is a Lifetime Member of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, and has been a pacifist and human rights/peace activist since 1984. She writes for Buzzine.com, wemagazine.com and commondreams.org.

writer

 Shannon Cain is the co-editor, with Lisa Bowden, of Powder: Writing by Women in the Ranks, from Vietnam to Iraq. (Kore Press, 2008). She is the recipient of a 2006 creative writing fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, a 2008 O. Henry Prize and a 2009 Pushcart Prize. She earned her MFA in 2005 from the Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College and is at work on a novel. She is Kore Press' Fiction Editor.

director/producer

 Lisa Bowden is the Publisher/CEO of Kore Press. She is an editor, writer and designer who works improvisationally with dancers and musicians. Last year she co-directed a multi-genre ensemble of 25 artists doing site-specific, improvisational work in Tucson's public spaces. Honors include an ADDY for a design collaborative for His Holiness the Dalai Lama. She is the editor of Autumnal: A Collection of Elegies, and co-editor with Shannon Cain of Powder: Writing by Women in Ranks, from Vietnam to Iraq.

production manager

Kaylene Torregrossa is a senior at the University of Arizona, graduating in May 2010 with a B.A. in Theatre Arts and Gender & Women's Studies. She is president of the V-Day Vagina Warriors, an on-campus student club dedicated to stopping violence against women and girls worldwide. In March 2009, she directed the Arizona premiere of "Any One of Us: Words from Prison," to benefit Tucson's Women's Re-Entry Network. In February 2010, she will direct the University of Arizona's production of "The Vagina Monologues."

sound artist

Vicki Brown has been performing and recording in the US and abroad since 2003. Music from her first album, Winter Garden, appears on Kore Press' Autmunal, and is featured on NPR's Second Stage. Her second release, Seas and Trees, got CD Baby's Editor's Pick for Avante-Garde genre. She has composed music for the University of Arizona Repertory Theater's 2009 production of Rum & Coke. Vicki does compositional improvisation with dancers, writers, and musicians.

 

filmmaker

Jamie A. Lee, award-winning independent filmmaker, owns visionaries filmworks (http://www.visionariesfilmworks.com), a social justice media production company. Jamie's documentary films have screened on PBS and Free Speech TV. She has presented at the 2008 Women's World Congress in Madrid, Spain, the 2008 National Communications Association Annual Convention, and the 2009 New Directions in Critical Theory Conference about the power of storytelling using media to start conversations and make lasting change.  

 

Honor a Female Soldier

Donate $25 in her name and she will be listed in the dedication in the opening credits of the film version of the play.

  

(Please write in the name of the

soldier you wish to honor in the

"note" section of this transaction.

Thank you!)

 
  

 

See Coming in Hot as Tucson Weekly's Pick of the Week and Director Lisa Bowden's response below:

"Vicki Brown, along side Jeanmarie Simpson is the other live, on-stage, performer in the show, and an equal part of the collaborative team (which also originally included Shannon Cain, Beth Weinstein, & Kaylene Torregrossa). The influences of all these artists remain part of the show whether they are actively and currently working on it or not, of course. The music/sound (composed specifically for the play) is a significant element creating mood, presence and dimension. The play was adapted for the stage by Shannon Cain, Lisa Bowden and Jeanmarie Simpson, based on the book *Powder: Writing by Women in the Ranks, from Vietnam to Iraq* (Kore Press, 2008)--the first ever collection to amass writing by women who have served in the US Military. This is activist theater (and for some, yes, it IS very much, at its root, anti-war theater---as the literature of war is an argument for peace.) Part of that activism is to create critical rather than polemical dialog around the very complicated (and very human, and socially-politically charged) subject matter. The play presents true stories by women who are soldiers as well as writers--a rare combination. These are perspectives we are beginning to hear more of at this moment in our history. The point of view is personal, the narratives often horrific, as is war, as is the discrimination and opposition women face while "serving" their country. Outrage, indignation, compassion, disgust, confusion, sorrow, pride, intrigue, sadness---these are the emotions you'd likely experience all at once while watching this production.*Coming in Hot* cannot be talked about accurately by glossing over or missing these points entirely."

--Lisa Bowden, Director