Dear folks,
This is a request from Terry's partner, Donna, for you to let her know if
you can help her with a documentary project she's working on -- "Rewired," a
documentary about Terry with a focus on her life before and after her
cochlear implants.
If you read her notes below, it's clear that she's looking for lots of
different kinds of materials that could flesh out her project. (Her first
note is to me about the mailing list, and I include it in case she mentions
anything there that isn't mentioned in her longer note, also appended here.)
If you can help her, you need to drop her a note directly (rather than on
the weeklong-l list or on the Winedale-l list) so that she can gather and
use your individual email address -- for unnecessary-to-explain reasons she
can't use this mailing list (or anyone's) to make this project work.
Please read this through to the end, and drop Donna a note if you can help.
She's reachable at mickeefaustfilms(a)gmail.com or at dmnudd(a)gmail.com.
--Mike
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Donna Marie Nudd <dmnudd(a)gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Jun 23, 2010 at 2:54 PM
Subject: Rewired Documentary and Winedale Access Issues
To: mnemonic(a)gmail.com
Mike,
We're making a documentary about Terry and are going to be interviewing
Winedale folks the weekend of August 13-15. I want to be able to invite
all the folks who are performing (i.e. the weeklong group) as well as invite
all Winedale alumni who may be in attendance that weekend.
I know you are the god of the winedale list serves. The email I want to
send is posted below. Because the documentary is a 1-2 year venture, we
are setting up MailChimp for various groups so people can opt to be notified
intermittently of the film's progress. Understandably, we want Winedale to
be one of those groups.
In looking over MailChimp's rules, it notes we can't send emails to
listserves. So I'm hoping you can help us by providing an updated email
address list for both Weeklong Winedale as well Winedale Alums.
If you have any questions or concerns, please let me know.
Donna
dmnudd(a)gmail.com
DRAFT
Dear Winedale Weeklong Folks,
Many of you know me, but for the few who don’t, I’m Terry’s life-long
partner (actually “wife” since we got married in San Francisco two years
ago.)
I have a favor to ask of the Winedale Weeklong folks. But first, I need to
contextualize my request. For years, I've been wanting to work on a
documentary about Terry but didn’t quite have the overall production
concept. When she decided to have the cochlear implant, it seemed like such
a life-altering event would be just the ticket. So late spring, we
assembled a production team and started in earnest. The working title of
the documentary is *Rewired*.
*Rewired* focuses on Terry's life before and after the cochlear implant. In
particular, we want to look at the ways that Terry participated in, created,
or recreated various performing communities-- Winedale, Esthers, and Actual
Lives in Austin, as well
as ones in NYC and Florida. For Terry, those communities became a kind of
survival tactic --to create art, to reduce the loneliness of being deaf, to
seem more independent (because isn’t *everyone* inter-dependent in theatre?)
We have probably 20 hours of high definition video already shot, including
pre-cochlear and post-cochlear interviews with Terry, her pre-op and
post-op appointments with the surgeons at Shands, an interview with Terry at
hospital right after the left bundle branch block snafu, and the first
turning on of the cochlear implant with the audiologists.
One of the filmmakers in Tallahassee that we are working with, Diane
Wilkins, also has extensive video coverage of Terry's one person shows, our
early Mickee Faust cabarets, Terry reading her memoir etc. So lots of "B
roll" is already shot. Our Tallahassee-based filmmaking team has worked
together for a decade and our comic video shorts have been shown in hundreds
of queer-themed or disability-themed festivals. So once this feature length
documentary is finished, we have a solid sense of where it can be showcased
nationally and internationally.
I wrote to Jim Ayres about a month ago to apprize him of the documentary.
Doc is on board with the request that follows.
I'm writing to this list serve today because we just can't have a
documentary about Terry without the Winedale community in it, since
*Shakespeare
at Winedale* played such a pivotal part Terry's artistic development and
sensibility.
To that end, I will be coming to Winedale with my film crew on August 13-15.
Since Doc has commissioned Trey to videotape the reunion rehearsals,
production and interviews, our crew will do very little (if any) taping of
Friday rehearsal and the Saturday show.
Instead, our primary operation will take place over the course of two days
– in the hours after the show on Saturday, and Sunday morning prior to,
during, and after the brunch. We will be setting up a small room at Winedale
where we will interview all of you who want to be interviewed about Terry
and *Shakespeare at Winedale*.
Right now, I just have three questions for folks on this list serve. And
I’m asking you to respond to me privately, so as to not clog up the weeklong
list serve.
1) Would you like to be interviewed at Winedale for possible inclusion in *
Rewired*?
2) Do you have any archival material that you be willing to loan us? I’m
thinking here of Winedale photos, posters, and/or videotape with Terry in
them. Videotape can be in almost any format - Betacam, ¾-inch, Hi-8, VHS,
DV. If you are willing to loan us archival materials we would duplicate
them and return them safely to you within two weeks of receipt.
If you answer “yes” to any of the questions above, please contact me at
mickeefaustfilms(a)gmail.com and I’ll be getting back to you personally with
more information.
Thanks for your help! I’ve been in the audience of all of the past reunions
and I can’t wait to be there yet again.
Donna
mickeefaustfilms(a)gmail.com
Donna Marie Nudd
Professor, School of Communication, Florida State University
Executive Director, Mickee Faust Academy for the REALLY Dramatic Arts