The Beginnings of Bohemia in Berlin
Yours truly in Paris, summer of 2017
AUGUST 2017
As I crossed the Seine, my ballet flats clicked on the marbled avenues of that well preserved city. I lit another Gauloises and fumbled for my journal, determined to position myself at the perfect cupola of the Pont Neuf bridge to moodily scrawl my musings as the dusk turned to twilight.
I was supposed to be working on a new play, the follow-up after Bohemia’s success - a story about the women who made Champagne. My reason for being an American in France. What I really wanted to write about was my near-death experience, hours after departing the trans-Atlantic flight. A bladder infection turned septic and put me in a Dutch hospital for nearly a week. I’d begged to be released. I’d cheated, chugging cold water before my temperature checks, and neglected to call my family back home and tell them what had happened. And I’d gotten away with it. Stuffed full of foreign antibiotics, I had forced my body to continue drinking and smoking like I had intended. How else would I have a good time in Europe? How would I write? What did I want my life to be, but this? Blowing smoke into that old river, alone and filled with doubt.
In the hospital in Amsterdam 2017, before embarking on 3 weeks abroad
MAY 2019
“Hello?”“I think I’ve found a place we could actually do Bohemia”“In Paris?”“Berlin. I’m here now. It’s called the Ballhaus.”“What are you doing in Berlin?”After hanging up, I rolled over onto Christian’s tattooed stomach, taking his hands in mine. The phone call, early in the morning for us, at 10, came from my creative partner, Mark Siano. But my Sweetie the Chef is the one in my bed.
Christian smiled at me with that shiny-in-new-love wonder. He looks at me like everything I say or do is interesting, and he’s excited to give his opinion.
“He’s got another big idea…” I moan. “It’s going to be a huge fundraising effort”.
“Wouldn’t it be incredible to take a show to Europe? And Bohemia is perfect for that.” Christian and I had one of our first moments (you know, when you know the other person likes you) at Bohemia’s 2019 production, a few months previous.
“I’m all about saying yes these days” I smile back at him.
SEPTEMBER 2019
“If we’re going to do this we need to raise $30,000.”
I shifted my weight on the tall bistro stool of the tables in Urban Yoga Spa’s coffee shop and looked up from my excel doc at Mark.
My wet hair dripped down my back, as I balanced to better reach my computer screen. Steam clouded the storefront windows on a brisk Seattle fall day. The studio was my safe place between my Capitol hill apartment and Nordo in Pioneer Square. I didn’t have a car and walked the 1 mile commute rain or shine. Today was my volunteer shift cleaning to trade for classes. An hour of twisting and stretching afterward gave my body a pure feeling. It made my mind decisive.
Dear ______. I’m writing to you because your support for my art over the years has been…
Mark and I had made a plan that suited both of us for taking Bohemia to Berlin. Now, I just needed to craft the campaign and raise the funds.”
My approach hasn’t changed much in the past twenty years. What in college was a Kinkos printed letter with a handwritten signature, sealed with saliva’s salvation was now a MailChimp campaign, or a Gmail. No midnight trips to the 24 hour internet café. I could run the fundraiser after Vinyasa sipping a free espresso, my shift drink for volunteering.
It may be easier technically, but every time it’s more money to raise. This was the largest amount I had set out personally to raise.
“And, send!” Mark and I cheered our paper coffee cups and held our breath. We didn’t have to wait very long. “$7,000!”
“It’s one of mine!” I chortle. One letter, one of hundreds I had typed, was worth 7K!
Later that evening
“$18,000 in day one, can you believe it? We’re going to make the goal.” I’m sitting in the passenger seat of Christian’s Scion, he’s parked illegally on the Pike Pine. We share a joint before continuing the parking search around our 3rdfloor walk-up.
“I believe it. Your audience wants a chance to tell you how much they love Bohemia.”
After the pandemic, I’ll remember the nagging stomach flip I felt when Mark proposed taking our successful show abroad. Was it a warning?
APRIL 2022
“It took two years of pandemic, a shutdown of the theatre, and then the re-opening of the theaters for me to realize how unhappy I am in the theatre! It’s dead for me… Does that sound cynical?”
I sit on the cement steps outside my apartment building and finger the pop-top of my lukewarm Le Croix. I’m listening to my 40-something friend Lacey explain why she’s moving from Seattle to Omaha, giving up on one dream to pursue another.
“I know what you mean.” I adjust the waistband of my fleece leggings to accommodate the extra few pounds gathered thanks to late night cookies eaten to avoid the stress of new parent life. “I feel like I’ve reserved all my hope and energy for Hero and Christian. I don’t trust giving it to the theatre anymore. Like Mark and the Berlin Tour. We’ve already lost so much. I’m done pushing for it to happen. If he wants it so badly, let him come to me. Let him do the work and we’ll see if it happens. I’m done hoping.”
And that is exactly how it goes. Without fail, Mark shows up. He comes to our home at the times that work best for Hero and I. He asks questions and gets excited and holds the baby while I write emails. He also goes to Berlin and back three more times to finalize our rental contract with the contrary owners of the Ballhaus.
During one of the trips he Facetimes me in the afternoon, which means it is very late in Berlin. I can see the ornate bookshelves and framed Weimar era magazine covers, and though I don’t see him in the narrow screen, I recognize Damian’s flat from our Zoom meetings about our theatrical exchange.
“We have to finish what we’ve started!” He chortles. This becomes a theme, in the letters I write our Kickstarter backers, in the post-show tip ask Mark gives for the Naughty Salon that September, at the Triple Door. And now, here we are – 13 Bohemians headed to Berlin.
