Fame

"I hear you are a playwright. Are you famous?"

John, the Camp Manager at a High Sierra Camp in Yosemite, asked me this question when I walked into the mess hall to claim the bag lunch for my hike. The previous night, while most folks retreated to their tents, a handful of us sat around the campfire, which Tony, another High Sierra Camp employee, was kind enough to build at my request. It was cold, as the temperature quickly dropped into the 30s at 9,000 feet at night. Tony was the other Chicano/Latino among the 20+ people at the camp, and naturally, I was drawn into a conversation with him. He told me his family had come from Mexico to do farm labor in rural California. I shared with him that I had been a legal aid lawyer representing farmworkers in Eastern Washington. This led to what I’ve done since and what I’m doing now. Tony, whose name is Antonio, just like our son, told me he loves to travel, nature, and to protect the environment. "For now," he said, "this work suits me fine." Tony told John that I was a playwright and a lawyer.

I responded to John's question about whether I was famous: "No, I’m just a teeny fish in a small pond in the world of solo performance. I wouldn’t call that famous. But occasionally,” I added, “someone recognizes me on the street.” I asked John to tell me about himself and what he did when he wasn’t managing a High Sierra Camp (these are open only a couple of months during the year). He’d been a corporate guy but left that behind and was now writing screenplays, but he was getting feedback that he needed to do additional refining of his work.

Keep on keeping on, I told him, we learn as we go and we do get better the longer we work at it. I shared that one person whose opinion I value considerably is a producer who told me I wasn’t quite ready for prime time when I first approached him about doing a short excerpt at the solo performer series that he ran. (Bruce, here’s looking at you). Eventually, I got onto his series, and he has given me great feedback as I developed my theater career. So don’t take it personally when someone tells you you aren’t quite there yet.

On the second night at this High Sierra camp, my friend and I sat at a table with five new people and introduced ourselves. When I gave my name to Alexis, she looked at me and asked, “What’s your last name?” When I told her, she said, “I saw your one-woman show in Berkeley a couple of years ago.” After dinner, I shared this with John: " Well, I guess I am a teeny bit famous.”  

If you’ve never been to Yosemite, make a plan to go. It is such a majestic place. I’ve been fortunate to visit this national park several times, but this was my first time at a High Sierra Camp that you can reach only by hiking there. Thanks to my friend, Nina, for securing a much-coveted reservation to stay in these camps. I carried my 25# backpack (most of the weight was water) just two and a half miles.  We originally planned to hike first to May Lake for one night, then to a different camp some eight miles away the second day. But we scuttled that for various reasons and opted for day hikes from May Lake with much lighter loads. Sharing a few pictures of that adventure to entice you to visit Yosemite if you've never been.

And check out this video clip to get a sense of the awesomeness of nature.

Fast-forward a week, and I’m sitting in the chair at my ophthalmologist's office in Oakland. Dr. Jane walks in and greets me with, “Well, where are you performing next?” Always ready with promotional material, I give her one of the promo postcards for the local shows I’ll be doing in late September and early October.

“It’s so cool to have a famous patient. I’m gonna show this to my girls.” She has two daughters in elementary school.

I repeated the lines about being a teeny fish in a small pond.

It is fun to be recognized by people who have seen my show. Several months ago, I was at the Oakland Museum, and a woman said hello, and I greeted her back. She said, “You’re the lady with the one-woman show, right? I’ve seen it.” She then gathered her four relatives, and we introduced each other and chatted for a few minutes.

Final “fame” story. Several years back, I was at the Oakland West BART station waiting to catch a train to San Francisco, where I was meeting a friend to have dinner and see a (wait for it) solo show at The Marsh Theater. I noticed a young customed couple, the man, dressed as a nun, had a veil that said “Nun of Your Business.” I smiled at them and said, “Isn’t Halloween Weekend so much fun in the Bay Area?”

His response was, “Hey, we saw your one-woman show a few months ago.” We took a picture together, and then we all hopped on the train to San Francisco.

If you haven’t seen my show or want to see the latest update since I performed at The Marsh in Berkeley in October 2022, please come to one of my shows in Richmond, California, on Saturday, September 28th, at 7:30 pm or Sunday, October 6th, at 2 pm. Please share with your friends. Tickets are available at this link.

Join me on September 21st in Berkeley at the East Bay Sanctuary Covenant (EBSC) annual dinner, where I am the Emcee. The organization is also honoring me with its first Storytelling Award. EBSC has been using storytelling for several years to empower its clients and broaden our community's knowledge about immigrant rights. Their clients have been sharing moving personal stories at theaters and other public gatherings. Join me in supporting this vital organization, which provides much-needed services. Learn more about EBSC and get tickets here.

Muchas gracias for taking the time to read my blog. If you enjoy it pass it on to your friends and family.

The power of AI . . . Grammarly suggested this change below for the previous sentence. Seems that it prefers I not code switch from Spanish to English and that I address you, dear readers, more politely.