Update: (much over due!) We made it to the Finals!

As I write this the Festival is now over, and Perseids took home a number of honors:

• crew takeover award for “Best Drama”
• Festival award for “Best Playwright”

Update: We made it to the Semi-Finals! This team did a great job, I couldn’t be happier.  You have one more chance to catch this short piece along with the other semifinalists.

Saturday
November 15 2025,
7:00 PM
The Victory Theatre
3326 W Victory Blvd

Tickets (part of the Brando Group): https://shortsweethollywood.stagey.net/projects/12987 

I’m headed back to the Short+Sweet Festival Hollywood again this year, this time with my short piece Perseids. It’s being directed by Kaylin Saur, whose background is eclectic and wonderful in the best possible way.  We got a nice write up in “Broadway World” acknowledged new and returning artists to the festival.

Perseids is another piece I wrote for a Theatre Unleashed 24 hour show (really, I should just do that all the time – the weirdest and and most interesting things come out when I’m on a deadline and my butt is glued to  the chair). For the uninitiated, 24-hour shows are exactly as advertised: literally produced in 24 hours. Writers (usually 6-8 of them) get prompts Friday evening, have to turn in 10-minute-ish scripts by Saturday morning, when directors and actors arrive to rehearse, tech starts sometime midafternoon, and by 8:00 pm the audience arrives and the curtain goes up. They are a blast.

Sometimes the writers get a prompt, sometimes a theme, sometimes a prop or a setting, and often  we will be told what actors (gender/age range) we’ll need to incorporate. How exactly those suggestions are incorporated is up to the playwright. For Perseids I was given a quote, and told I needed to write for two men. Left to my own devices (always a bad idea) I will opt to write female characters. I feel more comfortable understanding their life experience and want to tell our stories, and as a performer myself, I have an interest in adding to the canon of roles available for women. So this prompt forced me to write something I might not have come up with on my own and, truthfully, I really do love the dudes in Perseids. I hope you will too.

Perseids 
Written by Wendy Gough Soroka
Directed by Kaylin Saur
starring Benedict Heaps and Steve Smith

Saturday, November 1, 7:00 PM
Sunday, November 2, 6:00 PM

The Victory Theatre Center
3326 W. Victory Blvd.
Burbank, CA

Tickets available as part of the “Marx” group: https://shortsweethollywood.stagey.net/projects/12882

Perseids is a two-man speed-run of the consequences of making assumptions when it comes to love. Despite their differences, Alan and Hank find themselves irreversibly altering each other’s lives one starlit evening as their romantic ideals collide in what the playwright calls “a play for women that just happens to have men in it.”

Tickets: https://shortsweethollywood.stagey.net/projects/12882

I’m thrilled to share that my short play Thunder was selected from over 350+ submissions to be a part of The A Chronicles 10 Minute Play Festival.  This festival takes place in Connecticut, so I likely won’t be able to get out there, (you’ll know I’ve won the lottery when I can jet off to wherever to see plays whenever I like). The A Chronicles Festival focuses on plays about reproductive rights.

I generally don’t set out to write plays about “issues.” No criticism about issue-centered theatre, I grew up with (and adored) agit-prop companies like the San Francisco Mime Troupe. But usually, it’s not what I set out to do. When a company calls for submissions on a particular issue, I will submit if I feel something I’ve already written might fit their request.  I remember reading somewhere (back when I was endlessly studying this stuff) that all plays are inherently political, and I suppose that is true. What you write is going to be informed by your moral compass, which should align with how you feel about social issues and your political beliefs. As a writer I like to take care that I write with a mindfulness about that connection.

Thunder is about two sisters, facing a heartbreakingly difficult decision unique to those who can bear children. I wrote it before Roe v. Wade was overturned, when all of us in the United States could make decisions about our bodies without government interference. I did not change the script much after the overturn, though there was a line or two I did have to adjust slightly to reflect our new reality.

Info below for anyone who is in this neck of the woods.

A Chronicles Presents:
Winners of its Annual 10-Minute Play Festival
Visionary, Absurd, Heartbreaking.
Nine Playwrights on Reproductive Rights

November 19, 2025
2-3:30 PM & 7-8:30 PM
MoCA\\\\CT
19 Newtown Turnpike
Westport, CT 06880

More info & Tickets: https://www.achronicles.org/10-minute-play-festival-2025

Back in May, I put up a post with links to free education resources, which I had started as part of my job during COVID.  The amount of free education out there online is staggering. If you don’t care about certification or diplomas, just about learning stuff, the world is filled with people who will teach you. Because, in spite of what the news wants you to believe, most human beings are pretty awesome.

To avoid overwhelm, I’m breaking up the things I have come across by subject. Today’s topic are some free classes about food and wine. Many of these dive deep into culinary science or history. I haven’t taken them yet, so I can’t review them properly, but feel free to ping me with feedback if you’ve given them a go.

Cooking & Baking

Harvard University – Science & Cooking
Taught by top chefs and Harvard researchers that explores how traditional and modernist cooking techniques can illuminate basic principles in chemistry, physics, and engineering.
https://www.edx.org/course/science-cooking-from-haute-cuisine-to-soft-matte-2

Home Made Cooking
Free online cooking classes with real chefs, real people, and really good food.
https://www.homemadecooking.com/

Institute of Culinary Education
Online versions of consistently sold-out classes with new menus and professional chef instruction via live video.
https://www.ice.edu/about/events/free-online-cooking-classes

The Art of Baking with Yuppiechef
Understand the basics of baking, including easy cake chemistry, pantry essentials and the golden rules of baking.
https://www.udemy.com/course/art-of-baking/  

Cuisinart Culinary School
(Via YouTube playlist)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojZIgseX7Xo&list=PLzI9I8xeK5kSkzn6mmMu-yM92EJ_4kHjs

Fermentology  
NC State: A series of short talks (20 minutes on average) about the culture, history and science behind the foods you have at home. (If you are into the science of sourdough, check this one out)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_cwC71gfzk&list=PLsSlVlDbPkFQrvOUmjuhFbo92RkbVzYwh

Wine

World of Wine: From Grape to Glass
University of Adelaide, through ED/X
An introduction to the world of wine, including viticulture, winemaking, and wine appreciation with diverse instructors and guest lecturers.
https://www.edx.org/course/world-of-wine-from-grape-to-glass

Wine Tasting: Sensory Techniques for Wine Analysis,
University of California (Davis) through Coursera:
An introductory-level course on professional sensory analysis of wine from a renowned teacher.
https://cpe.ucdavis.edu/section/wine-tasting-sensory-techniques-wine-analysis-coursera

An Introduction to Wines
Learn the most up-to-date techniques of wine preparation, blending and storage with this free online course.
https://alison.com/course/an-introductory-course-on-wines

Napa Valley Cultivating Excellence Videos
Napa Valley Cultivating Excellence is engaging wine content digging into what makes the Napa Valley America’s premier winegrowing region. Explore the unique geological formation of the valley, why it is the ideal climate to grow grapes, historical milestones and the tradition of leadership that continues today.
https://napavintners.com/trade/napa-valley-cultivating-excellence/

Rioja Wine Academy
RWA courses will take your knowledge of Rioja to the next level and increase your confidence when choosing a Rioja wine or when talking about it, whether with friends, clients or wine students.
https://riojawineacademy.com/en/home

I was teaching the Saturday morning Kenpo class – no, not the 7:30 am advanced Black Belt class – the 10:00 am one – the one with the wee beasties, the littles, the younglings. Four little girls showed up that day, a couple of 7-year-olds, and a pair of sisters ages 5 and 9. More than halfway through the class, we were running around the lava pit, (no stepping on the red mats, no pushing, no passing, please and thank you and ESPECIALLY NO PUSHING YOUR SIBLING I SEE YOU) and stopping periodically to do back falls. I was encouraging these little warriors-to-be to smack the mat harder when they fell, and I said something like, “If you fall during a fight, you need to hit the mat hard with your hands to protect your head and spine.” The word “fight” prompted the 9-year-old to ask, “Have you ever been in a fight?”  Kids ask this a lot. I tell them the truth, I’ve been lucky and have not needed to use my martial arts in a physical altercation.  Then she asked something no one’s asked me before, “Do you think I will get in a fight? Or any of us?” 

I looked around the room. Four girls. I know the statistics. I know the likelihood that one of these four will be sexually assaulted before she’s 18. I know what we learned during the “Me, too” moment,  that every one of them will face some sort of sexual harassment, and that it will start in just a few years for them. I know the likelihood that some of them may face violence from their boyfriends or husbands. I know the kind of threats they will get if they dare to express an opinion, or really just exist, online. I hear the news about what is happening to us as our rights are being stripped away, and that these little girls will grow up in a country where a goodly percentage of the population wants to deny them autonomy over their own bodies.

Four girls. Do I think they will ever get in a fight? Absolutely I do. They are already in one, just as I am, though they don’t know it yet. It’s not the playground bully (though some have already dealt with that).  It’s not even a physical brawl, not a sparring match where we can freely swing away at a bad guy.  Our fight is fraught with social expectations that tie one hand behind our backs, gaslighting that makes us question our own experiences, and now laws that would deny us our inalienable rights.

Four girls. Do I think they will ever get in a physical fight? Do I think that, in the new world that is being created, they will find themselves in a position where they will need to use not just their brains but their fists, elbows, feet, knees — hell — teeth to save themselves?

What can I say at this moment to these four little girls?  I hear the fear in the question. I don’t want to frighten them. At this age I want them to find the joy in martial arts. And I want them to come back, to continue to train and learn. But I don’t want to lie to them either. A couple of their mothers are there, I see them lower their phones and listen. I start with, “Well, we teach you martial arts in hopes that by doing so, you’ll never need to use it.”  Because of course we do; we hope the confidence they carry themselves with will drive away all the baddies.  But that platitude doesn’t feel sufficient today. I know it’s not sufficient. It will take years to build that confidence and to develop the self defense skills they seek. What can I give them at this moment, that might save them when they need it?

I feel entirely unequal to the task. Four girls. I think for a moment about avoiding altercations and what has helped me, besides luck (which truthfully is probably the biggest factor). I finally settle on a simplified idea from Gavin De Becker’s The Gift of Fear. 

“I will tell you this. If you are ever in a situation, or see a person, and your gut tells you something is wrong, that person is wrong, and you don’t feel safe, you don’t have to be nice and you don’t have to be polite. Your only job is to get yourself somewhere safe.”  I say it twice. Slowly. I explain that their amazing brains sometimes see danger that they can’t quite explain, but they can listen to that whisper of danger anyway. Then, before they can ask me another question that will send me into another existential tail spin, I send them running around the lava pit.

We do a few more laps and then we build an obstacle course.  A pair of them team up to build the worst house to crawl through ever (no future architects in this group) and I manage to bonk each of them on the head with the pool noodle because they didn’t block fast enough. They leave smiling, and I hope that means I will see them all next week.

I hope I’ve done enough.

In the medieval world, when the first western universities formed, they did not have physical facilities. Classes were taught in whatever space was available, including churches or homes. A university was not a physical space, but a collection of individuals, banded together as universitas (Latin for “the whole,” the entire self-regulating community of teachers and scholars).

When the world shutdown for COVID in 2020, I had a weekly task of sending out education opportunities for the members of the Local I worked for.  I continued that task for many more months through the pandemic, but instead of classes offered by the Local (since we couldn’t meet in-person), I would find what was available online. Some opportunities have since gone away, or now require payment, but what I ultimately discovered was there are more ongoing free education hours available than one person could take in a lifetime. I eventually added TED talks and How Stuff Works articles on all kinds of topics, including those being discussed during that tumultuous summer.

The list I eventually created was, well, extraordinary. And long. Like really, really long.  But if you’d like to join my universitas, here’s some basics:

Free College Classes
Free Ivy League classes (a master list)

Open Yale Courses
Coursera: Yale, Duke 
Harvard University Classes: HarvardX,   Harvard (Free Courses) 
Carnegie Mellon University
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Stanford University
UC Berkeley
UCLA (Extension) 

Resources for Free Books:
Open Library: https://openlibrary.org/
Open Culture:https://www.openculture.com/
Project Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/
Google Books: https://books.google.com/
Free Audio Books: http://www.openculture.com/freeaudiobooks

LA Public Library online Learning resources:
https://www.lapl.org/collections-resources/online-learning
There are so many free resources here, LinkedIn Learning, Mango (Language), Craftsy, Great Courses, Gale, Coursera,  ArtistWorks music lessons… If you are not in Los Angeles, check your local Library system.  And while we’re at it, if your local library is under fire: List of public libraries with non-resident borrowing privileges.

Lately there has been some attention drawn to Harvard’s government classes, so here are a few I found (and – side note – these have been available for awhile):

We the People: Civic Engagement in a Constitutional Democracy
U.S. Political Institutions: Congress, Presidency, Courts and Bureaucracy
Citizen Politics in America: Public Opinion, Interest Groups, and the Media
U.S. Public Policy: Social, Economic, and Foreign Policies
American Government: Constitutional Foundations

I haven’t been able to take these myself, so if you do, feel free to drop a comment about how there were.

This wonderful learning opportunity was suggested as an add by a friend: 
YIVO – Institute for Jewish Research – dedicated to the preservation and study of the history and culture of East European Jewry worldwide. Online Self paced classes are here.

I’ll add some other posts with specific topics in coming days and weeks. Did I mention that list was long?