Dear Denise (Denise Laughlin Stewart),
I saw Dirty Barbie last night and loved it!
To invite an audience to see you perform your own life on stage is remarkable.
Your talent, as a performer and writer, makes for an engaging, entertaining evening.
Your energy and generosity with your audience is awesome!
As you continue to share this show and allow the performance to evolve, I have a suggestion.
Make it more extraordinary by adding more internal biography to the external. Subtext is great, but perhaps we could have another layer.
We know what happens with you, and your mother. We get the facts. Let us inside a little more. The details are vivid, but keep peeling back the onion!
Some of this has to do with tone. For example, the new room/suicide scenario is really about a child encountering death. Rather than playing this for laughs, could it be played straight and make for a poignant moment? What was your inner experience, as a displaced child, moving into that room?
Just my two cents…
Sam
(P.S. I also enjoyed seeing you and meeting your old friends at the party afterward.)