A Sneak Peek at UNTITLED ZINE PLAY

"I think I'm done with art."

What follows is a fragment from UNTITLED ZINE PLAY, a one act about artists who find themselves working in an environment that’s far less professional than the workplace they’d expected.

The characters: Jamie, a visual artist working as a production assistant, wearing black jeans and a black shirt; Simon, a loverboy who wants to be an actor and finds himself modeling, wearing a white tank and pink short shorts for the shoot; and Allison, a producer who is herself a failed artist. They’re all waiting on Jeremy, a star model who’s maybe not gonna show.

In this scene, Jamie and Simon have been left alone for a beat while Allison takes a phone call outside.

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JAMIE: I think I’m gonna quit.

SIMON: What??

JAMIE: I think I’m done with art. I want to work in tech.

SIMON: Tech is soulless.

JAMIE: Not always. It moves.

SIMON: Art moves.

JAMIE: Art careers don’t. At least in tech I would get paid.

SIMON: Does it really matter to you if you get paid?

JAMIE: It’s starting to.

SIMON: Since when?

JAMIE: Since I got kicked off my parents’ health insurance, and my parents’ phone plan. Since I realized that I need to be saving money now. I don’t wanna be 60 – after working like a mule for 40 years – without a way to retire.

SIMON: So you’d work in tech? Do you even care about tech?

JAMIE: There are life-saving applications of tech.

SIMON: Name one.

JAMIE: Lasers. Laser hair removal helps people with chronic skin conditions. Lasers are like a physics thing.

SIMON: Okay but atom bombs are like a physics thing.

JAMIE: Okay but everything has two sides. It’s like how if we make an advance in medicine it means we know more specific ways to fuck up people’s bodies. Besides, I don’t care about the content of what I work on, I just want to make money.

SIMON: Okay but today you’re getting a good rate, right?

JAMIE: Today I’m making an okay rate.

SIMON: So you’re okay today. You’re not gonna quit today.

JAMIE: (Sighing) No. At this point that would be stupid.

SIMON: That’s kinda the whole thing, right? Finding reasons to keep going? I don’t even think artists really want to make like an inconceivably large amount of money. I think most artists just want to make like enough. To live. They just want to make a real living wage. Like what Allison’s paying.

JAMIE: I just want to make like at least what Allison’s paying all the time, that’s the only thing that would put me in range to make like seventy thousand dollars a year. I need gigs like Allison’s like three days a week if I want this to work. Three good gigs just don’t show up every week. Not in the US. There’s not enough government money for that. I’m lucky if I get three gigs a month. And the gigs I do get suck.

SIMON: Yeah I mean for what I’m trying to do I feel lucky if I get a good gig in a quarter. I sometimes go like... Half a year without getting to show face. And it sucks because I’m getting older every day, and every day I get older and don’t make makes me more and more of a failure.

JAMIE: Well you are a failure. You’re modeling.

SIMON: Okay, that stings. Models are people too.

JAMIE: Are they? Maybe once they were but now we’re all basically models advertising the lives we’ve bought online to feeds we can’t even see.

SIMON: You’re cynical. You’re a very cynical person.

JAMIE: I’m not cynical, I just think it’s toxic, it’s a toxic culture, and it’s conducive for making something and capturing it and optimizing it for mobile viewing– but whatever’s captured, that’s not like, real, that’s not like actually art.

SIMON: I mean when they capture me, while I’m working, they’re capturing art. Real art. Stop laughing, I’m serious.

JAMIE: Uh-huh. Real art. Remind me how many times you’ve done this before?

SIMON: (Lightly) Fuck you. She’s coming back.

(ALLISON returns from the back.)

ALLISON: Jamie did I hear you say you want to quit? Because if you want to quit making things, making important things, making a magazine, then you should. Go do something different with your life.

JAMIE: I don’t want to do something different. I like this. I just want my life to be better.

ALLISON: Your life won’t get better unless you make it better.

JAMIE: I don’t have the energy to make it better. My life sucks. It makes me tired.

ALLISON: I think that’s selfish.

JAMIE: It’s not like I’m not trying.

ALLISON: It sort of is like you aren’t trying. I don’t see you trying.

JAMIE: Really? You don’t see me running around here for you trying hard as shit to make this little photoshoot project work?? My back hurts, bro.

ALLISON: Okay. Your back hurts. So why are you my PA?

JAMIE: I need make rent this month. What else would I do?

ALLISON: Start something. Something people want to pay for. Find leads. Make it grow. Done.

JAMIE: That’s just so capitalistically bleak.

ALLISON: Welcome to the 2020s.

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UNTITLED ZINE PLAY will be read live on September 22nd, 2024 at 7pm, as part of the RE/VENUE NYC series of pop-ups piloted by Meghan Finn and produced by Hanna Yurfest and Coco McNeil. If you’re in NYC, it would be an honor if you joined me for the reading. Tickets are available here. And hey, if you can’t make it but want more of the above characters, shoot me a message, and I can share the script with you.

From my heart to yours, thank you for reading.