STEVIE - 26 year old Black woman. Renaissance stripper drifting through life.

Stevie is a Philly native. If you give her a generic Queens or Jersey Shore accent, I will find you. Stevie’s French isn’t native-level or fluent, but it’s conversational, confident, and competent.

CLAIRE - 26 year old White woman. Will never hesitate or feel shame when weaponizing her Friends School/Bryn Mawr College education.

THE GODS

JOSH - A literal God. Those that don’t know he’s a God just see him as your garden-variety socially inept man, but once they find out he’s a God, they’re like “oooooh that explains a lot about your mannerisms, actually.” (Mid to late-30s Black or South Asian man.)

DECLAN - God #2. Think of the worst guy who hangs out at your local brewery and wears a lot of Patagonia. Dirty blonde man-bun is spiritually mandatory. (Mid to late-30s White man.)

CALLAHAN - God #3. Charming, generous, confident, and terminally delighted. (Early to mid-30s White man. Younger than Declan/Josh, but older than Conrad/Brad.)

THE BOYS

LENNY - 26 year old White man from deep South Philly. Greasy line cook with a heart of plated gold.

CONRAD - Mid to late-20s Black or South Asian man (mirror to Josh). Intern #1. Technically competent, but spineless. Thinks having a sister makes him more enlightened than other men.

BRAD - Mid to late-20s White man. Intern #2. Proof that the bar for men in tech is quite low. Doesn’t care enough to posture about being more enlightened than the others.

SOME GUY

DJ KEVIN/BOUNCER - Likely don’t have to tell you he can be doubled.

this is what i jotted down in my notebook:

• some lines of dialogue during a random hit of inspiration

• one of the script excerpts mentioned vibrators. now i wanna reread In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play) by Sarah Ruhl

• one of the actresses was wearing velvet jeans. now i want velvet jeans. maybe if i’m nice enough she’ll let me trade for my dumb ass bootcuts. no she would never. i would get active if some fucking writer tried to take my velvet jeans from me. (this actress would never say this. i am entirely projecting.)

• unrepentant Woody Allen fans in 2026? mmmm… no further comment 🫠

• more lines of dialogue

• wrote down some names of potential actors and cast members

• the actors for my piece did a great job. life is good.

I have 2 scenes left in Act I and 1 scene left in Act II to finish before I have a full, complete draft.

I have so far begun working on the two Act I scenes.

And have pondered the possibility of lightly considering the idea of working on the Act II scene (it’s the one that’s gonna really kick my ass, so I’m gonna see how long I can put it off for tbh).

If I’m being truly honest, I’ve spent more time on tedious admin things surrounding the play lately than I’ve spent writing the actual play. It's not fun, but it's necessary. The play needs to go somewhere, after all.

But yes. Chugging along. Still pretty much almost done. Still sending it out for readings, despite it not being done. Because that’s the main thing motivating me to get it done :)

à bientôt, à bientôt

so… at some point… it would make sense to talk about my own experiences.

which will come with time. the main barrier is that i really don’t know where to start. there’s a lot there.

a lot there. like a lot.

if you know me in person and heard me talk about the experience, you could surmise that i both loved and loathed it at the same time, which could be accurate. i don’t know yet. i’m only a few years removed.

but don’t worry your pretty heads. stories will come, for certain. especially as i continue to get over myself.

the one thing i will say is that the song Awful by Hole sums a lot of my feelings up, and quite succinctly.

To quote a review I once wrote of Awful:

My favorite premise that this song has to offer is a chicken-and-egg one. ‘Was I duped into believing the fantasy or did I dupe myself? Who is the culprit? Is this there one? Should we just keep drinking and dancing?’

whenever i view media about sex work and sex workers, i always hope to find a fellow trench survivor who is asking herself the same questions. someone who i could lay on a rooftop and share stories with. someone who maybe isn’t an exact witness, but will understand the things that still make my stomach drop, and will understand it on a visceral level.

i haven’t found her yet.

i just see marketing and palatability.

i just see content made for civilians to 😯😮 for a 42 minute runtime and feel like they got a peek into some scandalous, glittery world that barely fucking exists.

they get to shut off the TV/laptop and pat themselves on the back and call themselves allies to sex workers bc they watched an episode of an IPhone-faced prestige actress writhing in front of a webcam.

we don’t want your “yassss queen make that bag!”. we want to be heard.

i want sex workers truly heard.

at the end of the day, Good Girls is for me and her. it’s me allowing myself to be heard and to show others that they are heard.

we’re more than high heels and zany stories and pole tricks. and we’re all sisters, whether you like it or not.

Boyfriend called a few hours before our check-in time to see if we could get into our hotel room early.

Concierge asks him “…what exactly are you hoping to gain from this?”

He sputters, waiting for me to supply him an answer.

“…what?” he replies. He’s still looking at me. Poor fool. He's wondering why I’m just smiling and not helping him.

Concierge laughs and goes “Yeah, that's fine.” before hanging up.

Welcome to Philadelphia. David Ives captures it best in his play, The Philadelphia.

When you're in situations like this, you're simply in a Philadelphia.

In a Philadelphia, the guy who you last saw getting kicked out of that speakeasy is now the bouncer, three years later. He won't age well, but he’ll hit on you as if he did.

By Philly standards, he’s a man who reached middle aged without eating a bullet, so I suppose, by some stretch, he aged greatly. Superbly, even.

(I love my city, I promise. It's the city of chopperly love ♥️)

But you know what else you get in a Philadelphia?

The grease pole. A spontaneous nerd convention at the smoker’s barrel outside the live band karaoke spot.

Lovely ladies who you let borrow your car battery lookin ass mobile charger and they actually hunt you down to hand it back to you hours later. Men who let you cut in front of them for the porta-potty. The same men who may very well go on to climb the grease pole.

The greasiest, most delicious, almost psychosexual sandwich you’ll ever have in your life. You’ll still think about it years later.

A weed guy who lives in that same neighborhood and always will. That guy at that burger spot you used to work at when you were 19 who still fucking works there. And always will.

Lots of confusing feelings to parse through. 20+ years of visceral pain and the deepest joys all thrown together. Like you cut up the pieces into confetti bits and throw em in the air and they all just… fall together.

When I come back to Philly, I kinda choke on the paper a bit. But it's good for me, I think.

So many great artists have come from this amazing city. I’m just another one of them :)

Welcome to the world of The Good Girls of Philadelphia.

Consider it a… letter of sorts to the City of Brotherly Love.

A letter of some vague amicable sort.

A LOTTTT

(i’m getting kind of sick of it.)

i realized that calling it a ‘modern adaptation of Good Person of Szechwan’ would be a little misleading to the true Brechtheads. speaking as a Brechthead, myself.

saying that this play is in deep, deep, very intimate discussion with Brecht feels a lot more honest. and a lot more accurate.

while very inspired by the play, if you come looking for a direct 1:1 adaptation, you’d be very disappointed. and i hate to disappoint :)

à bientôt

🤳🏾typed from my android

We Are Proud to Present a Presentation About the Herero of Namibia, Formerly Known as Southwest Africa, From the German Südwestafrika, Between the Years 1884–1915 - Jackie Sibblies Drury.

Salome - Oscar Wilde.

Camp Siegfried - Beth Wohl.

The Day The Whores Came Out to Play Tennis - Arthur Kopit.

Their Eyes Were Watching God - Zora Neale Hurston.

The Philadelphia - David Ives.

How I Learned to Drive - Paula Vogel.

Outside Mullingar - John Patrick Shanley.

(Specifically a production of it I saw in high school at the Philadelphia Theatre Company. My classmates hated it, I still think about it a decade later.)

The Children's Hour - Lillian Hellman.

The complete Ariel manuscript - Sylvia Plath.

The Picture of Dorian Grey - Oscar Wilde.

The Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger.

Variations on the Death of Trotsky - David Ives.

An Army of Lovers - R. Eric Thomas.

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes - Suzanne Collins (no irony here. I loved The Hunger Games as a teen and never stopped.)

Appropriate - Brendan Jacob-Jenkins.

The Flick - Annie Baker.

When the Pawn… - Fiona Apple again. And again.

Live Through This - Hole.

Era Vulgaris - Queens of the Stone Age.

Live Through This - Hole.

Starfucker - Slayyyter.

Live Through This - Hole.

Troubled Paradise - Slayyyter.

Celebrity Skin - Hole. (idk if you can tell, but I really like Hole).

Them Crooked Vultures - Them Crooked Vultures (I really like Josh Homme too).

Planet Her - Doja Cat.

Alive in the Catacombs - Queens of the Stone Age (I really really like Josh Homme).

The Greatest Generation - The Wonder Years.

The Unified Field - IAMX

If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power - Halsey

Le Tigre - Le Tigre

When the Pawn… - Fiona Apple.

Adagio for Strings, Op. 11 - Samuel Barber (on an obnoxious loop).

SAWAYAMA - Rina Sawayama.

Folie A Deux - Fall Out Boy (shutup).

In Rainbows - Radiohead.

She Wants Revenge - She Wants Revenge.

Lullabies to Paralyze - Queens of the Stone Age.

Midnight Boom - The Kills

First Impressions of Earth - The Strokes.

Live Through This - Hole.

04/28 - Naked Angels Los Angeles @ The Madnani Theater

05/24 - ScriptShuffle (FakeID Productions) @ The Broadwater

Next up: ???? (can’t wait to find out!!)

Act II is complete (or as complete as it can be, in this state).

The first half of Act I is complete.

Currently working on second half of Act I.

End goal is 80 mins (~80 pages). We’re at ~54 pages.

See you next report 😌