Zanne Hall Board Member International Women in Jazz - NYC

Zanne happy to have recently joined the Board of these fabulous females!

Red Skelton - my personal memory

Contributing essayist

http://www.amazon.com/Playbills-Photoplays-Performers-Pioneered-Talkies/dp/1453587748#reader_1453587748

League of Professional Theatre Women

Blog30
Celebrating the members of the League of Professional Theatre Women
Zanne Hall Playwright
New York USA


I look for inspiration by keeping my eyes open, my ears clean and unwavering concentration on life around me. It’s not always easy because we all get wrapped up in the problems of daily living and lose focus on activities around us, whether it be the sunlight streaming through a window, our pets, the grocer down the street – whatever. We get scared and worry far too much. It’s not good to primarily focus on the self a majority of the time because then we lose our perspective of how ever-changing life is. Look at how a child sees everything around it as new. So do animals. How many times have I said to myself – "I don’t remember seeing that before?" – but it was always there. I just wasn’t paying attention.

What hones my day-to-day inspiration and helps me plug it into my creative writing process is music. I think that music is the purest artistic discipline because it directly connects to our emotions. The music I listen to or even just the sounds of everyday living (perhaps hearing distant wind chimes) helps me to create worlds inside my head and then influences them to manifest theselves outside of my head.

Favorite Movie – "Fasten your seatbelts…" What else? A movie about theatre: All About Eve!

One Thing Nobody Knows About Me – If I told you, then you’d know!


Zanne Hall: Theatre’s been in my blood since I was a kid stage actor in Pittsburgh, PA and continued through to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, London. I began writing plays later in life because I had such fun creating characters and putting them in unusual situations that surprise and inspire.

FARM Animal protest in Queens, NY

For those of you who understand Chinese:  http://www.worldjournal.com/view/full_nynews/23713176/article

Lobby for Animals HSUS / Albany, NY

Zanne in picture (far away center left) after speaking with legislators in Albany about Humane reform.

Full-length play about U.S. women who served as WWII pilots

 

 by Zanne Hall

phmarlowe@live.com
 

In 2010 the W.A.S.P. were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal from Congress in recognition of their WWII flying service. Their existence deleted from American history books, the general public knows little about these courageous women who ferried warplanes for the U.S.  This is the story of seven women who overcame personal and professional conflict as well as battling tremendous military and societal prejudice that believed women did not belong in a man’s world in order to train with the Women Air Service Pilots in Sweetwater, Texas.  Even though the program lasted only four years its influence encouraged women to follow untraditional paths. 

 

Characters

 

JACKIE WIGHTMAN – 20s.  As a Floridian foster child (with a slight Southern accent) she had a difficult life in her early poor beginnings but found that a passion for flying gave her life meaning and purpose.  She is an ace pilot and seeks military recognition.  She is also a cocky wiseacre who can be an empathetic person because of her own hard-knock life.  A deceased mother, a father who vanished soon after her brother was born, she hopes to reconnect with her sibling. 

DESIREE PATRICIA POST – 20s.  A member of the wealthy Post Cereals family, she and her husband owned a flight school before the war.  She is a troublemaking snitch who has connections with the military brass because of her elite background. She is indifferent to anything but herself and thinks she is an ace pilot.

TSUN-YAN (SUNNY) CHUN - 20s.  (Chinese) Very upbeat, funny, always with a wisecrack that hits the point.  Very self-assured and comfortable with herself in any situation.  A hot pilot who was the first woman to fly solo across the U.S. north to south. 

TERRY MITCHELL - 20s.  The naïve greenhorn of the group.  Sweet and shy at first but a plucky, determined individual with a youthful passion for flying. She comes from a protective family who sent her away to Ohio State University to study pharmacy.  She discreetly spent the surplus money they sent her for charm school on flying lessons. During WASP training she becomes secretly married to a flight surgeon – military suicide if discovered.

 

INEZ (WHISKY) SANCHEZ - 20s.  (Argentinean) A soft-spoken, sensitive, commonsense woman who has an understanding ear and a shoulder in ready reserve for anyone to cry on, should they feel the need.  She will eventually become a nun and attempt to combine flying with missionary work.

 
ALICE (ZIGGY) NEGLEY  - 20s.  A smart-cracking beautiful former New York Ziegfeld Follies woman who
                      felt the need to help her country in its time of trouble in a unique way.  A producer’s son who
                      owned his own plane took her on flying trips and she fell madly in love with piloting (but not him).
                      Tough as nails but a softie inside, she thinks she can take care of herself until she gets into
                      problems over her head, like an unwanted pregnancy.   

BEATRICE (FRANKIE) WILKENS – 20s.  A devotee of Frank Sinatra. She is a daredevil trickster who has a sporting way about her.  She is a good pilot but takes too many chances that eventually place her as a pawn in the military’s game of elimination.  She is “washed out” for a minor infraction and it sends her into an emotional tailspin.

Seven Female Characters.

A military male voiceover.

 

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Published by Samuel French and Amazon
http://amzn.to/19p0bcY

AN INCREDIBLE JOURNEY TO CHAUYUAN©

by Zanne Hall

phmarlowe@live.com

CHARACTERS: (Some characters can be doubled and/or the use of puppets or some other imaginative device can be utilized.)

Characters speak with a slight Chinese accent, even though they are speaking Chinese, so that we get a sense that they are talking in a different language.

HSU         -    A young lad around 13 or 14 who lives in the province of Shantung, PRC.

MOTHER   -    Hsu’s mother.
XI-SHI      -    Hsu’s sister, around 7 years old.
YU-TZU     -    A funny school friend of Hsu’s.  (female) She also appears at the end of the                      play as a grown woman, though a different character.
ZHENG      -    A school friend of Hsu’s who is a Communist Party supporter.  (male)
LIU-LANG   -   A good-hearted ghost who Hsu meets and later becomes a god.  Adult male.

                     Any age. 

KWAN-YIN   -  The Chinese Goddess of Mercy.
DAOSHI     -    A daoshi, or monk, who Hsu meets on his Journey.
WONG        -   A country woman who Hsu meets on his Journey.  
GUARD 1    -   An army guard in the PRC.
GUARD 2    -   An army guard in the PRC.
WOMAN      -   A woman who Hsu meets on his Journey.
YU-TZU     -     A new friend Hsu meets at the end of his Journey in Chauyuan.

THE TIME: 

The present in the People’s Republic of China in Shantung.

(Author’s note:  It would be good to use incidental Chinese and/or Tibetan music for atmosphere.  Also, the use of imaginary effects in and around the scenes should evoke a mysterious or dreamlike quality.  For example, different scenes, like those between HSU and LIU-LANG (Goddess of Mercy) and in particular the final scene in Chauyuan, would be conducive to imaginative lighting and special effects evoking an other-worldliness.)

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NY Times / East Village Dog Run Article - by zanne hall

http://eastvillage.thelocal.nytimes.com/2012/06/19/doggie-diary-jubilees-day-in-the-park