I am consolidating my blog entries into my main one: please see http://cindymariejenkins.wordpress.com/ for all future posts on this project and beyond.
Find us on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=640365931&ref=mf#/pages/Voices-From-Chornobyl/87865779203?ref=ts), Twitter (VoicesChornobyl) and you can always email questions to cindy@voicesfromchornobyl.com .
Thank you for your continuing and future support!
Cindy Marie Jenkins
www.cindymariejenkins.com
In preparation for the Anniversary Readings in April, it was suggested by Corey Blake , a longtime supporter of the project, that I create a smaller-cast version. It makes sense, especially in this shrinking economy. So I jumped on the chance to workshop the piece at The Indy Convergence this February.
Well, the experience is even more than I thought possible. Over the course of these ten days, a core group of seven-ten artists create one peice together, and we all collaborate on side projects. For more information on the other projects, check out my other wordpress blog.
My side project is the six-character version of VOICES FROM CHORNOBYL. Considering it started at twenty-five people and has since been whittled down to ten, this feat seemed impossible. Even at my first rehearsal here in Indiana, as the actors read the monologues from the book and I heard material that hadn’t made the ten-person cut, it wasn’t really clear to me how it could happen. So much material from the interviews deserves to be heard—everyone should know what they thought radiation could look like, and I desperately want to put “A Monologue About A Life Laid Out on Doors” back into the play.
Yet, this evening I set out to accomplish at least half the script. Since the new script is so vastly different from the previous versions—the storytelling is more consistent, while still adding all of the elements which always worked in the past and adding new ones I found through the Demo—the new version actually began to write itself. Not only that, but it clearly pointed to areas in the script which could use some clarification. This new version is turning into a bit of a different animal, but that is entirely the point.
Going back a couple of days, to the first day of the Indy Convergence: everyone had a few minutes to describe their side project to the core group. I jumped into the history of the project and its timeline, then the mission, which breaks down to: make the information as accessible to as many people as possible. Then I talked more about WHY—the challenges the people face now. It’s not a history lesson, it still perserveres as a problem unique to these people.
I saw the faces of these artists, most of whom I had JUST met, change in front of me. It sunk in. I saw it all in their eyes—and almost felt that they were all imagining their own loves ones, and how they would feel if something like this would happen to them. Who knows what ran through their heads.
They are all game and I truly appreciate it. Jumping into this project is easy for no one, never mind people with many other projects on their mind. My core ensemble in Los Angeles is amazing, and neither the play nor the mission of the Anniversary Readings would be anywhere close to where it is now, if it were not for the L.A. ensemble. Yet sharing it with a new audience and new actors IS the mission, begins and completes the goals of this show from its inception.
Stay tuned for more about the process………………….
I always get a variety of responses when people find out about this project. They range from “Are you Russian?” to “What an uplifting topic” to “Why Chernobyl?”
Why Chernobyl? Why is help needed?
Through all of my initial research, one sentence kept prevailing: We simply do not know how radiation exposure affects a region over twenty, thirty, one hundred years. We simply have never had an accident of this magnitude to study.
Well, now we approach the 23rd year after the accident, and the children of Belarus are suffering. If the people are lucky enough to become pregnant at all, or to carry a pregnancy to term, the likelihood of those children (now 3rd generation after the accident) will lead healthy lives, or even lives outside of a hospital.
That is why we must help Chernobyl.
Take a look through the following links. If you are an Artist in any genre, a Patron of the Arts, an Educator or Community Leader, there ARE ways to help without sending money. Email cindy@voicesfromchornobyl.com and ask how.
A Ray of Hope
www.unesco.co.uk
Belarusian Ray of Hope
www.chernobylchild.org
Burren Chernobyl Project
www.burrenchernobyl.ie
Canadian Aid For Chernobyl
www.canadianaidforchernobyl.com/cac
Chernobyl Children’s Appeal Ireland
www.chernobylappeal.ie
Chernobyl Children Lifeline
www.chernobylchildlifeline.org
Chernobyl Children West Norfolk
www.chernobylchildwestnorfolk.org.uk
Chernobyl Children’s Project International
www.chernobyl.typepad.com
Chernobyl Children’s Project (UK)
www.chernobyl-children.org.uk
Chernobyl Continuity
www.rememberchernobyl.org/chernobylcontinuity.htm
Children of Chernobyl Fund Wells Area
www.wells-uk.com/children_of_chernobyl/index.html
Children of Chernobyl UK e-mail discussion forum
www.groups.yahoo.com/group/CofCUK
Friends of Chernobyl’s Children
www.focc.org.uk
The Greater Chernobyl Cause
corcoranfiona@eircom.net
Heart Hope Help
www.hearthopehelp.net
Hope for Families in Belarus
HopeforFamilies@hotmail.com
Medicine & Chernobyl (UK)
www.medicine-chernobyl.org
Remember Chernobyl
www.rememberchernobyl.org
Samaritan’s Purse
www.samaritanspurse.uk.com
Sasha’s Blog
www.shrinersgift.canadianaidforchernobyl.com
SOS Children’s Villages
www.soschildren.org
Trust for Chernobyl Children (Surrey and Kent)
Yburdge@aol.com
West Oxfordshire Vetka Association
www.wova.org.uk
We are seeking assistance in the following areas, in order to prepare for the 2009 First Annual Anniversary Reading. People around the country and the world expressed interest in hosting a reading or production, and your time commitment would be determined by you! If you have other ways to help or more ideas, please contact cindy@voicesfromchornobyl.com
1. Getting the word out to potential THEATERS about VFC Anniversary Readings
2. Getting the word out to CHARITIES about VFC Anniversary Readings
3. Getting the word out to CHARITIES & THEATERS outside the US about VFC Anniversary Readings
4. Getting the word out to potential COMMUNITY CENTERS about VFC Anniversary Readings
5. Compiling a Study Packet for School Performances
6. Compiling a Pitch Packet for School Performances
7. Coordinating a Kick-off Anniversary Reading to perform in Los Angeles, this April 2009
8. Photocopying Assistance for Scripts to be mailed to interested charities/groups (both monetarily or compilation)
9. Mailing Assistance (both monetarily or compilation)
10. Planning for a fundraiser to fund our own VFC presentations
11. Compilation and Maintenance of Mailing List
12. Compilation and Organization of Costume & Prop Stock
13. Storage Space for Costume & Prop Stock
14. Anniversary Readings International Coordinator
15. Publicity & Marketing, specifically Press Releases
16. Company Manager: Organize 20+ actors who are part of the Chornobyl Troupe for rehearsals and performances
COMING SOON: Ana Callan, who plays Young Katya in the Demo, talks about her experience in learning about Chornobyl and how it’s affected her life.
The revisions to this piece have been harrowing. I need at least ten hours at a time to work on it. I just finished about 2/3 of it, and I’m very happy with how it’s changing. Dramatizing some stories in the monologue, and finding a way to do so while paying respect to what I know of the real person’s experience.
I had to immerse myself in what already works about the piece, including the material never used before, used but then discarded, or material I had heard so often that I forgot the real meaning behind it.
Trying not to think about staging while I wrote it, I couldn’t get rid of the admonishing acknowledgement from the Director side of my brain: this will require completely different staging than we’ve ever done before.
This is yet another place in the journey where I am happy that I trust my cast.
So now we have true character interaction and story arcs.
But on my walk/chai break, I realized the first hurdle we’ll have to overcome in the storytelling transition to video. The purpose of the video is to give a demonstration of how the piece works onstage. Strange concept, I know. We’re actually creating the piece in a heightened rehearsal area, just to make things more exciting. Well, here is our first hurdle: the piece tells many stories at once, in different locations. Onstage (live) it works because you just immediately accept that if Person A (Stage Left) is talking and then we move to Person B (Stage Right), well, it’s theater and clearly we are in another place and picking up Person’s B story. When orchestrated correctly, the audience will follow you into different locales. If we can’t see the whole stage when that transition happens, will the transition get muddy? Do we need to always have that transition visible (Both Person A & Person B in the frame when they toss the baton back and forth)?
Question to the Production Team. Let’s see what they think.
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Yulia Latynina
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On Oct. 13, there was a powerful natural gas explosion in Dnipropetrovsk, located in eastern Ukraine. About 30 people died.
Ever since the explosion, almost every Ukrainian politician has attacked Viktor Vekselberg, the owner of DnipropetrovskGorGaz, which is the local gas company that may be responsible for the blast.
Actually, Vekselberg owns only 50 percent of the company. The other half is owned by Mikhail Abyzov, but this is beside the point. Since Vekselberg is a public figure and a Russian oligarch to boot, he is a more attractive target to blame for the accident.
Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko declared that he would teach Russian oligarchs a lesson about “criminal liability, if they don’t understand their moral responsibility.” Former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has “assembled a group of 10 lawyers that will force Mr. Vekselberg to pay for all losses caused by the accident.”
Ukrainian Emergency Situations Minister Nestor Shufrych, a member of Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych’s coalition, announced that he would press for nationalizing DnipropetrovskGorGaz if Vekselberg failed to reimburse the ministry to the tune of $20 million, the amount the government apparently spent handling the disaster.
The primary cause of the gas explosion is not known. It could have been caused by the dilapidated condition of gas lines, a high-pressure surge or tampering with gas meters by residents of the apartment building.
People are lining up to hurl accusations at DnipropetrovskGorGaz. And the populist threats to nationalize the gas company are very disturbing. In the end, not a single Ukrainian politician has missed the chance to exploit the deaths from this tragedy as a personal public-relations opportunity or to promote the interests of their financial backers. And some are guilty of doing both.
“Is this the glorious democracy we were fighting for?” you might ask.
Yes. In fact, this is democracy in its best form. As a result of this public outcry, Vekselberg announced that he would pay the families of the deceased $100,000 each and $10,000 to each of the injured. It should be reiterated that the cause of the accident has not been established yet.
Do you recall how much was paid to victims after a similar explosion in Arkhangelsk took the lives of 60 people? I’ll refresh your memory: The families of the deceased received 100,000 rubles (about $4,000) each.
And how much did the victims of the Dubrovka theater attack receive as compensation? In 2004, even the most persistent plaintiffs managed to win a maximum payment of only 327,000 rubles (about $13,000). And then there was the Moscow City Court ruling that increased the compensation for Alla Alyakin, a Dubrovka hostage, by 2 kopeks.
Contrary to what many think, democracy is not justice at all. It is all a bunch of lies, demagoguery and populism. It is also about politicians who exploit a tragedy — and the public outrage that emerges as a consequence — to grab shares of profitable industries under the false mantra of “justice.”
But in this case, the result of this demagoguery and corruption is that Tymoshenko’s political bloc will pay each victim 2,000 hryvnas ($395), while the government will allocate 5,000,000 hryvnas (roughly $1 million) to compensate the victims and help them acquire new apartments.
Democracy has a price — an absolutely concrete price.
Compare the $100,000 that each victim in Dnipropetrovsk will receive with the additional 2 kopeks paid to Alyakina in Moscow. This clearly underscores the difference, in arithmetic terms, between a country where the president is compelled to please the people and a country where the people worship their president.
Yulia Latynina hosts a political talk show on Ekho Moskvy radio.
NEW YORK, Oct. 27, 2007
(CBS) The Skinny is Keach Hagey’s take on the top news of the day and the best of the Internet.
The story came from USA Today’s report that the Bush administration may scrap a plan to give anti-radiation pills to millions of people, five years after Congress ordered that the tablets be made available to anyone living within 20 miles of a nuclear reactor. Congress issued the order based on fears that terrorists could attack a nuclear plant. The once-a-day pills protect the thyroid against ingested radioactive iodine by saturating it with harmless potassium iodide, thus guarding against thyroid cancer following radioactive exposure.
Back when the White House was focused on conjuring images of mushroom clouds to sell the Iraq war, it called potassium iodide pills crucial to preventing thyroid cancer. But now that it’s looking like we might actually need all those nuclear reactors - plus a whole lot more of them - to power the country, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is arguing against distributing the pills.
Commenter brianbwb thought the original plan to distribute the pills was pure political theater. “The fact is that the dissemination of information about stockpiling the pills was part of Bush’’s terror campaign, to make the suckers out there think that fictional “terrorists” out there somewhere in the Middle East were “coming to get you”, armed with nuclear waste,” he wrote. “Now that the scare has worked and is now counter productive to the interests of the power companies” wish to go nuclear, they backtrack and say ‘Oops, we scared the suckers too much, lets back it off a little.’”
Meanwhile, commenter chfin5 thought the pill distribution program wasn’t such a bad idea, if only the government had stuck to it.
“When certain kinds of information comes from the government you just have to learn to ‘eat the grass’ and ‘leave the briers alone,’” chfin5 wrote. “However since some of the government warnings of us being attacked by terrorists with something radioactive say ‘when’ and not ‘if,’ I see no reason to doubt them. And for the government to stop making these iodine pills because of some offense to the nuclear power plant plans sure doesn”t make a lot of common sense to me. Go ahead and build your plants! … Anything to get our country self sufficient from the Middle East would be fine and dandy with me.”
Commenter ridingwoman put a reality check on the whole debate by pointing out that people near nuclear reactors are pretty much doomed if there’s a meltdown, pills or no pills.
“Having worked many years in a nuclear industry, let me explain something,” she wrote. “The pills will do NOTHING to prevent radiation exposure. They are only a way of protecting the thyroid, somewhat. A radiation spill or meltdown or catastrophic failure will be another story entirely. We are bombarded with radiation every day from the sun. Imagine a massive sunburn cooking you all the way through your body, slowly over days. Archive photos from the Chernobyl spill in Russia to see what could happen.”
Got that, kids? A massive sunburn cooking you all the way through your body, slowly over days. With that image in mind, arguing whether the pill plan was political or not seems a little beside the point. Come to think of it, just about everything seems beside the point.
While I don’t continue working on VOICES to create specifically an anti-nuclear piece, this is still a video to watch. - CINDY
HELLO FRIENDS,
I have edited a video for MUSE (Musicians United to Sustain the Environment.) Was up until 4 am editing with Jackson Browne, we launched the video yesterday. Please enjoy the video, but most importantly CALL YOUR CONGRESS PERSON to stop the 50 billion dollar Bailout for the Nuclear Industry to build more plants. Think of our CHILDREN and their future.
Thank you for your time.
-Tracy
For Release: 11 am Eastern October 11, 2007Contact: Sam Boykin, 212.584.5000, sboykin@fenton.com
Joel Finkelstein, 202.822.5200, jfinkelstein@fenton.com
No-Nukes Musicians Launch Campaign to Stop the Nuclear Bailout
Jackson Browne, Graham Nash, Bonnie Raitt Spark Effort
Energy Bill Would Subsidize New Nuclear Reactors with Taxpayer Billions
YouTube Video and Petition Released at www.nukefree.org
LOS ANGELES and WASHINGTON, DC Musicians Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne and Graham Nash announced today a new campaign to stop Congress from bailing out the nuclear power industry. They launched the campaign with the release of a YouTube video and national petition effort all available at www.nukefree.org. The artists will deliver the petitions to Congress at a press conference and Lobby Day in Washington D.C. on October 23rd.
Initial petition signers include Ben Harper, Natalie Maines and Emily Robison of the Dixie Chicks, Melissa Etheridge, Maroon 5, Keb Mo, Patti Smith, Pearl Jam, Herbie Hancock and dozens of others. Already the Natural Resources Defense Council, Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, League of Conservation Voters, U.S. PIRG, Environmental Working Group, TrueMajority.org, Friends of the Earth, Physicians for Social Responsibility and Working Assets Wireless have joined the effort. The musicians are urging the public to sign the petition.
The Senate version of the Energy Bill, currently before Congress, authorizes the Department of Energy to provide virtually unlimited loan guarantees for funding of new nuclear reactors. The nuclear energy industry has already indicated it wants $25 billion in guarantees for 2008, and another $25 billion for 2009, with untold billions more to come after that.
The petition states:
“We ask that all members of Congress join us in working to remove from the pending Energy Bill massively expensive loan guarantees—potentially a virtual blank check from taxpayers— for the building of many more nuclear power plants. We strongly support those parts of this Energy Bill that advance Renewable Portfolio Standards, increased fuel efficiency for automobiles, and other safe, clean solutions to global warming.”
The YouTube video, produced by Robert Greenwald’s Brave New Foundation, integrates an adapted version of the Stephen Stills song, “For What It’s Worth” with information about both the problems of nuclear power and the potential of safe, green energy, including:
The vulnerability to attack, or accident, of both the reactors and the thousands of shipments of radioactive nuclear waste moving through neighborhoods across the country.
How subsidies to nuclear power would depress investment in sustainable safe sources of energy.
The global warming pollution produced in reactor construction, and in the mining, milling and transport of nuclear fuel and waste.Graham, Bonnie and Jackson worked, with many others, on the issue of nuclear power throughout the 1970’s, culminating with the 1979 series of five “No Nukes” concerts at Madison Square Garden. The Rally, feature film and triple album based on those concerts along with the ongoing work of grassroots organizations helped catalyze overwhelming public opposition to nuclear power. There have been no new atomic reactors ordered and built in the U.S. since then.
Instead of new nuclear reactors, the artists are urging Congress to get behind those parts of the Energy Bill that advance safe, economically viable solutions to global warming.
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PETITION TO STOP THE NUCLEAR BAILOUTTo: The 110th United States Congress
We ask that all members of Congress join us in working to remove from the pending Energy Bill massively expensive loan guarantees—potentially a virtual blank check from taxpayers— for the building of many more nuclear power plants.
We strongly support those parts of this Energy Bill that advance Renewable Portfolio Standards, increased fuel efficiency for automobiles, and other safe, clean solutions to global warming.
The tragedies of September 11th, 2001, underscore how vulnerable atomic reactors are to terror attacks by airplanes and missiles. Chernobyl and Three Mile Island remind us that major nuclear accidents can also be caused by human error.
The problem of radioactive waste remains unsolved. All reactors create deadly by-products that must be isolated for centuries. These wastes will have to be moved throughout the nation on trucks and trains, which could themselves have accidents and become terror and proliferation targets. There is no storage site even planned for the wastes that would come from new reactors. The controversial dump under construction at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, which may never open, cannot handle even the waste from reactors already in existence.
Huge quantities of energy are used for nuclear fuel enrichment, transportation, construction and waste storage. This is no solution to global warming. Reactors in Alabama and France have already shut because they are super-heating nearby rivers and streams.
The “new generation” nuclear plant now being built in Finland is already 18 months behind schedule and $900 million over budget. This is a design planned for our country. If construction begins here, tax and ratepayers will be stuck with the bill.
The Senate version of the Energy Bill could authorize the Department of Energy to provide virtually unlimited guarantees for backers of new reactors. The industry indicates it wants $25 billion in guarantees for 2008, and another $25 billion for 2009, with untold billions more to come after that.
The industry wants these subsidies because after fifty years, atomic power has been rejected by the marketplace. The first commercial nuclear reactor opened in 1957. But after fifty years of proven failure, Wall Street will not independently invest in more of them, and still no private insurance company will underwrite the possibility of a major reactor disaster.
In fact, nuclear power has been left behind by a profitable revolution in safe, clean, renewable energy sources, and in energy efficiency. Wind, solar, bio-fuels, geothermal, ocean thermal and more are shaping a green-powered Earth that produces jobs and sustainability. This is the true solution to global warming.These wasteful reactor loan guarantees would siphon away resources better spent on truly competitive sources of power.
So we ask that they be removed from the Energy Bill. Higher auto mileage standards, biofuels, energy efficiency and requirements for renewable energy are what we need to survive and prosper, not more taxpayer bailouts for the proven failure that is atomic energy.
Sincerely,
The Undersigned
Jackson Browne, Musician/ActivistGraham Nash, Musician/Activist
Bonnie Raitt, Musician/Activist
Keb’ Mo, Musician/Activist
Ozomatli, Musicians/Activists
Ben Harper, Musician/Activist
Harvey Wasserman, Author/Activist
Tom Campbell, The Guacamole Fund
Herbie Hancock, Musician/Activist
Patti Smith, Musician/Activist
David Crosby, Musician/Activist
Emily Saliers, Indigo Girls
Amy Ray, Indigo Girls
Pearl Jam, Musicians/Activists
Bruce Hornsby, Musician
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Environmental Attorney
Pete Seeger, Songwriter
Maroon 5, Musicians Activists
Emily Robison, Musician
Natalie Maines, Musician
Winona LaDuke, Author/Activist
Henry, JoJo and Ringo Garza, Los Lonely Boys
Melissa Etheridge, Musician/Activist
Dave Stewart, Musician/Cultural Engineer/Activist
David Fenton, CEO Fenton Communications
Shawn Colvin, Singer/Songwriter
Robert Cray, Musician
Dave Marsh, Author/Activist
Mudhoney, Musicians/Activists
System of a Down, Musicians/Activists
Nanci Griffith, Musician/Activist
Danny O’Keefe, Musician/Activist
Cris Williamson, Musician/Activist
Dar Williams, Musician/Activist
David Lindley, Musician
Adam Gardner, Musician/Activist
Holly Near, Musician/Activist
Peter Coyote, Actor/Writer
Joel Rafael, Musician/Activist
Brett Dennen, Musician/Activist
Michelle Branch, Musician/Activist
Paul Hawken, Author/Activist
Kenny Ausubel, Founder and Co-President, Bioneers
Dan Shugar, President, Sunpower Corp.
Randy Hayes, Founder, Rainforest Action Network
Thomas Van Dyck, RBC SRI Wealth Mgmt
Larry Fahn, Former President Sierra Club
Conrad Mackerron, As You Sow Foundation
Natural Resources Defense Council
Greenpeace USA
The Sierra Club
League of Conservation Voters
Environmental Working Group
TrueMajority.com
The Vote Solar Initiative
Physicians for Social Responsibility
Working Assets Wireless
Nuclear Energy Information Service
Nuclear Information and Resource Service
Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility
U.S.PIRG: Federation of State PIRGs
Friends of the Earth
Sign the petition here.