We recently connected with Ayun Halliday and have shared our conversation below.
Ayun , thank you so much for joining us and offering your lessons and wisdom for our readers. One of the things we most admire about you is your generosity and so we’d love if you could talk to us about where you think your generosity comes from.
I think it springs from a combination of my longing to be included, a compulsion to share information, and a realization that I’m good at cultivating a jolly group identity in a decidedly non-corporate setting.
Working with teens has also been a contributing factor. I seek to be an understanding, fun, inspirational art monster. It’s easy when you’ve got something they want – a play that’s steaming toward production, a time-based activity, secret knowledge of how to do something they want to do. (SPOILER: I have no secret knowledge.)
I’m no star-maker, but I have made opportunities for others to create work, be on a low budget bill, get some attention, and feel like they’re part of something. I want every small potato to feel worthy and noticed.
I’m not sure one can be generous without also being grateful – for whatever combination of health, friends, education, luck, interests, support, personality quirks and skills have conspired to make it rain good things in my own life. Small good things, as Raymond Carver would say. I’m grateful. I don’t want to be stingy.
As I approach my 60th birthday, I am reckoning with the reality that there are certain youthful fantasies that likely won’t play out. But one thing I can control is to make myself. a better, kinder, smarter, less stressed out, and yes, more generous, creature every day.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
I’m a low budget hustler, my fingers in many simultaneous pots, and have gotten really good at mining my own foibles for comic effect. It’s a survival mechanism.
The biggest creative constant has been my handwritten, autobiographical, illustrated zine, The East Village Inky. I started it in 1998, when I discovered that newborns and late night, low budget theater aren’t the greatest pairing. Back in the day, The East Village Inky documented my wanderings around New York City with my kids, our life in a 340-square foot apartment, and the minutiae of motherhood, Now that the feral young have flown the coop, I enlist readers to help me choose a theme for each new issue – Animals, NYC Museums, Kurt Vonnegut, and Mail are some recent topics. In our increasingly online age, The East Village Inky brings some hands-on joy to people’s mailboxes and pockets.
I’ve also managed to squeeze out nine books over the years. The most recent is Creative, Not Famous: The Small Potato Manifesto, and an accompanying interactive Activity Book, both born of interviews I conducted with hardworking musicians, performers, writers, and artists who are still doin’ it, despite a lack of widespread recognition and riches.
Stepping away from my desk (actually, I write it cafes and a historic membership library), it took a while, but I finally realized nothing’s stopping me from attempting to claw my way back onto various black box stages, as both playwright and performer. My latest effort is NURSE!, a solo opportunity for Juliet’s Nurse to tell her side of the story. I’m really proud of it. I get to honk some of my favorite horns – aging, teenagers, love, and the passing sweetness of being alive. The goal was to create a piece I could perform all over the English speaking world for the rest of my life. This September, NURSE! is heading to Nyack NY, and Portsmouth NH, with a one-night-only appearance in NYC to keep the lines from falling out the various rust-holes in the ol’ brain pan. I’m actively seeking more bookings, and dream of them dropping from the trees like so much ripe fruit, though reality suggests it’s up to me to make things happen.
I’m also working to turn NURSE! into a graphic novel.
My husband, playwright and fledgling banjo player, Greg Kotis, and I collaborate with some pals on The Wayfaring Strangers, a monthly improvised bluegrass musical in NYC. I play the washboard and make a pretense of knowing how to flat foot.
A few years ago I started volunteering at The New York Common Pantry, an organization which fights food insecurity in my neighborhood and beyond. When my head is spinning off into space from all my DIY projects and the stress of self-promotion, volunteering at NYCP keeps my feet on the ground.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
1. A deliberately welcoming, hopefully unpretentious camp counselor vibe that put my theater background to good use
2. An unathletic only child’s ability to amuse herself with stories and drawing
3. Curiosity about art, culture, big cities, and other peoples’ lives
Travel! Read! Write in your journal! Sketch on the subway! Spend time in museums!
Don’t wait for some big creative opportunity to come along. Make your own little opportunities. Doodle on a Post-IT and stick it up where others can see. Write a song. Make a mini-zine. Thrift some costumes, make props out of cardboard and put on a show with your friends. Give homemade birthday presents that celebrate the nature of your connection.
Don’t take selfies of your perfectly outfitted self in a big hat, back to the camera, editing it so it looks like you’re the only person at the Taj Mahal that day. Don’t run with that herd.
Support others’ creative efforts as you would like to be supported yourself. Use the Internet for good. Be generous.
What was the most impactful thing your parents did for you?
My father made my stuffed animals talk.
On Bring-Your-Dad-to-School Day, he played Bombardment and Four-Square with us during recess, while all the other fathers were inside, drinking coffee.
He stretched out beside me on the couch, reading Charles Dickens aloud to me, when I was far too young to read it to myself.
He took me swimming, and regaled me with the plots of his favorite movies while we baked in the sun.
He was present and affectionate, and never hid the fact that he got a kick out of me and my interests.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.ayunhalliday.com/
- Instagram:instagram.com/ayun_halliday/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AyunHalliday/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ayun-halliday-20317728/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@AyunHalliday
- Other: Theater of the Apes https://www.theater-of-the-apes.com/
Image Credits
Michael Verdi Dave Grant Sam Dole
