Expressing Motherhood

Last weekend I went to a stage show in Hollywood called “Expressing Motherhood.”  In the show, 12 women each took center stage, one after the other, and performed pieces they had written about being a mother.  The theater was small but tasteful, there was a crepe truck outside, and several of my friends were there.  It was a lovely evening.

The show was weepy, funny, inspiring and intimidating.  As a person who writes about motherhood, I couldn’t imagine myself getting up there and reading it to a crowd sitting in the dark, whom I could not see.  I was impressed.  I remember them all.

• The mother of two under two who didn’t even have time to pee
• The woman whose husband died when her oldest child was 11
• The woman with stage 4 breast cancer, who looked and sounded fabulous and said “THIS is what stage 4 breast cancer CAN look like!”
• The mother who compared her preschooler to a terrorist
• The British rapper
• The Asian-American mom who is hoping her kids learn Chinese
• The mother of a teen girl who bonded with her daughter through shopping
• The former TV producer who moved to Charlotte
• The survivor of labor while stuck in traffic on the 405
• The singing mom of a child with special needs
• The TV actress who wrote a letter to her “child’s future therapist”
• The woman whose husband recently lost his job

I was even more impressed by the show because the producer and director chose to collect diapers for Help a Mother Out to benefit PATH/Achieve Glendale.  Ticketholders brought a total of 1,213 diapers!

See how easy it is?

More performances of Expressing Motherhood are planned for the near future.  Check their website to see where and when you can catch the show again.

Photo from Glendale News Press.