Hey All,
Below the Belt is an ongoing collaborative performance of dynamic voices. We write a fresh show every year and we'd like you as a potential collaborative author. This will be our sixth performance!
Let me tell you a little more about the show: if you've seen or heard of "The Vagina Monologues" it is similar to that, only without drawing gender lines. We have a cast of actors perform the monologues, poems, and short stories we receive. Sharing stories of bodies, sex, gender, society, attraction, and the grey areas of "taboos down there."
As always, monologues, songs, short stories, and/or poems related to sex, sexuality, gender, attraction, anything below the belt and it's expression will be accepted. No theme too perverse or too tame. If you would like to present a theme which is not listed above and you are concerned may not fit with the show (which it probably will) just email me and we'll clear things up.
The show is free to the public so, unfortunately we would not be able to pay you, but you would be credited (if you wish to be). We are looking at putting a permanent script together to sell to theatre troupes. If that ends up happening and your name is attached to your work, we will contact you if we are interested in including your piece and giving you a share of the royalties.
Anonymity is always our first concern for those who would like to submit anonymously. If you would like to submit anonymously: go to gmail.com log in as belowthebelt.anon@gmail.com, the password is "supersneaky", email your work from that email to belowthebelt.theatre@gmail.com.
If you would like to be credited. E-mail your work to belowthebelt.theatre@gmail.com and complete the release form. Your name will NOT be directly connected to your piece. You will be included in the contributing authors list. Allowing for some anonymity for those who would still like credit.
Please try to keep submissions under 2000 words for the sake of actors' memorization, or accept that your work may be edited down for timing. If you would like these revision approved by you before they go to stage, make sure to specify how best to contact you.
If you are interested or have questions or suggestions for our show I would love to hear them. Please let me know what you think.
I look forward to hearing from you,
Zoe Reinhard
BTB Mastermind
PS Below are some examples from last year's show.
"Cockologue"
How would you, my reader,
feel if I told you that these
verses were all but written
in the nude?
Would you be impressed?
Like watching a seal balancing
a quadratic equation?
To think of the author, naked
as the day buddha crapped him out
in a starburst of rainbows and lotus flowers,
was capable of wrangling the muses
into submission in the way
of the ancient greeks.
Would you be disgusted?
With the homoncular image of the pallid flesh
of the author writhing furiously
against a helpless scrap of paper.
An old, cracked-leather barstool
cradling the horripilated anus hairs,
each one so much like an eyelash
which cascades darkly across his
luminescent posterior.
And he,
sweat on his brow,
toes curled,
beneath a bare bulb tediously cranking out a thimble of creativity.
Would you be aroused?
Knowing the author can do one-hundred situps in two minutes
and keeps himself well groomed.
Is obviously comfortable enough with poetry
and his own form that he would recite
Petrarch, Rumi and Keats to you mid-coitus
upon delivering innumerable pyrotechnic orgasms.
That he might take the same meticulous care
in sharing his body with you
as he might in sharing his body with a poetic work.
That he might run his fingers across the stanzas
of your vertebrae.
That he might rock you slowly in iambic pentameter
before flipping you over for a few rough dactyls
that you could feel from your thighs
all the way to your terminal words.
Or maybe
you would think
he was just being artistic.
"The Other Woman"
I think about your vagina a lot. I imagine your hot, pulsating, lips covered in sweet, innocent, blonde hairs. Now that I think of it, you’re probably perfectly shaved. A hard cock pulls at the hairs you do have as it slides into you. You ride that cock. You fuck that cock. I think about you, wet and begging. I hope you cum. You might think I want you, but I don’t. I loathe every milligram of sexuality you ooze. I want the dick that fucks you. I want it to be my lips caressing his. I want it to be my lips enveloping every inch of him. I hope you cum so you know how lucky you are. I hope you scream his name and he hears my voice. I want you to fuck him harder so he can bury his face in your shoulder, close his eyes, and imagine that you’re me.
I don’t like thinking about the two of you together, but it is inevitable. I think about him. I think about his dick. I want his dick. I remember I can’t have his dick. I remember why I can’t. I think of you. I think of you and his dick. There is nothing I particularly like about your vagina, I’ve never seen it. But I do like his dick, which I have seen. I want that penis to have the best time it can have, all of the time. If that means you gag trying to take his length all at once, so be it. He’ll appreciate the effort, but we all know I could have taken it. But that’s what he likes about you isn’t it? You’re so pure, so kind, so emotionally sensitive, and innocent.
I am none of those things. I am brash. I am blunt. I have enough damaged baggage to fill LaGuardia’s lost and found. But I could be sweet, I could learn. But I could never learn to be tight. My innocence long ago stolen away by far worse men than you. My hairs are not blonde and they are definitely not shaved. But this isn’t about me. It is about you and your amazingly desirable vagina. The vagina I think about possibly more often than my own. The vagina I hope stays tight and wet and wanting. The vagina I envy and despise.
I am the other woman and I don’t want you. And now that I’ve said it, I’m not sure why he would want me.
