Cinnamon and Cigarettes: The Movie
The movie premiered on my YouTube channel on the Summer Solstice, 6/21/22.
You can watch by clicking the link above OR the image below. I hope you will share in this celebration of healing and humanity!
Cinnamon and Cigarettes: The Play
Cinnamon and Cigarettes is a touring production!
“Being human is not hard because you’re doing it wrong, it’s hard because you’re doing it right.” – Glennon Doyle, Untamed
I wrote and performed the first version of this play in 2012, and although I didn’t know it at the time, that process was the starting point of a monumental personal unraveling. I won’t give away the details, many of which are revealed in the play. But I will say that when I shared this story the first time around, I believed a few things that I don’t anymore: that pain should be avoidable; that if we played by the rules, life should be fair; that perfection was an achievable goal. I believed that happiness could be judged by appearances, and that if my life wasn’t measuring up to some set of predetermined standards, it meant that I was broken.
None of that is true for me anymore. I feel deeply, and that is neither a character flaw, nor a source of shame, nor a too-bright flame that I need to tamp down for anyone’s comfort. It is rather an accurate reflection of how it is to be human. I believe that being honest with ourselves about our pain can catalyze us to action for greater personal and collective good; that it can help us connect more deeply with ourselves and each other; and that it can even illuminate a way to pure, authentic joy. I’m so excited and honored to connect with you as I tour this play.
Previous performance dates were:
August 2023 at the Los Angeles Fitmaurice Voicework Freedom and Focus Conference
August 2023 at Murphys Creek Theatre in Murphys Creek, California
September 2021 at Roshni’s New American Arts Festival in Aurora, Colorado
September 2021 at The College of Idaho
January/February 2020 at Bag&Baggage Theatre in Hillsboro, Oregon
March 2014 at Hillsboro High School in Hillsboro, Oregon
September 2013 at the San Francisco Fringe Festival
August 2013 at the Backdoor Theatre in Portland, Oregon
July 2013 at the Subud Center in New York City
January 2013 at the Portland Fertile Ground Festival
July 2012 at the Subud Center in New York City
A tour to the 2020 United Solo Festival in New York City was cancelled due to the pandemic.
… a one-woman powerhouse of a show …
… not a dry eye was in the house. C&C is an affecting and honest, beautifully-told story that manages to put a finger on the way life steals our childhood innocence and replaces it, sometimes, with wisdom and compassion and then more challenges. - Bag&Baggage audience member
More Information:
Jenny began writing Cinnamon and Cigarettes as a final project for her Fitzmaurice Voicework ® certification in 2012. It was about her childhood best friend Jeremy, his struggles, and his impact on her, and it really told half the story that the current version shares. It also reflected a very different worldview than the one that Jenny is developing now. She took the original version on tour to Portland and San Francisco, and spent the next seven years going down a rabbit hole of often-painful personal growth. She got divorced and started going to therapy, delving into her own experiences of personal and generational trauma - exploring many healing modalities, including EMDR, inner child work, and kundalini yoga. All of this healing led her to revisit the script again in 2019. She added her own story to Jeremy's, fleshing out the journey to be an intensely personal, vulnerable look at love and self-love, connection and disconnection, loss, heartbreak, courage, and curiosity about the emotional experiences that make us all human. She performed the revised script at Bag&Baggage’s 2020 SOLO Fest right before the pandemic shut everything down - and then, a year and a half later, in two places that felt like home - her alma mater in Idaho and in Colorado near where she and Jeremy grew up.
Jenny says: “I wish the world felt safer and kinder and more socially just, and that the pandemic had subsided in a more comprehensive way - and at the same time, I am mindful that the many harsh realities in the world are presenting themselves to humanity in ways that are impossible to ignore. We must open our eyes where they were previously closed, and we must reach out to illuminate the truths for ourselves and with each other - which has always been a key aspect of the most important works of art. So in a way, I am honored to share some of the most meaningful pieces of myself and my story right in the midst of such a globally trying time.”
Contact me for more information!
It’s her story …
… but it’s yours, and mine, and the person sitting across from you right now. - Bag&Baggage audience member