Nell Scovell & Alyssa Mastromonaco: Women You Should Know

I was recently on vacation and, quite by accident, read memoirs by Nell Scovell and Alyssa Mastromonaco back-to-back. Turns out I want both of these women to be my mentors and give me advice on how to live my life every single day. Intelligent, kind, and supremely self-aware, they have two very different lives that surprisingly have a lot of similar themes about being a working woman in America.

Let's start with Just the Funny Parts by Nell Scovell. Even though you may not know her name, you will certainly recognize the slew of TV shows she has written for during her long career in Hollywood. This includes The Simpsons, Murphy Brown, Charmed, Late Show with David Letterman (there's plenty of juicy detail there about that show's appalling lack of diversity), and she also created Sabrina the Teenage Witch, which is of course my favorite part of her credits. That very abbreviated list already demonstrates her range - this is a woman who can write for anything, and I haven't even mentioned that she co-wrote Lean In with Sheryl Sandberg, and wrote some of Obama's jokes for the White House Correspondent's Dinner. For a few seconds, she was responsible for the words coming out of the mouth of the leader of the free world, and if that ain't powerful, I don't know what is.

Because Scovell is a TV writer, this book is chockful of eminently quotable lines, and I kept highlighting them on my Kindle as I went through the book. One of my favorites is, "I truly believe that if you're a comedy writer and have never been told 'You've gone too far,' then you haven't gone far enough. I also believe that if you're constantly told 'You've gone too far,' then maybe you're an asshole." Which is a nice segueway into her discussions about the many writers' rooms she has had to work in where she was the sole female. The book dissects the implicit biases in Hollywood that lead people to constantly hire white males instead of women or people of color, and also includes Scovell's own #MeToo moment in the early stages of her career. It's not a fun story, but Scovell uses it to illustrate how women feel in male-dominated workplaces and why these heinous scenarios are all too common.

Just the Funny Parts is also an excellent look at why showrunners are sometimes terribly equipped to run shows. As they mostly begin as writers and move their way up the ladder, Scovell points out that "At no point are writers taught how to manage people. Eventually, the writer who was good at ordering around characters in his head ends up in charge of actual human beings." In the same passage, she talks about the importance of empathy and generosity, characteristics that most men probably do not focus on when they think of what constitutes "management material." When she talks about her mentors in the business (many of whom were male, because, well duh) it is clear that she has found some wonderful men who genuinely know how to make her fight for her dreams and tell her that she is more than equipped to put up with the bullshit. And when she talks about her work and research for Lean In, she provides all the statistics and depressing information that re-emphasize the difficulties women face when trying to get ahead in the world.

Scovell doesn't shy away from the fact that she too is guilty of keeping people of color out of her writer's rooms. Never intentionally, but again, just like men didn't hire her to write for TV, she only managed to hire people who looked like her when she was a showrunner, and that is an oversight that she calls herself out on. She doesn't have all the answers, but she is certainly striving to get the message across that things still suck for women and minorities. And she does it with wit and warmth and plenty of common sense, which is something we could all use more of in this day and age.

Moving on, we come to Who Thought This Was a Good Idea? by Alyssa Mastromonaco. She served as Obama's deputy chief of staff and while I previously had no idea what that entailed, now that I have read this book, I am amazed that anyone can actually do that job without having a heart attack. Mastromonaco managed to do it impeccably, even if she does suffer from IBS, which led to a particularly hilarious moment at Vatican City where she shook the Pope's hand while the staff around her were all gazing on in horror to see if she would poop on the Pope (seriously, her words, not mine). She was responsible for coordinating logistics and planning emergency relief for hundreds of thousands of people when Hurricane Sandy hit and was in Haiti for a week during the earthquake. She is also responsible for the White House finally getting a tampon machine in the women's bathrooms. And that seemingly simple gesture demonstrates what a no-nonsense and capable women she is. As far as I'm concerned, organizing fuel tankers and hiring $3 million dollar planes is of the same importance as getting the male-dominated White House to understand that female officials need tampons, and running through multiple levels of security to get to the CVS across the street is not a tenable solution.

Mastromonaco's book is a quick read but searingly effective, with not a single wasted word (much like the woman herself). She describes it as a guide to women who want to break into politics; she was never able to find such a book when she was younger as first of all, there's a dearth of female politicians, and secondly, male politicians write books to showcase their legacy and don't really spend any time telling you how to do the job. So this book is divided into ten sections that cover the key qualities for success: leadership, preparedness, independence, self-awareness, personal shit (because there is always personal shit, but only she is honest enough to address it), confidence, humility, risk-taking, resilience, and kindness. Look at that list - it is brilliant in itself and I want to tape it up by my desk as a personal mentorship guide to think about how I am developing those qualities every day. But thankfully, Mastromonaco does one better and actually talks about these subjects in vivid detail, offering up personal stories of various events at the White House or during Obama's campaigns that helped her learn and grow into the powerhouse she has become.

This is not some slick feel-good political memoir. Mastromonaco lays her life bare, highlighting all of her successes but also her failures, many of which she struggled to take in stride at the time. She suffered from anxiety, overwhelming stress, and she talks about how she is a crier and can't keep her emotions off her face, a fact that made me feel a thousand times better about myself. If that lady can have a good cry and then plan a multi-country trip to help determine American foreign policy, I can probably survive my job just fine. And she too had wonderful mentors who pushed her to take more challenging roles and insisted that she could do the job when she felt under-qualified. But she also calls out the overwhelmingly male-dominated meetings, and the times when she was talked down to or talked over simply because she was a young woman in the boy's club.

So what ties these two books together? Both women are exceedingly funny and unafraid to share the good, the bad, and the ugly. These books are hilarious and profound in equal measure, and while I was able to read them rapidly, I am certain I shall be re-reading them multiple times to gather up more wisdom and laugh over the more inane stories. Scovell and Mastromonaco may have been in two very different fields, but they both highlight how men dominated the rooms they worked in and why we need more women in those rooms. They are at the top of their game and it is clear that the world would have truly been a less wonderful place if they hadn't managed to get their foot in the door. They also demonstrate the importance of mentorship: both women had (and continue to have) excellent mentors who serve as sounding boards and provide sage advice on how to survive in Hollywood and politics, and in turn, they both serve as excellent mentors themselves to their fellow colleagues and up-and-comers.

This brings me to the point that struck me the most deeply about these books: the emphasis on empathy and kindness. These marvelous women place such a premium on these qualities, and that is why I have always personally believed we need more women in senior leadership roles. Women do not merely want to create a legacy and highlight their individual accomplishments - they usually want to build a team and get the job done effectively. And that is something we need to recognize and nurture as true leadership material. The tenth chapter in Mastromonaco's book focuses on kindness and it honestly made me tear up as she cited various examples of the kindness she experienced through the years in the Obama administration. It isn't sappy and female to treat people kindly - it is the human thing to do. Given the current state of our world and the neverending tales of misogyny, harassment, racism, and ignorance, these two books serve as a guide on how to be better. Be a better colleague, be a better boss, be a better human being. And I will be taking those lessons to heart. 

Firebird & Afterite: Balletic Brilliance

I have lived in New York for 16 years. Which means that I always imagine I will have the chance to do "New York-y" things, so then procrastinate and never do. Which is why I had never seen a ballet until yesterday, when my friend Candice and I headed off to the Metropolitan Opera to indulge in the American Ballet Theatre's production of Igor Stravinsky's The Firebird, with ballerina extraordinaire Misty Copeland as the Firebird. Yeah, my introduction to the ballet was certainly as spectacular as possible.

The story of The Firebird is fairly simple. Ivan (Herman Cornejo in the performance I saw) is searching for his lost love in a creepily enchanted forest. He happens upon a flock of mythical firebirds and chases one down (Misty Copeland) - she escapes but leaves behind a feather that will summon her when he is in trouble. He then finds a group of enchanted maidens, but cannot tell if his lady love (Skylar Brandt) is among them as they are all under a spell by the evil sorcerer Kaschei (Duncan Lyle). What follows is your classic battle between good and evil, and the Firebird comes to the rescue to help Ivan kill Kaschei, break the spell, and reunite with his love.

I don't know where to begin. I was so moved by this performance that I was rather appalled I had waited this long to see a ballet. While the orchestra (conducted by Charles Barker) were phenomenal, I will confess that I did not pay as much attention to the music as I expected because I was too captivated by the dancing. The grace and beauty of ballet is something I thought I understood, but it turns out watching Black Swan is insufficient to capture the power of a live performance. The choreography by Alexei Ratmansky was stunning. Combined with the costumes by Galina Solovyeva, you almost don't even need the summary of the story I provided above, because the dancers were able to capture every nuance of this tale perfectly through their movements and the feathers ruffling on their costumes. The fiery red of the Firebirds was in beautiful contrast to the green tutus sported by the pirouetting maidens, while the sorcerer's black and green swirly cape was in stark contrast to Ivan's innocent white suit.

The dancing maidens were both beautiful and funny - initially, as they are all under a spell and running around the stage following each other with exceedingly silly movements accompanied by a very amusing interlude in the music, you feel like chuckling. Skylar Brandt was magnificent as Ivan's lost love, capturing the silliness, and then moving into haunting loveliness when she meets Ivan and is drawn to him. When Duncan Lyle shows up on stage as the evil Kaschei, things take a dramatic turn, and as he controls the maidens with his invisible puppet strings, it is a sight to behold.

All of which brings me to Misty Copeland. The Firebird is her signature role, and having witnessed this performance, I have no doubts as to why. The costume was perfect, a red leotard with feathers on her head and back that let you watch her execute her dance with grace and precision, with just the right amount of fluttering feathers to make you fully believe she's about to take flight from the stage. The little hops and steps as she turns, the way she bobs her head, it was so bird-like, I was in utter awe. And of course, as she claimed the stage in jumps and pirouettes and all manner of other ballet moves that I lack the vocabulary to describe, I fully understood why she is a dancer who is celebrated across the world. There were moments when I genuinely wanted to weep and cheer, and when the entire performance was over, I felt stunned, like I had witnessed a miracle.

Following intermission, there was a very different ballet, Afterite, which had premiered on Monday. Years ago, when I was unemployed, I took an online course on classical music, and wrote my final paper on Igor Stravinsky. Part of that paper was about The Rite of Spring, a ballet that premiered in Paris in 1913 with choreography by the famed Vaslav Nijinsky, that incited a riot because it was so unexpected and unconventional and led to the composer and choreographer fleeing the theater. Well now, choreographer Wayne McGregor has created Afterite, a creepy and compelling ballet set to The Rite of Spring, with a dystopian story about the last colony of humankind. I'll confess, Candice and I (and the ladies sitting next to us) were a bit perplexed about what exactly the story was, but the choreography and music were exemplary and managed to creep us out. It was eerie, and frightening, and quite the turn from the fairytale of The Firebird, and this time, I paid attention to the music and found it utterly bewitching and bizarre when accompanied by the machinations on stage.

Firebird and Afterite are only playing at the Metropolitan Opera House through May 26. If you're in New York, I cannot urge you enough to buy a ticket and witness these thrilling ballets firsthand. But even if you don't live here, I cannot urge you enough to buy a ticket to see a ballet performance wherever you can find one. Perhaps, like me, you were laboring under the impression that this is a high-class inaccessible art form. However, it turns out, as long as you're a human being, you will find yourself transformed by the athletic grace, power, and beauty of these dancers, the ability of classical music to weave a story as it seeps into your bones, and for the choreography and costumes to come together in perfect harmony to tell a story that transcends language and time.