ARTS & CULTURE

ARTS &

CULTURE

Ben Dudley worked with more than 20 artists on The Day the Cat Got Shot.

PHOTO: PROVIDED BY BEN DUDLEY

The Cat’s Meow

Cincinnati native Ben Dudley’s graphic novel e Day the Cat Got Shot weaves together tales of madness.

BY MACKENZIE MANLEY

Cincinnati native Ben Dudley spent nine years working on his new graphic novel, e Day the Cat Got Shot. e book braids together the work of more than 20 artists based everywhere from the Queen City to Italy to Quebec to Venezuela and more.

Described on its Instagram account (@ thedaythecat) as an absurd spy thriller, the book was released in April and is gritty but features over-the-top dialogue and snarky humor. That’s intentional. Dudley tells CityBeat that he wanted to parody the 1980s action movies he grew up with, like Rambo and Predator. The book has plenty of genre hallmarks: a vague South American setting, henchmen, two-dimensional villains and a troubled protagonist.

Dudley also was inspired by the Coen Brothers’ 2008 fi lm Burn After Reading. Like the movie, The Day the Cat Got Shot weaves together a wide cast of characters whose disparate antics eventually converge into one cohesive story.

“Burn After Reading was an inspiration in terms of, I like absurd situations and looking at them in a logical way,” Dudley tells CityBeat. “Like, what is going on?”

This line of thinking is a recurring theme in Dudley’s body of work. For example, one of Dudley’s plays, Boo Boo, which premiered at the 2016 Cincy Fringe Festival, follows a 30-year-old who lives his life as a toddler. Dudley describes the screenplay as silly with a sad, poignant end.

With more than 20 artists featured in The Day the Cat Got Shot, the fi nished product that can, at times, feel jarring. Artists change every few pages, and some take over more sections than others. Styles range from photorealistic to heavy graphic lines and childlike illustrations. How did Dudley manage walking each artist, many of whom live across the globe, through his vision? The short answer: emails––around 10,000, to be exact.

To prepare, Dudley compiled virtual folders for the artists, complete with his own sketches, written dialogue and action directions plus reference pictures of actors, buildings, clothes and locations that could be used for inspiration. He also sent them illustrations from other participating artists to ensure that each character was recognizable from scene to scene. Artists sent preliminary drawings for Dudley’s feedback, and the editing process would continue until each comic panel was completed. Dudley then would add the lettering.

“I think the different styles really did complement the different stories,” Dudley says. “(The process) was mainly about always having open communication with the artists and a lot of back and forth with them having their own ideas. For me, I

The cover of The Day the Cat Got Shot

PHOTO: PROVIDED BY BEN DUDLEY

made sure those ideas meshed with mine and the overall story.”

The beginning of each section includes arrows with characters’ names to help readers keep track of who’s who between stylistic shifts. Artists also are credited at the start of each chapter by page number along with brief biographies in the back.

The graphic novel has its bizarre moments but often seeks to make a larger existential point about life’s purpose and humans’ interactions with one another. One character, Eli, is directionless, letting life move through him and seeking others to lead him to his next destination rather than taking charge of his own life. There’s also the cat, Joan, which Dudley says looks like his own feline friend at home. Joan is a constant but nonchalant observer appearing throughout the novel’s 202 black-and-white pages.

The cat, Dudley explains, ultimately represents the perspective that the book’s events are, in the end, all very absurd. Like in Burn After Reading, Dudley’s ultimate conclusion is, well, not much of anything. The Day the Cat Got Shot serves up a nihilistic platter of screwball proportions.

“Everybody is scrambling thinking that they are heroes, and that they are the protagonist, and that they are doing important stuff,” Dudley says. “The cat is wandering around seeing bits of that, saying, ‘Ah, I’m bored.’ It’s just completely independent.”

A true multi-hyphenate, Dudley has worked as a teacher, writer, editor, standup comic and actor since earning his master’s in creative writing in 2012 at the University of Cincinnati. In 2013, he even had a brush with internet fame: A meowing cat named Pouncy “booped” him on the forehead. Captured in a 11-second clip titled “Interspecies Bonding,” Buzzfeed named it one of the 30 most important cat videos of 2013.

Though Dudley has written and produced over a dozen plays, The Day the Cat Got Shot marks his fi rst graphic novel.

“When I was a kid, I wanted to be a cartoonist. I’ve always wanted to be able to draw, and I’ve never been very good at it, unfortunately,” Dudley says. “There’s one page in the comic that I drew and it’s supposed to be bad, so that worked out well. I always had a lot of respect, admiration and jealousy for artists. The ability to see something and recreate it in your own style is really cool to me. I was pretty much always bowled over by what I saw when they sent me their pages.”

Dudley’s planning process dates back to 2013 when he began recruiting artists to work on the project. The same year,

Artistic styles in the book range from photorealistic to childlike.

PHOTO: PROVIDED BY BEN DUDLEY

“I think the different styles really did complement the different stories,” Ben Dudley says.

PHOTO: PROVIDED BY BEN DUDLEY

he posted an Indiegogo campaign that raised more than $2,000 from 34 backers. By 2018, the graphic novel was nearly complete, Dudley says.

“I’m a proofreader and editor by trade, so I would go through it with a fi ne-tooth comb and fi nd any little thing I wanted to change,” Dudley says, later adding that the timeframe allowed him to update jokes and language and to think more critically. “I was tinkering with it from 2017 to 2019 or so.”

Now that his work is complete, there are still some elements Dudley wishes he could go back and change. Though he sent fi nished sections out to publishers, he heard that the market for graphic novels is small.

“When I was fully done around 2020, a niche market got even nicher,” Dudley says. “That’s when I looked into self-publication. When I went to grad school for creative writing, there was a stigma about jumping publication (skipping traditional publication). I still had that with me, but I found out it was more common with graphic novels, and I really wanted to get the book out.”

Currently, the graphic novel is available at thedaythecat.com, but Dudley is looking toward getting his book into indie stores and at local comic cons.

“It was a huge relief to hold (the book) and be like, ‘Okay, my to-do list can have other stuff on it now instead of constantly adding a couple of things to the comic at any given point,’” Dudley says.

To purchase or learn more about Ben Dudley’s The Day the Cat Got Shot, visit thedaythecat.com.

ONSTAGE

REVIEW BY RICK PENDER

School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play takes place in Ghana in 1986.

PHOTO BY MIKKI SCHAFFNER PHOTOGRAPHY

e chatter of high school girls about make-up, pop music, clothes and more is how Jocelyn Bioh’s School Girls; Or, e African Mean Girls Play begins. But these are not giddy American teens: ey’re adolescents enrolled at a boarding school in mountainous central Ghana in 1986. e characters cross the spectrum: Mercy (Kayla Forde) and Gifty (Jasmine Cheri Rush) are a tag-team who often amusingly speak and move in unison to demonstrate their enthusiasm, especially for American pop star Bobby Brown. Ama (Matenin Sangare) is softer spoken and clearly an intellectual. And sweet Nana (Starnubia) lacks self-con dence because she is overweight.

Finally there’s the mean bully, arrogant Paulina Sarpong (Markia Nicole Smith), who is talented and knows it. She is not only con dent that she can come out on top in an audition for the Miss Ghana Pageant, but she also bullies the other girls, especially Nana, who probably doesn’t have a chance.

But it’s evident that Paulina is covering up some of her own insecurity. She naively misunderstands aspects of American culture that she speaks so con dently about, planning to wear a gown by Calvin “Klean” and admiring White Castle (“a castle with food”). ey are overseen by Headmistress Francis (veteran Cincinnati professional Burgess Byrd), who was once a student at Aburi Girls Secondary School and is stern but has a playful side. Eloise Amponsah (Patrice Bell), an uber-sophisticated alumna of Aburi and a 1966 Miss Ghana winner (as she frequently reminds everyone within earshot), has become a recruiter for the Miss Ghana contest. She ambitiously seeks a candidate to win the title of Miss Global Universe, a worldwide honor, in large part to expand her own fame.

Paulina’s dominant role is challenged when Ericka Boafo (Kaitlyn Boyer) arrives. She’s from America (in fact, from Ohio) and is considerably more well-versed in pop culture and style than the Ghanian girls. It’s clear that she and Paulina are on a collision course.

School Girls’ subtitle — or, the African Mean Girls Play — makes clear that its inspiration was Tina Fey’s 2004 movie as well as the 2018 Broadway musical based on it. But Bioh’s play, which includes lots of humor and teen angst, takes it to another level, rooted in colorism and prejudice based on skin color. For example, Paulina is dark-skinned while Ericka is light-skinned and, with her American sophistication, Ericka is quickly deemed by status-seeking Eloise to have the best chance in the international contest because of her “more universal and commercial look.” It becomes clear that Eloise was a bully

It’s a show worth seeing for the insights it provides.

Playwright Jocelyn Bioh’s parents emigrated from Ghana in 1968.

PHOTO BY MIKKI SCHAFFNER PHOTOGRAPHY

during her time at the school and continues to run roughshod over others to get her own way.

Following a horrendous choral rendition of Whitney Houston’s “Greatest Love of All,” the con ict between the girls erupts and the play takes a sharp turn into an exploration of racism in a setting distinctly different from the United States. We learn more about the prior lives of Paulina and Ericka; their stories are more complex than simple teens seeking status, with backgrounds they both are eager to escape. Bioh’s play ends ambiguously, with the girls wondering whether it was worth the con ict. e playwright is the daughter of parents who emigrated from Ghana in 1968. She experienced racial typecasting as a theater student at Ohio State, and her plays have explored these issues. Director Candis C. Jones has dug into what she calls in a Cincinnati Playhouse newsletter “the major socialpsychological principles of discrimination, conformity and prejudice” which a ect all of these characters’ behaviors. In the newsletter, she adds, “We rarely see how having lighter skin can be a

marker of privilege and a standard of beauty. e unspoken privilege can cause harm in Black female friendships and diminish self-worth.” Bioh’s play does not resolve the issue, but it certainly brings it forward in a way that’s decepBioh’s play does tively simple and cunningly inviting, not resolve couched in humor and teen banter. the issue [of ere are a lot of laughs in the show’s colorism], but it certainly brings rst hour, but its nal 20 minutes push home a more it forward in profound message about the corrosive a way that’s impact of prejudice and discrimination. deceptively e story ends with the girls watching simple and the televised and perhaps-inevitable cunningly inviting. outcome of the Miss Global Universe pageant. We are right there with their disappointment for how things turn out. It’s a show worth seeing for the insights it provides — whether you’re a schoolgirl, a mean girl or just your average theatergoer.

School Girls; Or, The African Mean

Girls Play, presented by the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park (962 Mt. Adams Circle, Mt. Adams), continues through May 22. Info: cincyplay.com.

CULTURE Composer Jessie Montgomery Pays Tribute to Powerful Women in I Have Something to Say

BY ANNE ARENSTEIN

Jessie Montgomery is a composer, violinist and educator.

PHOTO: JIYANG CHEN

Cincinnati’s gem of a cultural tradition is winding down for the year. e Cincinnati May Festival – a two-week choral celebration backed by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra – concludes May 28 with a nod to joy and freedom. e festival, which is nearly 150 years old, also will spotlight the Cincinnati premiere of I Have Something to Say by Jessie Montgomery, an acclaimed composer, violinist and educator.

Incorporating powerful words spoken by abolitionist Sojourner Truth and climate activist Greta unberg, I Have Something to Say pays tribute to women speaking truth to power and challenges listeners to hear their messages.

“I like the idea of setting a political statement to music,” Montgomery says in a 2020 interview with Matthew Swanson, the May Festival’s associate director of choruses. e piece originally was scheduled for the 2020 season that was canceled at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. e Cathedral Choral Society in Washington, D.C., joined the May Festival in commissioning the piece to commemorate the passage of the 19th Amendment granting women the right to vote. It’s Montgomery’s rst composition for a large orchestra and chorus.

In a Zoom interview with CityBeat, Montgomery says that connecting past and present was a way of projecting into the future. But while researching Sojourner Truth, Montgomery made a startling discovery.

On May 29, 1851, Sojourner Truth appeared at the Ohio Women’s Rights Convention held in Akron. She delivered a speech famously known as “Ain’t I a Woman,” but Montgomery says that the words most people highlight and attribute to Truth were not actually the abolitionist’s, according to some sources. e popular version was published twelve years later by a white abolitionist who not only rewrote the speech, but also rendered it in a Southern dialect Truth never spoke, many sources say (Truth was born in New York and died in Michigan).

For her composition, Montgomery says she chose the actual words that Truth had approved for publication in 1851. Montgomery also includes thoughts from unberg, who spoke to the future in a no-holds-barred address to the 2019 United Nations Climate Action Summit.

“I knew I wanted the voice of a young woman juxtaposed with Sojourner Truth’s and I kept coming back to Greta unberg’s speech,” Montgomery says. To create the text, Montgomery turned to her mother Robbie McCauley, the distinguished performance artist, writer and director.

“I’m a lot like Jessie. I read, listen and re-interpret text around scenes that interest me,” McCauley explains in the 2020 interview with Swanson. “With Sojourner Truth, I returned to this sentence: ‘I have something to say,’ which is what she actually did say.”

“I had Greta say the same thing,” McCauley continues in that interview. “So it shows two di erent generations of women opening a space for women who have something to say about vital topics.”

Montgomery says she and McCauley discussed that scenario and how Truth and unberg could speak across generations, with McCauley envisioning a public setting that becomes a courtroom. For Montgomery, it was especially vital and personal to have a children’s chorus sing the hopes for the future.

In her younger years, Montgomery sang in the New York City Children’s Chorus, and although she chose to pursue violin rather than voice, she says

“I like the idea of setting a political statement to music,” Montgomery says.

PHOTO: JIYANG CHEN

has a soft spot for children’s ensembles. e May Festival’s Youth Chorus takes on the children’s chorus parts, and Montgomery acknowledges that there will be some adjustments made from the original writing for children’s chorus, but the voices will be young ones.

I Have Something to Say opens with orchestral improvisation that Montgomery describes as a sonic representation of a courtroom or public gathering place.

“ ere’s sounds of shu ing feet, rustling papers, a gavel, even ngers typing on a keyboard,” she says.

She adds that it’s clearly theatrical and even unsettling for an audience expecting clearly de ned musical points of entry. e audience will hear Truth and unberg singing the same melody, an e ect Montgomery says creates a uni ed vision and a relationship between the two women. eir messages are strengthened by the large chorus repeating their words. e children’s chorus appears midway, ad-libbing and improvising until they sing as one.

I Have Something to Say premiered in March at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. May Festival Principal Conductor Juanjo Mena says the piece is full of “beautiful things, with wonderful sonorities for both chorus and orchestra.” He hears the children’s chorus as central to the piece “and quite rightly.”

“It’s so important that they’re the ones who take center stage at this point, they’re the ones who are now thinking about the future of our planet,” Mena says.

Mena adds that the experience will be much di erent from the National Cathedral performance.

“Our audience will [experience] a full orchestra, the full May Festival Chorus and the May Festival Youth Chorus in Music Hall, which is much larger and has a di erent acoustic than the National Cathedral,” Mena says.

Montgomery says she is eager to hear her piece in a large space and performed by a full orchestra and chorus.

“You can’t ignore a giant choir that’s singing these words!” she says.

Montgomery is working with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra (CSO) for the rst time, although she debuted as a composer when the CSO opened its 2020-2021 season with Banner, her acclaimed interpretation of the national anthem for string quartet and string orchestra.

“ e CSO played it so tremendously,” she says.

Both Montgomery and Mena agree that I Have Something to Say has more urgency and relevance today.

“Greta unberg captured the attention of young people who are committed to taking care of our beautiful planet,” Mena says. “I love her words alongside those of Sojourner Truth. We still have so much to do for equality, for women’s rights, for the rights of people of color.”

Montgomery acknowledges that major changes face even more challenging obstacles. “For the sake of humanity and the planet, this message is even more present,” she says.

Sadly, McCauley never heard the nished work, dying on May 20, 2021. Her daughter calls the text “a microcosm of her aesthetic,” meshing historic events in a semi- ctional setting to challenge the listening audience.

“ at’s really powerful, especially now. It will be so rea rming to nally hear it,” Montgomery says.

I Have Something to Say is the nal performance of the Cincinnati May Festival, 7:30 p.m. May 28. Music Hall, 1241 Elm St., Over-the-Rhine. Info: cincinnatisymphony.org.

24 CITYBEAT.COM | MAY 18, 2022 - MAY 31, 2022