How to Fail as a Popstar

How to Fail as a Popstar

Vivek Shraya

How to Fail as a Popstar

a play

HOW TO FAIL AS A POPSTAR

Copyright © 2021 by Vivek Shraya

Foreword copyright © 2021 by Brendan Healy

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any part by any means—graphic, electronic, or mechanical—without the prior written permission of the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may use brief excerpts in a review, or in the case of photocopying in Canada, a licence from Access Copyright.

ARSENAL PULP PRESS

Suite 202 – 211 East Georgia St.

Vancouver, BC V6A 1Z6

Canada

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The publisher gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the British Columbia Arts Council for its publishing program, and the Government of Canada, and the Government of British Columbia (through the Book Publishing Tax Credit Program), for its publishing activities.

Arsenal Pulp Press acknowledges the (Musqueam), (Squamish), and (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations, custodians of the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories where our office is located. We pay respect to their histories, traditions, and continuous living cultures and commit to accountability, respectful relations, and friendship.

Greatest Love of All. Words by Linda Creed, music by Michael Masser © 1977 (renewed) EMI Gold Horizon Music Corp. and EMI Golden Torch Music Corp. Exclusive print rights administered by Alfred Music. All rights reserved. Used by permission of Alfred Music.

Cover and text design by Jazmin Welch

Cover photograph by Heather Saitz

Photographs by Dahlia Katz

Copy edited by Shirarose Wilensky

Proofread by Alison Strobel

Printed and bound in Canada

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication:

Title: How to fail as a popstar : a play / Vivek Shraya.

Names: Shraya, Vivek, 1981– author.

Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 2020032456X | Canadiana (ebook) 20200324853 | ISBN 9781551528427 (softcover) | ISBN 9781551528434 (HTML)

Subjects: LCSH: Shraya, Vivek, 1981–—Drama.

Classification: LCC PS8637.H73 H69 2021 | DDC C812/.6—dc23

For Whitney Houston,

whose voice made a brown queer kid in Edmonton

believe in my own voice,

Madonna,

for showing me the power of pop,

and Shamik,

for being the original believer.

I decided long ago

Never to walk in anyone’s shadows

If I fail, if I succeed

At least I’ll live as I believe

—Whitney Houston, Greatest Love of All

Contents

Foreword

The Popstar

The Maiden

The Guru

The Pretty Girls

The Judge

The Producer

The Rock Star

The Manager

The Sisters

The Record Deal

Credits

Afterword

Acknowledgments

Foreword

I can recall the moment, in the summer of 2018, when Vivek called me with The Pitch. It went something like this:

"Hi. So I have this idea for a play called How to Fail as a Popstar. What I am imagining …"

I can’t really remember what she said after that. She had sold me with the title alone and my mind was already focused on how to make it happen.

At that point, I had known Vivek for almost a decade. She was initially one of my early social media friends. We followed each other on various platforms, liked each other’s posts and pics, and exchanged the occasional message. I remember being quite struck by her social media presence. She was one of the first people I felt was really using social media as a tool for self-expression. She took it seriously, long before most of us caught on to what this technology offered. Early on, she understood its power to create a mediated pop version of the self.

When I finally got to meet Vivek in person, I