Galene
Galene is the goddess of the calm seas. Or is she? Very little is known about her besides the fact that she is one of many Nereid nymphs, daughters of Nereus and Doris, and one source posits that she may be identical to another Nereid, Galatea, whose name means either “goddess of the calm seas” (from galênê + theia) or “milky-white” (from galaktos). Galatea, unlike Galene, has a story associated with her: she fell in love with a Sicilian man named Acis, who was crushed to death with a boulder by the jealous cyclops Polyphemus. If Galene was a distinct goddess, her life was not interesting enough to merit a narrative of her own.
Galene examines our lives as stories through a young woman named Galen, whose life is, to put it bluntly, boring. She works in the publishing industry, sending more and more stories out into the world, but her own is not worth writing about. During a yoga session fueled by a pumpkin spice latte, she goes into a meditative trance and meets Galette, who claims to be a better version of herself, the woman Galen could be if she tried. Will Galette convince Galen to work towards a more awesome life, or is Galen content with the life she has? Do we have a responsibility to tell the best story with our lives that we can?
GALENE by Sunil Patel
Directed by Stuart Bousel
Staged Reading on November 5, 2015
Sunil Patel is excited to return to Olympus for the sixth year in a row. He wrote The Bow for the SF Olympians Festival in 2013 and has acted in every other one, playing such diverse roles as stage directions, a thieving heroin addict, a biracial teenage smartass, a doomed sailor, and a psychotic henchman. Outside of the festival, his work has been produced by And Then Theatre Company and San Francisco Theater Pub. His first fully produced play was Man vs. Beer, to which Galene bears some resemblance, if you replace drinking with making more bold life choices. This year also marks his debut as a published author, with short stories appearing in Saturday Night Reader, Fireside Magazine, The Book Smugglers, and the anthology Genius Loci: Tales of the Spirit of Place. He also reviews books for Lightspeed Magazine. And he’s writing a young adult superhero novel. Plus he has secret writing projects he can’t tell you about. It’s his mission to be a Galette, not a Galen. Find out more at ghostwritingcow.com, where you can watch his plays (including The Bow), or follow him on Twitter @ghostwritingcow. His Twitter has been described as “engaging,” “exclamatory,” and “crispy, crunchy, peanut buttery.”