Songwriter Reinvented

Texas Book Festival Preview: Singer Lisa Loeb adds 'author' to list of credits

You know her as the cute alternative folk singer in the cat-eye glasses that sang "Stay (I Missed You)," but your kids might know her as the funny lady that sings about rock-hard pancakes mistaken for UFOs.

Over the past 10 years, the eclectic, good-natured singer has done a fantastic job reinventing her sound to appeal to a whole new generation of music fans. Long past her angsty days as a lovelorn musician on the Reality Bites soundtrack or the short-lived VH1 reality TV show #1 Single, Loeb is now happily married with a daughter and a stake in the children's music arena.

After releasing 2003's Catch the Moon with music partner Elizabeth Mitchell, Loeb became a singing staple on the Noggin TV channel for children. Then in 2008, she released Camp Lisa, a critically-acclaimed compilation of new and favorite camp songs inspired by her cherished times at summer camp in Texas.

Loeb was kind enough to join us for a quick phone interview before her whirlwind schedule brings her to Austin for the 2011 Texas Book Festival.

CultureMap: Hi, Lisa! Congrats on your new book of songs and children's activities. You're an author and a songwriter now.

Lisa Loeb: Thank you. It's very exciting. There are so many wonderful things happening right now. I'm definitely staying busy these days.

CM: You're the mother of a nearly-two year old. Will your daughter be joining you on this trip to Austin?

LL: No, she'll be staying back at home with her dad. I would love to have her with me, but I know that I would be busy the whole weekend. It's hard sometimes taking these trips, but it's great to know at the end of the day that there's always dinner and a family waiting back at home.

CM: You were raised in Dallas, so you know Texas pretty well. What are you most excited about doing while you're here?

LL: Besides the Book Festival, I'm excited to get good Mexican food. And I'll be visiting some friends from camp that live there. Camp Champions (outside of Austin) was a big part of my childhood, and it's part of what inspired me to do my CD, Camp Lisa, and create my [Camp Lisa] Foundation.

CM: Lisa Loeb's Silly Sing-Along is your first book, though. How did you choose the songs to include in this collection?

LL: These songs are mostly songs about engaging the senses and the imagination. They all have fun scenarios and stories to go along with them that bring inanimate objects to life in a fun way. The title song, "The Disappointing Pancake," resembles that song "On Top of Spaghetti," which kids love to sing along with and has great imagery. I have another songbook coming out in April next year that's all movement-based songs. So we divided them up that way.

CM: After years singing love ballads, you have a lot of adults who still love your music. Do parents or kids get more excited to see you perform?

LL: It's about 50/50 between grown-ups and kids at most of the shows so I tend to gauge the audience on what songs I'll end up singing. Sometimes I throw in some kids songs when it's mostly grown-ups, and there will be some total surprises that will get everybody singing along. Recognizable songs like the A-B-C's will get everyone singing along if it's the right crowd.

CM: Speaking of your grown-up fans, you'll be joining Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club) and Adam Mansbach (Go the F**k to Sleep) on the judging panel for the Literary Death Match on Saturday at the Book Festival. How are you preparing for that?

LL: I don't know what to expect, but I'm very excited about it! I read a lot and I have a comparative literature degree, which is all about comparing different works of literature, so I'm up for the challenge.

CM: Do you see yourself becoming more of a writer in the years ahead?

LL: Oh, I'd like to one day, I think. I'm very busy on the editing side with my music and with the TV shows I've done. It's all very hands on. I've also got the new eyewear line, which is going well, and we're sound mixing some new grown-up tracks for future albums. I'm already so busy, but sitting down to write a grown-up novel? We'll see what's in the cards.

CM: You've influenced two generations now as a musician, a fashion icon and now a children's book author. Any advice for aspiring songwriters?

LL: Just write. Start now and keep writing. Start forming your own opinions about music so you can judge what's good for yourself. Become friends with musicians who will help you, and collaborate as much as you can. Professionally speaking, start learning the business side of the music industry. Make your contacts at places like SXSW where you can meet so many great people. If you're going to make a living at it, you should understand what goes on behind the scenes.

CM: We look forward to seeing you at the Music Tent and at the Death Match. Will there be time to visit with your fans afterward?

LL: I believe I have two signing sessions in addition to the two panels, so stop by. I tend to chat a lot with people that come by.

CM: Thank you so much for joining us, Lisa. Safe travels.

LL: See you soon, Austin!

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Have a question for Lisa Loeb? We're partnering with the Texas Book Festival and Lisa Loeb for a Twitter contest. Tweet your question for Lisa to CultureMap (@culturemapatx) and we'll pick five to ask her! If chosen, you'll win Lisa Loeb's new book and a CD featuring four original silly songs plus six all-time kids' favorites. Winners will be announced on Wednesday, October 19.

Theatrical History

New play weaves stories of real Austin women together from 1950s on

She Was Here dress rehearsal

Photo courtesy of

A photo from the She Was Here dress rehearsal ahead of its world premier.

On January 17, She Was Here, a play about real Latina women in Austin, premieres at Austin Playhouse's new interim theatre space off of West 22nd Street. Although the story is fictional, it was compiled through interviews, making it a truthful rendition of Austin across 70 years.

Written by Austin's renowned Raul Garza and directed by Jerry Ruiz, this poignant but lighthearted play is about how Austin, and culture more generally, have changed over the decades. It's about how women's roles are shifting—moving forward, and sometimes backward; it's about mothers and daughters, and it's about the relationship between people and the space around them.

As Garza puts it, "What imprints do places leave on our soul, and what imprints does our soul leave on [a] place?"

The play was originally written and developed during the pandemic. Garza had received a grant from the city during a time when theatre could be written, but not attended.

"It was a time when there was nothing going on," says Garza, "so we just kind of got reacquainted with what was around us."

For this play's devising team, which included Garza, director Jerry Ruiz, Katie Bender, and mother and daughter Giselle de la Rosa and Chamila Muñoz, what was around them was Austin.

"I wondered what it would be like to wake up 50 years in the past, 60 years in the past, and revisit the exact same physical space but with a new sensibility," says Garza.

Ester A photo of Ester, one of the women whose stories inspired the play. Photo courtesy of Raul Garza

With this idea, Garza and the team began talking to multiple generations of Latina women from Austin, starting with Garza's own mother who went to UT. From there, they expanded their conversations to include multiple groups and multiple family members—activists, mothers, daughters—all via Zoom or the phone. They asked them, How did you get here? What hardships did you encounter? What was it like for you then?

The story that began weaving itself together showed that despite changing times and a changing place, the little things in life always remained the same.

The play, starring Tonie Knight, Alyssa Hurtado, Vivian Noble, and Yesenia García Herrington, is inspired by these stories; but it doesn't focus on any one of them autobiographically. Instead, it follows the lives of two imagined families in one imagined house over the span of decades.

"We see this one consistent place, a physical house, that we imagined was somewhere in the Rainey Street neighborhood," says Garza. "And we see what happens to the lives of the people who inhabit that space, from the 50s through 2020. So it's like you're a fly on the wall, if you could be a fly on the wall in your grandmother's house. The setting is definitely a character."

Joann and her family Joann, pictured here with her family, was one of the women interviewed for this play.Photo courtesy of Raul Garza

At first, this might sound like a play about how things are getting better over time, but of course, it's not that simple. Austin is being developed, and depending on who you ask, we're better or worse off than we were a few decades ago. The same goes for women's rights; it certainly hasn't been a linear progression.

"In the wake of our latest election, it really made us stop and think," Garza says. "Wow, they're talking about the ERA March in 1975; we're talking about the ERA March in 2025. What is going on here?!"

Though the play covers some important and at times heavy topics, Garza says it's also a lot of fun; he hopes the audience comes away with a new appreciation for Austin, for those around them, and for the stories we all hold.

She Was Here is showing at Austin Playhouse Theatre at 405 West 22nd Street, from January 17 though February 9. Tickets range between $24 and $38 and can be purchased online.

theater plays women history

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