life updates, pop culture thoughts, future newsletters
i am actively looking for work! my email is sarahjaeleiber@gmail.com!
hello!!! this is not an essay. this is a promise for more essays and more everything now that i have left the job that was slowly killing me until all of a sudden it was quickly killing me and i needed to leave as soon as possible.
i have not written here in a while! that is a function of having been working a job that was killing me. if you are 22 and about to graduate from college and you are thinking about working in or adjacent to a field that bolsters some aspect of your identity, i would suggest that maybe you reconsider making your love your job. i wouldn’t have listened to me if i’d said that to me 4 years ago, but it’s worth a shot in the dark here. your job is never going to love you back. your job is never going to love you back. your job is never going to love you back! or if it does, it won’t be financially; or if it does financially, it won’t be environmentally; or if it does environmentally, it won’t be financially; you get it. i believe there are livable situations out there, but like. seriously. find your joy in friendship and love and community, not in your 40 hours a week. for me, at this point, it’s about finding the least-evil thing to do that still feeds me. we all deserve better!!!! but that’s my situation. i’m sorry if it’s also yours!
i’m about two weeks post-hell-job now, and i feel my brain resuming healthy functioning (literally - like - i am terrified about money right now, but it is preferable to continuing to do that job that was killing me. if you are looking for a sign to quit the job that is killing you, this is your sign. please feel free to ask me about my experience if you’re unsure of your own), and i am thankful to announce that i am myself again! i get to be weird and frustrated and a little bit excited that they are making four beatles biopics in one year! i get to think hard about wonderful and artful and flawed works of musical theatre (go see Jelly’s Last Jam at city center! it was wonderful)! i get to write the plays i’ve been trying to write for a year while lacking any human energy to do it! the world is my oyster, and my oyster is looking at screens and enjoying what i see on them.
i have been thinking hard about how i can use this newsletter while i am unemployed. i only have one piece up under the subscription tier right now, but i was thinking about it, and, like, what if i wrote a serialized play on here? would you guys throw a couple of dollars at me to read a new chapter of a play every once in a while? i have a million ideas and, suddenly, boundless energy to execute them. i might just start doing it and send out more information when i start doing it. but i wanted to bring it up here in case anyone is like WOW i have been WAITING to give sarah a couple of dollars to read part of a new play she’s writing. i have two other plays in progress right now (a play that’s kind of about the newlywed game AND a play in conversation with the films of nancy savoca that will be published in wig-wag mag’s first print zine), but i have a few more ideas. so yeah. let me know if you’d pay me a little money to read a play in parts, and subscribe here if you want to be the first to know when this starts happening:
here are some other pop culture thoughts i’ve had recently:
the teaser trailer for all four Beatles biopics will drop during the Super Bowl in 2026. it begins with nothing but a drum beat and shots of girls screaming and crying on the street. we see 8 little Beatle feet running along the sidewalk interspersed between the shots of the crying girls. eventually, they recreate that famous shot from A Hard Day’s Night of all four of them running from a pack of girls, and we only see their faces for a hot second before there’s a title card and the opening chord from that title song plays. that’s the teaser. don’t say i didn’t warn you.
Jelly’s Last Jam at city center totally blew me away. i don’t know the last time i was so moved by the spectacle of a thing! i started crying during the opening number just because music and dance were happening! it was dark and interesting and sexy and imperfect but in ways i find fascinating and artistic and not meaningless and commercial. George C. Wolfe deeply cared about telling this story about an artist he loves and loathes in equal measure! when can we get a tap musical back on broadway! how can Leslie Uggams still sing like that at 80!
i also saw Once Upon a Mattress at city center (with a new book by my Jelly Roll Morton, if you will. my idol and icon who i also hate. Ms. Amy Sherman Palladino), which didn’t blow me the way as much as it sucked me back into the 14-year-old version of myself who played Princess Winnifred in ways that certainly gave me permanent brain damage. why do we keep setting Sutton Foster up for failure when she can do things like this so well? why do we keep putting her in roles that cater to her worst impulses?
Wicked trailer bad
Kelly Bishop is releasing a memoir called The Third Gilmore Girl and i am so available to interview/profile her it’s scary. please get in touch if you are a person with the power to assign such a thing. also, did i tell y’all that i met her a couple of months ago? we were both at opening night of Fiddler on the Roof at Paper Mill Playhouse and i got to tell her how much i love her work and she thanked me in that incredible voice of hers and i feel soooooooo normal about it.
i watched Ghost (1990) with my partner on valentine’s day and it is so special to experience a movie you’ve seen a thousand times with new eyes, with a new person. like, Ghost does hit differently when you are in love for the first time. Ghost does hit differently when the idea of losing someone you’ve built something sturdy and substantial with is more than just theoretical. and. i do not know. as i said to my friend Miya (read her newsletter!!!): what is loving art about if not making and remaking yourself in its image! i love Ghost. i love maintaining a relationship with a movie long enough for it to change.
i have now seen all Best Picture nominees except for The Zone of Interest (i will, i know, i was working at a Jewish nonprofit in wartime and could not imagine watching a Holocaust thing in that time, i will get to it). i genuinely enjoyed all of them. it was a good year for movies! i think that is getting lost in the everyone being incredibly annoying about everything. Anatomy of a Fall had my favorite script; Killers of the Flower Moon has my favorite performances, and American Fiction has my second favorite performances; i will rewatch The Holdovers the most times in my life; Past Lives and Maestro are both great relationship dramas with acting i love; i love Barbie because of its color and heart and also because of its many flaws and cultural pitfalls; i love Oppenheimer because i love historical drama and character actors; i am still not sure if i like Poor Things, but it has my favorite Mark Ruffalo performance in years.
anyway, thanks for listening. if you want to subscribe like normal, please do, i’m gonna say more stuff on here going forward. if you want to subscribe like paid, that would be massively appreciated, but obviously i know times are tough and i am just happy to have you here reading my stuff. i am actively looking for work! if you know of anything, short or longterm, please let me know! email me at sarahjaeleiber@gmail.com!
my venmo is @Sarah-Leiber if you’re like awwwwww that poor unemployed lady i want to buy her coffee. anyway. free palestine. the photo attached to this piece is john, paul, george, and ringo holding a hoagie at my family’s favorite sandwich shop in atlantic city, NJ. love y’all.