I've had plays produced in every state in the USA, England, Australia, Canada, Ukraine, Cape Town, South Korea, and Holland. I was Playwright in Residence for the Des Moines Playhouse for years -- and wrote a show a year for our professional children's theatre company, which we then toured across the Midwest.
I've written -- and written -- for high schools, and am proud of those plays -- I like working with that age group, and could always and immediately identify with the young people I was writing about -- because my inner adolescent hovers not quite below the surface.
I am published in Playscripts, Dramatic, French, and Pioneer Drama.
I've been commissioned -- and commissioned. The nadir, using drama to explain insurance to 56th graders. I added music and kept it lively -- and...
I've had plays produced in every state in the USA, England, Australia, Canada, Ukraine, Cape Town, South Korea, and Holland. I was Playwright in Residence for the Des Moines Playhouse for years -- and wrote a show a year for our professional children's theatre company, which we then toured across the Midwest.
I've written -- and written -- for high schools, and am proud of those plays -- I like working with that age group, and could always and immediately identify with the young people I was writing about -- because my inner adolescent hovers not quite below the surface.
I am published in Playscripts, Dramatic, French, and Pioneer Drama.
I've been commissioned -- and commissioned. The nadir, using drama to explain insurance to 56th graders. I added music and kept it lively -- and still have no idea of how insurance works -- nor do the students. And --a film, Six Ways to Fix Chicken,featuring a Woman and her chicken. They wanted it funny.
And the height: BATTLE CRY OF FREEDOM, about Midwesterners in the Civil War for Mr. Hal Holbrook, premiering at the Civic Center in Des Moines, IA, a huge barn of a place that we did sell out.
And: MILLIKEN'S BEND, written for Emmy Winning Actor, GregAlan Williams,a true story of the only battle in the Civil War in which black soldiers, newly freed slaves, and white soldiers, volunteers from the 23rd Iowa, fought side by side. The battle changed the way in which General Grant regarded black soldiers -- before he had allowed them only to dig tenches, set up tents, etc. After that battle, one of the fiercest of the war, and one of the bloodiest -- bayonets were used -- Grant allowed freed slaves to serve as soldiers.
And yadda, yadda, yadda.
My writing changed the day, the minute, I heard a brief segment on the mother of Jesse James on NPR. I knew I wanted to use the stage in a different way, I wanted to
write myth as reality and/or reality as myth, use magical realism, bend time. Give voice to women who have disappeared into the dark night of history -- and so THE TOTALLY TRUE COMPLETELY FICTIONAL STORY OF THE MOTHER OF JESSE JAMES was born. She was the inventor of the phrase, Alternative Facts, and must have taught P.T. Barnum all he knew. I followed that with ASHES, a ten minute piece on three people who have just been freed from a Nazi concentration camp and are hunting for a village that perhaps never existed -- or perhaps still does, in memory.
So my resume would include many good plays for teens, MAKIN' IT, WINNERS, family shows,THE BASEBALL SHOW, A LITTLE PRINCESS, quite a few fact shows based on historical facts -- one on the last person to see Anne Frank alive, THE STRENGTH OF THEIER SPIRIT, one on young immigrants, FACES OF FREEDOM. And TO SEE THE STARS, a love piece I would have written if no one had paid me a dime, the story of the first nationwide strike, led by girls in the garment factories, aged 13 - 18. I was inspired by the true story -- and also by the fact that my daughter, in then in high school, needed some heroines that were rnot the Kardashians or the Duggars. Two one man shows that have been touring -- touring, GRANT WOOD: PRAIRIE REBEL, and AMERICAN DREAMER: THE LIFE OF HENRY A. WALLACE,based on the prize winning biography of the same name by US Senator John Culver.
And the new plays -- that twist and turn reality into more than it is.