I didn't intend to be a writer. Sara Rose made me do it, coming home one day and announcing that I had to come out of retirement to choreograph High School Musical at her junior high, because if I didn't, they couldn't do the play and she couldn't be Sharpay.

Fast forward 3 years and it's 3 AM and I'm sitting in the bathroom of a hotel in Northampton, MA typing away on my computer because it has come to me -- the play that has to be written, based on my previous years of watching the drama that is junior high. This one-act wins a contest. The actors in it tell me they love having a play that shows the truth of junior high.

Uncomfortable moments. Awkward laughter. Girls growing into women. Finding strength after betrayal. Women in a male world. The joy of exploration. This is what I write.

People's comments after performances make me cry. From the teen who realizes that he should not be having sex with his girlfriend because he's not MALCOLM and could never do what that boy does, to the woman who thanks me for making other people have to live with her father, if only for thirty minutes.

I still cry when I see actors bring to life something I wrote.

The plays keep coming to me, so I write them.