I need for a moment to return. . .

to what's happening with ARTHUR REDUX, the SUMMERPLAY 2009 script.  I had been avoiding working on ARTHUR because the part I was about to write was going to be really hard.  I have to devise a way for the Seven Great Virtues of Chastity, Modesty, Patience, Kindness, Diligence, Abstinence, and Generosity, each represented by a human character, to do battle with the Seven Deadly Vices, which include Lust, Envy, Pride, Sloth, Wrath, Greed and Gluttony, likewise represented by people.  And this battle must take place in a rather small hotel lobby.  A daunting task!

So this afternoon, I reread the first 40 pages of ARTHUR, which provided a little impetus for me to get back to writing the play.  When I write lengthy stuff, rereading becomes difficult but important.  If I've spent months working on a novel, the events of the first few chapters are hard to remember, so every other week or so, I have to begin rereading again.  Rich Wallace, the author of many published young adult novels, and whom I've been to 2 really good workshops with, talked about the necessity of rereading even if it is a kind of drudgery.

Now to the Double X Girls.  Those familiar with my 3rd play THE ADVENTURES OF STACEY FOXX AND THE DOUBLE X GIRLS know that there is nothing X-rated about the story.  STACEY FOXX deals with 5 young ladies who work putting on an adventure serial at a little radio station during World War II.  The first 4 plays I wrote were for high school casts.   I included as many good female roles as possible.  Lots more young women audition, yet playwrights seem to be guilty of providing more guy parts than parts for ladies.  I tried to write roles where young woman could be involved and strong and heroic and stuff like that.  And I thought I succeeded with THE DOUBLE X GIRLS, particularly in the persons of Bonnie Lange/Stacey Foxx and Claire Sauer/Big Barb O'Brien.

So, when I started to try writing novels for young people, I tried to feature female characters, too. But I worried that I wouldn't get it right.  As Henry Higgins says of women in MY FAIR LADY, it can be difficult to "learn the way the creatures think."  My first YA novel, still untitled, was a mystery novel.  It was fun writing it, and it featured a really heroic female protagonist.  But I'm afraid it was a bit too Nancy-Drewish.

Tisha in TISHA AND THE GIANT isn't heroic.  She's just human and trying to cope, and sometimes there's a little heroism in that.  My most recent attempt at a novel, the partially completed ZOMBIES ARE US, has a guy as protagonist, so I guess I'm getting a little nervous about trying to write from a female perspective.

And in conclusion, to Amanda and Stephanie.  If STACEY FOXX were to be presented 1000 times, your performances would remain the signature ones.