What is a Horrib?

     I was reminded of Horribs by the great photos provided by Katie Morkel nee Keville. and a question from Amanda Zaengle nee Clarke.  Amanda wondered, when thinking about the fall play in 1998, if in fact she had played the part of a "Horrid."  It was a Horrib, Amanda, and it lived in the "Other World" with Tanner (AJ), Lilac (Sarah Downs, and Sluggo (Mark Adriance), and some hard-to-kill lizards named "heliums," a multi-legged monster called a "preposterous," the "Whichis Witches," and Maligna's many minions.  The play was called A GIRL OF TWO WORLDS.  It was my first play, and I remember it fondly.  Perhaps, the most important memory of AGOTW is the fact that there were more than 90 kids in the cast, what with horribs and minions and everything else.  There are a lot of important "P's" in the theatre: performance, production, proscenium, purpose, passion and perception.  But I feel the most important "P" in high school theatre is "Participation."  Ninety kids, a lot of them freshmen and sophomores, was wonderful.

      The Horribs are also an example of another place where my life bumpied into my writing.  Margaret Hodel, a great CHS English teacher, had a fun group of kids called the Mucketeers.  They would have meetings and imaginary quests and silly parties and such.  A lot of teachers became Mucketeers with names like Lady Little Legs of Pinegar.  I chose not to be dubbed, but rather, I was proxy for a fictional knight known as Sir Cumference.  Cumfy was always getting himself in trouble, which I reported to the Mucketeers.  Often, he got in trouble with the Horribs, miserable little creatures who ate the fruit of the Stubbimus bush and carried paper swords, because, we all know, there's nothing worse than a paper cut.  When I wrote AGOTW, I brought the horribs along.

    By the way, Jake Hess is working on a young adult novel.  We're going to exchange notes, which is really great!  Tomorrow I'm going to write about one of the most successful young adult novels in years--TWILIGHT!