The Hero's Journey in Barbie

Of the 438 posts I've written over the last 13 years, far and away the most popular one is The Hero's Journey in Legally Blonde. Not quite as popular, but still getting a healthy number of views, is The Hero's Journey in Star Wars. And I think that's great.

It shows how important storytelling is to our culture. To our species. And it reflects how truly passionate storytellers are (and really, aren't we all storytellers?) about improving their skills so that they can better captivate their audiences.

I've seen this myself. Both posts came from a writing workshop I gave--first at the Colorado Thespian Conference in 2016, then at the Arizona Thespian Festival last year--based on my simplified, seven-step version of Joseph Campbell's original Hero's Journey (by way of Blake Snyder).

Eager young writers packed the rooms where I taught, and discussions were energetic, even heated at times. The kids attending the workshop really wanted to understand--to absorb--all the ins and outs of the Hero's Journey.

I'd chosen these films for three reasons:

1) Almost everyone has seen them.

2) They exemplify the specific story beats of the Hero's Journey extremely well.

3) They're nearly opposites in genre, setting, and theme.

But a funny thing happened on the way to Idaho, where I last led this workshop in February. Kids didn't know Legally Blonde any more. Out of 100 students attending my workshop, only three had seen it. And obviously this killed any conversation around the movie.

So when I decided to repeat the workshop at this year's Arizona Thespian Festival, I realized I had to replace Legally Blonde with a different movie. But which movie?

Well, it had to be something that everyone in today's generation of kids has seen. It had to follow the Hero's Journey pretty closely. And I really wanted it to be female-centered, with many of the same feminist themes as my original choice.

There was only one possibility: 2023's Barbie.

I was a little worried though. I wasn't 100% sure it actually fits all of the beats of the Hero's Journey. So I watched it again a couple months ago. And guess what? It doesn't. After all, co-writers Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach come from the indie world, where plot takes a back seat to characterization and mood.

But I figured that was okay. As long as I could explain how it differs and why, it would be worth discussing.

So let me stop yappin' and give you my analysis of the Hero's Journey according to the Doll That Changed the World.

1) Catalyst

We start the movie in Barbieland (the first of our four worlds), a pink paradise for Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie) and her friends. They're dancing. They're partying. It's a perfect world in which every day is the best day ever ("So was yesterday, and so is tomorrow, and every day from now until forever.").

But everything changes when a dark thought enters her mind. "Do you guys ever think about dying?" she says. The music stops with a ear-splitting record scratch as the other Barbies quit dancing to stare at her in horror.

As I teach in the workshop, the catalyst is always an external event, a shock to our hero's life that originates from outside the hero. In Barbie, however, it seems to be internal to our hero. Her thoughts of dying are just that: thoughts. And thoughts generally arise from a character's own mind.

Not in this case, however. As we are soon to learn, they come from the Real World and, more specifically from Gloria (America Ferrera), the mother of the girl who used to play with the Barbie. So, as strange as it may seem, the thoughts are in fact an external event.

If the initial state of the hero's world is negative, then the catalyst must be a positive event. In Barbie, the initial status quo is positive, so the catalyst must be negative. And this one definitely is, changing Barbie's world so that things aren't so perfect anymore.

She wakes up with bad breath. Her shower is cold. Her toast burns. She falls from the roof of her house. And, worst of all, her feet turn flat (oh, the humanity!).

2) Accept the Challenge 

Barbie wants to know why she's having these thoughts, so she visits Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon), our first mentor, to find out what she knows. This beat couldn't be more clear as Weird Barbie offers Stereotypical Barbie a clear-cut, Matrix-like choice: a high-heeled shoe, which represents the status quo, and a plain old sandal, which represents traveling to the Real World.

Consistent with the Refusal of the Call (which is the second beat in Joseph Campbell's seventeen-beat Hero's Journey but does not appear in my version because it doesn't always occur in popular movies--cough, cough--Legally Blonde), Barbie at first chooses the high-heeled shoe. She's afraid of the Real World.

But Weird Barbie won't allow that, and when Barbie still refuses the sandal, Weird Barbie points out that choosing the high-heeled shoe will inevitably lead to Barbie getting cellulite, a fate so horrifying to our hero that she immediately changes her mind and joins Team Sandal.

And so, Barbie enters the Real World--the second of our four worlds--traveling by car, boat, rocket, bike, camper, snowmobile, and rollerblades to get there (with Ken going along for the ride).

3) Fun and Games

This isn't a single beat in my template but the entire first half of Act 2, what I call Act 2A. Here, mistakes are made by our hero and her clingy sidekick as they fumble their way around the new world they've entered.

Barbie and Ken make their entrance into the Real World wearing ridiculously bright neon colors, which earns them the derision of bystanders. They say wildly inappropriate things to strangers. They even get arrested for stealing new outfits. But these mistakes are relatively harmless (and comical!) because the stakes are low. None of these mistakes prevent Barbie from returning to Barbieland any time she wants.

Bad things are brewing, however, When Barbie and Ken split up to go their own ways, Ken discovers just how different the Real World is from Barbieland. In Barbieland,  the Kens are subservient to the Barbies. But in the Real World, men rule everything. Ken is thrilled to his core, setting up the darker events that will occur in the second half of the film.

Barbie, meanwhile, has her own adventures. At first, she's dismayed to learn that she, in fact, has not inspired a generation of young girls to grow up and build a kinder, more female-centered society. No, women are pretty much on the sidelines in the Real World, raising the question which will dog her for the rest of the film. If she had no real impact on the Real World, then what was she made for?

Before she can delve too deeply into this, however, she gets taken to Mattel headquarters by a some mysterious figures in a black limo. There the executives attempt to neutralize her by urging her to step inside her box.

Barbie immediately senses something is wrong and escapes. A chase through the office building ensues, and when she finally manages to slip away, she happens upon a kind, matronly figure sitting at a kitchen table. This figure calls herself Ruth, and while Barbie doesn't really learn anything from her during their brief conversation, the scene is important because it introduces Barbie to the figure who will become her second mentor. More on that later.

4) Stakes are Raised

Now comes the midpoint of the story, the beat that Blake Snyder considered the single most important one in any story. And that's because it's the beat that flips the story from bright and sunny to dark and grim. For the first time, the hero sees the true face of her enemy. And from this point on, the hero's mistakes are no longer amusing because they come with a cost. Someone could get seriously hurt.

In a drama, a minor character might die here (a development I call First Blood), a victim of the villain's evil plans. But, of course, Barbie is a comedy so there will be no death. Not a literal one anyway.

No. What dies, in a figurative sense, is the old Barbieland that our hero knew and loved. And that's because when she returns to it, she learns that the Kens have taken control, instituting a male-dominated society and relegating the Barbies to mindless, sexually-objectified servant roles.

As I said, in Act 2A, Barbie always had the option of returning to Barbieland. But now she's a doll without a country. She doesn't recognize what Barbieland has become. And she definitely can't return to the Real World.

If a movie has a ticking clock, it's usually introduced at the Final Push beat. But in Barbie it's introduced here. Barbie learns she only has forty-eight hours before the Kens will vote to change the constitution and solidify their authority forever.

What in the Barbie World is she going to do?

5) Bad Guys Close In

Similar to Fun and Games, this isn't a single event but the entirety of the second half of Act 2, i.e. Act 2B.

Things get really interesting here because this is where Barbie significantly diverges from the Hero's Journey. In a typical movie, this half-act would run for 30 to 40 minutes and show the hero's increasingly desperate attempts to defeat the villain or, more likely, escape the villain's clutches. Either way, this can be a very exciting act, with tension-filled scenes of high-stakes action (think the escape from the Death Star in the original Star Wars).

Barbie doesn't have any of this. Instead, Stereotypical Barbie goes directly from learning that the Kens have taken over (Stakes are Raised) to giving up entirely (All is Lost).

Oh, sure. There's a brief bit about the Mattel executives following Barbie into Barbieland with the goal of getting her back inside that dumb box, but they're just comic relief. The real bad guys are the Kens (sorry, Ryan Gosling fans!).

What would a true Bad Guys Close In sequence look like in Barbie? Well, you might have Stereotypical Barbie trying to convert the other Barbies back to their former status and fail. Or you might have the Kens finding new, increasingly dastardly ways of exerting their control over the Barbies. You might even have the Barbies secretly infiltrating a meeting of the Kens to uncover some weakness they use against them. There are all sorts of possibilities.

But nope. In Barbie, the bad guys have already closed in.

6) All is Lost

So how does Barbie respond to her defeat? She gives up. Like, literally. She falls to the ground as she falls into an existential crisis, doubting her worth in a world that places a premium on practical skills. "I'm not smart enough to be interesting," Barbie says. "I can't do brain surgery. I've never flown a plane."

There's one more thing she can't do. She can't take power back from the Kens.

Sidenote: I actually cheated a little bit in the beat chart for the workshop. I show the Stakes are Raised moment as Kens Take Control and the All is Lost moment as Barbie Gives Up. But I should have used Kens Take Control for both because it's an external event that happens to our hero. Barbie Gives Up, on the other hand, is our hero's internal, emotional response to her defeat, a beat called The Dark Night of the Soul in Blake Snyder's template, which I don't include in mine. But that would have messed up my chart so I tweaked it.

Some movies have a sidekick pulls the hero out of their funk with some words of encouragement or offering a new, mind-expanding insight. Weird Barbie does try to encourage Stereotypical Barbie here, but it doesn't help. Stereotypical Barbie remains rooted to he ground, wallowing in depression and self-doubt.

Instead, Gloria is the one who finally breaks through with her speech about the crazy, contradictory demands our society places on women--arguably the most powerful scene in the film. Except that she doesn't break through to Stereotypical Barbie. She breaks through to Writer Barbie (Alexandra Shipp), who suddenly remembers who she is: "Wait. I did write a book. It's like I've been in a dream... but what you said broke me out of it."

Note that just as there's no real First Blood in this film, there's no Death of the Mentor either, not even a figurative one. Weird Barbie is still there, trying to help. And Ruth has yet to return.

7) Final Push

So Writer Barbie has snapped out of her daze and came to the conclusion that Gloria's speech is what did the snapping. That's all well and good, but to wrap up the movie in a satisfying way, we need our Hero to lead the battle from here. And that's what exactly happens as Barbie uses this information to develop a plan to wrest power from the Kens:

1) Deprogram each Barbie one-by-one by having Gloria repeat snippets from her speech to them.

2) Making the Kens believe they have all the power by fawning over them as they sing their manly beach song.

3) Take it all away by flirting with the other Kens in the hopes that this will turn the guys against each other.

8) Final Victory

If that all sounds too easy, it's not. The plan succeeds, triggering a no-holds-barred beach-off among the Kens. In fact, the Ken are so distracted that they forget to vote, allowing the Barbies take control of Barbieland again.

Only this won't be the old Barbieland we saw in Act 1. This is a new and improved Barbieland. The Barbies have learned from their previous mistake--not fully respecting or even empowering the Kens--and vow to correct that going forward

Yippee! Barbie has achieved her external goal, and in a typical movie, that would be the end of it. But Barbie isn't a typical movie. No, in Barbie, it's not the external goal but our hero's internal goal that matters most. And, in another departure from most big-budget studio movies, there's no connection between those two.

So we're left with another 22 minutes of the movie in which Barbie must achieve her internal goal of  finding her purpose. And that internal goal requires an internal mentor: Ruth (remember her?).

9) Reward

Barbie doesn't know exactly what she wants to do. But she's starting to get a sense of it. "I want to be part of the people that make meaning," she tells Ruth. "Not the thing that's made. I want to do the imagining. I don't want to be the idea."

To Ruth, that means only one thing. Barbie must become human. She warns Barbie that being human is really uncomfortable and then you die. Barbie is unswayed. Ruth takes Barbie's hands and tells her to close her eyes and just... feel. A quick montage follows, showing brief clips of what it means to be human.

Ruth releases Barbie's hands and slips out of sight, leaving Barbie all alone in the world. Barbie stares into the ephemeral distance and responds to the montage she's just seen with a single word.

"Yes."

The next thing we know, Barbie is headed into a medical office, where she informs the receptionist that she's there to see her gynecologist.

It's a funny line, but it's important too because it tells the audience, in the most intimate way possible, that Barbie has achieved her goal. She has become human.

Barbie still may not know what her purpose is. But now that she's human, we're confident that she can findi it. All she has to do is live her life.

Final Thoughts

So we've seen that despite the indie pedigree of its creators, Barbie follows the Hero's Journey pretty closely. There is, in fact, just one key way in which it differs. Namely, the Stakes Are Raised and All Is Lost beats are identical, eliminating any need for Act 2B (Bad Guys Close In).

But there are a few minor ways in which the film, while not outright breaking the rules laid out by Blake Snyder and Joseph Campbell, does play things fast and loose with standard Hollywood story structure.

For one, there was no death of the mentor. Also, her internal goal was completely independent of her external goal, which led to an unusually extended sequence in which Barbie explored what it meant to become human. And finally, I found it a little strange that Barbie's final plan for victory succeeded so readily. There are usually a few setbacks on the road to final victory.

Does the movie still work? Well, that's a question that needs to be answered by each viewer for themselves. But seeing how successful the movie has been--not just at the box office, but in the number of accolades and awards it has received--suggests that it worked very well indeed.

So yes, you can veer off the path laid out by the Hero's Journey. But as they say, you have to know the rules in order to break them. And you have to know why you're breaking them.

If you can do that, then you're well on your way to creating your own compelling story.

I hope this outline has been helpful. If you'd like your own copy of the Hero's Journey in Barbie diagram that I'll be presenting at the Arizona Thespian Festival, just download the image below. It's all yours.

The Worst Fairy Tale Ever comes to life

When I talk to theater classes, the most common question I get is: Where do you get your ideas from? 

The second most common question is: What did you think of our performance?

And by far the least common question--because no one's ever asked it--is: What is your favorite part of your job?

I guess I've never been asked it because people assume the job of playwriting involves only one task: writing plays. And yes, that takes up the bulk of time. I write like clockwork, four hours a day, five days a week. And I love it.

But I also spend another two to four hours a day doing other playwriting-related things: writing emails, social media marketing, tracking productions, reviewing contracts. And all of that is fun too, even the contracts thing. It's definitely more fun than the 37 years of engineering I did.

Still, my absolute favorite thing to do is talking to those same theater classes. Their enthusiasm is always so incredibly infectious. It also allows me to make a connection--a real-live human connection--that's so often missing from what I do the rest of the time. But most importantly, it reminds of who I'm writing for: the kids.

Anyway, I got to talk with a great bunch of kids today as the Theatre Arts Honors class at South Florence High School in Florence, SC hosted a Zoom meeting so we could chat about The Worst Fairy Tale Ever, my new one-act play that they premiered November 8.

Their theater teacher Frankie Sullivan sent me a video of their performance last week, and I was able to watch it a couple of times before the call. The first time I simply let it run so that I could get a feel for how the actors portrayed their characters as well as which gags worked and which didn't. The second time I paused the video line by line so I could compare their dialogue with my script and see where they differed.

It was very enlightening--and surprising. There were 250 people in the audience, and they laughed a lot. The biggest laughs, however, didn't come from my script but from the students' ad libs or the stage business they came up with. As they say, theater is the most collaborative of art forms, and I love collaborating with talented young actors and directors.

Which is a nice way of saying I'm going to steal these ideas for my own script.

But hey, that's why we workshop plays, right?

One of those bits of business came in the middle of the play when the dragon had defeated the first knight it faced and went on to terrorize the peasants. In my original script, I segued directly from the narrator describing the defeat to the second "knight" arriving to take on the dragon.

I missed a big one. But the kids didn't. They added an entire scene in which the dragon chases the screaming king and peasants back and forth across the stage. That kind of stuff always get laughs and I think I missed it because I tend to think in dialogue  rather than action. I need to get better about that.

Anyway, that's definitely going into the script.

Then there was something the king screamed as, at the end of the chase, the dragon grabs him by the feet and drags him offstage. The hapless roya first screams, "No no nooooo!" as you'd expect. And then he screams something hilarious.

"STELLAAAA!"

It makes absolutely no sense, of course. How would a medieval king know about A Streetcar Named Desire? But it got one of the biggest laughs in the pla.

As it turns out, the actor playing the king had just played Stanley in the school's production of the Tennessee Williams drama, and Stella was still very much on his mind. Which is why I think it works here.

You see, the way I've written the play, the students aren't just playing the fairy tale characters. They're playing the high school actors who are playing the fairy tale characters. And Stella is very much something a high school actor might yell in a hastily thrown-together play like this one is supposed to be.

So yep, that's going in as well.

As for the language, that was a surprise too. I take pride in making my dialogue as true-to-life as possible. I keep the grammar simple. Use slang whenever possible. Throw in lots of uh's and um's. And yet, when the kids spoke their lines, they didn't deliver them as I had written them but somehow made them even simpler. More casual. More contemporary. Clearly, that's another thing I need to improve on.

In the call, I asked the students the two questions I always ask groups that produce my plays. Did you find any parts of the script boring? Answer: No. Did you find any parts of the script confusing? Answer: Just one, when the king tries to demonstrate his wisdom by declaring "Two and two are four" rather than "Two and two is four." That grammatical awkwardness was intentional, but I don't want anyone in the audience to be thrown by it so I changed that line. Easy peasy.

Beyond that, I gave the students some advice on how to break into playwriting, for those that wanted to pursue it. And I spoke about some of my other plays, which I thought they might be interested in.

Mr. Sullivan is going to send me photos from the performance soon, and you can bet I'll post the best ones here. In the meantime, I've got some more stealing to do.

Collaborating, I mean. Definitely collaborating.

Too Many Ghosts to be published

 
Something spooky is coming your way. And I'm not talking about Halloween. No, I'm talking about the fact that my 31st play has just been accepted for publication by Pioneer Drama Service. It's titled Too Many Ghosts, and it's set in a hilariously haunted bed-and-breakfast in Salem, Massachusetts.

That spark of inspiration

I've spoken before about where my play ideas come from. Big surprise! They come from a whole hosts of sources: brainstorming, TV shows, old Warner Brothers cartoons, other plays, even dreams. But Too Many Ghosts is the first time I've been inspired by a TV show I'd never seen. Can you guess which one?

Bingo! It's the currently-running CBS sitcom Ghosts. When the show was first being promoted in early 2019, the premise instantly grabbed me. A show about a bed-and-breakfast haunted by not one, but a motley crew of ghosts from very different time periods? I'm there!

That's when I made the point of not watching the show. I didn't want to be accused of copying it. But more importantly, I didn't want to be influenced by the narrative choice that the creative team had made. I wanted it to make it my own.

A touch of magic

When you write a fantasy type of story--and by that I mean anything that includes magic or the supernatural--it's important to be very intentional about the rules you define for that world. That's because the plot, the mood, even the theme of the story will be driven by those rules.

For example, when I wrote The Enchanted Bookshop, these are the rules I created for the famous literary characters who are brought to life:

1) The characters are brought to life through a fairy's magic spell.

2) The characters are not allowed to leave the bookshop or be seen by humans (cats are okay!) or they'll disappear into their books forever.

3) Scatterbrained bookshop owner Margie doesn't have a clue that her book characters are coming to life.

Rule number 1 inspired the wonderful character of the Book Fairy, who's resented by the literary characters because she can be kind of a nag.

Rule number 2 is why the literary characters only come out at night, which gave me the structure of 

It also set up the main conflict of the play as the literary characters are forced to choose between revealing themselves in order to warn Margie about the smugglers threatening her shop and staying silent so that they can continue to come to life. 

The fact that cats are given an exception allows me to stage some humorous interactions between the cantankerous bookshop cat Bombalurina and the literary characters.

And rule number 3 provides for some additional humor as Margie suspects that the messes that the literary characters leave are due to Bombalurina.

Needless to say, if I'd changed any one of these rules, it would have been an entirely different play.

Ghost stories

It's the same thing with Too Many Ghosts, though here I went in a different direction:

1) The ghosts can be seen by anyone, but only when they choose to be seen.

2) Levelheaded owner Jo and her horror-film-loving teenage daughter Lily definitely know the ghosts are haunting the inn from day one.

3) Ghosts can't be destroyed a la Ghostbusters, but with the proper equipment, they can be shrunk down and locked away inside a small, everyday item.

Rule 1 means that the ghosts could be a threat to Jo's business, with the ghosts threatening to scare away her guests so that they can keep the once-abandoned house to themselves.

Rule 2 allows the story to cut right to the chase as Jo forbids the ghosts to haunt her guests. Of course, the ghosts can't help themselves, leading to an online review from a guest describing the place as the "most haunted bed-and-breakfast in New England." The consequence? The inn is soon mobbed by ghost-loving tourists.

Rule 3 gave me the critical turning point of the play as three marginally competent ghostbusters rid the inn of the ghosts--seemingly forever. Where did they go? And how can Jo stay in business without her primary draw: the ghosts?

After I finished the play and sent the manuscript off to Pioneer, I finally gave myself permission to read the Wikipedia entry on Ghosts. I was relieved to discover that the rules for that show were vastly different from the rules for mine. The biggest difference is that in Ghosts, only the woman who inherited the inn (and later her husband) can see the spirits. As you might expect, this means that much of the humor revolves around the awkwardness that occurs when the ghosts interact with the woman in the presence of other people and she has to pretend she can't see them. Not a possibility in my play.

Of course, the personal histories and characteristics of the two sets of ghosts also differ drastically. I've got a cranky Irish maid, a persnickety cobbler, a boisterous snake oil salesman, a self-absorbed silent movie star, and a clumsy teenager. The CBS show has a melodramatic Viking, a cynical Native American, a closeted gay Continental Army officer, a drug-addicted matronly type from the late 1800's, a flamboyant Prohibition-era lounge singer, a naive hippie, and a nerdy scoutmaster.

So yeah, mine are entirely family-friendly while theirs are quite a bit edgier. And I think that's great. There's a place for both.

Oh, I also thought that Salem, Massachusetts--one of the most haunted towns in the United States--was the most logical setting for a show about ghosts, and allowed me to tie in a little bit of the history surrounding the witch trials. But the producers of Ghosts decided to set their show in upstate New York (not sure how a Viking ended up there, though).

Playing tricks

I expect the play to come out in spring 2025. In the meantime, let me leave you with this scene from when Jo and Lily first meet the ghosts.

As the scene begins, the ghosts are hiding in the living room so that they can jump out and scare these two interlopers who threaten the sanctity of their spooky home: 

LILY (Fans herself.): Do you mind if I open the curtains? It's kind of stuffy in here.

JO: Sure. I'll go bring in a couple of boxes. (JO EXITS DOWN RIGHT. LILY crosses to the curtains.)

ROLAND (Hushed, to ORLA): Now?

ORLA (Hushed.): Can ye see the whites of her eyes?

ROLAND: I don't know! My eyes are shut!

ORLA: Well, open 'em up and look! (LILY opens the curtains. ROLAND sees LILY. LILY sees ROLAND.)

LILY (Screams.): Aaaah!

ROLAND (Screams): Aaaah!

JO (ENTERS DOWN RIGHT, running): Oh, my gosh, Lily! Are you all right?

LILY (Points at ROLAND.): It's... it's... it's a ghost!

ROLAND (Points at LILY.): It's... it's... it's a mortal! (The OTHER GHOSTS come out of hiding.)

ORLA: Roland, ye yellow-bellied milksop! Ye ruined our whole plan!

BARNEY: Good job, Roland!

CASSANDRA: You don't take direction very well, do you?

JO: Whoa!

LILY: Mom! I thought you said there's no such thing as ghosts!

JO: That's right! There isn't!

ORLA: Well, what do ye call us then?

JO: Why, you must be a figment of my imagination! A hallucination brought on by a combination of stress and exhaustion! Yes! That's it! I must be so exhausted my mind is playing tricks on me!

CASSANDRA: If I were a figment of your imagination, would I be able to do this? (Waves her arms and laughs ominously.)

JO: I don't know. What are you doing?

CASSANDRA: I'm creating a cold spot to chill your blood and make shivers run up and down your spine!

JO: Nope. Not feeling it.

CASSANDRA (To the OTHER GHOSTS.): See? This is what happens when you don't get to practice your art!

BARNEY: Here, Cassandra. Let me try something.

CASSANDRA (To JO.): Ooh, watch this! This'll frighten the socks right off you!

BARNEY (Knocks one of the housewares off the counter.) There.

JO: Is that it?

BARNEY: What? I'm a poltergeist. This is what I do.

JO: I think it would have been scarier if we couldn't see you.

BARNEY: Well, that's not my fault, is it? I'm not the one who insisted on apparating prematurely... Orla!

I'm thinking this play might be really popular, not just at Halloween but all year long. After all, it's got everything audiences want. Humor. Chills. A creepy mystery. Even a little romance.

But more about that last one later...

Belmont Diary: Worst Fairy Tale gets a premiere

Not going to lie. I was a little nervous when I emailed my script for The Worst Fairy Tale Ever to Belmont Day School, the school in Massachusetts that commissioned it from me. I really love the play, but it isn't anything like my other plays and I wasn't sure if it's what they were looking for.

It's very self-aware, with the actors often commenting on the fairy tale they're supposed to be performing. Pretty much the entire play is like this. Every character, every line operates on two levels: that of the actors and that of the characters they're playing.

If this sounds confusing, that's because it is. Extremely confusing. And now you know why I was nervous.

I also wasn't sure about some of the gags, which are even quirkier than most of the stuff I write.

I shouldn't have worried. The school had their first readthrough a couple of weeks ago and the theater director raved about it. He said it was a real winner and was so funny when read in the various characters' voices.

Whew!

That's not all. I just got word from South Florence High School in Florence, SC that they've booked the world premiere for November 8 (as I explained in a previous post, Belmont Day School is only using it for in-class instruction). Yay!

How did I find them? Through a fantastic Facebook Group named High School Theatre Directors and Teachers. It's mainly a group for theater teachers to help each other solve productions issues on their shows (and only occasionally to gripe about those annoying helicopter parents).

The group frowns on commercial self-promotion, but on the first day of each month, they allow playwrights to promote their plays. And the most common way to promote them is to pitch the story (briefly, very briefly!) with an offer of a free perusal script to anyone who asks.

I posted my pitch of The Worst Fairy Tale Ever on August 1 and I got a respectable 90 requests for the script. Three weeks later, I was contacted by a senior at South Florence High School in Florence, SC, who wanted use the script for her student directing project. When I told her theater teacher that this meant they'd get world premiere credit in the script if and when it's published, he was thrilled. I was just as thrilled for them.

The school will be sending me a video recording of the production so that I can give the script a final polish based on the response from the audience. I'll then be submitting it to Pioneer Drama Service for their consideration.

But wait. There's more. Just today, the theater director at Shenandoah High School in Shenandoah, IA said she'll be taking the play to the Iowa Speech Contest this winter. I was hoping schools would see this easy-to-produce play (no set! no costumes! many laughs!) as a competition piece, so I consider this a big win.

If you're a theater teacher and you're not a member yet of this amazing Facebook group, I strongly urge you to check it out. And if you're a playwright looking for a powerful way to reach out to high schools, look no further. You've found it.

Oh, and if you'd like to receive your own free perusal copy of The Worst Fairy Tale Ever, just email me at todd.wallinger@gmail.com. Thanks!

Freaky Tiki is now available!

Three has always been my magic number. But this year, five carries a special kind of magic for me. Because that's the number of plays I've released this year--a new record.

Freaky Tiki is that fifth play (and my 29th overall), and it was just released by Pioneer Drama Service. This tropical comedy has a cast of 20 (3M, 12F, and 5 that can be any) and runs about 75 minutes. Here's the synopsis:

The Wobbly Palms Resort prides itself on being the finest two-and-a-half-star resort in Hawaii—and if it hadn't been for that incident in the goat yoga class last year, they'd still have that third star. Unfortunately, the owners are losing money on the place and will be forced to close it for good if they can't find a buyer soon.

There's still hope, however. The staff has just gotten word that a mystery guest will be arriving soon to evaluate the resort for possible purchase by a major hotel chain. All they have to do is make sure nothing goes wrong during the guest's stay. But then a different guest leaves a creepy-looking tiki with the front desk clerk for safekeeping and everything starts to go wrong.

First, the resort's hot-tempered French chef discovers that the lobster that was supposed to be that evening's dinner special has escaped. Then an obsessive young man determined to pull off the world's most elaborate marriage proposal loses the ring in a pond full of hungry piranhas. Next, a temperamental opera singer preparing for her comeback concert loses her voice, forcing her to communicate by clown horn. And finally the resort's perky activities director loses an entire tour group on a hike!

Could the tiki be cursed? If so, how can they counteract the curse? And exactly who is the mystery guest anyway?

Culminating in a crazy chase scene between the butterfly-net-wielding chef and an unusually large lobster, this hilarious comedy proves that sometimes bad luck is simply good luck in disguise.

I've already discussed how I came up with the idea for the play (think The White Lotus meets The Brady Bunch).

The play is particularly easy to produce. It requires only a single hotel lobby set. The costumes are fairly simple, primarily work clothes for the staff (maid, bellhop, chef) and vacation clothes for the guests. There are no special lighting requirements and only one sound effect, which can be easily produced using a crash box.

One fun bit is that the script includes a fair amount of Hawaiian vocabulary. But never fear! The script also includes a glossary with the pronunciation and definition of each of those terms. Your students may even come away from the production learning a little about Hawaiian history and culture.

Want to learn more. You can read a sample of the script and review full ordering info on the play's web page.

A hui hou!

Swiss Meatballs

No, that's not a typo. Sweden may be famous for their meatballs, but Switzerland has their own tasty version. And they now have another one to enjoy because Theaterverlag Kaliolabusto of Messen, Switzerland has just published a German language translation of my restaurant farce Million Dollar Meatballs.

This combination publisher/theater company did the same thing for How I Met Your Mummy six years ago. And it's all thanks to the relationship my own publisher Pioneer Drama Service has established with them. Kaliolabusto goes through Pioneer's catalog to decide which plays they want to translate and give the bulk of the performance fees to Pioneer to split with the playwright.

It's a real win-win-win. Kaliolabusto gets market-proven material to translate. Pioneer and the playwright gets increased exposure. And we all make a little money.

I feel honored by Kaliolabusto's selection of my play (it's one of only seven they've released this year). And I'm excited to see how popular this food-centered comedy will be in the land of fine chocolate and fondue.

By the way, that title translates to Meatballs and Diamonds. I may not be able to pronounce it, but I love the sound of it.

Guess I'd better dust off the four years of German I took in college--and never used since!

Instant Five-Timer

I've spoken before about my Five-Timers club, that elite group of schools and community theaters that have performed five or more of my plays. It usually takes a few years to achieve that lofty status. After all, producing groups generally like to mix things up by performing plays from a variety of playwrights.

So I have to give a big shoutout to Plain Dealing High School (Go Lions!) of Plain Dealing, LA, which became the fifth member of my Five-Timers Club--literally overnight--by booking five different plays of mine yesterday. 

The five plays are:

It Happened on Route 66 (my newest blockbuster)

Million Dollar Meatballs (a perennial favorite)

The Butler Did It! (an old classic)

You're Driving Me Crazy! (short and oh so sweet)

The Purrfect Crime (an overlooked charmer)

All five plays are scheduled for this school year, so I'm guessing they may be in-class readings rather than full productions. But they're all officially licensed and paid through Pioneer Drama Service so what the heck. I'll count them.

And no, my Five-Timers Club may not come with a jacket, like Saturday Night Live's version. But it does get you my everlasting gratitude and appreciation.

Thanks, PDHS! And break lots and lots of legs!