A gem of a school

I've been to Idaho three times in my life.

The first time was around 1975 when I would have been 12 years old. Back then, the highlight of my year was the two-week camping trip I would take with my family. Each spring, my dad would spread out one of those humongo gas station road maps on a card table in our living room and pick the state that would be our destination that summer.

Sometimes we headed north or east from our home in Wisconsin (a couple times we even went to Canada), but usually, like Horace Greeley's young man, we headed west. And that year our destination was the Gem State.

Most of that trip is a blur now, but I do remember two things. The first is that we stayed at Craters of the Moon National Monument, and I have to say, to my twelve-year-old eyes, the rugged rock formations really did make it look like we were on the moon.

The second thing I remember was the Idaho Spud candy bar that we picked up at a grocery store. At the time I thought it was really made out of potatoes. It wasn't until I became an adult and Google was invented that I learned it only looks like a potato. It's actually made out of marshmallow, chocolate, and coconut flakes. But I still kind of wish it was made out of potatoes.

The next time I visited the Gem State was in 1991, after I was fired from the Company Which Must Not Be Named and I was looking for a new job. Micron Technology brought me up from Austin, where we were living at the time, and to this day, it was the only interview trip in which the company paid for my wife Tammy to go as well.

The plant was in Boise, and although we liked the combination of small city atmosphere and easy access to mountains, by the end of my interview I knew the company wasn't for me. The feeling seems to have been mutual because the company rejected me before I even left the building--the first and last time that's ever happened to me.

Third time's a charm

Visit number three was this week, and I'm happy to say it was more memorable than the first trip and much more successful than the second. That's because I was there on special invitation of Adrian McCracken, the drama teacher at Hillcrest High School in Ammon, a suburb of Idaho Falls.

Adrian's students were performing my play The Last Radio Show and he wanted me to offer notes on their dress rehearsals.

I couldn't wait. I'd directed the world premiere in 2016 but hadn't seen it since so I was excited to see what another producing group would do with it.

There was just one problem. The trip was in February, and although I grew up in Wisconsin and spent over twenty years in Colorado, I've spent enough time in Phoenix now that I've gotten really wimpy weatherwise.

Maybe wimpy isn't the right word. I mean, I can handle 115 degrees days as well as anyone. It's the cold I can't stand. A mid-winter blizzard was the last thing I wanted to deal with. 

I needn't have worried. When I arrived in Idaho Falls on Wednesday, the temperature was a balmy (for them) 42 degrees and stayed close to that for the rest of my visit. I commended Adrian on his masterful management of the weather, but he turned the compliment around, crediting me with bringing the warm weather up from Arizona.

Either way, I'll take it.

I got in around 1pm, with the first rehearsal starting promptly at 5pm, so I had a few hours to check out the town and grab dinner. With a population of 67,000, Idaho Falls may not offer as many cultural and recreational activities as big cities do. But there are three things it has that Phoenix doesn't. Crystal clean air. A big gorgeous river running right through the middle of it (the mighty Snake). And this cold white stuff that covers the ground in clumpy patches.

Weird.

First time all over again

When I finally stepped into the school's auditorium, I was blown away. The space was huge, with seating for 1800 and, as I was later to learn, top-notch lighting and sound systems. Apparently, it was only a few years old. Idaho Falls, like most places in America, has long put sports first. But the principal at Hillcrest fought for and got the funding for a state-of-the-art performing arts center.

If only more high school principals were so forward-thinking...

I was just as impressed with the set, which was lovingly detailed and period-appropriate. It was also much more spacious than the cramped set I'd designed for the world premiere. Excited, I took a seat about six rows back to watch the first dress rehearsal.

A strange thing happens when you see one of your own plays for the first time in eight years. You forget plot points. You forget lines. Heck, you forget whole pages of dialogue. And you end up experiencing the play as though someone else had written it.

Which is both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because I got to enjoy the gags as if they were fresh and new. A curse because the weaknesses of the play were all too painfully obvious to me (none of which I will elaborate on here). But overall it was a useful experience because I could see how to improve my writing in the future. 

But that's not why I was there. I was there to help improve this production. So after I gave a disclaimed--that the director, not the playwright, is the boss--I offered my thoughts. 

Across the board, the kids were well-rehearsed and extremely talented. And several of them had a real sense of comedic timing or came up with hilarious bits of physical humor. The big thing they had to work on was their delivery. Too many of them rushed their dialogue or didn't enunciate or project enough, which made it difficult to understand what they were saying. But then that's a common problem for young actors.

I also offered some tips on delivering their lines to make sure they get the maximum laughs. And I shared a couple things I'd learned in blocking my show that I felt would make their actions clearer.

A packed day

The next day was scheduled to the minute. It started with three hour-long workshops in the library. Attendance was heavy, with about 100 students and maybe a dozen teachers and administrators at each one.

My first workshop was Five Ways to Punch Up Your Writing, a workshop that I originally developed for the Colorado Thespian Conference in 2013. At that time, it focused on playwriting, but for this visit I adapted it to address all forms of fictional writing.

In it, I explained how things like defining a dominant personality for each character and adding hidden agendas subtext can make your story come alive. The workshop also includes several scenes from actual plays, allowing the students to flex their acting muscles.

The second workshop was The Hero's Journey, Or Why Star Wars and Legally Blonde Are Really the Same Movie. It's been my most popular talk at both the Colorado Thespian Conference and Arizona Thespian Festival, and it was no different here, with students eagerly asking questions and offering their own thoughts on the George Lucas blockbuster.

The energy of the audience dropped off dramatically, however, when we got to the Rese Witherspoon comedy, and it became clear that most of the students had never seen it or didn't remember much about it. Which is why in future versions of this workshop, I'm going to replace that film with one that's more contemporary and way more popular: Barbie.

My final workshop was A Playwright's Journey, Or 48 Years to Overnight Success. I originally developed this one for my visit to Kansas's Wichita County High School back in 2016, but I expanded it considerably for this visit. This talk is my personal one as I include cartoons, quotes, and trivia questions to share the lessons I learned during my decades-long struggle to get published.

After a relaxing lunch with Adrian at Red Robin, it was back to the school for a couple of question and answer sessions. The first was with the technical theater students, the second was with the cast and crew of The Last Radio Show. Both were extremely lively, with the kids firing an endless but very insightful barrage of questions at me and me doing my best to keep up. I also asked for their thoughts to help me solve a problem with my next play.

During the break that followed, I signed 26 posters for the cast and crew. Dinner was a delicious chicken alfredo provided by one of the theater parents. Then it was back to the stage for the second dress rehearsal.

The cast had made significant strides from the previous night, and I was pleased to see that they'd taken at least some of my notes to heart. A few of the actors still needed to slow down a bit, but with one more week of rehearsals ahead of them, I have every confidence in the world that they'll get there.

Wrapping up

We finished at 8:30pm--exactly twelve hours after the start of my first workshop in the library. I said my goodbyes to Adrian and the kids, then headed back to my hotel room where I immediately collapsed on the bed.

It was a long day, and an exhausting one. But it was also one of the greatest, most meaningful days of my life. I met some great people. I learned a ton. The passion of the kids inspired and reenergized me.

Now I can't wait for my next school visit.

If you'd like to have me visit your school, I'm happy to provide a free, no-obligation quote. I charge $950 for a full day of workshops. Travel and accommodations are, of course, extra. 

If that's too pricey for you, I can also do Zoom sessions for $100 per hour.

Complete details can be found on my Work With Me page. Or email me at todd.wallinger@gmail.com.

I'm easy to work with. Even easier if candy is provided.

Wicked questions

Last week, I had the delightful experience of seeing my play Wicked Is As Wicked Does for the first time. It was put on by Eduprize, a charter school that just happens to be located in my new hometown of Gilbert, AZ.

The students did a fantastic job. They were very funny and really made the characters their own. My only wish is that I could have seen the other two shows as they were down my entirely different casts.

Yesterday I was invited back by director and theater teacher extraordinaire Sonia Salberg to speak to her theater classes. I talked a little bit about my own struggles to break into publishing, and then I opened the floor to questions.

Oh, man. Were there questions! These kids were fully prepared, as they had been instructed to come up with a couple questions each as homework (always a good idea).

But the questions didn't stop there. As soon as the topic turned to their characters, and why I made certain choices, the hands popped in the area and the students started firing off question after question.

Here are some of the best:

1) Where do you get your ideas?

As described elsewhere in these pages, I get my ideas from all sorts of places: brainstorming, news articles, cartoons. Wicked Is As Wicked Does was different. This one came from a dream.

I had been brainstorming ideas for a new fairy tale play so my mind was humming with ideas, and when I went to bed that night, I had a vivid dream about a fairy tale land where the magic stopped. The fairy tale characters woke up one day to discover that their spells no longer worked, and they banded together to figure out why.

Well, when I started outlining the plot (something I always do; it makes the actual writing go faster) and I asked myself which characters from the famous fairy tales performed magic, I came to a realization. The Wicked Queen from Snow White, the Wicked Fairy from Sleeping Beauty, the Wicked Witch from The Frog Prince--they were all wicked!

So then I decided it would be a much stronger choice if, instead of the magic just stopping one day, it had been outlawed because it had primarily been used for evil. And the story just flowed from there.

2) What do you wear when you're writing?

This was asked by courtesy of a friend who couldn't be there but had apparently hoped that I wore some special outfit I wear to put myself in a creative mood. The dull truth is, I wear whatever I throw on that day.

If I'm writing in the evenings (Monday through Friday), I'm wearing whatever I wore to work: usually, button-down shirt and jeans If I'm writing in the morning (Saturday and Sunday), I'm probably still in my pajamas.

3) Where did you come up with the name Grimstad?

I knew the sound I wanted for this smart alecky dragon in the play: something grim and foreboding sounding, with a little bit of foreignness. Well, after racking my brain for a while, I finally gave up and turned to a map. And I found the perfect name in a tiny village in Norway.

4) How much money do you make?

Okay, I didn't answer this one. But I did tell the student that I'll get about 300 productions this year and that a resourceful person can Google how much in royalties a playwright earns and do the math from there.

5) Do you use anything from your life in your plays?

I would like to say yes. I would like to say I'm an adventurous soul, my days spent hang gliding above the beach at Cozumel, my nights spent sipping wine at some bistro in Paris.

Instead, I go to work and then I come home and write. So no. I don't use my life in my writing. Writing is my escape.

6) Have you ever directed any of your plays?

Three times. Many moons ago, I directed my then 10- and 13-year-old daughters in the world premiere of Long Tall Lester. I directed a staged reading of The Butler Did It! in 2012. And I directed the world premiere of The Last Radio Show in 2016.

That last one turned out to be a monster of a production, and while the play was a success, and I had a ton of fun with the cast and crew, the experience made very clear that my talent, if I have one, is in writing, not directing.

7) What did you think of...?

A lot of students wanted to know what I thought about some ad lib or bit of stage business they added to the play. The truth is, I'm fine with it. I'm not one of those playwrights that think that every word is golden and that any change only serves to sabotage the playwright's intention. Instead, I view playmaking as a team project, and I love to see what students bring to it.

My only advice is to make sure that whatever you add 1) gets a laugh, and 2) is consistent with the character. You don't want to take an abrupt 180 that leaves your audience scratching their heads as to who character is or what she wants.

Raising a stink

One of the worst thing about moving to Phoenix is missing out on all the great Colorado productions of my plays. One of the best things about moving to Phoenix is getting to see great Arizona productions of my plays.

I did a little bit of both yesterday as The Stinky Feet Gang had a dual world premiere: one at an elementary school in Fowler, CO and, just a few hours later, one at a Christian middle school in Glendale, AZ.

I got to see the one in Glendale. From where I live in Mesa, it took about 50 minutes to get to the school, and that's without much traffic. (Did I mention how big Phoenix is? For that entire drive, I was on the metro freeway system, going 65 miles an hour, and I still had about half an hour to go before I would see open desert.)

Director Jennifer Pellish warmly greeted me on my arrival (as did the school principal). She apologized for changing the gender of some of the roles. The Stinky Feet Gang is heavily male but, in a twist that runs contrary to everything I know about theatre, she had more boys than girls try out and had to change a couple of shopkeeper roles from female to male.

I told her not to worry. I understand the casting constraints schools (or community theaters, for that matter) are under so changing the gender of roles is fine with me. And you don't have to ask my permission.

I do get a little uneasy if a director adds characters or changes the dialogue in a substantial way. In those cases, it's best if you email me (see the link to the right).

Jennifer went on to say that it was one of the easiest plays she had ever produced, which was a great relief to me. I didn't get a chance to develop this play with a school and while I tried to keep it simple, you never know what challenges will pop up when somebody actually puts the play on its feet.

Anyway, the students did a fantastic job. They got a ton of laughs from the audience, and the parents told me they really enjoyed it.

It's always great to see a new play get up on its feet. Even if those feet reek to high heaven.

Making it purrfect

When developing a play, it's important to get feedback from many sources. Your readers. Your director. The cast and crew. And of course the audience.

Well, last week, I had the luxury of getting feedback from all four as my play The Purrfect Crime received its world premiere at Palmer Ridge High School.

On opening night, director Josh Belk confided to me that he had heard the jokes so many times in rehearsal, he didn't know if the jokes were funny anymore. Well, I'm the author and I'd reached that point four months before, after tweaking the script for what must have been the five hundredth time.

That's why the audience is so important. To them, the play is fresh every night. If they laugh, you know a joke is funny. If they don't--well, maybe it needs some work.

There was plenty of both during the three-night run of the show. I was pleased that the audience seemed to like the physical humor. The play is about a couple of criminals who pose as pet psychics to swindle the world's richest cat out of her fortune. The biggest laughs of the night came when the sassy butler, upon learning of the scheme, uses his gloves to slap the criminals--not once, not twice, but three times.

There were several jokes that didn't land, which is normal, so I'll be reworking those before I send the script to my publisher. But on opening night, my biggest concern was that the key scene, in which the criminals hold a fake reading, fell flat. Madame Zamboni, the main psychic, performed the reading as a cover so that her assistant, the slow-on-the-uptake Bubbles, could stuff the cat's priceless toys into a large sack.

With its farcical elements, this scene should have been one of the highlights of the show. But watching it on opening night, I was confused by what was going on. And I wrote the thing.

The main problem was that I didn't provide enough dialogue to make it clear to the audience what Bubbles was doing behind the rest of the cast.

Josh rode to the rescue by telling the actors playing the criminals to as lib some explanatory dialogue the next two nights. He also had the lighting crew bring up the upstage lights a little bit so that the audience could more easily see what Bubbles was doing.

It worked. On the next two nights, the scene went over much better, and I'll be revising the script to include the additional dialogue.

After the last show, I got a chance to field questions from the entire cast and crew. Meeting the talented students performing my plays is always the most rewarding part of my job, and these students asked some really great questions. It also brought home to me a great truth I've discovered about writing. If you want to find the plot holes in your script, let high schoolers read it. They'll zero in on those holes like Luke Skywalker firing at that vent on the Death Star.

The Purrfect Crime, as it turned out, has a plot hole the size of that Death Star, which I discovered when one of the crew members asked why--well, I don't want to give away the big reveal in the play, so let me just say that the motivation of the villain was lacking. I told the young man, half-jokingly, that I'd get back to him on that.  Only later did I realize that the fix was an easy one, and I'll be plugging that into the final script.

As director, Josh was more concerned about ease of production, and after the run ended he came up with a great idea, suggesting that some of the scenes be moved to the same day so that there wouldn't need to be so many costume changes. I have to admit, that's not something I usually think about when I'm writing a play, but I may have to start.

Last but far from least was the feedback I got from my readers Jeff Schmoyer and Debby Brewer. They're longtime members of the playwriting group I started, but they've also been members of a novel writing group for many years, so they live and breathe plot, character and all those other writerly concerns. (They even run their own nano-publishing company, Jmars Ink.)

In this play, their main complaint was that there was no one to root for. It's a good point. The members of the Texas oil family who own the cat are pretty self-absorbed, which was necessary for the setup of the story.

But Jeff and Debby's advice reminded me that the characters, and especially the main character, needs to become likable at some point or the audience won't care what happens to them. Fortunately, I thought of a great way to soften Cecilia, the hard-driving businesswoman who wants the cat's fortune for herself but ends up driving the chain of actions that saves the cat from a kidnapper.

I always learn a ton when I work with students on developing my plays, and I couldn't have asked for a better cast and crew than the ones I was blessed with here.

A big thank you to everyone involved. I hope you'll see your names in the published version of the script soon!

Putting the community in community theatre

I just got back from a trip to Leoti, Kansas. Janelle Downs of the Wichita County Arts Alliance had invited me out to see their production of Million Dollar Meatballs (she was the director). And while I was there, she thought it would be a good idea if I spoke at the local high school.

I wasn't quite sure where Leoti was, but I jumped at the opportunity. I love visiting small towns--they remind me of my own hometown in Wisconsin-plus it would be the first time I had seen this particular play performed by adults. I was interested to see how it stood up.

To get to Leoti, as any resident will tell you, just head east from Colorado Springs, turn onto a couple of different highways, and when you come to the first flashing light--213 miles later--you're there.

As I headed out late Thursday night, however, I was doubting my sanity. They'd been predicting a winter storm all day, and I should have left earlier, but I stayed in town to catch a performance of Rumpelstiltskin, Private Eye--my first opportunity to see that show. 

The show ended around 8:30 PM and I immediately got on the road for the 3 1/2 hour drive. Fortunately, the winter storm held off until I left town so I managed to avoid most of the snow and only had to deal with rain and cold and wind for the rest of the trip. If I kept a good speed, I figured, I should be able to get there by midnight, leaving me plenty of time for sleep before getting up for a full day of teaching.

And then, just 12 miles west of Leoti, I saw the sign. Central Time Zone. I had lost an hour.

So around 1:30AM (the weather delayed me as well) I pulled up to the place where they arranged for me to stay for the three nights of my visit. When Janelle told me it was an apartment attached to a seed warehouse, I wasn't sure what to expect, but it turned out to be wonderful--clean, new and more spacious than a five-star suite.

I crawled into bed and caught what little sleep I could before the alarm went off four hours later. The day dawned gray and rainy, but I was raring to go. I jumped out of bed, showered and drove a couple of blocks to the high school.

Julie Conard, one of the school's English teachers, escorted me to her classroom, where I was to speak to the first class of the day. As it turned out, Julie was in the show too, playing the part of the obnoxious telegram deliverer Tammy Tonedeaf.

I knew ahead of time that the school didn't have any writing or drama classes or so I created a brand new presentation just for them. What I came up with was "A Playwright's Journey, or 48 Hours to Overnight Success". In it, I talk about my decades-long struggle to get published and the over 200 rejection I had received before I got there. I also offer some life lessons that I hope aren't too preachy, thinks like Practice, Practice, Practice and Don't Fear Rejection, Embrace It.

I ended up speaking to five different English classes, from 7th grade through juniors. The students seemed to enjoy my talk, although many were shocked when I told them it takes 10,000 hours to master any subject (thank you, Malcolm Gladwell!). I figure it took me at least that much time before I saw any success in writing. But then I'm a slow learner.

After lunch, Julie brought me into the auditorium to talk to the choir kids, who also happened to be the theatre kids. The school doesn't put on a show every year (it depends on class size, and in a small community like this, class size can vary 4X from one year to the next), but when they do, it's the choir kids who do it.

Many of the kids had heard my talk earlier in the day so I had to come up with something different--and quick. I grabbed my scripts of You're Driving Me Crazy!, threw some chairs on the stage for a car and, in a matter of minutes, we were doing cold readings of this driver's ed-themed play. The kids were great--so funny and talented--and after the impromptu performance I was gratified to hear one of the boys say he couldn't wait to get involved in the school's theatre program next year.

After school, I had a short break, then headed to the First Presbyterian Church for the final dress rehearsal of Million Dollar Meatballs. Normally, I don't offer feedback to the casts of my plays--I figure that's the director's job--but when Janelle herself asked me what I thought, I knew I had to share. And I told them the raw, unvarnished truth.  They did a fantastic job. Sure, there were a few places where they needed to pick up the pace and their delivery of some of the lines needed tweaking. But they were having a lot of fun with the play, and I knew the audience would too.

The next day was Saturday, and I spent most of the afternoon exploring Leoti. There wasn't a lot to see--even the residents will tell you that--I did get some nice pictures of downtown and the courthouse. Another highlight was a mural that the Arts Alliance had only recently put up. Between the sunflowers, the cows and the quilting patterns, it did a great job of capturing the down-home spirit of the town.

That night was the opening performance. The First Presbyterian Church had donated the use of their stage and the Arts Alliance squeezed in several large round tables for the audience. A long table was set up for the pre-show pot luck dinner, and soon it was filled with a wide and very tempting selection of casseroles and pasta dishes.

Of course, many of the cooks were inspired by the meatball theme of the play and brought their own version of those beefy orbs. There was a chipotle meatball dish that I found especially tasty.

The show didn't quite sell out, but it was close. We were sitting elbow to elbow as the house lights went down and the stage lights went up. The play started, and within minutes, the house was filled with laughter. I smiled. To me, it's the most beautiful sound of the world.

At intermission, there was a brief concert as some of the local children sang solos and duets to the accompaniment of a piano. As I sat there, soaking it all in, I was filled with a warm glow. This, I thought, is what community theatre is all about. Good food. A fun-loving cast. Hearty laughter. And the most talented kids in town.

Scratch that. This is what community is all about.

I heard somebody say they wish that more people had attended the show. I quickly did the math in my head. Leoti has a population of 2000 people. The church fit about 100 people, and with two performances, that meant 10% of the town's population would see the show,

I'd kill to get 10% of Colorado Springs' population to one of my shows.

The second act started and the laughter, if possible, was even louder and more enthusiastic. After the show, I talked with the audience, autographed a few programs and then said goodbye to my new friends, who already seemed like old friends.

I left the next morning. The rain had finally stopped, though the sky was still a somber gray. I glanced in my rear view mirror, and as I watched the houses and the grain elevator growing smaller, I said one final goodbye.

You know, it's funny. A couple of months ago I had never heard of Leoti, Kansas.

Now I'll never forget it.

Why high school theatre survives

It's a sad fact that all across this country, high schools are cutting their theatre programs, especially if that school is in a small community. Especially if that community isn't all that prosperous to begin with.

However, it's also true that a lot of these schools are keeping their theatre programs alive, and often that's purely due to the passion and dedication of the teachers and students.

That's what happened at Fort Lupton High School, which I visited last Friday so I could see their production of my play Million Dollar Meatballs. A year ago, this school--the only high school in a small agricultural community northeast of Denver--dropped all of its theatre classes due to budget constraints.

But Connie Garcia, the school's Spanish/ESL teacher (lower left in the photo), refused to let the program die. There were too many students who loved theatre, too many students for whom performing was their only creative outlet.

So she recruited some other teachers and former students to help out and, like Mickey and Judy before them, they put on a show. They did it on a shoestring, often making dozens of calls to find someone who could donate a single prop like the old stovefront used in the play.

Their commitment paid off. The performance I saw was very well-done, and the audience ate it up, laughing hysterically in all the right places (and some that weren't right!).

A bonus--for both the students and myself--was a Q&A session Ms. Garcia arranged earlier in the day. We assembled in the school auditorium and then, for an hour, I fielded questions from about 25 students, This included the entire cast and crew of the play as well as a handful of students from the school's creative writing class.

Like the kids, the questions were smart and funny. They were also surprisingly wide-ranging. Here are my favorites:

Q. What made you start writing?
A. I've always had so many stories in my head I needed to get them down on paper or it would explode.

Q. Which of my plays would I most like to see as a movie?
A. Million Dollar Meatballs. It's the most visual.

Q. What should I do if I find myself stuck in my own writing?
A. Make sure you know what your story is really about. Writing a one- or two-sentence synopsis can help with this. Also, try writing with a partner, which can get you out of a rut and take your thinking in new directions.

Q. Where do you get your ideas?
A. I usually start with a familiar setting, like a restaurant or museum, than try to twist it in some funny way.

Q. What's your zodiac sign?
A. Aries.

All in all, it was a wonderful experience and I want to thank Ms. Garcia and the entire staff at Fort Lupton High School for giving me this opportunity.

With dedicated teachers like these, high school theatre won't just survive. It'll thrive.

Young Author's Day

I spent a rapid-fire morning today at Scott Elementary in Colorado Springs. It was their first annual Young Author's Day, and I felt honored to be invited. The school brought in about 15 local writers and each of us spoke to four classes in 25-minute blocks.

I got the 5th graders, and man, were they fun. I told them what it was like to be a playwright and showed them a slideshow of photos from my productions, and when I asked if they had any questions, their arms shot in the air.

One of the kids asked where I lived, and the whole class was surprised to find out I'd driven only five blocks to get there. At that age, kids tend to think that writers always live in some far off place like New York or Chicago, and I made the point that writers live everywhere.

I ended each session with a reading from my newest play Rumpelstiltskin, Private Eye. I played Rumpelstiltskin and drafted volunteers to fill in the rest of the roles. The scenes were a big hit, and the room was filled with disappointed groans when the reading was over.

One young girl, however, was not bowled over by my writing.

"Why do you put so many puns in your play?" she asked, wrinkling her nose.

"Do you think they're kind of cheesy?" I asked. She nodded.

I smiled. "To tell you the truth, my wife thinks they're cheesy too. But they always get a laugh, and that's why I like them."

Afterwards, we assembled in the gym for the Young Author's Showcase. Tables were spread out for the authors--both young and old--and the younger authors had feedback sheets next to their stories so that readers could write their comments.

I circulated the room to see what kinds of things the kids were writing about--adventures were popular, as were animal stories--and added my words of encouragement to as many feedback sheets as I could. By the end of the day, I was glad to see that every page was crammed with comments. If there's a better way to encourage young authors, I don't know it.

After that, I returned to my table to hawk my plays. I shared a table with a young girl who had written a horse story and had filled her space with an adorable display featuring a giant plastic horse and an American Girl doll. I didn't have anything that cool, just my nametag and a few scripts. I wonder where I can find a tiny fedora and a Rumpelstiltskin doll.

I did manage to sell a couple scripts. Although I was trying to push my younger plays like Rumpelstiltskin, Private Eye and Long Tall Lester, the only play any of the kids were interested in was The Butler Did It! I guess they were hooked by those photos of the butler tied to a chair.

The best part of the day, though, was a conversation I had with a quiet girl who, after some coaxing, told me about an elaborate fantasy story she was working on. Her eyes lit up as she regaled me with the details, and I got the feeling that she'd been longing to tell them to somebody for a long time.

Young Author's Day was a learning experience for me as well as the kids. The most important lesson I learned? Not all kids are texting and playing video games. Some are writing stories.

And they're very, very good.