Ohio Ghosts wins big at high school drama awards

Theatre isn't about winning prizes. It's about expressing your individuality. It's about making a meaningful connection with other human beings. It's about creating art. 

But, boy, it sure does feel good when you do win a prize!

Fairport Harding High School in Fairport Harbor, OH, has plenty to feel good about after the local Rotary Clubs handed out their annual drama awards for Lake County high schools earlier this month. As reported in this article from the News-Herald, the school's production of Too Many Ghosts received a nomination in all eight categories it was eligible for and won four. Now that's impressive, especially when you consider that there are 17 high schools in Lake County!

Alas, Too Many Ghosts didn't win Best Drama/Comedy, losing out to some obscure play titled Peter and the Starcatcher, but it did win the Behind the Scenes Award for their backstage crew work.

Here's the complete list of nominations that the show received:

Male Lead in a Drama/Comedy
Hunter Wilson as folksy handyman Ernie

Female Lead in a Drama/Comedy
Irelyn Swan as level-headed innkeeper Jo
Ava Flerchinger as Jo's horror-loving teenage daughter Lily (Winner!)

Male Support in a Drama/Comedy
James Thellman as fussy 1790's ghost Roland

Female Support in a Drama/Comedy
Fiona Johnston as melancholy 1940's ghost Sophie

Male Sub Support in a Drama/Comedy
Kayden Moser as bombastic 1850's ghost Barney (Winner!)

Female Sub Support in a Drama/Comedy
Nikiyah Clark as cranky 1690's banshee Orla (Winner!)

Best Drama/Comedy

Behind the Scenes Award (Winner!)

Congratulations to all the nominees and winners! You make an old playwright proud.

My 15th year sales

When I decided to become a full-time writer two years ago, I'd hoped that the huge boost in writing time (from 1 1/2 hours a day to 4 hours a day) would pay off just as hugely in my royalties. Unfortunately, that didn't happen last year, when my royalties were up only 6% over the previous year.

Well, I'm happy to report that this year I finally saw the boost I've been waiting for. My royalties were up a whopping 35% while my productions were up the same percentage--from 451 to 608. I'm now making about 60% of my annual income from writing, and if I can somehow replicate that growth in each of the next two years, I'll be able to live solely on my royalties (and maybe take that trip to Europe!). 

Part of that boost came from having more plays published, of course. Last year at this time, I had 31 plays in print. Now I've got 35.

But more importantly, most of my older plays showed very little dropoff in the number of productions they received. Some even saw a small bump. And it was the best year ever for The Enchanted Bookshop Musical and Lights! Camera! Murder!, both of which have been out for seven years

This year, my plays have also appeared in four new countries, making for a total of 28 countries.

Now that we've dealt with that, let's jump into...

The top five

1) The Enchanted Bookshop--122 productions

Normally a play will peak in its first full year of publication, with its popularity waning in the subsequent years until it flattens out at a level about a half to a quarter of that.

Well, there's been very little waning for this incredibly popular play. After a record-setting 156 productions in the 2018-2019 season, The Enchanted Bookshop has snagged at least 100 productions each year since then (except for the two COVID years, of course). And the 122 productions it got this year is the second-best showing it's ever had. 

But that's not all. This year, The Enchanted Bookshop got me my 25th country when it was performed at a secondary school in Cyprus. And did I mention that it remains Pioneer's top-selling full-length play?

2) Bringing Down the House--68 productions

This extra-large comedy continues to surprise me. Last year, it managed to debut at number three on this list, garnering an impressive 36 productions in its first nine months of publication.

This year, it managed to snatch the number two spot. The 68 productions it got is more than any of my plays not titled The Enchanted Bookshop have ever gotten. And that's good enough to make Bringing Down the House Pioneer's fifth best-selling full-length play.

Reports from schools and theater companies confirm that it really does bring down the house wherever it plays. And one of those places was Maui OnStage in beautiful Wailuku, Hawaii, where it became my first staged production in the Aloha State (my only other Hawaiian credit was a COVID-era production of my virtual comedy You're Virtually Driving Me Crazy!). Aloha, indeed!

3) Freaky Tiki--62 productions

They say music is the universal language, but this play convinces me that farce is just as universal. In its first full year of production, this Hawaii-set comedy was performed in Japan (my 26th country), Portugal (my 27th country), Indonesia, and Canada.

I never expected this one to do so well, but maybe I should have. After all, it's another over-the-top comedy in the spirit of Million Dollar Meatballs and It's a Madhouse!, two plays which have done extremely well for me over the years.

But this one goes even more over the top than those, featuring an opera singer forced to communicate by clown horn, a tiki figure that magically disappears and reappears, and a chase scene involving a hot-headed French chef and a human-sized lobster. You might even learn a little Hawaiian from it.

4) The Worst Fairy Tale Ever--48 productions

Last year, I had a hunch that this one-act comedy--my first in ten years--was going to be big. Just a few weeks after it was published, more than one drama teacher (okay, two) wrote to tell me how excited their kids were to produce it.

Well, that excitement continued throughout the year, allowing The Worst Fairy Tale Ever to debut at number four on this list.

Of course, it helps that this is by far my easiest play to produce. It has a cast of just eight, no set except for a single stage cube, and no costumes other than an assortment of hats, making it perfect for cash-strapped schools and theaters.

It was inspired by the madcap comedies of London-based Mischief Theatre, including the megahits The Play That Goes Wrong and Peter Pan Goes Wrong. I even wanted to call it The Fairy Tale That Goes Wrong, but that idea was quickly squashed by my lawsuit-adverse publisher. Now, with the success of this play, I'm thing about launching my own series of everything-that-can-go-wrong-will-go-wrong comedies. The Worst Murder Mystery Ever anyone?

5) The Enchanted Bookshop Musical and Too Many Ghosts--33 productions

For the first time ever, I have a tie in my top five list, this time between the musical version of The Enchanted Bookshop and my haunted house comedy.

I don't know why the musical popped up this year, but I'll take it. Especially since the show got me my 28th country with a youth theatre production in Trinidad and Tobago.

As for Too Many Ghosts, I couldn't be more thrilled. I love this play. Like really, really love it.

One reason is that it's my most cinematic play. Not only is it highly visual (some of the photos I've seen of the ghost effects have blown me away), but the script is plotted like a big-budget movie. If I hadn't failed so miserably trying to break into Hollywood several years ago, I'd be tempted to adapt it into a screenplay.

The other reason is that it includes a subplot unlike anything else I've written. I don't want to give it away here--you really owe it to yourself to read the script--but it's quite sad, and I hope that the play draws a few tears as well as laughs.

Feeling grateful

So, yeah, it's been a fantastic year, and I owe it all to you, the drama teachers and theatre directors who've produced my plays over the last twelve months. I can't thank you enough. But I'm definitely going to try. And what better way than with a great big colorful...

Too Many Ghosts is now available!

Just eleven days after my 30th play (Route 66) was released, my 31st play has now been published. This one is titled Too Many Ghosts, and I can't wait for you to read it.

Here's the blurb:

Jo Crenshaw dreams of turning the abandoned house she inherited in Salem, Massachusetts, into a successful bed and breakfast. But that could be a problem when she and her teenage daughter discover the place is home to five rambunctious ghosts. And none of the ghosts are particularly keen on sharing it with an endless parade of guests.

The level-headed Jo quickly lays down the law. There will be absolutely no haunting of the guests. But Roland, a cobbler from the 1790s, can't help himself. He ends up scaring off the very first guest they have: a popular travel blogger who dubs the place "the most haunted B&B in New England." Within days, the place is mobbed by thrill-loving tourists seeking their own ghostly encounters. 

 

Unfortunately, this draws the attention of Julia, the greedy owner of the largest hotel in town. After her plans to sabotage the property fail, she decides there's only one way to put the B&B out of business: hire a trio of "ghostbusters" to get rid of the ghosts for good.

The play has a cast of 24 (7M, 11F, 6 any) and runs about 90 minutes. The scenes primarily take place in two locations: the lobby of the B&B and a guest room. To eliminate need for set changes, these locations share a split stage, with three brief scenes being played in front of the curtain.

I'm super proud of the play. I think it's just as funny as any of my earlier comedies, but it goes much deeper into the emotions of the characters and there's an element of melancholy, of sadness even, which will hit audiences right in the heartstrings.

Too Many Ghosts didn't start out that way. I originally planned it to be a straight, laugh-out-loud comedy. But the very first character I came up with was a young ghost who was searching for a locket she'd lost. Although the character herself wasn't pushy by any means, she almost immediately took over the storyline and as I delved into how she lost the locket and what it meant to her, the story of her previous demise turned out to be rather tragic.

In the original version of the story, the young ghost was named Pip and she was only ten years old. I wrote the first two scenes in a couple weeks, and although I liked them very much, I ended up setting the script aside. The idea of a young ghost meant that the character herself must have died young, and I came to realize that this made the story almost completely unmarketable (Casper the Friendly Ghost notwithstanding).

Still, young Pip kept calling to me. She wanted to come to life, if only in spectral form. I had to figure out how to make it work.

It would be another sixteen months before I returned to the script. And that's because it took me that long to admit what I'd known all along. The girl had to be older. Like nine years older. Yes, the death of a nineteen-year-old is just as tragic as that of a ten-year-old, but it's somehow more palatable to audiences.

I wish I'd figured that out earlier. Because as much as I'd fought the idea of making her older, once I had, the writing flowed. I changed her name to Sophie, which was driven by a surprise twist near the end of the play. And instead of a lively preteen who was interested in dolls and cheap jewelry, she became a giddy young woman who was madly in love with--

Well, you'll have to read the script. But trust me. It's really, really good.

Even from the beginning, this young ghost developed a close friendship with the daughter of the woman who inherited the house. Well now, to make that friendship more meaningful, I had to make the daughter older as well. So twelve-year-old Millicent became seventeen-year-old Lily. And instead of being afraid of ghosts, she became an avid horror-movie fan, which gave me all sorts of stuff to have fun with.

 

The lesson for writers? There are two:

1) Don't fall in love with your writing.

2) Don't fight the changes you know you need to make.

It may take some time and a lot of effort to rewrite what you wrote, but in the end, it will all be worth it.

So, yeah, Too Many Ghosts still has some sad parts. But the ending is so full of hope and love and joy that I'm sure it'll make your heart all toasty and warm inside.

Oh, and if you want to read a sample or order a perusal copy of the script, click here.

Sophie would approve.

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...