Continued from the last memoir. The three shows were to be Stone Soup, Little Red Riding Hood, and The Princess and the Pea. There was--briefly--a coup attempt, born of fear that I wouldn't deliver, which attempted to install a regime of Jack and the Beanstalk, in which some of us had acted recently at another theater. However, once I found out about this, I pointed out that we didn't have the effects and stage space to pull that particular adaptation off. But I also pointed out that I didn't have a clue how to dramatize The Princess and the Pea, so my ego would not be crushed if we simply did two kids' shows instead of three. Upon re-working the schedule, this actually came out better.

Stone Soup was going to be a musical, and as such, I started on it much earlier. It was probably a little too talky, but man! did I enjoy stretching this little French folk tale out into a half-hour play. I spent a lot of time polishing the dialogue, writing the songs, coaching the actors (myself included), most of whom played multiple parts. But it was solid, especially thanks to the prop goddesses (I can't remember who was in charge--I think Miranda) who found all the plastic food.

Then came Little Red Riding Hood. We were due to start working on it once our other shows were up (we were doing rotating repertory--four shows a week, a different show each night--and Red was the last one to enter the schedule). As I recall, the day before rehearsal was due to start, I hadn't started the script. I knew the story, of course, and the moral (stay on the path!) and I knew I didn't want to have a deus ex machina woodsman kill the wolf at the end.

So what the hell do I do instead? I thought to myself, as the Northern Lights shone onto our cabin and my candle swiftly ran out of wax.

And then it came to me, the advice every creative writing teacher gives, advice which I've always thought was claptrap, but in this case was exactly what I needed:

"Write what you know."

... to be continued--nay, concluded!--in the next entry...