Dance of the Butterfly

I have not just written fiction prose.  I have written many a poem, and I have written plays.  I have even had the pleasure of directing some of them.  The first one was in elementary school.  I find it interesting to look back on.

It was another extra credit assignment, and I was allowed to write a short play.  I was also able to use two other boys as my actors who were also prone to finding “free time”.  The work was a take on A Boy and His Dog.  Now, I was in elementary school, somewhere between ten and eleven years old.  I do not recall ever reading the Harlan Ellison book, and I highly doubt I had seen the film.  I am, to this day, curious as to where my knowledge of the original work came from.  My interpretation was much sanitized, as you may guess, and the play was performed in the middle of an unused classroom.  We moved all the desks out of the way, and the kids from my class all stood in there quite close as it was undertaken.  Theater in the round, to some extent.

I have since written four other plays, though all of those were when I was an adult.  One was my own interpretation of what the play The King in Yellow might actually be.  For those familiar with it, the play is mentioned but never shown.  I decided to write what I thought it might be.  I don’t think my sanity suffered.

Another was a modern, fetishistic remake of the story of Doctor Faust.  The third was based on an urban legend that Robert Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and Jack Parsons had all gotten together and decided to exploit their popularity to try to “invent” a religion.  All part of some grandiose social experiment whereby they might point out the proverbial egg on society’s face if any of them succeeded.  I decided to write a play that depicted just that, taking it from urban legend to the page.

The last play involved the Marquis de Sade and Don Quixote, and it was actually performed.  I got to direct it.  That was an unparalleled joy, and I hope to do it again someday.

Writing fiction prose is my mainstay, but I do enjoy the occasional dabble in other areas.