Children's Plays: The Middle Child of the Theatre

 By J.S. Puller

 

Those of us who spell the word “theatre” in the correct way (and I have fought more than one editor about this) have a tendency to quote the great acting teacher Konstantin Sergeyevich Stanislavski liberally.  His name is sacred, said in a hushed whisper that others would reserve for prayer.  “Stanislavski says you should do it this way.”  “Oh, let’s do it the Stanislavski way.”  “You can’t argue with Stanislavski’s Method.”  While my feelings on method acting border on blasphemy, I have to give credit where it’s due; Stanislavski got one thing right when, in a possibly apocryphal anecdote, he commented to one of his students, “We act for children the same way we act for adults—only better.”  Would that every theatre practitioner saw things this way.

THE PROBLEM

All too often, theatre for young audiences is treated as the forgotten middle child of the theatrical world.  It’s seen as a money-making addendum to the regular season, a throwaway matinee piece worked by second-tier actors, while the headliners memorize Ibsen and Shakespeare.  Visit the website of a theatre company that isn’t dedicated to theatre for young audiences.  Their children’s programming—if they have any—will be buried in a submenu somewhere, or down at the bottom of the homepage.

In some cities, it’s less desirable for a performer to even bother auditioning for children’s theatre.  Maybe theatre for young audiences isn’t even eligible for awards season.  In Chicago it’s not.  Sometimes, the cast don’t even get to have their bios in a Playbill, while the mainstage performers are featured and lauded and applauded.

Worse still, theatres are often afraid to take risks when it comes to what they present to young audiences.  My undergraduate mentor, Rives Collins, used to refer to this as the “tyranny of titles.”  You’re more likely to find a “name brand” form of entertainment—a variation of Cinderella or other famous fairy tale, a recognizable musical like You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown, or an adaptation of a popular movie such as Shrek—than you are to find something ambitious, something new, something that tackles issues facing young audiences in the world we live in, rather than the world of “once upon a time.”

And what a pity that is, especially as theatre for young audiences can often serve as a gateway drug into the larger world for children.  As Whitney put it, “I believe the children are our future.”

THE POTENTIAL

 I have a whole soapbox diatribe that I often present when talking about the importance of arts education, and particularly theatre.  This largely stems from research I’ve done with the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research and Ingenuity, Inc.  To summarize it quickly: “Exposure to arts opportunities allows students and teachers to engage with one another in a way that often stands in contrast to how they engage with each other in the context of regular academic instruction and that provides rich opportunities for social-emotional learning [and]…arts education can be a powerful force in supporting students’ social-emotional development.”  Social-emotional development includes skills such as self-discipline, interpersonal skills, and empathy.  Read more of the research here. 

But why would they bother with the theatre at all when they’re served a fare that’s mediocre, that isn’t given the same attention and dedication as the adult work?

Here sits a perfect opportunity to talk to children and reach them.  And it’s being wasted.

THE CALL TO ACTION

It has been an honor to serve as a guest blogger for SCBWI this month.  I’ve enjoyed the opportunity to experiment with a new medium and reach a new audience.  As my month comes to an end, I want to use my final post as a call to action.  I believe that children deserve the best of the best, in order to benefit from theatre for young audiences.  And I have the audacity to rewrite Stanislovski, making it “We write for children the same way we write for adults—only better.”

When I began the month posting to the SCBWI blog, I talked about how my experience writing for children’s theatre and how the advice I gave my writing students taught me how to give advice.  Now is the time I when I try to rally the troops, so to speak.  To energize and ignite you fabulous authors out there.  And give you a new avenue to consider.  Children’s theatre needs fresh perspectives and stories that matter.

So I say to you: Turn your novels into plays!

There is so much power in SCBWI.  We’re an organization of award-winning authors writing award-winning stories.  This is a new way to share your stories.  Write plays!  Not only will it spread your work, but I believe it can revive the wheezy and troubled children’s theatre scene.  We’re all in this business to help children; whether it’s to teach them, reach them, or just entertain for a little while.  Let’s use the power of the theatre to empower them in return.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

J. S. Puller is a playwright and author from the Windy City, Chicago. She has a master’s degree in elementary education and a bachelor’s degree in theatre from Northwestern University. She is an award-winning member of the American Alliance for Theatre and Education. When not writing, she can usually be found in the theatre. She is the author of two novels, CAPTAIN SUPERLATIVE and THE LOST THINGS CLUB. She also has several published plays, including: WOMEN WHO WEAVE (Playscripts, Inc.), PERSEUS AND MEDUSA - IT'S ALL GREEK TO ME! (Lazybee Scripts), and THE DEATH OF ROBIN HOOD (Stage Rights).

Website: pullerwrites.wordpress.com

Twitter: twitter.com/pullerwrites

Facebook: facebook.com/puller.writes

Kekla Magoon Interviews Carole Boston Weatherford About the Need to Write “Untold” Stories - On the Cynsations Blog

Cynthia Leitich-Smith's amazing Cynsations blog hosts this wonderful interview between Kekla Magoon and Carole Boston Weatherford.

A few highlights:

"I mine the past for family stories, fading traditions and forgotten struggles. Like Harlem Renaissance bibliophile Arturo Schomburg to document the history of African descendants, I aim to construct a truer, more complete history. That is affirming for me and for our children." —Carole Boston Weatherford

On Carole's picture book about the Tulsa Race Massacre, Unspeakable:

Kekla: It must have been a challenge to tell this difficult and painful story about Tulsa in a style that works for young readers, and you do an amazing job of making the information relatable. How did you approach that challenge, and why did you feel it was important to share this story with even the very youngest children?

Carole: I told this story for the same reason that I wrote the elegy Birmingham, 1963 (WordSong, 2007) about the bombing of Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. Past sacrifices should not be forgotten. But they will be unless we pass our history down to our children.

I do not believe that children are too tender for tough topics. Children deserve and demand the truth—a complete history that had not been whitewashed or candy-coated. Children were victimized by slavery and segregation and suffer under systemic racism. Given the adultification of Black children and the criminalization and police and vigilante murders of Black people, we cannot afford to condescend to children.

Read the full interview here!

Illustrate and Write On,
Lee 

Getting it Right: Don Tate Shares His Visual Research Process for Illustrating "Whoosh! Lonnie Johnson’s Super-Soaking Stream of Inventions"

In this blog post, “Whoosh!” Research and texting with Lonnie Johnson, illustrator Don Tate considers the challenges of illustrating this nonfiction picture book (written by Chris Barton), and shares how Don ultimately connected directly with the book's subject to get things right.

Just one example: 

The beginning of the story begins with young Lonnie Johnson being creative in his make-shift kitchen workshop, with various things from the junk yard spread across the table. An early version of the manuscript mentioned a Chinaberry shooter in the scene. What in the heck was that? A quick Google returned several results. I created a sketch, but I was unsure. Below was my guess as to what his shooter might have looked like:

The text between images reads:

After our phone conversation, I realized my guess was wrong. I created another quick sketch and texted it off to Mr. Johnson. He answered my question with his own sketch of what his shooter would have looked like and how it would have worked. I wasn’t too far off, but now I had what I needed to be 100-percent correct!

While Don's ultimate solution of texting back and forth with his book's subject is unique, it does make the point that illustrators have to do their research as well - and sometimes, it's even more specific than the research writers need to do!

Read the full blog post here - it's well-worth it.

Illustrate and Write On,
Lee

An Amazing Opportunity from SCBWI Mid Atlantic - Researching at the Smithsonian Libraries–Free Webinar for SCBWI Members

This sounds so cool!

Date(s) - 09/22/2020
7:00 pm - 8:30 pm

The Smithsonian Libraries is the largest museum library system in the word, with over 2.5 million collection items and expert staff answering our 20,000 reference questions per year. In this session, you’ll learn more about the Smithsonian Libraries and explore how you can use Smithsonian resources for your work, from near or far. Join Outreach Librarian Erin Clements Rushing and Mid-Atlantic SCBWI Non-Fiction Coordinator Marcie Atkins for an evening of learning about Smithsonian research resources. The event will be held on 22 September from 7:00 pm to about 8:30 pm (Eastern Daylight Time).

Find out more and sign up here.

Illustrate and Write On,
Lee

P.S. Thanks to Maria for the heads-up on this one!

Listen to the Latest SCBWI Podcast - A Conversation with M.T. Anderson

New York Times bestselling author and winner of the National Book Award M. T. Anderson speaks with Theo Baker about history and time, experimentation, and literature. They also discuss research and switching between multiple projects. Listen to the episode trailer here.

Current SCBWI members can listen to the full episode here (log in first).

Illustrate and Write On,
Lee

Homework Help - A roundup of experts on Dyslexia dispel myths and misunderstandings

Writing and illustrating on a topic where we don't have expertise can be tricky... that's where doing our homework comes in.

Jen Robinson's Nov 13, 2019 Growing Bookworms Newsletter shared a link to this Expert Roundtable: Dispelling the Myths and Misunderstandings About Dyslexia from Reading By Example.

It's a crash-course on how to make sure we're not reinforcing misleading stereotypes and false information on Dyslexia.

And what's particularly useful is that asking six different experts -- with different perspectives -- the same question,

"What are the one or two things that you believe are most commonly misunderstood about dyslexia today, and what message would you want to share with educators, parents and/or students to increase their awareness of the reality?" 

We get a much more fully-realized picture than if we just spoke with a single expert.

It's a good model for doing our homework as creators of content for children and teens.

Thanks to Jen for sharing the link, and to the six experts who shared their knowledge in the roundtable.

Read the full article here.

Illustrate and Write On,
Lee

A Conversation with Elizabeth Partridge - Listen to the Latest SCBWI Podcast Now!

Multi-award winning nonfiction author Elizabeth Partridge speaks to Theo Baker about how her upbringing impacted her storytelling, her way into oral histories, and the responsibility she feels towards the people she interviews. She considers how her work is “bearing witness” and shares what she’s learned about writing compelling nonfiction.

Listen to the episode trailer here.

Current SCBWI members can listen to the full episode here (log in first).

Illustrate and Write On,
Lee

A Conversation with Malinda Lo - Listen to the latest SCBWI Podcast!

Malinda Lo is the author of several award-winning young adult novels, including most recently A Line in the Dark. Her novel Ash, a lesbian retelling of Cinderella, was a finalist for the William C. Morris YA Debut Award. Malinda speaks with Theo Baker about the difference between popular fiction and literary fiction, the role of research in her writing, revision, her dual coming out, and so much more!

Listen to the episode trailer here.

Current SCBWI members can listen to the full episode here (log in first).

Illustrate and Write On,
Lee

How Solving a Problem with the History of Her Historical Novel Opened Up The Novel's Characters and Story: Samantha Harvey in Publishers Weekly

In "Bartering with the Facts: How a Novelist Solves a Historical Problem," Samantha Harvey shares what happened when research revealed that the confession box she had scoffolded her 1491-set novel around wasn't in line with the history of confession boxes in Catholic Churches in England- she was off by about fifty years.

“I decided that I could keep the confession box in my novel if I could acknowledge and explain how it was that a small, inconsequential village called Oakham—itself made up—could be the first in England to have such a thing. What conditions could make it possible, and what social, cultural, psychological, religious detail could make it plausible? In terms of novel writing, plausibility seems to me the more interesting cousin of truth. It’s where facts are arranged in such a way that they align to form a feeling of truth—a truthiness—that infuses the novel and becomes part of its internal logic.”

She also writes,

“Writing is a form of spellbinding. Anything amiss will break the spell—anything that seems wrong or off-key or untrue or disingenuous or, ironically if fiction, made up. (Of course, fiction is making-up by and large, but the trick is to make it seem not so at least while the reader is reading.) The spell is cast when there is a feeling of truth about what’s happening—whether that’s come about by adhering closely to facts, or by subverting, manipulating and coloring the facts. To me this isn’t a moral question about fiction’s responsibility to the truth, as some would have it, but only an aesthetic question. You do whatever you need to do to sustain the spell.”

Samantha shares two other examples of things that were "off" about the history of her book, and how in one case, she corrected it, and in the other case, she didn't—and explains why.

It's a fascinating look into the “ the strange dance between fact and fiction that we call research” and writing historical fiction.

 Well-worth reading.

Illustrate and Write On, 
Lee

Five Lessons from 100 Published Picture Book Authors - A Guest Post by Hannah Holt

I saw Hannah talking about this research on social media, and invited her to blog about it here. I'm so glad she took me up on it...

2018 Debut Picture Book Author Hannah Holt

Earlier this year, I joined Epic Eighteen—a group of picture book authors and illustrators with 2018 debuts. It’s been great rubbing shoulders with other almost-authors, and it’s made me think deeply about the practical aspects of this beautiful yet challenging career.

For example, everyone in the group has another source of income besides writing. Are any picture book authors living solely on writing? Also, some authors have agents. Others don’t. How essential is an agent? To answer these and other questions, I created an anonymous survey. So far, 135 published picture book authors have participated, and I’ve learned things, like...

1. You don’t need an agent to break into the picture book trade market. 

Almost half (48%) of the authors surveyed sold their first book without an agent.

2. However, having an agent is advantageous. Really advantageous. 

Overall, agented authors sold books to larger houses for more money than authors pitching their own stories. Average advances were 500% higher for authors with agents. Authors were also more likely to have sold multiple books with an agent.

3. Picture book advances range from $0 to $50,000+. 

The most common picture book advance for a small house falls between $1,000 to $4,999, while the most common advance for a Big Five publisher is between $5,000-$9,999.

Here’s the spread.

Advances at small houses:

Advances at large houses:

4. You don’t need a regular writing schedule to become a published author. 

About a third of published picture book authors don’t have a set writing schedule.

Also, those earning the largest advances tended to be authors without a schedule. In contrast, picture book authors working 40+ hours a week earned smaller book advances (<$5,000).

“Butt-in-chair” doesn’t necessarily translate into more dollars in your pocket in the short-term. 

However, the more years an author had been writing, the more likely she would have a sizeable annual salary. Two picture book authors in the survey earned more than $100,000 last year. They have both been writing professionally for 20+ years.

So find a writing groove that works for you, and settle into it for a decade or two.

5. Rejection is normal. 

Picture book authors are usually rejected at least ten times before signing a book deal. Fifteen-percent of authors are rejected 100+ times prior to selling a book. Also most picture book authors write six or more stories before selling anything.

Keep calm and query on!

(Bonus) 6. There is an exception to every rule. 

Perhaps you’ve heard about overnight successes and wildly successful authors without agents. These things happen. They are just outliers.

Three-percent of published picture book authors sold a book on the first query. The first query! Oh, those lucky (and talented) ducks.

Also having an agent doesn’t guarantee success. While most authors love their agent, ten-percent hate theirs. No agent is better than one you don’t trust.

Finally, many authors find success with a regular writing schedule. In fact, the majority of published authors have some kind of consistent writing routine. Good news for me because I’m one of them.

I’ll publish a full summary results in the fall. Until September 15th, I’m still collecting data. If you’re a traditionally published children’s author, please consider taking my survey: Picture Book Author Survey 

I also have a survey for chapter book, middle grade, and young adult authors. I’ve had over 100 replies so far and am still taking more: Chapter Book, Middle Grade, and Young Adult Author Survey 

A HUGE thank you to all the authors taking the survey! Here’s to demystifying a career as a children’s author!


Hannah Holt is an engineer by training and a picture book author by trade. Her first two books, Diamond Man (Balzer+Bray 2018) and A Father’s Love (Philomel 2019), showcase science stories with heart. You can find Hannah chatting on Twitter, working on her website, and eating chocolate chip cookies with total abandon.

Reading To Boost Your Emotional Intelligence

We know reading is good for you, good for kids, good for teens, good for everyone.

We know about Catharsis.

We know about Empathy.

And now, maybe we need to add Social Skills as a benefit of reading as well.

A new study published in the journal Science was discussed in the recent New York Times article by Pam Belluck, For Better Social Skills, Scientists Recommend a Little Chekhov

"It found that after reading literary fiction, as opposed to popular fiction or serious nonfiction, people performed better on tests measuring empathy, social perception and emotional intelligence — skills that come in especially handy when you are trying to read someone’s body language or gauge what they might be thinking."

The parsing out of what kinds of books were beneficial to read and the guesses as to why ranged from interesting to, well, elitist.

Are the findings ammunition for teachers who want to teach "literary fiction?"

Does it hurt those of us who write everything else?

How does this fit in with the new Common Core?

And does this even apply to children and teens, and to kids' and teen books?

There are so many questions this study brings up.

Emanuele Castano and David Comer Kidd, researchers in the New School for Social Research’s psychology department, are continuing to research the connection between reading and emotional intelligence. They're even asking for volunteers here.

Illustrate and Write On,
Lee