NOTES FROM THE PLAYWRIGHT
In many ways I became a playwright with the boy who stole the stars. This was my first original play to be produced and the first published. It had begun in fragments. I even took a draft with me to England when I back-packed one summer with the somewhat crazy idea of setting the final scene at Stonehenge. I planned to write that final scene after seeing Stonehenge in person, but alas, no final scene emerged and in the end that idea was scrapped.
Though it has now been almost 40 years since I wrote this play I’ve never forgotten the delight of these first pages, for there is nothing more magical than seeing a script appear for the first time. And back in those days, that meant typed pages on the electric typewriter my parents had given me for my graduation from graduate school.
There’s an innocence and naivete about this young work, as well as a hint of youthful imagination that has been hard to match, even as my skills as a playwright have grown. I had a wonderful cast, Bill and Lenore Bender (Charleston’s community theatre veterans at the time) and two wonderful kids—Colin Somers and Jenny _______. Also, in a part that was later cut, Thomas Gibson (Dharma and Greg, Criminal Minds) played a poet. Reviewers hated this character, said it was unnecessary (they were right). One critic called Thomas’s character a “poetry spouting twit”, and we had a T-Shirt made for Thomas with that quote on it. Fortunately, my bad writing didn’t seem to spoil his career.
But the rest of the play was well received. I’ve never forgotten that opening night—my first. At the time, theatre for young people was all pretty much light hearted, often just based on fairy tales and so I had to wonder how a play about a little boy who loses his grandfather would be received. Of course, despite the theme, the play was not meant to be depressing, and I hoped it was filled with pathos and humor. I remember standing in the back of the house, pacing behind the last row, wondering what would happen. Then, there was a laugh, maybe two—and then a few more and some the laughter was infectious and that magic of live theatre took over and enchanted that audience. At the end of the show came one of those moments playwrights live for—silence. The central character named Nicholas, has just concluded his final lines:
I think I see my grandfather in me sometimes
In the way I speak or turn my head
And sometimes I think I see everyone I have ever known
Walking in my shadow.
The lights faded, the curtain fell and I thought the silence would last forever but it could only have been a few moments. And then there was applause, thunderous applause. And I realized for the first time that something that meant so much to me could mean so much to others as well. I was hooked and in many ways, have spent my writing career trying to recapture that moment.
Julian Wiles,
Playwright