Poppy is sitting with the cool drama kids, who aren’t Wren’s friends-but who congratulate her warmly.Īnd then Wren has the moment I’d longed for in middle school: Belfonte agrees that Wren can have the position of makeup artist, Wren goes to the lunchroom to tell Poppy the good news. One of my favorite scenes in the book is another instance of wish-fulfillment-a moment of validation for the perpetual backstage kid. But when her new friend Poppy begs her, and her mom “blackmails” her, Wren reluctantly agrees to do makeup for the show-especially the tricky effects for the green-faced witch, Elphaba. At her new school, Wren, who can’t act, sing or dance (and doesn’t even like musical theater), has no desire to join the spring production of the musical Wicked. Wren is a natural artist and also an introvert, shaky after having been ostracized in her old town. This is one of the reasons I wrote Violets Are Blue, which is about seventh grader Wren, who’s obsessed with special effects makeup videos. Or perhaps they have gifts that simply don’t lend themselves to onstage performance. Writing about Mattie overcoming her self-consciousness about performing (especially opposite her crush!) was certainly a bit of wish-fulfillment for me.īut the truth is, my heart has always been with the backstage kids-the kids who may be as talented and creative as their histrionic classmates, but who may be introverted, or shy, or awkward, or quiet. I think this longstanding drama-envy led me to writing my 2017 middle grade novel, Star-Crossed, about a bookworm who finds herself recruited to play Romeo when another kid drops out of the show. So even though I felt a bit like an imposter, directing shows was still a joy, because I got to hang out with the drama kids without being in the spotlight. No matter that I couldn’t read music, or sing, or dance-the talented kids listened to the cast album and improvised the rest. After graduation I took a job teaching high school English and directing plays-most notably, the musical You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown. I kept up this theater-adjacent path in college, where I reviewed theater productions for the school newspaper. Nothing glamorous or attention-getting, but I took these roles super-seriously. So I did a lot of backstage work, like running props and painting scenery. To me the drama kids seemed like a different species: I couldn’t imagine being one of them, but I wanted to be as close to them as possible. In middle school, I remember being in awe of my extroverted classmates who sang and danced onstage in our school’s spring musicals. To celebrate the release of Violets Are Blue by Barbara Dee on October 12th, blogs across the web will be featuring exclusive guest posts from Barbara as well as 5 chances to win a signed copy all week long! Welcome to the Violets Are Blue Blog Tour!
0 kommentar(er)
