2 plays and 2 illustrated kids books

STAGES

This Thursday from 5 – 7 a playwriting class will perform scenes from their various plays in progress. Victor Gluck’s new play, based on a Henry James novel, from which I am directing the first scene, will be last on the program of 7 selections and features Heather Massie, Robby Johnson and Fred Milani. It’ll be fun and its free -  It’sd limited seating at Primary Stages' ESPA (Einhorn School of Performing Arts)

307 W. 38th Street, Suite 1510

    Playwrights Festival of scenes from Rogelio Martinez's "Rewrite' class.

Saw HAUNTED at 59 East 59^th – great cast, fascinating set, but somehow it never touched me. 

PAGES

Artist Maggie Cousins has done a delightful illustration for one of the 5 stories in our upcoming e-book, PIXIE TALES, these read to me stories will eventually be in a big paper book called PLEASANT DREAMS along with ELFIN TALEs, due as ebook in Spring, FAIRY TALES, due out in sumemr and GREMLINS GOBLINS AND GENIES, OH MY! due out in autumn.

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Just read a charmingly illustrated book by Charlotte Bucher who also wrote the story of Cecil Learns to Smile.  Her water colors are delightful, and her info on frogs should fascinate young children.  The story was to show how smiling makes everything around you better, but I got a different message. The family which had teased Cecil for being so undersized and claimed he’d never make anything of himself, suddenly made him a hero when he became a celebrity. They claim it was because he made something of himself, but I think the other message is also prevalent – they wanted to be friends now that he was a celeb.. Hopefully kids won’t take away that idea. Also, as one with publishing experience, I found the running together of many paragraphs on one page heavy with type, and then pages with hardly anything on them, a disconcerting layout decision. The art work will probably make up for that for most people. It’s her first book – so hopefully she will have more control over the layouts and the ratio of art to words in future.If you have kids that like little creatures, they’ll probably enjoy this book.