The Drama Teacher Resource Company

Hi Lindsay, I have just come back from my drama group performing Hoodie as part of a one act play festival competition. I have no idea if they will receive any awards yet and I really don't care because I am just so happy with how they worked as an ensemble and the excellent feedback from the adjudicator and the audience members. People loved your script and it was absolutely perfect for our group of 11 - 13 year olds. With a 'Clump' that ended up only having 6 members, I wasn't sure how it would go but the great part about your script is that the lines can be delegated to as many or as few people as possible. I also had to make a couple of changes as to who played each role (things like my Woman 3 suddenly becoming unavailable and me then having to give those roles to the other 'Women') but the play is so flexible it worked perfectly! I wanted my Hoodie character to be a strong performer but then felt this role was a bit small and so I cast him as Jonas too and WOW! the change in his two characters was outstanding. Anyway I really just wanted to say thank you so, so much for a brilliant script and I will try and send you some photos as soon as possible! We really appreciated the opportunity to perform your wonderful play.

I greatly enjoyed directing 'A Lighter Shade of Noir' last year with my middle school theater students. It had everything I was looking for in a script for 6th, 7th and 8th graders: lots of parts for girls or parts that could be changed to female roles, action without lots of fighting, multiple character scenes that had things to do while other people were talking, a main story line but also sub-plots, links to school subjects (like literature and history), and most importantly - dialogue that I could stand listening to over and over in rehearsal that gave the students motivation to look deeper and deeper into their character development. I hope you write more for theater, especially children's theater. We need more good writing for these young actors. Sharon Boski

I love feeling not so alone. I am the only drama teacher is my district and it can be very isolating. I spent my first year digging up my own curriculum for 6 different classes and now I have DTA and it’s members as my sounding board.