One of my main missions in life has been to teach and share the work of my mentor Viola Spolin with the world. Now, as I move towards writing at this stage in life, I feel I should share tools I’ve picked up along the way. Viola Spolin was a genius. She was my friend and mentor and encountering her changed the course of my life. People are amazed that I bring that...
Read MoreIt’s fifty years since I read The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster. The book endures as a modern classic in the vein of Alice In Wonderland, Gulliver’s Travels, and the Odyssey by Homer. A few years back, I wanted to re-adapt the stage play of The Phantom Tollbooth into a Story Theater format. A form developed by Paul Sills, the son of my teacher and mentor Viola...
Read MoreI ran away once to Boston for two months when I was sixteen. I hated where I lived. Who I lived with and my whole existence. Ever feel like that? Obviously, I wasn’t happy at home, what with chaotic family dysfunction, an unrequited mad crush on a girl and the usual teenage angst that everyone goes through. So I thought, ‘make a new start’. I had an older, cool...
Read MoreI’m busy picking my jaw up from the floor. I just found a review of a book by Martin Miller, the son of the famed Alice Miller, author of “The Drama of the Gifted Child”, the book that influenced my journey to connect with my authentic self and inspired me to write “The King of Average”. The book is called “The True Drama of the Gifted Child”. It appears that his...
Read MoreMy first Best Friend My very first best friend was Chip Sutton. How we became friends somehow escapes me fifty years later. The first thing I remember about him was his laugh. He laughed explosively, with a hoarse cough. I remember thinking it must hurt to laugh like that. Like having a whooping cough, but it came with such a delightful appreciation of anything I...
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