What inspires you?

What inspires you? An artist friend of mine visited the school where I work as a guest artist and one of the things she touched on was her inspiration to paint. Most artistic endeavors, be it painting, writing, acting or singing come from a place of inspiration. She mentioned her family as a huge source of inspiration as well as watching Disney films. Cool.

I feel inspired by different things for each of my creative interests. Often, when it comes to my visual art, it is nature, a story I am writing or reading, an interesting play of light, or the way man-made things like buildings, fences, and poles create complex patterns when juxtaposed.

When it comes to writing, I find a piece of music often inspires, as does an overheard conversation, or observing strangers in public places. I've even been inspired by random things like a game of curling, or playing the SIMS*. (As in the case of my book MY MOTHER THE MAN-EATER.)

Play writing is a totally different thing, however. I am almost exclusively inspired by the young people that I mentor in my role as a Drama teacher and director. The only reason I started writing plays in the first place was because I couldn't find just the right material for my theatre troupe. Although I did write a few short plays for Sunday School Christmas concerts and the like, I didn't seriously start writing plays until 2001 when I took on my first full time position as a Drama and Art teacher in Watson Lake, Yukon, where we lived at the time. I found play writing to be quite satisfying, since I could write a play that had just the perfect characters for each of my actors and that would appeal to their tastes. As well, as we rehearsed, the play inevitably changed and developed, becoming something much better and beyond my original vision.

In the subsequent years, I've written dozens of plays. Some of them are better than others; some of them are little more than skits while others are full length two act plays. I've been fortunate to have three of these plays published so far. But that number is about to climb. I recently received an email from JAC Publishing (who just released my play 'Dorothy's Road Trip') and they want to publish two more of my plays. As you can probably guess, I'm more than pleased! Stay tuned for news about 'The Western Tale' (a parody of Shakespeare's 'The Winter's Tale') and 'Little Red In the Hood'.

Why all this musing about drama and plays? My current class of Theatre Performance students (a BRILLIANT group, I might add) are thick into the production of this year's June show. It a compilation of plays written by the students themselves, and its going to be fabulous. The theme is actually a bit dark in spots, with some dark comedies and some straight up drama. We're calling it 'Drama Noir". I'm so proud of these kids. It's my dream class, with only 18 students - 9 males and 9 females. They are working so hard and I've given them an unprecedented amount of autonomy this year and they are stepping up to the plate.

In short, when it comes to my 'day job', especially when it comes to Drama, the thing that inspires me the most are the kids themselves. Its one reason I can't imagine giving it up any time soon.