I’ve submerged myself in magic.In cannibalism. In poison apples. In talking pies. In candy houses and starvation.
And young people.
And it’s amazing.
Three times a week, I meet with a small crew of teenagers from Acme Theatre Company. We play around. Do improv. Freewrite. Tell stories. And we eat. There’s always, always food. And then I go home and I write. And write. And write.
This was the first meeting with Emily, Acme’s one adult:
Davis is a town surrounded by agriculture, so food intrigued her, and she’d met with someone at the local Co-Op grocery story about a fundraiser involving food besides… And we knew we needed a starting place, and the Grimm’s brothers, with their Hansel and Gretel and embrace of cannibalism and poison apples felt right.
I set about reading the tales. A little bit over two weeks ago.
210 of them. It was quite tiring.
From those, I earmarked about 40 of them to read again.
From those I took 20, the ones where food was functional, important, magical, or just interesting.
The teenagers became experts in those. And from their energy and work, I started to transform the ones that stood out into short plays. Throw on a few fairy tales they invented, and I’m at 10 of the 12 we’ll eventually land on.
I write and then cut. I’m at 18,000 words. A great many of these words, or rather the order they’re in, suck, but not all of them.
And it’s a blast.
Briandaniel Oglesby 