For Fall 2016, I am taking a one-semester sabbatical from Utah Valley University and doing a six-week residency at the Open Eye Theater in the Catskill Mountain region of upstate New York. I am performing my original one-man play, The Man Behind the Curtain, under the direction of Tania Myren, and directing my adaptation of my novel Sandy and the Weird Sisters.
The Man Behind the Curtain centers on L. Frank Baum, best known as the author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. In the play, Baum confronts an audience disappointed by the cancellation of his theatrical production “The Fairylogue.” He offers them his own personal story of his life as the head of a theatre troupe in New York, as a merchant, baseball promoter, and newspaper editor in South Dakota, as a reporter and china salesman in Chicago, and finally as a writer of children’s stories. The play encourages the children in the audience to imagine impossible things, as he did throughout his life. The drama shows how elements of Baum’s life came together in his best-known story that can be seen as his personal myth.
Sandy and the Weird Sisters tells the story of 12-year-old Sandy Hunter as she redefines herself one summer when she is dropped on the doorstep of her three great-aunts, referred to by the family as the “weird sisters.” The dramatic adaptation has been customized for the casting pool of the small town in New York, with roles for older actors and young girls.
Newman Plays 