The Good and Bad of Being Published

Getting your play published is thrilling and I get extremely excited when one of my publishers decides to publish one of my scripts. (I work with Dramatic Publishing and Samuel French). The reach of a good publisher is worth its weight in gold. Without a publisher I never would have had all the productions I’ve been fortunate to have.

But one down side of it is you don’t really know if people are reading the scripts, if they like them, or if they’re using them as kindling.

That’s why I was excited to see this article the other day.

Roseville High School Counselor Marie Oleksiak, who runs the drama club, decided to do Mark Brown’s “The Trial of Ebenezer Scrooge” due to its comedic side.

“I actually was going through the catalog a while back and found the script and thought it sounded interesting,” Oleksiak said. “I read it and fell in love with it. It’s just really nice humor and … when you read ‘A Christmas Carol,’ this show kind of brings to mind the questions you have as you’re watching it or reading it. It’s a fun twist on an old story.”

How cool is that? You know, that never gets old. It’s an amazing feeling to know that something I created has an affect on people. That someone falls in love with something I’ve written.

And I also love that kids enjoy it.

She said the students have been enjoying the humor and little twists of the story as they pick apart the script’s finer details.

And there are a couple of obviously extremely intelligent high school students outside of Chicago who are using China – The Whole Enchilada as their piece for the IHSA Speech competitions.