Sue's News

Human Factor

May 27th, 2010

One of my greatest challenges as a playwright is humanizing my characters, especially ones that might not seem so “nice” or “good.” After tossing some ideas around with Dina the other day, we came up with a landmark to use for a setting. That landmark, an ice cream shack, helped anchor the multiple flashbacks that follow one another back to back  by making them site specific. It also inspired me to come up with an action, a small detail, a father buying his daughter an ice cream bar, that made him seem more human, more like her father.

Seems small, but that detail not only helps the audience understand that yes, that memory was happy for her, it also helps them see that father as a father, doing something any father would do for a kid — buy an ice cream on the beach.

I’ll say it until the very end, it’s the details that matter most.

–Sue

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