"Dramatists are drawn to baseball because it's so nakedly a world in which performance is everything."
--Lee Blessing, BASEBALL MONOLOGUES

As a playwright for young audiences, I find myself most often attracted by material that presents clear challenges to being successfully staged within the physical or temporal constraints of a stage. The best example of this was probably TROUBLED WATERS: How do you dramatize the thinning of a deer herd in the Everglades? - a documented event involving hundreds of deer and just as many people, over the course of many months and miles.

In some respects, the life of Roberto Clemente poses just as many obstacles -But it's a great story for the stage, nonetheless. And not because it deals with baseball, despite Lee Blessing's sentiment! Clemente's life is an object lesson in working herd to fulfill your potential, which certainly places it in that arena Blessing refers to: performance. And like Jackie Robinson, he achieved success in baseball only by overcoming very real adversity, which in Clemente's case 'went beyond racial prejudice due to a conflicting culture and language. But what appealed to me most was that Clemente reached his potential through the help of specific teachers, and in turn became a mentor four young Hispanic ballplayers of his time. He remains a powerful symbol of hope and achievement for South American children today -and this too is part of his unique story.

Set and Lighting Designer - Thom Weaver
Stage Manager - Rachel Parker
Costume Designer -Tracey Reed
Sound Designer - Christian Parker