Ideas for New Plays

We're at the point in the school year where John and I are wondering what in the world to write about.

After you've published as many plays as we have, there don't seem to be any huge holes in the curriculum that we've not touched. Still, we get requests from teachers all the time.

Recently a teacher from Florida insisted that a pirate musical would be hugely popular. Considering the pressure that teachers are under to stick to standards, I'm pretty sure we'll not be doing a pirate show any time soon.

Not long ago a couple of teachers made a great pitch for a musical about Kansas history. We were willing if they could find us a few hundred buyers. They admitted that between the two of them they'd probably buy just one and share it.

So what can we write that would be genuinely useful to the most teachers? Here're a few ideas that we're kicking around:

grammar---this idea gets nods of approval from almost everyone. But what grammar and for what grade level? Is this parts of speech, or how to write a simple essay, or how to make nouns plural or what?

Bullying---anti bullying to be more precise. This might work very well with our "Character Matters" show. The character play is our most popular ever. Of course, that's what we thought about doing an anti-smoking show, and hardly anyone is buying "Dude, Where's My Lungs?" (And the frustrating thing is that "Dude..." may be the best play we've ever written.)

Simple Machines---The first grade teachers here in Camarillo have been pushing for this one for several years. It sounds like fun to me, but I'm unclear whether other teachers work with this material.

Our Bodies---I'm a little afraid with the kind of lyrics John would come up with to describe the digestive process. I think he'd be safe with the circulorty system, but there're so many places for him to offend people! The possibilities are truly amazing.

Shakespeare---Since the "Musical Comedy of Macbeth" doesn't sell very well, why not follow it up with a play that students actually read? Romeo and Juliet comes to mind.

The Civil War---This is the most requested play that we've never written. We'd be willing if only we could come up with some way to lighten up the subject. A horrible bloody war that absolutely forces you to talk about race relations. Remember, we do comedies.

Okay, those are a few of the ideas that we're bouncing around. If you have an opinion, please email me: ron@badwolfpress.com

I'll be looking forward to your comments.

Website #2

After becoming frustrated with web design companies that I was finding online, I happened to ask a friend who has given us some marketing advice if he knew of anyone. He wasn't sure but promised to get back to me. And a day or so later I received an email from his wife, Mary Ann Goldman, offering to do the work.

I've seen Mary Ann's graphic design work for years and have always been impressed. Plus she knows exactly what we do, and she has a strong understanding of how we reach teachers. I was delighted to say yes to her proposal.

Mary Ann interviewed me over the phone to find out exactly what I wanted to change, what I liked about our site and what I did not. Then together (over the phone because she lives in Savannah, GA and I'm in California) we looked at a number of websites and talked about them. Then she said, "Okay, I think I know what you want. Give me a few days and I'll be able to email you three possible home pages for you and John to look at and pick apart."

To be brief, she did what she said she would. John and I looked at them, argued about what was appropriate for a home page and eventually came up with a list of modifications to what she had done. After a couple of more back and forths, the website was redesigned.

It's not up quite yet, but you should see the changes very soon.

Time for Website Changes

Bad Wolf is a tiny company, and we tend to do everything ourselves. Our website, for example, was completely put together by me. The only design help was one friend who looked at it a couple of times as it was being built and made small suggestions.

It's a big site and it gets a fair number of visitors, and recently John and I concluded it was time to have some professional help in making it look a little more "real."

It's not hard to find web designers online, and many of them claim that they're used to working with small businesses. That's what we would need, because we certainly don't have the kind of budget that the big companies have. So I started looking at the websites of many design companies and discovered that many of them have terrible designs for their own sites.

If their was a Flash Introduction then I immeadiately crossed that firm off my list. Ditto with companies who had front pages that required me to scroll sideways to read it. It's absolutely incredible how bad many of these sites were.

Several companies had excellent websites, and of course they had links to sites they had designed. So I put together a list of about eight companies whos work seemed strong and filled out their online forms explaining what I was looking for, inviting them to check out our current site and give us a call.

A week later, only one of the eight even bothered to call. And in talking to them, and examining their work, I came to the conclusion that they'd make our site less easy to follow than it is right now.

It's amazing how you can be standing with money in your hand ready to spend and not find anyone who can help you.

More on this soon.