Amy S. Hansen is a journalist and noted children’s literature author.
A reading of her play Elephants in the Basement is being presented this season by the BPF. Amy responded to a series of questions posed by BPF Board Advisor Larry Lambert to discuss her career, the play, her writing and her motivation.
L – Can you give us a little insight about the character Louise?
A – Louise is talented, joyful and mostly successful and yet she often sees herself as failing without understanding that she is asking the wrong questions about success. That said, she does not dwell on her perceived shortcomings, but keeps plowing ahead.
L – Theater teachers say it’s always best to write what you know best. Is there anything in your life experience that colored this character?
A – Many parts of this play are based on events that happened with my mother who died in 2017. Sometime during the pandemic, I found myself writing scenes and then noticing the fractal effect — how has the character’s life changed? While writing, I got to “visit” with my mom and hold up what I see as the every-woman she was. Like many of us, she made small, yet noticeable contributions that didn’t happen on a world stage, but are still important.
L – You call this a drama/comedy. What led you to mix these two very distinct genres?
A – For most of my adult life, I have written children’s books. One of my favorite writers, the late Paula Danzinger who wrote the Amber Brown series, explained that for her writing, she wanted everyone to take a blue crayon and underline everything that is sad, and take a red crayon and underline everything that is funny or happy. If she ended up with a purple book, she had done it right. I am aiming for a purple play.
L – How long did it take you to create Louise and the actions that take place around her?
A – Writing the first draft of the play actually went fairly quickly, more quickly than most of picture books. But like anything I write, the first draft is not the final. I went through several readings, doing scenes with groups online, and then working with friends out on my porch (it was the pandemic), and adjusting the story to find the most resonant telling of each scene. The process of getting it ready to submit here took two years.
L – What would you like the audience to take away from this experience?
A – My goal for myself, and to be prescriptive, my goal for the audience, is to make sure we notice the good people are doing, even if it isn’t a grand gesture and even when that person is not expected to help anymore. Small pieces are important. And by noticing, we make our world a better place.
L – How long have you been a playwright and what led you to choose this medium?
A – I am fairly new to playwriting, though I have been a professional writer, as both a journalist and an author since 1987. There is an immediacy to writing plays that is different from writing books. The filters are different too. In a book — and I write mostly non-fiction books for kids — I am balancing my explanations with my enthusiasm. So, my next picture book, Wanda Hears the Stars, A Blind Astrophysicist Listens to the Universe, is an amazing journey of my friend Wanda Diez Merced. She and I worked hard getting the story down in a way that is understandable for a young audience. Now the book is done. When it comes out, people will have personal interaction with the story, and I will only hear people’s reactions if they decide to tell me.
Writing a play, on the other hand, I hear and see the reaction to my work. As I write, my imaginary actors tell me what to say. Then, when it’s performed, I can watch and listen to the audience and feel much more connected with the story telling. There is another interesting filter here as the director and actors also find something in the script. Often their interpretation blows me away. So the story is going through their filter too, just a different one than my books.
L – Do you have plans for writing more plays? What situations would you like to address?
A – Ah, the eternal question. I am not sure at the moment which works will be books and which will be plays, but I will submit any finished plays here, so stay tuned.