SIDEWAYS STORIES FROM WAYSIDE SCHOOL adapted for the stage by John Olive based on the novels by Louis Sachar directed by Anne D'Zmura November 5-21, 2010 Julianne Argyros Stage
The biggest hit of TYA’s inaugural season is back—with sound kabooming and lights kaflashing! The classrooms of Wayside School are stacked one on top of the other thanks to a mistake by the builders—and the craziness escalates as you climb all the way up to the 30th floor, where witchy Mrs. Gorf is casting spells on her bedraggled students, one by one. But when the kids turn the tables on Mrs. Gorf, their little world only gets stranger in this fast-paced, deliriously funny adaptation of Louis Sachar’s beloved series for young readers. (And remember: Miss Zarves doesn’t exist! There is no nineteenth floor!)
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Playwright Bio
John Olive is a playwright, a screenwriter, a novelist and a popular teacher of creative writing. Sideways Stories from Wayside School is his second play at SCR; The Summer Moon played here in 1999. Olive's plays include Minnesota Moon, Standing on My Knees, The Voice of the Prairie, Careless Love, Killers, Evelyn and the Polka King, God Fire, Into the Moonlight Valley, and many others. They have been widely produced. Recently he has focused on plays for young audiences: Jason & The Golden Fleece, Water Babies, The Magic Bicycle, Pharaoh Serket and the Lost Stone of Fire and others. He has completed two novels for young adults, Slither and Smartass, as well as a book about creating bedtime stories for children, Tell Me a Story in the Dark. He is currently a McKnight Fellow in Playwriting at the Playwrights Center in Minneapolis.
Author Bio
Louis Sachar is a writer of books for elementary school students. When he turned nine, his family moved from New York to Orange County—Tustin, to be exact—which at that time was a rural area thick with citrus groves. Later, while studying at UC Berkeley, he discovered that he could earn college credit by becoming a teacher’s aide—no homework, no tests and no term papers. All he had to do was watch over a bunch of kids at Hillside Elementary School. So he became a Noontime Supervisor—also known as "Louis the Yard Teacher." What became his favorite college class turned into a life-changing experience. He didn’t like any of the stories his students were reading, so he decided to try writing a children’s book of his own. Hillside Elementary became the inspiration for his first manuscript, Sideways Stories from Wayside School, whose characters are all named after the kids he knew at Hillside. Much to his surprise, Sideways was accepted for publication during his first week in law school, and although he went on to earn his law degree and pass the bar exam, it was becoming clear that writing was his first career choice. By 1989, his books began selling well enough that he started to write full time.
