Well, not quite. A little more than 20 years… missed it by a couple weeks. Anyway, way back in February of 1995 a recent graduate of St. Norbert College (that’s me!) had his first full length play produced. The original title was “Dill”. I believe this is also the first full length directing job by one Mr. Matt Sloan. I like to think I gave him his start.
I have so many fond memories of writing this play and getting it on stage;
– I remember starting it in my dorm room with a short idea of someone writing a play without a plot (actually, an even earlier draft was called “Plot”, then I believe it was called “Spice”) with his imaginary friend.
– I remember sitting for hours in another dorm room with Matt Sloan and drawing out and untangling all the plot threads (a gag in the show is that even though he tries to write something with no plot, he ends up writing the most convoluted plot you could imagine…. so convoluted, that I had trouble keeping track myself, so Matt had to help.)
– I remember coming up with the title “Lustful Youth” sitting in my now ex-girlfriend’s parents car on the way north for winter break.
– I remember receiving a couple spice bottles of “Dill” as an opening night present and saying “The next play I write will be called ‘Whiskey and Cash’.”
Oh, the memories go on and on. I could go on for hours…. Oh! I also still have the prop Alien Baby that’s featured in the second act.
Since then this play has been fully rewritten (I actually went through the entire thing and rewrote it by hand, then retyped it in. That’s how thorough the rewrite was. I also changed it from a cast of 9 to a cast of 6.) and retitled to the much more marketable name “Lustful Youth”
This play has been produced a bunch more times. Twice in De Pere and once in British Columbia, Canada. It even had a staged reading in Perth, Australia.
It’s a good read, check it out here: Lustful Youth
Here’s a review:
